Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has announced that he will resign at the end of this year. He is to become master of Magdalene College, Cambridge next year.
This is OMG HUGE news! On the one hand, the Anglican Communion will be free of a spineless technocrat who refused to stand up to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. But, on the other hand, his replacement could be even worse.
The early favorite to replace Williams is Dr. John Sentamu, the current Archbishop of York. Sentamu, who fled Uganda in 1974 due to his criticism of the dictator Idi Amin, is a former attorney (barrister) and judge who is known for his strong stance on social issues. He once cut up his clerical collar as a protest against the regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and he also once spent a week living in a tent in York Minster, fasting for victims of violence in the Middle East. Sentamu is vehemently opposed to same sex marriages, but supports civil unions, which should put him on a collision course with KJS and her minions in TEC. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London (known for his environmental activism, but opposed to the ordination of female bishops), Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester (who recently took a very public stance against benefit caps), and Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford, are some other names mentioned as possible successor.
Let’s all pray that +++ Williams’ replacement is a faithful steward of the Anglican cause. As someone else said, Williams “rubbed his fevered brow with his fevered hands while everything burned around him. History will not be kind to the Archbishop who did so little and yet wrought so much devastation”.