LAODICEANS
At National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke skins and guts Rowan Williams. Cooke starts things out like this:
Once described as the “Conservative party at prayer,” the Church of England has taken a decidedly leftward turn in the last century, prompting the Earl of Onslow’s immortal observation that “one hundred years ago, the Church was in favor of fox hunting and against buggery. Now it is in favor of buggery and against fox hunting.” In the vanguard of its continuing drift was Rowan Williams, a self-described “bearded lefty” and terminal casuist who has also happened to be the Archbishop of Canterbury for the last nine years, and thus effectively second only to Queen Elizabeth II in the spiritual hierarchy.
Among other things, Williams became infamous for a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the virtues of his own country — and his own church, for that matter. It is thus no loss to either Britain or the Anglican Church that Williams announced on Friday that he will be resigning his office, effective December 2012, and I must respectfully disagree with John O’Sullivan’s more flattering portrayal of Williams, and set the ball rolling on the “great many less flattering things” that O’Sullivan correctly predicted “will be said about him in the next few months.”
The nadir of the archbishop’s dubious work was a remarkable February 2008 interview with the BBC, during which he baldly suggested that the rule of law might not be such a good idea after all. This was neatly coupled with a call for the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law in Britain — an eventuality he claimed was “unavoidable.” “An approach to law which simply said, there’s one law for everybody,” said Williams, “I think that’s a bit of a danger.” This is the symbolic head of a church with 80 million worldwide adherents, publicly stating that the principle that the old-fashioned among us consider to be the bedrock of civilization is outmoded in the 21st century.
Such thinking should shock but not surprise, as Williams’s affection for Western civilization has always seemed lukewarm at best. It is questionable whether there exists a fire hot enough to distract him from the temptations of modernism. By chance, he was in New York City delivering a lecture on the morning of September 11, 2001, and witnessed al-Qaeda’s atrocities firsthand. In the days that followed, as the smoke settled and while most of us were still reeling, the archbishop stated both that terrorists “can have serious moral goals” and that “bombast about evil individuals” — of the sort practiced by Manichean rubes such as President George W. Bush, no doubt — “doesn’t help in understanding anything.” (Perhaps this is where the different-laws-for-different-people rule comes in:
Hijacking passenger jets and flying them at 500 miles per hour into skyscrapers full of people is wrong for me, but who am I to judge if it is wrong for you? Heaven keep us from “bombast,” though, for that really is a universal vice.)
Then he gets nasty.
Was Dr. Williams’ tenure at Lambeth Palace a disaster? Could he have done anything at all to repair the breach in the Anglican Communion? No and not recognizing what the North Americans had done to the Communion is the key to his utter failure.
There were and still are two theological positions current in the Anglican world and neither one is reconcilable with the other. And Rowan Williams failure(or unwillingness) to recognize that fact and begin to adjust to the new reality ensured his infamous place in history and doomed the Anglican Communion.
Many on the Anglican left lament the fact that Dr. Williams, a theological leftist before his elevation, tried to play the honest broker between the factions and consequently forgot who he had always been. And they may have a point.
Had Dr. Williams been his leftist self from the start, those of us on the Anglican right could have adjusted our thinking and our responses accordingly early on and not gone through this charade. A modus vivendi might have been arranged by now which would have left the two halves of the Anglican world in some kind of unity, albeit a strained and suspicious one.
Instead, Rowan Williams played the Anglican, insisting on endless rounds of yammering even when everything that could be said was. As a result, the Anglican Communion is a sick joke and the Anglican tradition is in tatters.
And from my standpoint, that is Rowan Williams’ single greatest failure. I was born into the Episcopal Church and my mother passionately loved the church until the day she died. In fact, around the time Alzheimer’s began to finally close down her mind, her most treasured possession was a Book of Common Prayer; whenever she misplaced that thing, my father and I had to drop everything and find it.
At its best, there is a lot to admire in Anglican worship. Its liturgy is dignified and its music, particularly the too-long-neglected Anglican chant, is some of the most beautiful in Christendom. It’s easy to see why anyone would be reluctant to leave.
But for me, all that has changed. I’m not an Episcopalian anymore. And even though I passionately disagree with the Episcopal Church’s stands, I’m not hostile to it. Although there are things I still miss, I don’t waste time lamenting the fact that I no longer attend an Episcopal parish.
Granted, Anglicans are still good for a laugh. But as for Anglican Christianity itself, I no longer feel anything at all, one way or the other. And that is why Rowan Williams may well be remembered as the worst Archbishop of Canterbury in history.
Once described as the “Conservative party at prayer,” the Church of England has taken a decidedly leftward turn in the last century, prompting the Earl of Onslow’s immortal observation that “one hundred years ago, the Church was in favor of fox hunting and against buggery. Now it is in favor of buggery and against fox hunting.” In the vanguard of its continuing drift was Rowan Williams, a self-described “bearded lefty” and terminal casuist who has also happened to be the Archbishop of Canterbury for the last nine years, and thus effectively second only to Queen Elizabeth II in the spiritual hierarchy.
Among other things, Williams became infamous for a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the virtues of his own country — and his own church, for that matter. It is thus no loss to either Britain or the Anglican Church that Williams announced on Friday that he will be resigning his office, effective December 2012, and I must respectfully disagree with John O’Sullivan’s more flattering portrayal of Williams, and set the ball rolling on the “great many less flattering things” that O’Sullivan correctly predicted “will be said about him in the next few months.”
The nadir of the archbishop’s dubious work was a remarkable February 2008 interview with the BBC, during which he baldly suggested that the rule of law might not be such a good idea after all. This was neatly coupled with a call for the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law in Britain — an eventuality he claimed was “unavoidable.” “An approach to law which simply said, there’s one law for everybody,” said Williams, “I think that’s a bit of a danger.” This is the symbolic head of a church with 80 million worldwide adherents, publicly stating that the principle that the old-fashioned among us consider to be the bedrock of civilization is outmoded in the 21st century.
Such thinking should shock but not surprise, as Williams’s affection for Western civilization has always seemed lukewarm at best. It is questionable whether there exists a fire hot enough to distract him from the temptations of modernism. By chance, he was in New York City delivering a lecture on the morning of September 11, 2001, and witnessed al-Qaeda’s atrocities firsthand. In the days that followed, as the smoke settled and while most of us were still reeling, the archbishop stated both that terrorists “can have serious moral goals” and that “bombast about evil individuals” — of the sort practiced by Manichean rubes such as President George W. Bush, no doubt — “doesn’t help in understanding anything.” (Perhaps this is where the different-laws-for-different-people rule comes in:
Hijacking passenger jets and flying them at 500 miles per hour into skyscrapers full of people is wrong for me, but who am I to judge if it is wrong for you? Heaven keep us from “bombast,” though, for that really is a universal vice.)
Then he gets nasty.
Was Dr. Williams’ tenure at Lambeth Palace a disaster? Could he have done anything at all to repair the breach in the Anglican Communion? No and not recognizing what the North Americans had done to the Communion is the key to his utter failure.
There were and still are two theological positions current in the Anglican world and neither one is reconcilable with the other. And Rowan Williams failure(or unwillingness) to recognize that fact and begin to adjust to the new reality ensured his infamous place in history and doomed the Anglican Communion.
Many on the Anglican left lament the fact that Dr. Williams, a theological leftist before his elevation, tried to play the honest broker between the factions and consequently forgot who he had always been. And they may have a point.
Had Dr. Williams been his leftist self from the start, those of us on the Anglican right could have adjusted our thinking and our responses accordingly early on and not gone through this charade. A modus vivendi might have been arranged by now which would have left the two halves of the Anglican world in some kind of unity, albeit a strained and suspicious one.
Instead, Rowan Williams played the Anglican, insisting on endless rounds of yammering even when everything that could be said was. As a result, the Anglican Communion is a sick joke and the Anglican tradition is in tatters.
And from my standpoint, that is Rowan Williams’ single greatest failure. I was born into the Episcopal Church and my mother passionately loved the church until the day she died. In fact, around the time Alzheimer’s began to finally close down her mind, her most treasured possession was a Book of Common Prayer; whenever she misplaced that thing, my father and I had to drop everything and find it.
At its best, there is a lot to admire in Anglican worship. Its liturgy is dignified and its music, particularly the too-long-neglected Anglican chant, is some of the most beautiful in Christendom. It’s easy to see why anyone would be reluctant to leave.
But for me, all that has changed. I’m not an Episcopalian anymore. And even though I passionately disagree with the Episcopal Church’s stands, I’m not hostile to it. Although there are things I still miss, I don’t waste time lamenting the fact that I no longer attend an Episcopal parish.
Granted, Anglicans are still good for a laugh. But as for Anglican Christianity itself, I no longer feel anything at all, one way or the other. And that is why Rowan Williams may well be remembered as the worst Archbishop of Canterbury in history.
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