Church of England: An Evangelical at Canterbury

He will lead the Church of England through its self-proclaimed “Decade of Evangelism,” and he will also very likely oversee the introduction of women priests into the Mother Church of Anglicanism. As the one-hundred-second successor to Saint Augustine as archbishop of Canterbury, he will take the church he has inherited into the twenty-first century.

He is George Leonard Carey, at 54 the youngest man in more than six decades to be called to the Primacy of All England and the leadership of the world’s 70 million Anglicans and Episcopalians. A leader in the evangelical wing of the church, with sympathies to the charismatic renewal movement, Carey’s appointment in many ways has broken the Canterbury mold.

Unlike his predecessors, Carey was born of working-class parents in London’s East End. He left school at 15 and worked as an office boy. Converted two years later, he decided to make something of his life for God. After serving with the Royal Air Force in the Middle East, he put himself through a crash course of study that gained him entry to theological college and eventually led to a Ph.D., specializing in the early church fathers.

Another unusual aspect of Carey’s background is his seven years as a working vicar—more parish experience than had the past four archbishops combined. His other posts have been in theological education and as bishop of Bath and Wells, a predominantly rural diocese in the west of England.

Few observers placed Carey’s name on their list of likely replacements when Archbishop Robert Runcie announced last April that he would be stepping down next January, eight months ahead of mandatory retirement at age 70. Carey himself scoffed at the idea. He was too young, had served only two-and-a-half years as a bishop, and had little experience of ecclesiastical politics or the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Evangelical Rank And File

The commonly held view was that the job would go to either the strongly liberal John Habgood, archbishop of York, or the liberal evangelical David Sheppard, bishop of Liverpool, with Carey coming into the reckoning next time around.

But the Crown Appointments Commission, charged with nominating Runcie’s successor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, decided that the church’s predominantly liberal leadership was out of step with the increasingly evangelical rank and file. The commission surprised everybody with the speed and boldness of its choice. Carey himself said he was “dazed and unworthy.”

Carey’s writings and utterances are characterized by an evangelical submission to the authority of Scripture, though he is no literalist; the insights of critical scholarship have, he says, helped to unlock the Bible’s message for him. He is unequivocal on the historicity of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection and constantly emphasizes the need for personal conversion and the life-changing nature of Christian faith. He takes a traditional line on homosexuality but fervently supports the ordination of women. He has strong social convictions, especially about the environment, but he is likely to voice them less often than his predecessor and other leading churchmen.

Aside from extreme radicals and the homosexual lobby, Carey’s appointment has been generally welcomed, especially by evangelicals. Clive Calver, director of the Evangelical Alliance, said Carey was “a fine choice to lead the church into a decade of evangelism.” The Church of England Evangelical Council described him as “exactly what we wanted; a perfect match.” The only sour note came from the Protestant Church Society, which accused Carey of being too friendly with Rome and too ready to ditch “received evangelical teaching.”

Carey’s attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church is certainly warmer than many who share his theology. In his book The Meeting of the Waters, (published in America as A Tale of Two Churches), which is about reconciliation between the Catholic and Protestant traditions, he expresses high hopes for the eventual reunion of the two streams of Western Christendom. He says he has learned a great deal from Catholic spirituality.

Charismatics, with whom Carey has also been identified, have so far been silent. This may reflect his own ambivalence to the renewal movement. In 1972, when his spiritual life was at a low ebb, he had a deep experience of the Holy Spirit that revitalized his faith. During his seven years as a parish priest, he turned a traditional, conservative “petrol station” church (where the congregation filled their spiritual tanks once a week) into a lively community center, raising more than £300,000 (over $700,000) to modernize the building and introducing charismatic emphases into the worship.

Carey, however, rejects a two-stage concept of charismatic theology—conversion followed by “baptism in the Spirit”—which, he says, is contrary to the New Testament. He believes Christians should experience continual “renewal in the Spirit” as part of their growth in grace. He is grateful for the influence of the charismatic movement in his own life but sees it as one stream among many in the church.

By its imaginative choice, the Crown Appointments Commission has already proved that the Church of England, so often written off as a lost cause, can still spring a few surprises now and then. The signs are that as Carey comes to terms with a job many regard as “impossible,” a job he can fill for up to 16 years, the biggest surprises may be yet to come.

By John Capon in London.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.