Canterbury for comic relief.

If the Archbishop of Canterbury did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Not, I hasten to add, for any spiritual or even ecclesiastical reason; spiritually he is as necessary to the propagation of the Christian faith as tiaras are to whales; ecclesiastically, he presides over an often ribald institution in terminal decline. But for comic relief, for the unerring instinct the office-holder, whoever he may be, possesses for making an ass of himself, for clownish turns on a tatterdemalion set, for jamming the cross-gartered foot down his own throat--all this is wonderful to behold. In this respect at least, the current incumbent, Rowan Williams, does not disappoint.

The Archbishop's latest initiative is to write the Foreword to a new "translation" of the Bible called As Good as New. This book, by John Henson, follows the well-marked path of modernizing language and, in the process, standing meaning on its head. The new trendy Bible not only resorts to nicknames ("Maggie" for Mary Magdalene, "Rocky" for Peter) but reverses the historic teaching of the church.

Thus St. Paul's strictures against fornication become, in the Henson version, an invitation to licentiousness, while God's words from Heaven, at Jesus' baptism ("This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased"), are now rendered: "That's my boy. You're doing fine."

One could quote more in like vein, but nausea precludes.

None of this apparently bothers Dr. Rowan Williams; in his Foreword, Williams calls this new abomination "... a vehicle for thinking and worshipping that is fully earthed."

Well, he should know. Before Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury, he earthed himself by becoming a Druid. In an open-air, early morning ceremony in Wales he donned white cloak and headdress, stood in a circle of stones in which a six-and-a-half-foot sword was unsheathed and sheathed, and was admitted into the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards. One observer dubbed the spectacle "Monty Pythonesque"; another said that Dr. Williams looked like "... a frighteningly transgendered nun."

As Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams has had the unenviable job of presiding over a fractured communion dominated financially by Europe and North America, rich, but with openly apostate, dying churches; and third world Anglicans (principally in Asia and Africa), where the church often is poor, but the parishioners' faith is orthodox and thriving. It is poor Rowan Williams' job to try to keep this divided house standing.

The basic reality today is that the Anglican Church is growing where it proclaims an orthodox and evangelical faith, and it is dying where it proclaims a feckless, inclusive liberalism. The latter was on display when Canada's recent General Synod decided not to bless same-sex "marriages" because to do so would be unscriptural; yet the very next morning the Synod delegates passed a resolution affirming the "sanctity" of same-sex unions.

Rowan Williams comes unquestionably from the feckless, liberal branch of Anglicanism, particularly on the issue that is currently tearing the church apart--homosexuality. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been widely reported (and has not denied) having ordained openly homosexual clergy.

In a Question and Answer session at a university in Uganda, Williams danced around the issue by telling students: "... in different cultures in the world, the language people use to talk about sexuality becomes more and more different. The things that people take for granted in traditional societies are less and less taken for granted in societies in the North Atlantic world. How to talk across that gulf becomes harder and harder."

Well, Rowan Williams will try to talk across any gulf--and how he talks! He is a sort of theological counterpart to motor-mouth Jack Layton. For example, to the straightforward question posed at the Ugandan University: "What is your view of homosexuality?" the parts of Williams' answer that I have quoted represent less than a tenth of the bafflegab that followed. One source, incidentally, that Dr. Williams never mentioned in his prolix answer as shedding any light on the issue was Holy Scripture.

A previous Archbishop of Canterbury once leapt to his feet in a crowded theatre at the conclusion of a performance of Godspell to shout out: "Long live God!"; roughly equivalent, as Malcolm Muggeridge pointed out, to "Carry on time!" or "Keep ticking, eternity!".

Anyone seeking spiritual direction should give the Archbishop of Canterbury wide berth; but for stand-up comedy, good old Rowan is not far off his namesake, Robin.

Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Western University.