In spite of the haze of speculation, it is still something of a shock to find myself here, coming to terms with an enormous trust placed in my hands and with the inevitable sense of inadequacy that goes with that. Rowan Williams More Quotes by Rowan Williams More Quotes From Rowan Williams Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old. Rowan Williams growing anger culture Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness, a covenant between radically different persons, male and female; and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chosen, a covenant between radically different partners. Rowan Williams echoes marriage unique Violence is not to be undertaken by private persons. If a state or administration acts without due and visible attention to agreed international process, it acts in a way analogous to a private person. It purports to be judge of its own interest. Rowan Williams judging attention way Friendship is something that creates equality and mutuality, not a reward for finding equality or a way of intensifying existing mutuality. Rowan Williams rewards equality way A healthy human environment is one in which we try to make sense of our limits, of the accidents that can always befall us and the passage of time which inexorably changes us. Rowan Williams healthy limits trying To help the poor to a capacity for action and liberty is something essential for one's own health as well as theirs: there is a needful gift they have to offer which cannot be offered so long as they are confined by poverty. Rowan Williams essentials liberty long It takes the whole church to know the whole truth. Rowan Williams church whole knows Religion has always been a matter of community building; a matter of building precisely those relations of compassion, fellow feeling and - I dare to use the word - inclusion, which would otherwise be absent from our societies. Rowan Williams community compassion feelings Christians should emphatically be campaigning for justice for the poor - but the Church is not a campaign. Rowan Williams church christian justice In loving his own productive, generative, generous love, God loves all those ways in which that love can be realised in creation. Rowan Williams creation love way So every creative act strives to attain an absolute status; it longs to create a world of beauty to triumph over chaos and convert it to order. Rowan Williams creative beauty order We are called to show utter commitment to the God who is revealed in Jesus and to all those to whom His invitation is addressed. Rowan Williams shows commitment jesus And when the world is created, it is created in such a way that those eternal objects of God's loving wisdom become actualities - interacting with one another, relating to God in the finite realm. Rowan Williams wisdom way world The world's creation has a beginning from the world's point of view, not from God's. Rowan Williams creation views world To be a Christian is to believe we are commanded and authorised to say certain things to the world; to say things that will make disciples of all nations. Rowan Williams christian believe world I have to go on being a priest and bishop, that is, to celebrate God and what God has done in Jesus, and to offer in God's name whatever I can discern of God's perspective on the world around - something which involves both challenge and comfort. Rowan Williams perspective names jesus Serving democracy and nourishing the common good is, for the media, something that requires not only attacking corrupt secrecies in a society, but also defending non-corrupt communication. Rowan Williams democracy communication media Even when I was Archbishop of Wales and working with new bishops, I used to say, not realising quite how true it was, 'One of the things you will do as a bishop is disappoint people'. Rowan Williams bishops used people It is impossible to deny that Christians and Muslims have a common agenda here: both faiths have at their heart the living image of a community raised up by God's call to reveal to the world what God's purpose is for humanity. Rowan Williams community christian heart Christian teaching about sex is not a set of isolated prohibitions; it is an integral part of what the Bible has to say about living in such a way that our lives communicate the character of God. Rowan Williams teaching christian sex
