Who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury?
by Julian Mann, Christian Today:
As the Church of England gears up to appoint a new Archbishop of Canterbury, the female candidates appear to be more able than the male contenders.
On January 6, the day Justin Welby stepped down, The Independent newspaper ran an article by Aine Fox, social affairs correspondent with the PA news agency: Who might be the next archbishop of Canterbury?
Her front-runners are: Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London; Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford; Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich; Michael Beasley, Bishop of Bath and Wells; Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester; Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover; and Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle.
Having spent many hours as a freelance journalist since I left C of E ministry in 2019 watching bishops in action at General Synod sessions, at press conferences and in the House of Lords, I would agree with Fox’s short-list.
I believe these are the candidates the 17-voting-member Crown Nominations Commission, chaired by Lord (Jonathan) Evans, a former director-general of the UK security service MI5, would be likely to consider as having the best leadership ability out of the 42 diocesan bishops of the established Church.
But what is striking in this list is the superiority according to modern leadership values of the female candidates. An analysis into why this situation has arisen so starkly in the leadership of the C of E might provide a budding academic with a doctoral thesis.
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