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| BOOK REVIEW - Rupert Short Rowan's Rule: |
| posted: Wednesday 4 November 2009 |
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 Book Review Revd Canon John Thomson, Director of Ministry November 2009.
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has had a tough call whatever you think about the issues he is engaged with. Yet one of the problems for those less immediately involved is to get behind the day to day media reports and see the man and his story. Rupert Shortt does us all a great service in this regard. We learn about Rowan Williams’s formative years as an intellectual protegy, about his poetry, his relationships and the tension between some of his earlier thinking and the limitations he feels the office of Archbishop of Canterbury has placed upon him in the context of the politics of the Anglican Communion. Short is a sympathetic but critical biographer, helping us to see the crucible in which Williams finds himself and something of the cost he has to bear. Simplistic solutions are not offered though questions about judgement, leadership and integrity are raised. Like many highly gifted people Williams has to grapple with unrealistic expectations about himself and about the transferability of academic gifts into a role such as Archbishop of Canterbury. There are both tragedy and glimpses of glory here and an implicit challenge to pray for Rowan Williams more compassionately. Do read the book particularly if you are critical of Rowan Williams’s approach. The book can be borrowed from the Resources Centre.
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2007 |
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