the Archbishop
I have quoted from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a number of times in recent weeks. His sermons at the Lambeth Conference have been extraordinarily rich, deep, and wise. Just before Lambeth, at the Church of England Synod, he preached a sermon on the heavy yoke of self-justification that could be utterly life-changing for those with ears to hear. And in February of 2007 at the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar — built on the site of the old slave market — he preached a sermon on John Newton and “Amazing Grace” the mere reading of which brought tears to my eyes. I do not know of a more powerful sermon preached in my lifetime.
And then there is his theology. And his poetry!
Yet I must say that, like many Anglican traditionalists, I have often been frustrated with Rowan in his role as Archbishop. Primarily it is his apparent passivity that has frustrated me: I have wanted him to take action, to do things, to shape events for the cause of orthodoxy, but he has persistently refused to intervene in the life of the Communion, and to some extent in his own Church of England, in clear and overt ways — in political ways. I and many others have wanted him to be a leader and this above all seems what he has refused to be.
But in these past few days I have been wondering whether there might be a method in Rowan’s madness — or rather in God’s. Might it be possible that while Rowan is most certainly not the kind of leader we want, he is precisely the kind we need? That his leadership is not that of a Churchill but rather a Desert Father? We want decision, action, clearly set plans; Rowan offers prayer, meditation, stillness, silence. He models those disciplines for us, and in so doing (silently) commends them.
What if that is what we Anglicans actually need? What if our desire for decision and action is actually distracting us from what the Lord God is calling us to do and be? What if, then, in a strange way, Rowan is precisely the right man for this job at this time, and is being precisely what God has called him to be? This would be a hard word for many of us to hear; but our God has done stranger things. At least the thought deserves prayerful reflection.
