Rowan Williams: The patron saint of disruption

Prudent. Discreet. Kind. Clever. A thoroughly nice bloke. This is what they say about the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He is all these things, and a beardy to boot. But don't be fooled. He doesn't pull his punches on the big issues.

There is a good chance that, at lunchtime tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams will be feeling a bit of a prat. That is when he is officially made Archbishop of Canterbury; not back in July, when his name was selected by the Prime Minister, nor next February, when his big enthronement takes place at Canterbury, but in St Paul's Cathedral in a legal ceremony dating from 1534. He was elected by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury a fortnight ago (they aren't allowed to decline) and tomorrow's ceremony confirms that election. As the legal phrases roll around him ("schedules ... porrection"), Dr Williams might glance down at the white cuffs of his rochet, a tad frilly for a Welsh bard, and wonder what on earth he is doing.

Because he was always the favoured candidate, and the appointment process was so leaky, his honeymoon period happened before the marriage. Since his nomination, he has had to cope with various sections of the Church of England threatening divorce, sometimes in the most unchristian language. He might enjoy the moment in tomorrow's ceremony when objectors to his appointment are declared "contumacious".

It has been an extraordinarily hostile reception for a man who is transparently "prudent and discreet, deservedly laudable for his life and conversation", as he will be described tomorrow. He leaves Wales, after three years as its archbishop, to almost universal plaudits. "He is a very kind pastor, a great theologian and a great thinker," said one Welsh priest. "One of his great achievements has been to help churchpeople of different persuasions listen to each other," said another. "He is a great man," said a Welsh bishop. Note the repeated adjective.

Rowan Williams was born in 1950 and brought up in Swansea, where his father was a mining engineer. His academic ability was apparent early, and he went from grammar school to Cambridge, and then to Oxford for his doctorate. There was a short spell in the North, where he trained for ordination, then he repeated his Cambridge and Oxford tenures, first as Dean and Chaplain of Clare College, and then, aged 36, becoming the youngest professor at Oxford. He can lecture in five languages and reads several more. One of his Cambridge counterparts described him as "the best theologian in Britain".

In 1992 he surprised colleagues by accepting the post of Bishop of Monmouth, seen as a backwater by the Oxford élite. But the post spoke to his pastoral calling, and his Welsh roots, and it was a good place for Rowan and his wife, Jane, the daughter of a missionary bishop, to bring up their daughter (now 14) and produce a son (six). It wasn't long, though, before wistful glances were cast in his direction. Williams's name came up almost every time an English diocese fell vacant, and in 1997 he came close to being offered Southwark. But there were fierce wrangles at the time between anti- and pro-gay lobbies in the diocese, and when Dr Carey, the former archbishop, invited Dr Williams to distance himself from his pro-gay writings on the subject, he declined. Shortly afterwards he was appointed Archbishop of the Church in Wales. Carey, an evangelical with a traditional view of homosexuality, timed his retirement just right, allowing Williams to leave Wales with a sense of achievement, rather than a sense of guilt at abandoning his homeland.

Nearly three decades of academic work have left a large paper trail, including 16 or more books, for anyone who wants to find fault with Rowan Williams's theology, but the hunt will be a long and difficult one. In general, his theology is orthodox, nurtured by Anglo-Catholicism, Russian mysticism, and scores of encounters with other traditions. Many of his ethical positions are orthodox, too ­ he is opposed to abortion, for example ­ but homosexuality has been the cause of his recent difficulties. Several years ago he employed a priest he knew to be living in a homosexual relationship, unlike the many bishops who take care not to know about any relationships. It was this, coupled with his conviction that the Church should reassess its approach to faithful gay partnerships, that alarmed conservative evangelicals and drew criticism. Because of his self-imposed reticence over these past four months, his critics have had the field to themselves; but last week he said he would not go against the current position of the Anglican Church, and would not therefore ordain someone in a homosexual partnership. Will the row die down? We'll see.

What he can't afford is for a significant number of evangelical churches to withdraw from the Church of England, taking their congregations and their cash but leaving those big expensive buildings. There is already a tricky piece of footwork to be done to keep Anglo-Catholic churches from splitting off when, as most people expect, the Church decides to consecrate women as bishops. Wholesale schism is extremely unlikely; nevertheless, the Church of England needs to keep as many priests and parishioners as it can. The number of full-time, paid priests fell by 14 per cent in the past decade, and one projection puts attendance at 500,000 by 2030, little more than half the present figure. Dr Williams disparages the trappings of a state Church (he can be heard doing so on BBC2 tonight) but this is a minor matter compared to the economic and staffing crisis facing the Church. His time in office might well see the end of the parish system ­ the myth that the Church of England provides a blanket of pastoral care over the whole country.

Williams's response is to put aside the gloom and obsession with manipulating figures that characterised the failed "Decade of Evangelism" of his predecessor. In his acceptance speech he spoke of "a confidence that arises from being utterly convinced that the Christian creed and the Christian vision have in them a life and a richness that can embrace and transfigure all the complexities of human life". He went on to describe a kind of confidence "that saves us from being led by fashion, by the issues of the day: the truth for and about human beings is not something that can be decided simply by the majority vote of our culture". It might be a recipe for withdrawing into an other-wordly piety, but no one who knows Dr Williams's left-wing credentials believes that for a minute.

Instead, it is an approach that looks set to make him a disruptive political influence in the years ahead: a commentator who can criticise Disney because he doesn't need their advertising; a critic of war in Iraq because he has as many connections with the Middle East as with the United States; a spokesman for social outcasts because, in his game, injustice trumps fiscal policy every time. The present government will find him hard to handle, and the right-wing press is just biding its time.

It is hard to describe a paragon convincingly, but that is what Rowan Williams is, and likeable too. It is also hard to live with a paragon, as the Church of England will find out shortly. Crucially, how hard is it to be a paragon, when the usual methods of self-preservation ­ wiliness, evasion, caution, obfuscation ­ are as yet unlearnt? Can such goodness survive in public life? It's something we have to believe in.

The writer is editor of the 'Church Times'