Take the Church out of the Prime Minister's hands

An established church whose leaders are chosen secretively by the government of the day is just a nonsense

So it looks as if we – the Church of England parishioners and the citizens of a country whose established church this is – are to have Dr Rowan Williams from Wales as our next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of course, his is only one of the two names on the shortlist reportedly put forward to the Prime Minister for final decision. There remains the nasty suspicion that the leak of his name is a deliberate ploy by his supporters to bounce their candidate through by making it impossible for Tony Blair to turn him down.

That would fit with the general level of politicking that has gone on over this particular appointment. We've had the blatant self-promotion of Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, the careful shifting of his position on women priests by Richard Chartres of London, the conservatives' choice, and the well-orchestrated pushes for other candidates. Anthony Trollope would have found himself quite at home with the machinations of the bishops, even if he would have found it hard to understand the courting of the media in it all. In his day, these things were kept very much more within the hollow halls of the House of Lords.

Not that Mr Blair will need much prodding to tick the column next to Williams' name. All the recent reports that the Archbishop of Wales had blotted his copybook by coming out against the bombing of Afghanistan are part of the lobbying, anti-lobbying process. It would have irritated the Prime Minister and given him some qualms about the future. But the real point about the British Prime Minister is that he was confirmed an Anglican as a student at 20 and tends, if anything, towards the socially-conscious wing of the church. His first major intervention as Prime Minister (after the decision to go ahead with Dome) was, after all, the rejection of a church-supported candidate for the bishopric of Liverpool in favour of a more Blairite one.

Although Cherie Blair is a Catholic, she is also a supporter of the ordination of women in the Church of England. If it is a conservative candidate who is against the ordination of women, such as the Bishop of London (who is anyway unpopular with Buckingham Palace for being too close to the Prince of Wales), then there's no contest. Williams is right up the Blair street. He only needs a push if the second choice is a bishop of equal liberalism such as Rochester.

What must irritate any member of the Church of England is why should the Archbishop of Canterbury be chosen by the Prime Minister at all. What interest are his views, or those of his wife? And why should the shortlist of two be produced by the Crown Appointments Commission themselves appointed by the Prime Minister (they are headed by a judge, include two barristers and have an average age just short of 60)? For the past decade Anglicans have suffered the lack of leadership of an archbishop whose sole qualification has been that he was acceptable to a Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, who would have anyone so long as he was not Archbishop Habgood of York.

The problem, of course, lies in the great unspoken issue of the jubilee year – the Church of England's position as the established church. Now I happen to be one of the few people who believe in the value of an established church and the existence of a spiritual dimension in public life. The right of anyone of however little faith to call on a priest in the hour of sickness or death or the moment of baptism seems to me of inestimable value. Which is why those of other faiths do not wish to see disestablishment.

But it also has to be accepted that the church, under the present Archbishop in particular, has long ceased to believe in the role. Lambeth has, for perfectly logical reasons, been far more concerned with the finances of the institution, a concern that directs it towards rallying the committed churchgoer, and not ministering to the occasional needy. In all the acreage of interviews with putative candidates for the see of Canterbury – and in all the interviews with the Prime Minister for that matter – there is virtually no one who asks whether the bishop believes in establishment and why. Most of them, one suspects (including the present Archbishop of Canterbury) do not.

This country is now a secular one. A century ago you could argue that the intellectual argument had gone the way of atheism, but the faith of the people throughout most of the 20th century remained with the church. Now, judging by the attendance figures in church and the census figures, the Church of England is well on its way to a minority religion in this country. And the country as a whole is well on its way to majority unbelief.

Given this context, an established church whose leaders are chosen by secretive committees chosen by the government of the day is just a nonsense. There is no reason why the bishops should not be chosen by a committee of the church and the archbishop chosen by the bishops.

As it happens, Rowan Williams would almost certainly be the favoured candidate of such a convocation. He is a considerable theologian in his own right and a formidable figure in the church. He would – if chosen – be a leader of the clergy and an inspirer of the flock. But the flock, as the church is at present structured, is the last thing anyone is concerned with.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk