Does the ideal Archbishop of Canterbury exist in the current Church of England?

(Photo: Church of England)

A letter in the Church Times from a frontline parish minister deserves to be at the top of the agenda for the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) as it decides who should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Rev James Dudley-Smith's list of personal and spiritual qualifications for the ideal candidate in the January 10 edition of the paper are worth citing in full:

"Someone who has real experience of parish incumbency.
 Someone who knows that the Church of England is its local churches.
 Someone who would be happy to discard deferential titles and mitres.
 Someone who does the hard work of following due process, or changing it by due process.
 Someone who does not try to govern the Church of England.
 Someone who has not tried to impose a diocesan strategy.
 Someone who will teach the doctrine of Christ as the Church of England has received it.
 Someone in whom I can see Jesus.
 Someone who is not able to make a text mean the opposite of what it plainly means.
 Someone who would be willing to receive the same stipend as the rest of us.
 Someone who would pray and work for more followers of Jesus.
 Someone who will do much more church than politics.
 Someone who is not omnicompetent — and knows it.
 Someone who has a track record of kindness to family and colleagues.
 I'll keep praying."

James serves as Rector of St John's Church in Yeovil, Somerset, and is the son of the celebrated evangelical hymn writer, Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926-2024), a former Bishop of Thetford in Norfolk. 

In his Church Times letter, he gets his point across with powerful subtlety. The chances of a humble Christian, a faithful teacher of the biblical faith and a servant-hearted pastor, rather than a power-playing careerist, being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in the contemporary Church of England are next to zero.

Save the Parish campaigner, Emma Thompson, put it well in her article in The Times newspaper, titled Justin Welby's successor needs to halve the 'upstairs church', which was published on January 6 - the day he stepped down as Archbishop of Canterbury:

"The overriding necessity is to appoint a godly, unifying, humble person with the leadership skills to get a grip on a top-heavy bureaucracy.

"One difficulty is the small size of the field, if you limit it to the 42 diocesan bishops and rule out those approaching 70 (clergy retirement age). Historically, episcopal appointments used to alternate between different wings or factions, which avoided narrowing the Church's appeal and alienating potential supporters.

"However, it is widely felt that Welby has 'packed' the bench of bishops with others who share his managerial style of churchmanship. Many of the names bandied about as potential successors would be an unbalanced continuation from his wing of the Church."

As CNC members gather under the chairmanship of Lord (Jonathan) Evans, a former director-general of MI5, to nominate to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer the next Archbishop of Canterbury, they might be advised to modify one of Dudley-Smith's points.

He says the ideal Archbishop of Canterbury should not be "able to make a text mean the opposite of what it plainly means". It would arguably be better to state that the candidate should be someone who is not willing to twist the plain meaning of biblical texts.

The Book of Common Prayer's Order for the Consecration of an archbishop or bishop states that the candidate must be "ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word".

Surely in order to refute heresy it is necessary to have a deep intellectual understanding of it. So, should not the ideal Archbishop of Canterbury be someone who would be intellectually able to promote persuasive heresy but spiritually and morally unwilling to do so?

This Prayer Book Collect for an Archbishop at his consecration resonates strongly with the Dudley-Smith list of spiritual qualifications:

"Most merciful Father, we beseech thee to send down upon this thy servant thy heavenly blessing; and so endue him with thy Holy Spirit, that he, preaching thy Word, may not only be earnest to reprove, beseech, and rebuke with all patience and doctrine; but also may be to such as believe a wholesome example, in word, in conversation, in love, in faith, in chastity, in purity; that, faithfully fulfilling his course, at the latter day he may receive the crown of righteousness laid up by the Lord the righteous Judge, who liveth and reigneth one God with the Father and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen."

Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.