The Retirement of the ArchBish of Canterbury

[DTCwordfan]

Front page of the Telegraph - Williams is considering stepping down next year.

http://www.telegraph....o-quit-next-year.html

Yeah!!!!!

I am not particularly religious, indeed I would be classified as agnostic.

Here is a man who has done immense damage to the Church and the evidence to this, just a sample:

* Decline in attendances
* Handling of the issue over female priests and bishops
* Handling of the issue over gay Bishops, splitting the Church
* Handling of Paedophilia
* Lack of leadership on the encroachment of the Vatican to take some of his dwindling market
* Lack of leadership on the encroachment of Islam
* Their poor investment performance, decline of churches - the need for communities to fight to maintain their Church (wit the Wales progamme on the Beeb last week)
* Not fighting over Christian symbolism in public (the BA cross case etc)
* No leadership over the issue of Christian hotels (Chester and Marazion)

and an appalling image akin to one of my avatars on the slopes of Snowdonia.

I am glad that he is going and wish he would resign sooner - but I guess he has been quietly asked to go and that this article is part of a face saving exercise.

Views?

Who should replace him? My candidate would be the ex B of Durham, Tom Wright who has just taken the Chair of Divinity at St Andrews University and a great thinker, preacher and with strong leadrship skill.

[boxtops]

From what I have heard from him outside the headlines, Rowan Williams has come out with some highly considered academic statements - it's his public pronouncements on things which affect ordinary people which seem so wide of the mark.
I'd like to see Bishop Michae Ali-Nazir as his successor - he was a very effective Bishop of Rochester, but as this article says, he understands the Islamic perspective too http://blogs.telegrap...victory_for_Islamism/

[mike11111]

I never had much time for Rowan - too wishy-washy, though a tremendous intellectual. At the time of his appointment I felt the job should have gone to either David Hope (then Archbishop of York) or Richard Chartres (Bishop of London), both strong traditionalists.

[DTCwordfan]

yes, Mike, I could understand Charteris being a strong candidate......

[mike11111]

Unfortunately Chartres has no chance because he is opposed to the idea of women priests, let alone women bishops. To avoid charges of discrimination he does not actually ordain any clergy at all, male or female, leaving that to his suffragans.

[DTCwordfan]

How about tha A of York then - though he is older than RW......

[mike11111]

Sentamu and Chartres are the same age, both 61. The question is whether the country is ready for a black archbishop of Canterbury.

[DTCwordfan]

One of the reasons I think Tom Wright may be in the running.