Episode 03: Rowan Williams

Interview Date: 11 June 2020. Interviewer: Dr Jason Clark. Research and questions by Dr Simon Machin.

Rowan Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding theological scholar and poet.

Previously Archbishop of Wales, in 2002 he was confirmed as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, standing down in 2012, before becoming Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge between 2013 and 2020.

Dr Williams has written extensively on Christian spirituality Anglicanism and the intersection of theology and literature.

Looking East in Winter: Contemporary thought and the Eastern Christian tradition was published by Bloomsbury in June 2021

Rowan Williams - Timed Interview Summary

 0:00 – 18:14

Early life in Wales. Parents were native to the village of Ystradgynlais. Rowan’s parents did not come from pious backgrounds but would have identified with chapel culture which was still strong in Wales into the 1950s and 1960s. Wales’s history of liberal and leftist culture and politics going back to the beginning of the twentieth century still resonated, ‘a Richard Hoggart, bottom-up culture’, although his parent’s politics were conservative. His father came from a mining family but engineering training in the RAF during the war gave him an exit pass to the lower middle class as a civil service engineer. His mother’s family were of farming stock and had been in the village since the eighteenth century. Reflections upon the secularization of Welsh life since the 1950s.    

18:15 – 22:17

Welsh hymnody, William Williams Pantycelyn (no relation) and the hymn, Cwm Rhondda - sung at Rowan William’s investiture as Archbishop of Canterbury. The importance of the sense of journey (‘pilgrim in this barren land’) and longing in the poetry of William Williams Pantycelyn. 

22:18 – 31:23

Almost dies of meningitis when very young and remains an only child. Conscious of his parents’ heavy emotional load. Family went to chapel in Cardiff. Large Sunday School in Cardiff provides a saturation in the bible week after week which provides important spiritual formation. Benefits from Presbyterian energy and excitement. Welsh culture and the importance given to education. In the Williams’ household, education was ‘front and centre’. Neither parent had gone to college.

31:24 – 44:12

Family moves back to the Mumbles, Swansea, which retained then a village atmosphere. On Passion Sunday, two weeks before Easter, Rowan visits the local Anglo-Catholic church and is ‘blown away’ by the service. Returns with parents. The vicar of the church, Eddie James becomes an inspiration and mentor, an advocate of an intellectually unafraid and socially committed faith, and ‘a great lender of books’. History of Anglo-Catholicism from the 19c, its environment and legacy, including the courage and commitment of the Anglo-Catholic slum priests. 

44:13– 55:31 

Studies theology at Cambridge University in the 1960s. Important teachers, C F D (Charles) Moule and Donald MacKinnon, who had been associated earlier in his career with members of the Christendom Group, Vigo Demant and Maurice Reckitt. Cambridge student life in the 1960s.  

55:32 – 1:10:09 

Key moments as a theology undergraduate when he sees the integration of the Christian faith and ‘the reality shining through’ and senses that he will become a teacher of theology (amongst other things). A teenage interest in Russian music, art and literature is rekindled while an undergraduate through contact with the Russian émigré Nicolas Zemov and his work on the 20c Russian Christian renaissance before the First World War. Provides inspiration for postgraduate study at Oxford University, writing a thesis on the theology of Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky. Reflections on the Russian philosophical and theological term, Sobornost. Equivalences with and differences from the idea of the Catholic. Its roots in the concept of the gathered, Christian community. The distinction drawn between being a person and being an individual.   

1:10:10 – 1:17:16  

Anglican Social Theology. Rowan’s recent speech about radical priest, Conrad Noel, the Red (‘Communist’) Vicar of Thaxted in rural Essex and friend of G K Chesterton. Noel transforms the church into a model of liturgical beauty and encourages social community activity, notably Morris dancing. The vision of Christian socialism rests on two things. Firstly, an overwhelming sense of the Incarnation and the implications of Trinitarian theology, and secondly the responsibility laid on Christian discipleship of transforming human relations.  Rowan’s own participation in the revival of interest in Christian Socialism in the 1970s with the Reverend Kenneth Leech through the Jubilee Group and its alertness on liturgy, art and the environment. 

1:17:17 – 1:20:59  

Rowan takes up residence at the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire, an Anglican community set up in 1892 by the Anglican Bishop, Charles Gore.  evangelicalism from other forms of Christianity.   The legacy of two members, anti-Apartheid campaigner Trevor Huddleston and John Neville Figgis, a distinguished theorist of political and religious community.

1:21:00 – 1:29:10  

More on the Jubilee Group and fellow influencer, Kenneth Leech, the Rector of St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green. Leech sets up Centrepoint to counter youth homelessness and is Director of the Runnymede Trust. Part of a move to counter racist activities in the East End of London by the National Front, challenging the Church of England’s laziness on the subject of race. Parallels with the current situation and the importance of listening.

1:29:11 – 1:34:32

The Williams family return to Wales when Rowan becomes Bishop of Monmouth, and subsequently Archbishop of Wales. Experiences the interplay between academic theology and the pastoral life of the priest. Theology as the ‘motor in the engine’ for human transformation. Eleven years in Wales, a very happy time building friendships in the parishes. 

1:34:33 – 1:41:51 

Becomes Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002. Discussion of how far it is possible to incorporate social theology into such a large role. Sees public reflection as part of an Archbishop’s responsibility but maintains the personal touch through school visits, support to homeless projects in Canterbury and overseas trips.  For twelve years Rowan maintains written correspondence with children in a school in east Manchester after a child writes to him. A ‘life giver’ in the face of all the other huge responsibilities.

1:41:52 - 1:44:29

After his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury becomes Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Is Patron of a Cambridge food bank and safe house for young women at risk. Worries that human rights have become forensic and claims-oriented and divorced from the notion of a good society and that major strains are being placed upon democracy.

1:44:30 – 1:57:22 

The social limits to a capitalist society. How can liturgical practices impact the consumerism of modern society to turn Christians back to the common life? Insights from Russian theology: ‘the liturgy after the liturgy.’ Meaning-bearing patterns affecting life outside the church. The need to take more time with each other, facing into the same divine mystery. Discussion of the twin dangers of theology disdaining the economic or indulging in ivory tower economics and of the sort of failure of ethics which results in the 2008 financial crisis.

1:57:23 – 2:01:10

Response to the pandemic, rediscovery of the natural world and capacity to restrict ourselves for the benefit of others, looking for a political discourse growing out of these recognitions.