Forgive me if I lack faith in this new Archbishop

Swept along by the greatest tide of media approval since William Temple was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942, is anyone allowed even a faint voice of doubt about the Most Reverend Rowan Williams' accession to Primacy of All England. Anyone, that is, except over-excited evangelicals getting hot under the dog collar about his views on homosexuals among the clergy.

For even the Church has now been subjected to the tabloid obsession that only Sex can define a debate or a public figure. Which probably worries the new Archbishop not at all. Whatever else he may be presented as, Williams is no retiring contemplative dragged unwillingly from his monastery, like Basil Hume, to head a hierarchy.

This is a man who relishes the task of public debate, is supremely confident in his views and has been the subject of a press coverage of almost unqualified praise. Look at BBC's documentary on Sunday ­ not a single word of doubt in nearly an hour. The same with all the newspapers at the weekend.

Perhaps it is unfair to feel a tinge of inappropriateness in seeing a man of cloth so eager for the limelight. Thomas a Becket was a man of overweening temporal ambition and he ended up a Church martyr and a saint to boot. Rowan Williams wants this job because he feels that the Church, and Christianity, has something to say on the issues of the time, that the Church of England has been too long backward in saying it and that he has the natural gifts of communication and media manipulation to do it.

There are those in this now secular country who feel that there is no reason to listen to the man just because he wears a frock. Indeed, a great many feel that it is ridiculous that anyone should set himself up to propound on moral questions on the grounds that he represents an established church that shouldn't exist at all. But then there are equally many, non-churchgoers included, who think it good that there is a voice outside politics who sings to a different hymn sheet than the time servers and placemen who make up the common weal today.

The talk of battles with the Prime Minister have been much exaggerated. Of course Williams may cause embarrassment in his opposition to an Iraqi war. But that does Tony Blair no real harm. It helps him to present himself as a man struggling with hard issues and taking difficult decisions. Overall Williams is exactly the man that Mr Blair, a keen churchgoer with a strong interest in theology, likes: orthodox on questions of belief, to the left on social issues.

That is fine for those who see the role of the Church of England as a spokesperson for Christian conscience. But therein lies a contradiction that Williams and his supporters are loath to admit. His pulpit as a moral voice comes from his position as head of the established church of the state, a function which he himself would wish to be rid of. The Church of Wales is disestablished, why not the Church of England? You can't have it both ways, however. You can't rail against the pomp and circumstance of office and still want a reserved seat in the House of Lords from which to do it.

Being a state religion isn't just a matter of having a political platform, and being subject to political interference. Traditionally it has also been a matter of providing a spiritual presence in the community, a right to the sacraments of birth, death and marriage, the ability to call on a priest in your hour of need.

Seen from the point of view of an unbelieving majority today these might not seem much. But seen from the view of the actual congregation of a Church whose active members are now down to the status of an endangered species, they are anything but irrelevant.

To them the questions that seem to trouble Rowan Williams ­ whether priests wear jeans or the cassock, whether homosexuals should be admitted to the priesthood or whether you have to believe the Virgin Birth as actual or metaphorical ­ don't loom that large. The questions that trouble us are the more familiar ones ­ how to live a good life loving one's neighbour as oneself, what it means to live in a Christian community and the struggle to walk humbly with one's God. And the practical issues press hard upon us in our little parish ­ the fact that we've taken more than five years to find a priest, the money needed to restore the Church, the fate of the last vicar who dipped his hands into the collection plate, all the egos and the tensions that come to the fore in an institution in decline.

Kneeling, as I do each week, as part of a congregation of eight or 10 in a church built for several hundred, I cannot help asking gloomily whether, if the Church of England were disestablished tomorrow and disappeared a few years later, anyone would feel the loss. The churches would soon be taken over by the Church of Rome and English Heritage, or converted to flats. The congregation would be divided between Catholics and the evangelicals.

Rowan Williams is no doubt everything they say ­ charismatic, a brilliant theologian and an energetic preacher. But he has only very limited experience of being a parish priest and little knowledge of where most of us in a secular, urban England come from. When it comes to today's Church, a prelate for all the press is not the same as a priest for all the people. I pray that he may prove the latter. But it is, I acknowledge, a prayer based more on faith than belief.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk