Rowan Williams The patron saint of disruption
By Paul Handley
30 November 2002

Rowan Williams: The patron saint of disruption
Prudent. Discreet. Kind. Clever. A thoroughly nice bloke. This is what they 
say about the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He is all these things, and a 
beardy to boot. But don't be fooled. He doesn't pull his punches on the big 
issues.

There is a good chance that, at lunchtime tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams will 
be feeling a bit of a prat. That is when he is officially made Archbishop of 
Canterbury; not back in July, when his name was selected by the Prime 
Minister, nor next February, when his big enthronement takes place at 
Canterbury, but in St Paul's Cathedral in a legal ceremony dating from 1534. 
He was elected by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury a fortnight ago (they 
aren't allowed to decline) and tomorrow's ceremony confirms that election. 
As the legal phrases roll around him ("schedules ... porrection"), Dr 
Williams might glance down at the white cuffs of his rochet, a tad frilly 
for a Welsh bard, and wonder what on earth he is doing.

Because he was always the favoured candidate, and the appointment process 
was so leaky, his honeymoon period happened before the marriage. Since his 
nomination, he has had to cope with various sections of the Church of 
England threatening divorce, sometimes in the most unchristian language. He 
might enjoy the moment in tomorrow's ceremony when objectors to his 
appointment are declared "contumacious".

It has been an extraordinarily hostile reception for a man who is 
transparently "prudent and discreet, deservedly laudable for his life and 
conversation", as he will be described tomorrow. He leaves Wales, after 
three years as its archbishop, to almost universal plaudits. "He is a very 
kind pastor, a great theologian and a great thinker," said one Welsh priest. 
"One of his great achievements has been to help churchpeople of different 
persuasions listen to each other," said another. "He is a great man," said a 
Welsh bishop. Note the repeated adjective.

Rowan Williams was born in 1950 and brought up in Swansea, where his father 
was a mining engineer. His academic ability was apparent early, and he went 
from grammar school to Cambridge, and then to Oxford for his doctorate. 
There was a short spell in the North, where he trained for ordination, then 
he repeated his Cambridge and Oxford tenures, first as Dean and Chaplain of 
Clare College, and then, aged 36, becoming the youngest professor at Oxford. 
He can lecture in five languages and reads several more. One of his 
Cambridge counterparts described him as "the best theologian in Britain".

In 1992 he surprised colleagues by accepting the post of Bishop of Monmouth, 
seen as a backwater by the Oxford élite. But the post spoke to his pastoral 
calling, and his Welsh roots, and it was a good place for Rowan and his 
wife, Jane, the daughter of a missionary bishop, to bring up their daughter 
(now 14) and produce a son (six). It wasn't long, though, before wistful 
glances were cast in his direction. Williams's name came up almost every 
time an English diocese fell vacant, and in 1997 he came close to being 
offered Southwark. But there were fierce wrangles at the time between anti- 
and pro-gay lobbies in the diocese, and when Dr Carey, the former 
archbishop, invited Dr Williams to distance himself from his pro-gay 
writings on the subject, he declined. Shortly afterwards he was appointed 
Archbishop of the Church in Wales. Carey, an evangelical with a traditional 
view of homosexuality, timed his retirement just right, allowing Williams to 
leave Wales with a sense of achievement, rather than a sense of guilt at 
abandoning his homeland.

Nearly three decades of academic work have left a large paper trail, 
including 16 or more books, for anyone who wants to find fault with Rowan 
Williams's theology, but the hunt will be a long and difficult one. In 
general, his theology is orthodox, nurtured by Anglo-Catholicism, Russian 
mysticism, and scores of encounters with other traditions. Many of his 
ethical positions are orthodox, too ­ he is opposed to abortion, for example 
­ but homosexuality has been the cause of his recent difficulties. Several 
years ago he employed a priest he knew to be living in a homosexual 
relationship, unlike the many bishops who take care not to know about any 
relationships. It was this, coupled with his conviction that the Church 
should reassess its approach to faithful gay partnerships, that alarmed 
conservative evangelicals and drew criticism. Because of his self-imposed 
reticence over these past four months, his critics have had the field to 
themselves; but last week he said he would not go against the current 
position of the Anglican Church, and would not therefore ordain someone in a 
homosexual partnership. Will the row die down? We'll see.

What he can't afford is for a significant number of evangelical churches to 
withdraw from the Church of England, taking their congregations and their 
cash but leaving those big expensive buildings. There is already a tricky 
piece of footwork to be done to keep Anglo-Catholic churches from splitting 
off when, as most people expect, the Church decides to consecrate women as 
bishops. Wholesale schism is extremely unlikely; nevertheless, the Church of 
England needs to keep as many priests and parishioners as it can. The number 
of full-time, paid priests fell by 14 per cent in the past decade, and one 
projection puts attendance at 500,000 by 2030, little more than half the 
present figure. Dr Williams disparages the trappings of a state Church (he 
can be heard doing so on BBC2 tonight) but this is a minor matter compared 
to the economic and staffing crisis facing the Church. His time in office 
might well see the end of the parish system ­ the myth that the Church of 
England provides a blanket of pastoral care over the whole country.

Williams's response is to put aside the gloom and obsession with 
manipulating figures that characterised the failed "Decade of Evangelism" of 
his predecessor. In his acceptance speech he spoke of "a confidence that 
arises from being utterly convinced that the Christian creed and the 
Christian vision have in them a life and a richness that can embrace and 
transfigure all the complexities of human life". He went on to describe a 
kind of confidence "that saves us from being led by fashion, by the issues 
of the day: the truth for and about human beings is not something that can 
be decided simply by the majority vote of our culture". It might be a recipe 
for withdrawing into an other-wordly piety, but no one who knows Dr 
Williams's left-wing credentials believes that for a minute.

Instead, it is an approach that looks set to make him a disruptive political 
influence in the years ahead: a commentator who can criticise Disney because 
he doesn't need their advertising; a critic of war in Iraq because he has as 
many connections with the Middle East as with the United States; a spokesman 
for social outcasts because, in his game, injustice trumps fiscal policy 
every time. The present government will find him hard to handle, and the 
right-wing press is just biding its time.

It is hard to describe a paragon convincingly, but that is what Rowan 
Williams is, and likeable too. It is also hard to live with a paragon, as 
the Church of England will find out shortly. Crucially, how hard is it to be 
a paragon, when the usual methods of self-preservation ­ wiliness, evasion, 
caution, obfuscation ­ are as yet unlearnt? Can such goodness survive in 
public life? It's something we have to believe in.

The writer is editor of the 'Church Times'




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