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Will the next Archbishop please stand up?

Not what it seems

WILL THE NEXT ARCHBISHOP PLEASE STAND UP?
By Ted Harrison
Zondervan. 172 pages. £9.99
ISBN 0 006 28140 0

Despite the title, this book is not really aiming to guess who the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be. It has some concluding chapters on the possible candidates, but is designed more as a popular introduction to the CofE and its most senior position.

For those ignorant of the Anglican churches and their history, there is undoubtedly useful information here, but the superficiality of its analysis of the current position means that there is little reason for evangelicals to read it. There is no attempt to look at church leadership from a biblical point of view.

It readily swallows the official line that more people go to church than appear from the regular attendance figures, ignoring the reality that the decline is continuing no matter how one measures it. It also sees charismatic churches as the ones which are growing, when there is good evidence from the 1998 English Church Attendance Survey that it is mainstream or conservative evangelicals that are noteworthy in this respect. The book's understanding of what Anglicanism is shows no signs of penetrating the fog of historical fiction created in the wake of the Oxford Movement.

But there are helpful features. The review of George Carey's period of office is fair. It flags up the relationship with the state and the disintegration of the Anglican Communion as the issues which will loom large for whoever is appointed as the next Archbishop. Harrison is right as well to affirm George Carey's observation (p. 57) that 'We are a society not antagonistic to faith, but in many cases distant from the claims of organised religion'. Yet there is no recognition that the reason for this state of affairs is that the Church of England is excessively preoccupied with its organisational life and neglects the gospel teaching which is necessarily its real foundation. I wonder too whether this book, like so many people, has unrealistic expectations of what an archbishop can do and change. Renewal of Christian life and outreach in this country ultimately depends on God blessing the ministry of His Word in the power of the Spirit.

Mark Burkill