Anglican Mainstream

By Cole Moreton and Edward Malnick, Telegraph

Having wrestled with the best way to choose a new leader, the Church of England has decided to use the social networking site Twitter. It will also seek the views of people of all faiths and none, from the Chief Rabbi to Professor Richard Dawkins.
 
For the first time in history, the long and usually private process will begin with a widespread public consultation, to be finished by the end of May.
 
The Crown Nominations Commission, which must present the Prime Minister with two possible successors to Dr Rowan Williams, will also ask for contributions from “senior figures in other faiths, the secular world and the life of the nation”.
 
A spokesman for the Church of England said the invitation would be made through the church press but also through other media including the social networking site Twitter, where the CofE already posts news in nuggets of 140 characters or less. Tweeters and others will be asked to offer names and “views on the needs of the diocese of Canterbury and the wider community”.

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by Peter Mullen, Telegraph

Rowan Williams’s successor as Archbishop of Canterbury will have little hope of resolving a bitter stand-off.

The retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury is the right moment to contemplate the future of the Church of England. It is a serious moment. Does the Church have a future? Rowan Williams is a generous-spirited man who has done his best on his bed of nails these past 10 years to hold this great institution together. Surely it is an impossible task.

Riven asunder by so many controversies, how can the Church survive? There is the issue of women bishops. After agreeing to ordain women to the priesthood in 1992, it would be unjust to deny them promotion to the episcopacy. But then, how to make charitable accommodation for those thousands of traditional church people who are not prejudiced against women but who have profound grounds for opposing their consecration?
 
That problem on its own would be enough to flummox the very communion of saints. Add to it the controversy about gay priests and bishops. Everyone knows that there are many homosexual people among the serving clergy and that they exercise valid and sensitive ministry. Can’t we just forget the whole thing then, and accept that the world has “moved on”, and that there can be in today’s climate no justification for discriminating against gay priests and bishops? But then where does that leave the many conscientious Christians who appeal to the authority of the Bible, which does, in both Old and New Testaments, appear to outlaw homosexual practices?
 
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From Church Times

A KEY factor in the choice of Dr Williams’s successor is age. Prepara­tions for the 2018 Lambeth Confer­ence must start soon. Thus the next Archbishop will be expected to re­main in office for at least the next six years.

Dr Williams was appointed at the age of 51, and will have held office for a decade, as were his two pre­de­cessors. This time, however, there is no immediately outstanding candi­date among the younger generation of bishops. The Crown Nominations Commission might, therefore, choose a senior bishop to serve a shorter period.

The older generation

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu (62)

There is a tradition of translation from York, though this has not happened since Donald Coggan in 1974.
 
Dr Sentamu was enthroned in York in 2005, having been Bishop of Birmingham for three years, and, before that, the Bishop of Stepney for six years. He would be the first black Archbishop of Canterbury, and the first from the Commonwealth. He is older than Dr Williams, and would be 69 at the time of the Lambeth Conference.

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The Economist

Two painful episodes loom for the English church. The leadership will lose its battle to dissuade the government from legalising gay marriage. That will expose the gap between liberal bishops who agree with the government, and hardliners in the evangelical parishes who will wish the church had fought harder. The church is also set to agree to the idea of women bishops, with less generous terms for dissenters than Archbishop Williams would have liked. That will alienate Anglo-Catholics.

In the 80m-strong worldwide Anglican Communion, things are even messier. American liberals hate a covenant which Anglican churches are being asked to sign, pledging to avoid provocative actions like consecrating openly gay bishops. If the future Archbishop of Canterbury insists on the covenant, bits of the communion may reject the arrangement whereby an English prelate chairs the global fraternity, says Frank Kirkpatrick, an American Episcopalian priest. An emerging block of African and American conservatives also questions Canterbury’s historic role. For some hardliners, the covenant does not go far enough in penalising liberals.

The next Archbishop of Canterbury will also have to answer a more basic question: is the institution he heads part of the establishment, with an accepted role as its moral guide, or is it called on to be a provocateur, speaking its own version of truth to power? Defeat over gay marriage will make it tougher to play the first role, but a church that strives to be idiosyncratically prophetic will be harder to keep together. And the church’s role at home has implications for the communion: can an English church that is steadily disestablishing itself retain any natural place as a pacesetter for much bigger churches abroad?

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by Chris Sugden, CEN

It will pass into the language as a description of the post of Archbishop of Canterbury. But it will be misleading. Like all clerical job descriptions it focuses on the Angel-Gabriel like  qualities looked for in the individual – able to take tough decisions, yet pastorally sensitive to those who disagree; speaking truth to power but not politically meddlesome; widespread experience of urban/rural ministry and an academic heavyweight; wise ( for the over 60s) and cool ( for the under 30s).

The Most Rev Rowan Williams will continue to exercise his outstanding gifts as an academic intellectual of the first rank and an excellent preacher of passages from the bible. His resignation is no time for an obituary on his career or contribution to public life. The best may yet be to come.

Leadership of the Anglican Communion, as well as senior bishop in the Church of England is a highly complex and difficult task. Much has changed in the Communion on Archbishop Rowan’s watch.  Some of it is his own making, but much is not.

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By George Pitcher, Mailonline

[...]  But those who wave good riddance to Dr Williams should be careful what they wish for. David Cameron will doubtless have asked his aides today whether there's a candidate who would approve, or at least not unduly oppose, his thoughtless plans for 'gay marriage'.

Mr Cameron has turned out to have hidden shallows since he became Prime Minister. His determination to play party politics with the institution and sacrament of marriage, just so that he can appear groovy to the Liberal Democrats, threatens to do more to undermine the established Church of England than anything Dr Williams's detractors claim that he has done.

It will also put him on a collision course with the Queen, whom Mr Cameron may need reminding remains Supreme Governor of the Church of England. It could make conversations between Number 10 and the Palace about the next Archbishop interesting, to say the least.

Her Majesty is very attached to the Church of England. If Mr Cameron continues to play fast and loose with marriage – an institution over which he has no authority – and hopes to find a pliant placeman for the next Archbishop of Canterbury, he may find his recommended name returned to him from the Palace unapproved. For all his vapid talk with the Church, when it suits him, of a Big Society, Mr Cameron may yet find that English society isn't big enough for the both of them.

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From Thinking Anglicans

• The Chair (a lay person) – to be appointed by the Prime Minister
• A Bishop – to be elected by the House of Bishops
• The Archbishop of York or, if he chooses not to be a member of the CNC, a further Bishop to be elected by the House of Bishops
• Six representatives elected from the Diocese of Canterbury by their Vacancy in See Committee
• The six representatives (three clergy and three lay) elected by General Synod to serve as members of the Commission for a five year period
• A member of the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion elected by the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

By Edward Malnick, Telegraph

The contest to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury got under way this weekend as one leading contender warned that the job was impossible.

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Graham James, who had been seen as a front runner, appeared to rule himself out of the race.

By Daniel Boffey, Guardian

by Cole Moreton, Telegraph

The next Archbishop of Canterbury will have his work cut out as the nation negotiates a painful transition of faith.

[...]  So when people talk about Britain losing touch with its Christian roots, which Christianity do they mean? The answer lies in the Thirty-Nine Articles, written in 1563, and the basis of the trinity of Church, Crown and state. Scotland, Wales and Ireland contribute to the soul of Britain but the special status given to the Church of England put the Articles at the core of the Christianity that has shaped us. That core remained intact at an institutional level until recently.

Now the ties that bind Church and state are snapping. The population has changed. The claims of Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and other faiths must be recognised, as must atheism. Because the Government wants our votes, it often takes the lead on social change. The Church sees itself as standing up for enduring truths.

The brilliant, dedicated people working in the parishes – as in other faith groups – were doing the Big Society long before David Cameron named it. But as an institution, the Church of England is failing. It lacks the money, priests and people to care for every soul in every parish. It must find new ways of being the national Church for a nation that has moved on.

“There are an awful lot of people now who don’t really know how religion works, let alone Christianity,” said Dr Williams. “Does wearing a cross offend people who have no faith, or non-Christians? I don’t think it does.”

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By John Bingham, Telegraph

On the day of the Cheltenham Gold Cup it is not surprising that the public turned to the bookmakers for guidance on the next choice of Archbishop of Canterbury.

But with personal experience of the challenges of the job, Dr Williams looked to a higher authority on that question saying: "I would like the successor that God would like.”

By John Paul Ford Rojas, Telegraph

The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken in support of wearing the cross saying that it does not offend non-Christians on the day he announced he was stepping down.

In a candid interview Dr Rowan Williams said he did not believe that Christianity was losing the battle against secularisation in Britain but said that the arguments were being clouded by 'dim-witted prejudice.'
 
"What I think slightly shadows the whole thing is this sense that there are an awful lot of people now of a certain generation who don't really know how religion works, let alone Christianity in particular, and that leads to confusions, sensitivities in the wrong areas – 'does wearing a cross offend people who have no faith or non-Christians?' well I don't think it does.
 
"But people worry that it will. That is partly because there is a slight tone deafness about how religious belief works.
 
"I think there is also a lot of ignorance and rather dim-witted prejudice about the visible manifestations of Christianity, which sometimes clouds the discussion."
 
Dr Williams, 61, will leave at the end of December to take up a new role as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge next January. The Queen, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, has been informed.

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Rev’d Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, the 1,700-strong network of conservative evangelicals within the Church of England, said

“Many people will have appreciated Rowan’s great courtesy in dealing with people of different views within both the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. But his departure opens up the potential for a new leader to heal the deep divisions within the Anglican Communion. What is needed is someone who will hold firm to Biblical truth in areas such as human sexuality in order to promote the gospel and unite the church in the face of militant secularism.”

For further comment please contact Rev’d Paul Dawson on 07791 495824 or at paul@standrewschelsea.org

From the Archbishop of York

Following the announcement this morning that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will be stepping down from his present office at the end of December, The Archbishop of York has released the following statement:

“It is with great sadness that I received the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury will be stepping down at the end of this year.
 
Our partnership in the gospel over the past six years has been the most creative period of my ministry. It has been life-giving to have led missions together, gone on retreats and prayed together. In his company I have drunk deeply from the wells of God’s mercy and love and it has all been joyful. He is a real brother to me in Christ.

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Read also:  Archbishop who faced an impossible task by Avril Ormsby, Reuters

"As a man of great learning and humility he guided the church through times of challenge and change" by David Cameron

A kind man stands down by Freddie Gray, Spectator

The kindly, muddled Rowan Williams will do well in academia, but he was too meek to defend the Church by Peter Mullen, Telegraph

Rowan Williams: cerebral and kind, but uncomfortable with power By Cristina Odone, Telegraph

The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced this morning that he has accepted the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, with effect from January 2013. He will accordingly be stepping down from his present office at the end of December. The text of Archbishop Rowan’s announcement is at www.archbishopofcanterbury.org

Dr Williams’ intentions have been conveyed to The Queen, who is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and who formally appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dr Williams was appointed the one hundred and fourth Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002. He said today:

It has been an immense privilege to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury over the past decade, and moving on has not been an easy decision.  During the time remaining there is much to do, and I ask your prayers and support in this period and beyond.  I am abidingly grateful to all those friends and colleagues who have so generously supported Jane and myself in these years, and all the many diverse parishes and communities in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion that have brought vision, hope and excitement to my own ministry.  I look forward, with that same support and inspiration, to continuing to serve the Church’s mission and witness as best I can in the years ahead.

Dr Williams will continue to carry out all the duties and responsibilities of the Archbishop of Canterbury, both for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, until the end of the year.

The Crown Nominations Commission will consider in due course the selection of a successor.

By John Bingham, Telegraph

The Archbishop of Canterbury signalled a fresh push to dissuade traditionalist Anglicans from defecting to the Roman Catholic Church as he joined the Pope in stressing moves to bring the two churches together.

Rowan Williams used a joint prayer service in Rome to call for a renewed drive to “restore full sacramental communion” between the Anglican and Catholic churches.
 
Dr Williams and Pope Benedict XVI prayed and lit candles together at the Chapel of St Gregory the Great, in a service highlighting 1,400 years of links between the church in England and Rome.
 
Pope Benedict welcomed Dr Williams as “my dear brother in Christ” and referred to members of the two churches as “the faithful – both Catholic and Anglican”.

The two leaders took part in vespers at the monastery of San Gregorio Magno al Celio which has developed strong links with the Anglican Church in recent decades through its community of Camaldolese monks.
 
During the service one of the hymns was Love Divine, by Charles Wesley, the English hymn writer.

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By John Bingham, Telegraph

Dr Rowan Williams said it had become something “which religious people make and hang on to” as a substitute for true faith.
 
He made his comments on the day it emerged that the Government is to argue in the European Court that Christians do not have the “right” to wear a cross as a visible manifestation of faith.
 
His remarks angered Christian campaigners who accused the Archbishop of failing to stand up for the right of believers to wear crosses.
 
Judges in Strasbourg are to consider a test case on religious freedom in Britain later this year.
 
It will bring together four separate cases, including that of Nadia Eweida, a British Airways employee who faced disciplinary action for wearing a cross at work.

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From Vatican Radio

Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams celebrated Vespers in the church of St Gregory on the Caelian hill on Saturday afternoon, as they gave thanks together the 1000th anniversary of the Camaldoli monastic community which is based there. Philippa Hitchen was at the celebration and tells us more about this ecumenical encounter..

“It is good to touch the soil on which you are nurtured”. Those words from Dr Rowan Williams explain why three successive archbishops of Canterbury have come to the Rome church of San Gregorio al Celio – to the very place from where Pope Gregory the Great sent out Augustine and 40 of his monks to take the Christian gospel to Anglo-Saxon England at the end of the 6th century.

Today, for the third time, Pope Benedict said in his homily, the Bishop of Rome is meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury in the home of St Gregory the Great. Today’s celebration, he said is therefore marked by a profoundly ecumenical character, which as we know is part and parcel of the spirit of the Camaldoli community that has lived and worshipped in the church on the Caelian hill since the mid 16th century. Noting the hospitality and openness of this community which has made it a place for fruitful dialogue throughout the centuries and now in different parts of the world, the Pope said we hope that today’s celebration will act as a stimulus for all the faithful – Catholic and Anglican – encouraging them to renew their commitment and prayer for the unity that Jesus himself asked of His Father.

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Read Full text: Archbishop of Canterbury at ecumenical Vespers