Rowan’s legacy

When Dominic Walker took over as Bishop of Monmouth he asked his secretary to provide more time in his programme for preparation for lectures and speeches. “We’re not used to that,” was the response. “We are used to Rowan going out of the door and saying ‘Just what was the title of the lecture I’m going to give?’.” The story comes from Andrew Goddard’s excellent new book ‘Rowan Williams: His Legacy’. Goddard reveals that Rowan once named Bonhoeffer as the theologian of the past 100 years with whom he would most like to sit down and share dinner. Told that Rowan was to be his successor as Lady Margaret Professor at Oxford, John Macquarrie remarked: “Ay, it’ll be fine if he’s out of jail at the time.” Rowan was briefly detained for taking part in an anti-nuclear protest and had to excuse himself from Evensong in Clare College Chapel on Ash Wednesday, 1986. Meeting the new Archbishop at a Welsh station for the first time Tony Benn asked him when disestablishment will come. ‘Well it will, but it will take a bit of time,’ was the reply. Read Goddard’s book not only for the story but for some perceptive analysis of Rowan Williams’ time at Lambeth Palace.