The Church and Rowan Williams

"The Church claims to be the most comprehensive human society there is - the new human race in embryo. And it claims this because of its belief that it is established not by any human process grounded in and limited by events, cultures and so on, but by God's activity."
- Rowan Williams

You never know when you are going to meet someone slightly famous. In my case, I met Rowan Williams when I was at Duke Divinity School studying about Jesus. Likewise, when I was 13 I met and played ball with Micahel Jordan. But neither of them seemed to make much fuss about it. They were just about their business.

It makes sense that the Arbishop of Canterbury would show up at a place where we were talking about Jesus all the time. Rowan was good friends with the man responsible for getting me interested in Duke, Dr. Greg Jones. He was a dear friend and a fine teacher. Greg Jones had us reading a book by Williams in our first semester at Duke, in the fall of 2000, and so he recommended that we hear him speak. Dean Jones was most likely the gentelaman that was able to get Rowan to come to Duke. I remember something great about Rowan. He barely seemed to even be there. He was wearing a button down. When he went by me I thought he was a perspective student of some type. He was wearing messy black pants. I did not even mention him to my wife that night. But looking back he was the sight of a saint. Well, anyway. I like the quote from him above. He actually reminded me a lot of my dad. He was brilliant and a true academic. Do you know what he said to us? He told us, "Semenaries need to be more about PLAYING WITH GOD, than about STUDYING GOD." I loved it. It always stayed with me.