(If you are interested, you may read a bit more about the author here–KSH.)
Dr Rowan Williams has served as head of the Anglican Communion for ten years and the world has changed markedly in that time, and not for the better. Within the UK there have been profound changes in society: the complex responses to 9/11; the rise of exaggerated political correctness; the financial crisis; an increasingly confused and vague national spirituality; and a continuing numerical decline and division within the Anglican Church. In the light of this, I suggest that the new Archbishop needs to have the following qualities[:]
1) He should be a man who knows God’s priorities….2) He should be a man of conviction, a man confident in the Christian faith as revealed by Scripture and taught by the Church over centuries….3) He should be a man who can connect, and is able to express himself in words that can be understood….He should be a man who will confront the culture….5) He should be a man of discernment, not simply intelligence or wisdom but that combination of God-given grace and human intellect that allows someone to detect problems and identify opportunities…6) He should be a man of courage. It is a long-standing rule that anyone who goes out and preaches the good news of Jesus will face opposition. As far as I’m aware the last Archbishop of Canterbury to be martyred was Thomas Cranmer, who went to the stake in 1556 but these are frankly dark days for the church in the West.
Read it all from the April 8, 2012, Church of England Newspaper on page E3 (requires subscription).
Re the title of your blog entry: someone once said “He who does his best for his own time has done his best for all times”. Folks need to remember that.
J. John has been a powerful speaker, now in his ’50s. Good that he is adding his voice to the public commentary in Britain.