A Cover Story in Time International on Archbishop on Rowan Williams

Back in 2002, Rowan Williams was something of a prodigy. At 52, he became the youngest Archbishop of Canterbury in 200 years. “And,” wrote one observer, “perhaps the cleverest,” a man who had quickly established himself as one of Anglicanism’s most gifted preachers and probably its pre-eminent theologian. He was a self-professed “hairy lefty,” a Christian socialist arrested in a 1985 protest at a U.S. air base in England, who now criticizes the Iraq war. And he once also had a controversial stance on the theology of sexuality. In 1989 he delivered a lecture to Britain’s Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in which he stated: “If we are looking for a sexual ethic that can be seriously informed by our Bible, there is a good deal to steer us away from assuming that reproductive sex is a norm.” He continued: “The absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts, or on a problematic and nonscriptural theory.” As Archbishop of Wales he admitted knowingly ordaining at least one noncelibate gay man. When he moved with his wife and two children to Lambeth Palace in 2002, the Herald newspaper of Glasgow enthused, “What will endear him to the people … is that he has the courage of his convictions, however unpopular they may be.”

But his convictions turned out to be complex, and not everybody was endeared. Until July 2003, Williams seemed prepared to make Canon Jeffrey John, an openly gay man in a committed, celibate relationship, a bishop. But after a tremendous outcry on the right, Williams held a six-hour meeting with John, who withdrew his candidacy. Williams had already called an emergency meeting of the Anglican leadership over the U.S. Episcopal Church’s election of Gene Robinson, also gay and in a committed relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire. The months that followed set a pattern. The Americans consecrated Robinson. Williams, facing conservative demands that they leave the Communion, endorsed milder requests such as a promise, for now, to make no more gay bishops and bless no more gay marriages. The Episcopalians made ambiguous gestures of compliance, but in 2006 elected as their presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who had supported Robinson’s elevation. Today Williams calls Robinson’s election ”” absent any prior general decision allowing the ordination of people in same-sex relationships ”” “bizarre and puzzling.” “His heart is where it’s always been,” says Welsh Archbishop Barry Morgan, a good friend. “His natural sympathies and theological understanding are on the side of those who are gay.” And yet Williams insists that churches should not outpace the Communion’s consensus.

Read an interview here and the cover story there. You can also listen on MP# here.