Rowan Williams, Admired

Perhaps you've heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury's resignation; I wish him all the best. While reading up on the topic I happened upon an article over at The Atlantic from a few years ago; though its author's biases are obvious, it's worth reading, if only to better understand Dr Williams's motivations. A particular passage caught my attention:

[Williams] came to the threshold to preach to two dozen of us on Paul's remarks in the First Epistle to the Corinthians "concerning the unmarried" — the passage in which the saint first advises people, married or unmarried, to hold to the state they are in, and then in the next breath tells them to disregard the bond of marriage after all, for the world is passing away.

I couldn't help but hear Williams's description of the saint as a description of himself, a man saved from his contradictoriness by his obvious integrity. "That's a hard text to preach on," he began. "Paul is thinking on his feet: 'Of course on the other hand,' he says, and 'Well, that is true, but however...' But Paul, for all his hemming and hawing, has a clear point to make. This is not it. Capital letters. I.T. Whatever you’re doing — your job, your passion — there is something more."

However well or poorly you think Dr Williams has done in his post as Archbishop, it's pretty clear that he is indeed a man of integrity. More than any recent religious thinker I can name, he reminds us that Truth and ambiguïty are not always mutually exclusive. It takes a certain intellectual honesty to recognize this. It is unfortunate we do not expect such honesty from our religious and political leaders more often.