Y'all,

I received ++William's collection of sermons yesterday and have read a
number of them.

First, I must say that they reveal a man of tremendous faith and with a
profound spirituality.  He's definitely a mystical sort of fellow, quoting
frequently from Merton and Teresa of Avila (along with Donne, Shakespeare,
Everyman, Piers Plowman, Aquinas, M. Ramsey, etc).  His sermon on Advent (on
why humanity must have something beyond itself in order to know itself) is
particularly moving.  I also may plagerize his idea in his sermon "Knowing
and Loving."

Having said that, I found his style too poetic.  By that, I mean at times I
got so caught up in his language (as I think he did) that I really didn't
have the foggiest idea about what he was saying!  I can only imagine what
his poor congregations thought!

Also, his sermon on the Virgin Birth delivered to members of the Movement
for the Ordination of Women in 1992 was nauseating.  His address on human
sexuality was terrific as far as it goes (he argues that sexual
relationships must be sacramental and absolutely faithful) but could be
reduced (despite the poetic theological language) to promiscuity is bad.
Not precisely profound.

From what I have read so far, ++Williams strikes me as being a creedal
Catholic who is highly aware of the unbelieving culture in which he lives.
In his address on Christian Seexual ethics he goes after those who want to
make Christianity rule bound and those who want to make it little more
sentimentality (elsewhere he argues that the two most destructive forces in
the present Church are fundamentalism and liberal anti-dogmaticism).

In many ways, he comes most through for me when he writes:

    "It is usually frivolous, if not blasphemous, to speculate about Jesus'
state of mind, but it is hard not to feel in our Lord's responses to the
sinful an element of sheer vsceral pity. "Where are your accusers?  Is there
no one who condemns you?  Neither do I condemn you."  Jesus was tempted as
we are: if Gethsemane gives us any insight, he was tried in ways from which
most of us would shrink.  And what his struggles seems to have produced was
a sense of the precariousness of goodness, love, and fidelity so profound
and strong that no failure or error could provoke his condemnation. except
the error of those legalists who could not understand that very
precariousness.  To Christ, the sinner is a victim more than a criminal.  He
knows what is in us.  He is within human motivation and understands just how
free and how unfree we are.  He knows the measure of our own responsibility
more than we ever can ourselves.  He is the high priest who knows our
weakness and whom, then, we can approach without fear."

Certainly he is liberal.  But I must say it is a different sort of
liberalism than I have seen on this side of the Atlantic.  If his sermons
are anything to go by, then traditionalists have little to worry about if he
becomes the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

And I must say that I was pleased to find that more often than not he quotes
from the KJV and the 1662!!

Mark+