Thursday 8 November 2012

An inexperienced mediocrity becomes Archbishop of Canterbury

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It seems that a chap called Justin Welby is going to become the leader of the third largest Christian denomination in the world (my denomination...) - a man who makes-up in inexperience what he lacks in distinction; and who - if he fails to display any visible sign of exceptional holiness - is an accomplished bureaucrat.

It is hard to imagine a less inspiring or hopeful choice for the job.

The appointment is an absolutely typical outcome of committee voting, since I doubt if there was any single individual on the panel (or indeed in the whole Anglican Communion) who would have had Welby as their first choice; so we have a person who has the position purely because anybody better met-up-with intransigent opposition.

On thing seems for certain: the Holy Ghost had nothing to do with it.

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5 comments:

JP said...

Can he possibly be worse than the appalling Rowan Williams, enemy of truth, beauty, and goodness, Destroyer of the Faith?

David Duff said...

But will he reduce the number of fatuous speeches emitted by his predecessor? It would be a Christian kindness if he did!

Bruce Charlton said...

It will be a change from inspissated and irrelevant scholasticism to bureaucratic boilerplate. I wouldn't call it progress...

Proph said...

I read that he has been bishop for about a year. Such a meteoric rise in such a leftist climate immediately calls everything about him into question.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Proph - 'meteoric rise' implies that he is some kind of phenomenon, but nothing could be further from the case.

Don't take my word for it - read some of his writings (if you can bear to - they are about the level of public relations copy for a medium sized government department).

A comparison with Benedict XVI is excruciatingly embarrassing in every way - yet up to Michael Ramsay (the last great A of C 1961-74), Anglican Primates were often more impressive figures than their contemporary Popes.