The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, announced his resignation last week, effective by the end of this year.
Unlike popes or patriarchs, it’s not unusual for the spiritual head of the Church of England to duck out before dying.
What is unusual is to see a man as well regarded and loved as Williams leave so soon.
The Episcopalian Church is an international subdivision of the Anglican Communion.
Anglican literally means “Church of England” in Latin, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the highest effective office in the Anglican/Episcopalian Faith.
The actual highest office belongs to the Queen of England, of course, but that’s primarily a ceremonial distinction.
The Anglicans broke away from the Catholic Church when Pope Clement VII denied Henry VIII’s request for a divorce, and they’ve been doing their own thing pretty much ever since.
The Episcopalians have always been quite a bit more liberal than their Roman cousins, and Williams has continued that tradition with gusto.
Love him or hate him, Williams is a titan in the world religious community.
He was “enthroned” in 2002 and has been surrounded by controversy ever since – something not new to Williams.
As a young priest in the 1980s, Williams traveled to the U.S. and sung psalms outside of nuclear weapons depots and U.S. military bases.
He and his parishioners were thrown in jail.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Williams was giving a lecture a few feet from the World Trade Center when the towers were hit.
 
In reference to al-Qaida, Williams said, “bombast [and rhetoric] about evil individuals does not help anything,” and he urged the West to address the issue of terrorism with a level head.
Williams is one of the good ones. He’s the sort of believer who sticks to his guns – he stands up for what he thinks is right, a quality lacking today, especially among traditional religious leaders.
Three years after 9/11, he was invited to speak on the subject of Christianity by Al-Azhar University in Cairo – one of the most renowned Islamic institutions in the world.
While speaking at Al-Azhar, Williams told the audience that the followers of God should never find their way into violence.
Williams came under fire back home for encouraging greater understanding among the faiths and suggesting the U.K. had nothing to fear from the influx of Muslim and Hindu immigrants it has experienced over the last several decades.
It almost got him drawn and quartered.
Williams has been incredibly critical of consumerism and called every transaction in the industrialized West an “act of aggression” against the poor and exploited who man the sweatshops and factories of the Third World.
The stance got him labeled an “enemy of the free market.”
Furthermore, he has fought tirelessly to avoid the schism currently threatening to rip the Anglican Communion asunder: the fact that American Episcopalian churches have begun appointing homosexual bishops and priests.
Williams has tried to find a middle path that might keep his church together. He has tried to spare 77 million Episcopalians the pain of watching their faith go down in flames – at least the faith as it is now.
And it’s most likely his inability to please either side in this particular conflict that has caused him to give up his job and seek a quiet retirement.
The loss of Rowan Williams as a player on the world religious stage is going to do much more harm than good.
It’s indicative of a further narrowing of perspectives. Everyday and everywhere people seem to be more and more determined to divide themselves.
We exist in a world where folks just can’t stomach the idea of tolerating the opposition, the alien and the foreign.
The Episcopalians aren’t just losing a good leader in Williams – we’re all losing a role model.
 
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year-old history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierc.
 
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Contact Nicholas Pierce at [email protected]