The qualities needed in the next Archbishop of Canterbury

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’s how it must feel sometimes. The most difficult pressure comes from the press and anyone of any sensitivity is bound 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 new 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 Jusin Welby, from evangelical and charismatic backgrounds, drew on the disciplines of Catholic practise and discipline. In any case it is only by being daily and deeply rooted in Christ will anybody survive not just the exposure to the press but the relentless demands on their time and energies. And that points to the second quality which will be required: a capacity to prioritise the work.

The Arcbishop is not just the Chair of the House of Bishops responsible for running the Church of England, he is head of a national church with the expectation he will be able to say something meaningful to the country as a whole. He is also one of the ‘instruments of communion’ of the Anglican church worldwide and a focus of its 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 him or her to do this or that they 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 focussing 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 and their team there should be able to deal with all that adequately. Nor can we necessarily expect the new archbishop to be an outstanding theologian like Michael Ramsey or a public intellectual like Rowan Williams. But they 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 where Christianity has become a foreign language and what goes on in church strange if not alien. The present Archbishop of York has something of this gift -the new Archbishop 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 over 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 which evokes trust.

All the seven Archbishops of Canterbury I have known have brought some particular gifts to the role and I am sure the next one will have their own unique contribution to make. Although, as I have stressed, 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 ilk 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 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 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. It is not impossible. In all the hyped up nonsense on television someone like Monty Don comes across as the real thing, able to talk about gardening in a way which is authoritative, natural and authentic. He is a good role model for a new archbishop talking about the faith.

So how can the new archbishop cope? Like St Paul she or he 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.

Richard Harries. In his autobiography The Shaping of a Soul: a life taken by surprise, he has a chapter on the seven Archbishops of Canterbury he has known.