BEING Archbishop of Canterbury is a killing job, and likely to be even more testing this time round. I used to tease Rowan Williams and say “God has given you every possible gift under the sun, and, as your punishment, he has made you Archbishop.”
That is how it must feel, sometimes. The most difficult pressure comes from the press, and anyone of any sensitivity is bound to be made to feel exposed and nervous by the constant questioning, criticism, and risk of saying the wrong thing or being misinterpreted.
At the 1988 Lambeth Conference, the American bishops were amazed at the constant press attacks on Robert Runcie, and I had to say to them “It’s a rough, tough world over here.” The next Archbishop is likely to be particularly vulnerable because of the Church’s recent safeguarding failures, and because of the general lowering of the status of the Church of England over recent decades. The Church is an easy target, and the new Archbishop will be the person at whom the arrows are shot.
So, how can anyone cope with this pressure? Only by the depth of their own Christian faith and the strength of their spiritual life. It does not matter whether they come from a Catholic or Evangelical background, because, by the time a person has reached the position of being considered, they will almost certainly have gained wisdom from outside their own tradition: both George Carey and Justin Welby, from Evangelical and Charismatic backgrounds, drew on the disciplines of Catholic practice and discipline. In any case, it is only by being daily and deeply rooted in Christ that anybody will survive not just the exposure to the press, but the relentless demands on their time and energies. And that points to the second quality that will be required: a capacity to prioritise the work.
THE Archbishop is not just the chair of the House of Bishops, responsible for running the Church of England. The office-holder is the chief pastor of a national Church, and is expected to be able to say something meaningful to the country as a whole. The Archbishop is also one of the “Instruments of Communion” of the Anglican Churches worldwide, and a focus of their unity.
These different roles pull in different directions; each one is a full-time job. So, the new Archbishop will need to prioritise, and, as letters flood in every day asking them to do this or that, the next Archbishop will have to decide what should be accepted and what denied. In particular, it will mean distinguishing the important from what claims to be urgent, and focusing on the former. This will mean asking time and again: What is it that I, as Archbishop, and only I can and ought to do?
It is not necessary to be an able administrator, like Geoffrey Fisher. A good Chief of Staff at Lambeth Palace and their team there should be able to deal with all that adequately. Nor can we necessarily expect the next Archbishop to be an outstanding theologian, like Michael Ramsey, or a public intellectual, like Rowan Williams.
But the next Archbishop must be able to communicate intelligently and clearly to both the Church and the country. Recent archbishops have been good communicators to certain kinds of audience, such as conferences and church gatherings. But what is required in our age is the ability to communicate in a society in which Christianity has become a foreign language, and what goes on in church is seen as strange, if not alien. The present Archbishop of York has something of this gift; the next Archbishop of Canterbury will need it.
As we all know, the unity of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion have been severely strained in recent decades by disagreements about same-sex relationships. So, the new Archbishop will have the unenviable task of somehow holding both the Church of England and the Anglican Communion together. This requires a particular kind of gift, combining spirituality and wisdom in a way that evokes trust.
ALL the seven Archbishops of Canterbury I have known have brought some particular gifts to the role, and I am sure that the next one will have their own unique contribution to make. Although, as I have emphasised, it is a killing role at a difficult time for the Church, there are also some tiny signs that the climate might be more receptive to what the Christian faith has to offer. The dogmatic atheism of Richard Dawkins and his like has long been discredited, and is now very passé. And there are a few more voices in the public sphere willing to confess the faith.
So, the new Archbishop of Canterbury will need to have a deeply rooted faith and a strong spiritual life to enable them to manage the daily strain of the press and the relentless pressure of work. They will need to prioritise that work, and constantly ask what is the particular contribution that they can make in their role. This will mean being firm in refusing a good number of very worthwhile engagements. They will need both the personal qualities and the skill to hold together an organisation that is in danger of fragmenting. And they will need to be able to speak in a language that is intelligent, clear, and understandable to a sceptical nation.
Alexandra Henderson / AHA Productions LtdThe horticulturist and broadcaster Monty Don
It is not impossible. In all the hyped-up nonsense on television, someone such as Monty Don comes across as the real thing, able to talk about gardening in a way that is authoritative, natural, and authentic. He is a good role-model for a new Archbishop talking about the faith.
So, how can the next Archbishop cope? Like St Paul, they will be all too aware of their weakness, and ready to hear the words “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12.9). Perhaps they could also take some advice from George Carey and his wife, Eileen, who decided that, whatever the strains of the job, they would still try to enjoy it.
The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth is a former Bishop of Oxford. In his autobiography, The Shaping of a Soul: A life taken by surprise (Books, 6 April 2023), he has a chapter on the seven Archbishops of Canterbury he has known.
