I'm going to be posting a bit on Rowan Williams, covering different topics including theology, sexuality, church unity, liturgy, and personal piety and prayer, but they will all connect with a man who has been an important teacher from afar for me over the last decade or so. I'm currently reading Rupert Shortt's biography (an interim report, he calls it) titled Rowan's Rule (Eerdmans, 2008). Shortt is a quite theologically serious religion reporter and has written a marvelously compelling 400+ page treatment of one of the most important living theologians and church leaders. I'm convinced that we never really see our own situations clearly looking at them in isolation (a comparative bias learned from Robert Bellah) and so my own attention to the Anglican church and to Rowan Williams' leadership is a way for me to get perspective on the ELCA and its current challenges. We, however, have no comparable leader regardless of what one might say about Mark Hanson. Rarely have we elected our best theologians to ecclesiastical leadership, William Lazareth being an exception I can think of right away. I don't mean by this to dismiss intellect; we do have some extraordinarily bright leaders, and I think Mark Hanson is one. Rather I mean people formed by the hard disciplines of theological training, research and teaching at the highest levels for decades who then are tapped for leadership. Rowan basically spent the 70s and 80s in academia before becoming first Bishop of Monmouth in Wales in 1992, Archbishop of Wales in 2000, and then Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. Not that he was ever far from the church, feeling deeply the call to prayer, considering monastic life seriously, and seeking parish work throughout his academic career, including being ordained deacon and priest during those years.
As I work through a few posts, I'll offer bits of provocation from Williams that Shortt offers, including page number if you'd like to follow up.
"Only if we are ready to look honestly at the depth of the world's dereliction and understand what is involved in claiming that this is the theatre of God's action can we begin to talk about transfiguration and healing; only when we have some idea of how difficult it is to speak of God's action at all can we speak intelligibly speak of His saving action" (p. 91)
Anon, and +peace,
Chris
Flannery O'Connor leaps into mind at the quote...
Posted by: marly youmans | November 12, 2009 at 09:18 AM