Between the palaces

From The Economist-

EXACTLY a decade ago, tension was swirling between the two palaces, Westminster and Lambeth, that face each other across the River Thames: secular authority on the north bank, ecclesiastical on the south.  As the nation prepared for war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Tony Blair presented the case for invasion in moral terms that reflected his own brand of religious zeal, while Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a self-described "hairy leftie" stuck to his view that military action was morally unjustifiable. The very fact that each man rooted his position in religious belief probably made the chemistry even worse.

Lambeth Palace has a new incumbent, who will be formally enthroned on March 21st as head of the Church of England, and hence of the global Anglican Communion. Anglicanism has replaced a scholar and theologian with a more practical, hands-on type, as the Roman Catholic church would be well advised to do. But on the face of things, Justin Welby's first foray into politics seemed to mark him out as yet another cleric of the centre-left, happy in the role that many of Europe's Christian leaders have settled for recently: that of innocuous foot-soldiers in mainly secular coalitions, espousing progressive causes while being careful not to disturb or shock.  (For leaders of the secular left, the expression "useful idiots"—apocryphyally ascribed to Vladimir Lenin—must sometimes come to mind.)
More here-

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/03/anglicanism-and-politics