Archbishop Panel Split Over Church's Future [C of E]

The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 10/6/12 | Cole Moreton, and Edward Malnick

[marshmallow]

The panel meeting to appoint the successor to Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is split over the future of the Church.

It is the decision that 77 million Anglicans around the world are waiting for: who will become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

But nine days after the successor to Dr Rowan Williams was expected to have been named, the Crown Nominations Commission remains silent.

Its work is shrouded in secrecy, but a Sunday Telegraph investigation can reveal that its 16 members are split, not over women bishops or same sex marriages, but the future of the Church itself.

A substantial number of people on the panel would like a man who will reform the structures, finance and strategies of the Church of England and help “re-imagine” it for the modern age.

Their favourite is the Rt Rev Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, a 56-year-old former oil company executive, who is seen as the front-runner.

He is believed to have been chosen as the first of two names to be put to the Prime Minister and, ultimately, the Queen. However, the commission is divided about who the other man should be.

The plain-speaking Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has supporters who see him as a different kind of reformer, appealing to people beyond the Church and bringing energy and directness to the effort to arrest the decline in membership. The appointment to Canterbury of a man born in Uganda would also please many of the 77 million people in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Other panel members argue for the steadying hand of a caretaker Archbishop who will keep the Church close to the Crown and state, such as the Rt Rev Graham James, Bishop of Norwich. “This is about whether we go for the establishment status quo or go.....