The First Apostle blog has a post discussing a recent defense of Rowan Williams by the former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries:
“What Richard Harries helpfully notices is that Rowan Williams simply will not take the bait that we all want him to go for. He is like Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Harries writes: ‘ Rowan will know, better than most of us, that anything he says will be part of the world’s untruth and the more he conforms to the expectations of a headline culture, the more untruth there will be in it.’
I think that statements like this remind us that ultimately there will be no such thing as in or out of the Anglican Communion – at least as far as Rowan is concerned. That isn’t his style, and that can be frustrating. Liberals want to be told that they’re in and they’re valued. Conservatives want blood. Rowan’s strategy, however, may prove to keep some kind of long-term unity in the Communion after all. Forget about the Lambeth Conference, don’t worry about provinces declaring themselves out of communion with other provinces, and let the affairs of this age wash over the Church.”
It’s worth a full reading. What do you all think? Could it be that we’re simply caught up in a storm that will start to lessen soon?
I’m quite taken with a post that “bls” made over on Topmost Apple, which sees quite a lot of hope in the developments of the last three years.
Perhaps the sky is a little lighter after all now that you mention it…
Read the rest here: Insight from Lord Harries of Pentregarth
(Via First Apostle.)
It’s interesting…I was speaking with a friend the other day and he made the point that where Rowan has perhaps made his greatest mistake is that he has refused to use his own ecclesiastical power as Archbishop of Canterbury in almost any situation. He is a very good historian, and has an excellent sense of the way that power and authority have been usurped and misused over the history of the church, but unfortunately in the debates of recent years, his refusal to step into the conflict with a strong voice and assume some of the authority granted by his position has meant that lesser men and women, with not nearly the same degree of moral scruples as him, have entered the fray instead, giving their opinions of what the Church should look like and where it should go.