There was extensive coverage on Radio 4 the World at One interviewees included Ruth Gledhill, +Christopher Chessun. At times the eulogy could have been mistaken for an obituary.

His role in Cambridge is as leader of a college. This can allow for a high public profile such as Will Hutton and some teaching.. i hope he plays his part in laying to rest the myth that access to Cambridge University is restricted by anything other than ability and will find time to be available to undergraduates.

Make what you want of this:

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/next-archbishop-of-canterbury/winner

Dave

Thanks Dave for starting this thread. We will be putting up comments and analysis of the ++ Rowan years on Newswatch but we will be cherry picking since undoubtedly there will be many words written. Some of them dross.

For my part I want to express my appreciation for Rowan Williams who has borne the many pains of the Office of Archbishop with great grace.

Some questions:

1. What might be said about the way evangelicals have related to RW?  I'm thinking of the disgraceful way NEAC effectively snubbed him.   I remember hearing ++ Robert Runcie at Caister 1988 and how he  put his finger on a key issue evangelicals need to engage: ecclesiology.  Was there more to being  part of the Church of England than simply viewing it as "the best boat to fish from". I would like to think that the emergence of Fulcrum represents serious evangelical engagement with that issue.  What would RW have said to evangelicals if given a chance to share his wisdom?  What would he say now?

2.  When I wrote my book Gospel People: evangelicals in the future of Anglicanism (SPCK) there was just one chapter on the Anglican Communion.  If I were to update it I suspect the Communion would figure as the book's key theme. RW has played a holding game, endeavoring to keep Anglicans talking to one another despite the tumult around the Communion.  Could RW have played his hand differently and what might the outcomes have been?

For my part as an Anglican parish priest, I just want to express my appreciation for all that Rowan Williams has done for the Church since (and before) his enthronement as archbishop of Canterbury. It is true that he has weaknesses, but he has an unswerving faith. I have often wondered why my colleague evangelicals have been unable to see his orthodox beliefs. If others in our Church and Communion had dealt with Rowan with the same grace and generosity he has dealt with those with differing opinions to him, then we may have been in a different and healthier place.

This does feel like writing a premature obituary, poor Rowan he is very much alive and a youngster at 61(still older than me though Rowan) in the Archbishop of Canterbury role.He could have played his cards differently , he could have played the Joker instead of the Ace..

I am personally grateful to Rowan for his example, how he faced people even when they bayed for his blood, also the way in which he taught about prayer, and for his approachability and his sense of humour alongside his sensitivity in Ministry. I certainly never ever felt he laughed at me and he never ignored me either, when i communicated with him .

See i dont understand all that who's on which side of the bridge stuff, fortunately, I dont get the conservative and liberal divide, For Christianity is about Unification and that is what Rowan has sought to do.

He sought to be a peacemaker and a unifier and i am sure in some circumstances he has been.

He has ruffled a few feathers , but so have all the Archbishops and its catching some vicars ruffle feathers too now .WOOO

Angela

I am deeply grateful to have had ++ Rowan as my Archbishop for these years. There is so much in his praying, faithfulness, priestly leadership and straightforward holiness I aspire to.

As I read the reflections and critiques of his leadership - good or bad, success or failure etc - I reflect that a much harder thing to recognise and come to terms with is what kind of people/church/communities we have been like to lead. I have long thought that behind our obsession concern with growing leaders in the present church  being led is a much bigger crisis. It is quite possible that in many key respects we are, in these times, an often unleadable people. So I thank ++ Rowan (and any others) who are expected to do the impossible - and do so with extraordinary endurance, grace and pain-bearing vision.

As a theologian of rare ability and rarer experience, ++ Rowan Williams may yet make very interesting and useful contributions. However, one that he has already made is to have modeled to Christians, both within the Anglican Communion and far beyond it, a way of leading in crisis that is authoritative, but not merely authoritarian. In so doing, he has lifted the idea of leadership above that of a party leader, a tribal chieftain, a cult personality, an ecclesiastical CEO, etc. The contrast with a certain tyranny that has occasioned some truly detestable enormities of late is both healthy and urgent. After the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicans-- whoever those eventually turn out to be-- and many others, will be much better able to imagine a "vital center," neither caretaker nor dictator, that does hold when mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

If he is not judged to have been successful, will that matter? To the cynical and the ambitious, of course. It will also matter to those who feel sure that their own several and severing certitudes might have been a north star for all. Otherwise, he will be blamed only if he is thought to be personally responsible for the enthusiams of a centrifugal moment. On the western shore of the Atlantic, that view seems unlikely.

I am sure Dr Williams will be a brilliant master of a college. He has had a very difficult job as ABC. I wonder what direction his theological writings will take, especially if he addresses issues dividing the AC on his watch.  Sadly, his time was rather hijacked by the unilateral actions of a tiny no in 2003 and he might have achieved much more, and more happily, if he were not dealing with the divisive conflagration started in the US. That fire might have been put out if he had followed Windsor but I think his decision re Lambeth invitations in 08 was a great mistake, going against Windsor, allowing divisive people to continue tearing the fabric of the AC even though they represent very few indeed. I certainly wish him the very best for the future, and hope he does not become an ally of revisionists in his writings..... and I confess to wondering if we get someone much more dangerous to AC unity and faithfulness to scripture in his place.  Maybe that would be good if it prevents any pretence of unity and leads to a great split which might be healthier than more years of trying to square the circle with revisionists fracturing AC unity. But, I hope that the CofE will remain a faithful member of the AC ..... in communion and not tearing it under the next ABC  - whoever he is.

I felt quite sad when I first hear that ++ Rowan is to resign as archbishop of Canterbury later this year although I wish him and Jane well for their lives in Cambridge.  He has a deep love for scholarship as well as a pastoral heart and I look forward to further reflection and compassionate theology from him.

His has been an extremely difficult role over this past decade and he has experienced flak from both conservatives and liberals.  Even so he has bravely held the centre ground between traditionalists, evangelicals, catholics and liberals and done his best to hold the contrary views on women's ordination and gay relationships in balance.

Rupert Shortt, his biographer, has it right I feel when, writing in Saturday's Guardian, he says, 'History will judge Rowan Williams to have been a great archbishop of Canterbury in all sorts of ways, many yet unsung.....I sometimes wonder whether more fractious members of his flock realise how lucky they have been to have him.'