What seems to have crystallised as the key to Archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent (somewhat early) resignation from his job, and as head of the global Anglican Communion, is the issue of sexuality. But, Alison Jasper suggests, this is part of a wider matrix of power and position connected to the deployment of the discursive category ‘religion’ and to the secular state acquiring a normative status.
Rowan Williams' archbishopric was and is far from perfect, says Simon Barrow. Of course. But if we too readily dismiss the attempts of humane, spiritual and thoughtful people like Dr Williams to point out that our difficulties are not just about someone else’s blockheadedness, we may be nearer the idiocratic realm and further from the hoped-for realm of God and of reason than we think.
Time and again in the midst of "events, dear boy, events" (Harold Macmillan's famous response to an interrogation about what is the biggest difficulty in being Prime Minister), I keep coming back to Dutch theologian Harry Kuitert's observation that while "everything is politics, politics is not everything".
The next Archbishop will be chosen by the great and the good, sprinkled with some local diocesan worthies, observes Graeme Smith. They will weigh up the diverse and competing needs of the Church of England, the Anglican Communion, the British State, and the diocese of Canterbury. They will receive submissions, take soundings and consult widely before reaching their considered opinion. But is not a less oligarchical and hierarchical way forward possible?
Lobbying has begun in the Church of England with the news that Dr Rowan Williams is vacating the post of Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the year.
As Lenten continues, I share two items that I suggest are 'a must-watch' and 'a must-read' for reflecting on Christian and human concerns far and wide.
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, former Oxford don and outspoken atheist Dr Richard Dawkins and philosopher Professor Anthony Kenny engaged in a public discussion of the origin of human life in Oxford today.
The Archbishop of canterbury is due to deliver a lecture on 'Faith, human rights and human dignity' of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva at the invitation of the WCC.