A vision of a Britain illuminated by a thoughtful and listening Christianity was briefly sketched out by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at his inaugural press conference in London yesterday.
Dr Williams's comments were timed to begin at the precise moment his appointment to succeed Dr George Carey was announced, a month after it had become known that he was the Church of England's choice and a fortnight after 10 Downing Street let it be known that he would be appointed.
"I don't come to this task with a fixed programme or agenda," he said. He was a theologian by training, he said, and teachers of theology tended to have views on all sorts of things while engaging with colleagues and students holding a variety of opinions.
"But no pastor or bishop holds a position in which their first task is to fight for the victory of their personal judgments as if those were final or infallible," he went on. His first task was that of any ordained teacher: "to point to the source without which none of our activity would make sense, the gift of God as it is set before us in the Bible and Christian belief".
He would like to nourish a sense of "proper confidence" in the church: not the kind of confidence that simply suggested that the church had all the answers and refused to pay real attention to other faiths and other convictions, but a confidence that arose "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".
This confidence could rightly sit alongside a patient willingness to learn from others, he said.
"If there is one thing I long for above all else, it's that the years to come may see Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture, to draw the strongest energies of our thinking and feeling into the exploration of what our creeds put before us," he said.
Answering questions promptly, courteously, concisely, and without any evasion, Dr Williams agreed that one would have had to be a "maniac" not to have had doubts about accepting what he had earlier described as "an intimidating and enormous job".
Asked about his having signed the open letter published by Pax Christi emphasizing there was "no justification" for any pre-emptive war against Iraq, Dr Williams explained that he was merely expressing convinced doubt about a possible future course of action.
"I think that any Christian pastor or priest is always going to be asking awkward questions," he added. He would only support military action that had the backing of the United Nations, he said.
Welcoming Dr Williams's appointment, Dr Robin Eames, Archbishop of Armagh, said the news would be greeted with "delight and confidence" by his many friends and colleagues.
"His intellect, integrity of thought and action and his great experience as a theologian and teacher will help him to bring to the leadership of the Church of England vision, clarity of purpose and a deep humility," said Dr Eames.
Dr Williams's appointment has also been welcomed warmly by other religious leaders, including the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, who described him as " a quite exceptional thinker and man of God".
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, had no doubt that he would prove to be "a force for great good", while Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff described him as "a man of great personal integrity and deep spirituality" who had "an easy pastoral style, relates well to a wide range of people, and has a delightfully mischievous sense of humour".