Sorry to sound sectarian, but the Archbishop of Canterbury should really be able to articulate a preference for Anglicanism over other variants of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism. Interviewed here in this week’s Spectator, he was more or less invited to do so; instead he said that he was entirely positive about Anglican priests converting to Rome. Hard to imagine the Pope saying the same thing in reverse. Ecumenical enthusiasm is all very nice, but a Church is in trouble if it can’t say why people should stay within it, or choose it over other options.
So what is Anglicanism’s selling point? The answer is unfashionable but unavoidable: its socio-political liberalism. Note that I do not say simply ‘liberalism’. For one form of liberalism, in theology, is not at all helpful: the sort of liberalism that over-promotes rational humanism, undermining respect for traditional religious teachings and practices.
The Church of England should unashamedly tell a story that middlebrow types will dismiss as ‘Whiggish’.
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