Why I read Rowan Williams.

P1000537Why I read Rowan Williams.
He is brilliant, sometimes obscure, often a hard read, but always worth the effort. I share the view of Neil Dickson, "He’s a difficult read at times but you always feel even the crumbs from his table are worth devouring."
 
He is a living example of a true theologian, "a true theologian is one who prays, and one who prays in Spirit and in truth is a true theologian." (Evagrius Ponticus)
 
I read The Truce of God in the mid 1980's and discovered a Christian thinker for whom peace, nuclear disarmament, and facing up to the dangerous fantasies of power, is a theological task as well as a moral priority for followers of Jesus.
 
He is ridiculously clever and keeping up with him is a form of mental and spiritual aerobics. Good for you, but not to be overdone.
 
To use an older Scottish saying, "he is far ben with God", meaning he is one who knows God deeply and with that mixture of familiarity and distance, love and reverence that not only allows for mystery, but knows that on holy ground you take off your shoes. .
 
What he writes can stand re-reading and with recurring reward.
 
In the light of all of that, I'm reading two or three pages a day of this book – all the above qualities and qualifications are on show.

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