Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian has conducted a lengthy interview with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I haven’t read it all yet. The Guardian’s own story on the interview leads with Williams’ opposition to teaching creationism in schools.
The piece does include the following:
Speaking of the church’s situation in Africa, the archbishop issued snubs to two of the region’s archbishops. He described the position in central Africa, where Archbishop Bernard Malango has just absolved without trial Bishop Norbert Kunonga of Harare, accused by his parishioners of incitement to murder, as “dismal and deeply problematic” .
Dr Williams also criticised Archbishop Peter Akinola, leader of the largest single national church in the Anglican communion, in Nigeria, who has been accused of encouraging violence against Muslims during recent rioting by warning that Christian youth could retaliate against them. Dr Williams claimed the African primate had not made himself sufficiently clear: “He did not mean to stir up the violence … I think he meant to issue a warning which certainly has been taken as a threat, an act of provocation.”
Speaking of the gay debate which threatens to split the church, Dr Williams insisted he would continue to try to hold the communion together. “I can only say that I think I have got to try … For us to break apart in an atmosphere of deep mistrust, fierce recrimination and mutual misunderstanding is really not going to be in anybody’s good in the long run.” But he accepted there might come a moment where the Anglican Communion says “we can’t continue, we can’t continue with this”.
And Rusbridger’s piece on the interview is here. It includes this tart passage about liberals who feel “dismayed by his apparent retreat in the face of ferocious fire from evangelicals and theological conservatives, most notably over the issue of gay priests. The archbishop’s defenders counter by blaming liberals for misreading the man who was catapulted from the relative obscurity of Monmouth to the full panoply of Canterbury three years ago. While certainly a social liberal, they say, Williams has always been a “radical traditionalist” in theological terms. This cuts only so much ice with some of his otherwise faithful flock. “The question you should ask him, but you can’t,” said one frustrated observer, “is, why should anyone care what his beliefs are if he’s never going to stand up for them?”