22. Time for a Mary After a Martha? The Next Archbishop of Canterbury

by Graham Kings

Date added: 12/02/2025

“I thought we had had enough of Martha and it was time for some Mary.”

So quipped Prime Minister Harold Macmillan about Queen Elizabeth II’s appointment of Michael Ramsey to succeed Geoffrey Fisher as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury (Owen Chadwick, Michael Ramsey, p. 107). Drawing on Luke 10, Macmillan was caricaturing “practicality” and “spirituality.”

Macmillan said to Ramsey, “Fisher doesn’t seem to approve of you.” Ramsey defended him. “Fisher,” he said, “was my headmaster and he has known all about my deficiencies for a long time.” “Well,” said MacMillan, “he is not going to be my headmaster.” (Owen Chadwick, Michael Ramsey, p. 107).

This 'Ponderings' is in four sections: first, I consider the six post-war Archbishops of Canterbury (1945-2012); second, I reflect on the archiepiscopate of Justin Welby (2013-25); third, I offer descriptions of six Church of England bishops who may turn out to be among the candidates to succeed Welby; and fourth, I outline the process of choosing the next Archbishop.

1. Six Post-War Archbishops of Canterbury, 1945-2012

Geoffrey Fisher (1945-61), headmaster-like and of centrist tradition, renewed Canon Law and inaugurated the autonomous Anglican Provinces of West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and South Africa.

Michael Ramsey (1961-74), an Anglo-Catholic and prayerful theologian, spoke against racism and the criminalization of gay people.

Donald Coggan (1974-80), a quiet, self-effacing liberal Evangelical, was a Hebrew scholar (favored by Fisher to succeed him), who initiated the “Call to the Nation.”

Robert Runcie (1980-91), honored tank commander and liberal Catholic classics scholar, prayed for Argentinians at the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral at the end of the Falklands War and instigated the Faith in the City report.

George Carey (1991-2002), an open Evangelical, born in the East End of London, steered the Women Priests legislation through General Synod and launched the Decade of Evangelism.

Rowan Williams (2003-12), from Wales, with no previous experience as a bishop in England, remains a renowned spiritual and philosophical theologian and poet whose legacy includes sponsoring Christian-Muslim “Building Bridges” seminars and the “Fresh Expressions of Faith” initiatives.

Usually, the appointment to Canterbury is seen as a pendulum swinging between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. With Justin Welby being seen as particularly managerial, perhaps a successor who is non-managerial may be wanted? More Mary than Martha?

2. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2013-25

“Why is there a telephone in your study?” I asked a student in Trinity College, Cambridge, in January 1978, when I stayed there prior to an interview at Ridley Hall. “Oh, that is left over from a previous student, Prince Charles. His detective insisted on it.”

So relayed Justin Welby. Very few people know that Welby, who would later crown King Charles III on 6 May 2023 in Westminster Abbey, had used the same set of rooms as the future king in Trinity College, Cambridge. Their years and subjects were, respectively: 1967-70 (archaeology and anthropology) and 1975-78 (history and law).

Is it fair to portray Justin Welby as the most Martha-like of archbishops since Fisher? Perhaps. After all, before ordination he traded in derivatives in the City of London and was the group treasurer of a large British oil exploration and production company, Enterprise Oil, in London at the age of 30. He brought this activism into his new role in 2013 and that year was appointed to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which produced the report Changing Banking for Good.

However, on the Mary side, he does have a profound and inspiring life of daily prayer and Holy Communion and has a charismatic Roman Catholic spiritual director. I have known him since December 1976, when we lived together for a week in the vicarage of St. Mary Magdalene, Islington, during Islington Week, an opportunity for evangelical students in Oxford and Cambridge to test out a vocation to ordination through immersion in the inner city.

I witnessed this aspect of his prayer life when I was Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion. He shared worship, three times a day, with the Community of St. Anselm, which he founded at Lambeth Palace as a gap year for young people from around the world, from any denomination, based on prayer, service, and study. His most extensive writing on prayer is his introduction to the book Listening Together: Global Anglican Perspectives on the Renewal of Prayer and the Religious Life, edited by Muthuraj Swamy and Stephen Spencer (2020). This was the culmination of one of his priorities for his archiepiscopate.

It may be worth pondering his achievements:

• visiting all the primates of the Anglican Communion (then 33), in their homes with his wife, Caroline, in his first 18 months in office, which laid the foundation for the successful make-or-break Primates’ Meeting in 2016;
• winning the “War on Wonga” in 2013, when an “off the cuff” remark on the BBC Radio 4 Today program led to the demise of the payday lender;
• enabling the vote in General Synod in 2014 for consecrating women bishops;
• organizing the funding from the Church Commissioners for building a new Lambeth Palace Library in Lambeth Palace garden, which opened in 2020;
• writing three books: Dethroning Mammon (2017), Reimagining Britain (2018 and 2021), and The Power of Reconciliation (2022);
• the preparations, meeting, and follow-up of the Lambeth Conference in 2022;
• his three priorities of reconciliation, evangelism, and prayer, which led to visits to dangerous contexts, deanery missions, and the founding of the Thy Kingdom Come annual ecumenical prayer movement during the nine days before Pentecost;
• publication of three pre-Lambeth Conference 2022 books on those themes, with chapters written by theologians from the Global South;
• the pastoral care involved, and the public services led, for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and for the Coronation of King Charles III;
• finally, encouraging the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order in the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals (published on 6 Dec 2024) to allow a new definition of being Anglican within the contours of Communion and a term-limited rotating presidency of the chair of the Primates’ Meeting and of the Anglican Consultative Council across the five regions of the Communion.

On the negative side, his actions to allow same-sex blessings in England have widened the split in the Anglican Communion on issues of sexuality. He was also impatient in trying to push through legislation in General Synod on a 53 percent majority for standalone services of blessings after same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. Although the legal and theological advice of officers given to the House of Bishops has, to date, been kept unpublished, some think that a two-thirds majority was recommended by them for such a major change in the doctrine of marriage.

In the end, following the detailed Makin Review on the crimes, and multiple cover-ups, of the abhorrent sadism of John Smyth, Justin Welby was right to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury. At first, on Channel Four News he gave a profound apology but insisted on carrying on.

Then an online petition calling for his resignation gathered 15,000 signatures, and a public rebuke by the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr. Helen-Ann Hartley, led to the announcement of his resignation on 12 November 2024: “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.”

Two weeks later, he badly misjudged his final speech in the House of Lords by beginning with flippant jokes about his resignation and failing to mention the victims of John Smyth. The next day he offered an apology for the speech. He stepped down on 6 January, the Feast of the Epiphany and his 69th birthday, exactly one year before he had planned to do so. It marked a sad, tragic, end to nearly 12 years of mission and ministry as Archbishop of Canterbury.

3. Six Possible Successors at Canterbury

There have indeed been some murmurings that 2025 is “time for some Mary.” So, who may be the Mary called to be the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury? The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell (66); the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally (62); the Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek (61); and the Bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox (63), are usually considered to be too old, in their 60s, for this role, one which generally lasts for at least 10 years.

Is this ageism or pragmatism? On the other hand, Donald Coggan served for only six years, and some may think that a shorter term, after this particular crisis, could be helpful. God loves surprises, and Pope John XXIII was seen as an older caretaker.

Guli Francis-Dehqani (58), the Bishop of Chelmsford, has been identified as a leading candidate by many, including Pippa Bailey, assistant editor of The New Statesman. In her article (14 Sept., republished on 12 Nov. 2024), Bailey also mentioned Graham Usher (54), the Bishop of Norwich, and Martyn Snow (56), the Bishop of Leicester.

Giles Fraser, the vicar of St. Anne’s Church, Kew, published an article on UnHerd (21 Nov. 2024), “Burn Down the Church Machine. Only radical reform will do.” He is in favor of same-sex marriages in the Church of England and recommends the Bishop of Chelmsford.

Fraser notes that Guli Francis-Dehqani gave a lecture at the University Church, Cambridge (26 Sept. 2024), “Encouraging the Weary with a Word.” The video may be seen here. Fraser writes, citing and summarizing her:

“I’m not so comfortable with the language of ‘Vision and Strategy’ being deployed in the church,” she confessed to a congregation at Great St. Mary’s in Cambridge a few months ago. Too secular in its thinking, too obsessed with growth charts, as if the success of the Church were down to us and not down to God. And way too powerful. In exposing all this before, the Bishop had received what she described as a “slap on the wrist from central church” — after which the congregation burst into laughter and applause.

I have known Francis-Dehqani since 1996. Her father, Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, was the first Persian Bishop of Iran, and miraculously survived an assassination attempt — five bullets circled his head on his pillow. Her mother, Margaret, was the daughter of the English-born Bishop of Iran, William Thompson. Her brother, Bahram, was murdered by Iranian government agents in 1980. That year the family came as refugees, with their three daughters, to live at Ridley Hall, one of the Cambridge theological colleges.

Guli Francis-Dehqani studied music at the University of Nottingham and theology at the University of Bristol, where she later gained her Ph.D. in 1999. Her thesis was Religious feminism in an age of empire: CMS women missionaries in Iran, 1869-1934. She trained for ordination at the South East Institute for Theological Education; served as chaplain at the Royal Academy of Music and St. Marylebone School, London; and, after extended maternity leave, became curate training officer in the Diocese of Peterborough. She was Suffragan Bishop of Loughborough from 2017 and has been Bishop of Chelmsford since 2021. She is the lead bishop for housing.

During his early years, Graham Usher (54) lived in Ghana. He studied ecological sciences at the University of Edinburgh, theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was an ordinand at Westcott House, Cambridge, where I remember teaching him mission studies. He served as rector of Hexham Abbey before being Suffragan Bishop of Dudley, and then becoming Bishop of Norwich in 2019. He is an active beekeeper, the lead bishop on the environment, is liberal on issues of sexuality, and is a member of the Anglican Consultative Council. He was one of two bishops who escorted Queen Camilla at the Coronation. King Charles III appointed him Lord High Almoner on 13 November 2024.

Martyn Snow (56) was born in Indonesia, where his parents were working with the church. He studied chemistry at the University of Sheffield and theology at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, where he trained for ordination. He was Suffragan Bishop of Tewksbury before becoming Bishop of Leicester in 2016. He invited me to lead two ordination retreats for the Diocese of Leicester in 2020. Although he was one of the 14 bishops who published a statement (in Jan. 2023) in defence of the traditional doctrine of marriage, as the lead bishop on the subject he is committed to find ways of introducing prayers for same-sex blessings.

I will mention three other bishops. Michael Beasley (56) is the Bishop of Bath and Wells. His doctorate from Cambridge was in epidemiology and he has specialized in child infectious diseases in low-income countries, including work on Ebola and HIV/AIDS in Africa. He trained for ordination at Cranmer Hall, Durham. Before his appointment as director for mission in the Diocese of Oxford, he served half time as a parish priest and half time as a research scientist at Imperial College, London. Then he became vice principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, and Suffragan Bishop of Hertford before moving to Bath and Wells in 2022.

He was one of two bishops who escorted King Charles III during his Coronation and helped him robe and disrobe during the service. His speech in General Synod in July 2024 stated that, although he was in favor of the prayers, a vote for “standalone same-sex blessings” would imply a major change in relation to the doctrine of marriage. “A clear understanding and spelling out of the particular doctrinal implications of the introduction of standalone services is needed before we can move forward safely and together.”

Mark Tanner (54), the Bishop of Chester, was born in Canada and studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and trained for ordination at Cranmer Hall, Durham, and later gained an M.Th. at Liverpool. He served as a vicar in Doncaster, and then in Ripon, before becoming Warden of Cranmer Hall (2011-16), when I came to know him. He became Suffragan Bishop of Berwick in 2016 and Bishop of Chester in 2020. He wrote The Introvert Charismatic in 2015. He abstained on the vote on “standalone same-sex blessings” in July 2024.

Helen-Ann Hartley (51), the Bishop of Newcastle, was born in Edinburgh and studied theology at St. Andrew’s University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Oxford (M.Phil. and D.Phil.). She trained for ordination on the Oxford Ministry Course, based at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, where she later taught New Testament after Oxford curacies at Wheatley and Littlemore. She then moved to New Zealand and served as Dean (of European heritage ordinands) at St. John’s College, Auckland, before becoming Bishop of Waikato in 2014. In 2018, back in England, she became Area Bishop of Ripon in the Diocese of Leeds and Bishop of Newcastle (2023). She believes that same-sex marriage should be legislated in the Church of England.

4. Process of Choosing the Archbishop of Canterbury

So, what is the process for discerning and choosing between candidates? This was helpfully outlined by Dr. Colin Podmore, former clerk to General Synod, in “Choosing the Archbishop of Canterbury” (The Living Church, Nov. 2024), and a dedicated page on the Church of England website has been set up.

There will be 17 voting members of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) for Canterbury, which will recommend a candidate to the Prime Minister to pass on to the King:

• the chair, a lay Anglican, prominent in public life and chosen by the Prime Minister, after consultation;
• a bishop from the Province of Canterbury;
• the Archbishop of York;
• five people, one from each of the Anglican Communion’s five regions (they must include at least one primate, one priest or deacon, and one layperson);
• at least two of them must be male, two female, and three of “Global Majority Heritage”;
• three people from the Diocese of Canterbury’s Vacancy in See Committee;
• finally, six members (three clergy and three lay) from the General Synod’s Crown Nominations Commission.

On 16 November 2024, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Lord Evans of Weardale will chair the CNC for Canterbury. Jonathan Evans is a former Director of MI5 and a lay communicant of the Church of England.

On 20 January 2025, the Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments, Stephen Knott, wrote a public letter to all members of General Synod outlining the following points. In February and March, he and the Prime Minister’s Appointment Secretary, Jonathan Helliwell, will undertake an extensive consultation. In mid-March the names of all members of the CNC for Canterbury will be announced. Three meetings will take place in May, June, and September to “agree the ‘Role Profile’ and ‘Person Specification’ for the next Archbishop, as well as longlist, shortlist, and interview potential candidates.”

The shortlisted candidates will be interviewed and, out of the 17 voting members, at the moment a majority of at least 12-5 of its members will be needed, although it is worth adding that the February General Synod may adjust the voting number (e.g., down to 11, or 64.7%).

Given this composition, some consider that the Canterbury CNC may be somewhat conservative. Philip Groves, however, has speculated that the five Anglican Communion members of the CNC for Canterbury may turn out to be less uniformly conservative than many imagine.

With the current deep divisions over sexuality, there is likely to be interest in preventing certain people from being nominated. Another wry quote springs to mind from Owen Chadwick’s biography of Michael Ramsey. This concerns Ramsey’s election as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1950: “We have the proverb that no one is elected to anything except to keep two other people out” (p. 69). This may, perhaps, reflect Chadwick’s surprise election as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge in 1968.

Conclusion

Finally, it may be worth remembering Daniel W. Hardy’s contemplative wisdom in his posthumous book, Wording a Radiance: Parting Conversations on God and the Church (2010). He applied to Scripture and to the Church a word that was new to him, granulation:

I would say that Scripture enables the healing powers deep within a pilgrim (whether a community or a person) to “granulate.” Recovering from a medical treatment recently, I learned that granulation refers to the body’s capacity to generate new connective tissue from deep within the flesh, just underneath the diseased tissue that lies above it. This is a hopeful sign, because it shows how the rebuilding of tissue is possible from within the deepest parts of the human body. I would extend the metaphor to the capacity of societies and persons to be regenerated from deep within themselves. (p. 64)

Therefore, following the focused example of Mary, who “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying” (Luke 10:39), let us pray fervently for the victims of John Smyth, for their just compensation, for Justin and Caroline Welby, for the Crown Nominations Commission for Canterbury, for bishops who may be shortlisted for the post, for the Church of England, and for the Anglican Communion. Lord, have mercy. Amen.

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This Ponderings was first published on Covenant, the online journal of The Living Church, in two parts, and is republished here with permission. Part One (sections 1 and 2) on Mon 10 Feb 2025 and Part Two (sections 3 and 4) on Tues 11 Feb 2025.

Graham Kings