A Feast for William

As it turns out the Anglican communion, or at least some parts of it, observe today as a feast for William Temple, onetime Archbishop of Canterbury. I like that. George Bernard Shaw, no friend of the church called Temple “a realized impossibility.”

He was born in 1881, and died in 1944. Between those times, he married, although had no children, served as a parish priest, for a time as a headmaster, and eventually went into the bishop business, serving as the Anglican bishop of Manchester, then as Archbishop of York, the number two spot in England, and then for two years as Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the last Archbishop of Canterbury to die while serving in that position.

For me there are three reasons he is significant. In no particular order I’m deeply impressed with his social activism, in particular his relentless support of the poor and the working class, and his fearless advocacy for a more equitable social structure. He also was deeply committed to both ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, and as such he was a founding participant in both the World Council of Churches, and the British Council of Christians and Jews.

Probably the most interesting, at least for me, of his activities, was William Temple’s deep interest in Process theology and the idea of an emergent consciousness. While he never committed to a completely naturalistic theology, he offered many a stepping stone to that position. And so for me, something like Moses, he saw across the river to the promised land even if he was not able to personally cross over.

And that is important, he saw the river, and he glimpsed to the far side.

Something worthy of celebration.