From the heights of our self-imposed ordinance of “No politics”, you might be led to believe that there’s very little else to write about.

I’ll admit the air is very thin up here on the moral high ground, but there really is something to get worked up about apart from the dismal state of the nation. What, you may ask?

Why, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of course.

I’ve written a few pieces recently on the state of the Church and of Christianity (see the footer of this article), suggesting that the Gospels are allegories of a process used by early mystics with a universal truth for us in our scientific age.

The texts suffered the indignity of being converted into quasi-historical documents for the political purposes of the Roman Empire.

Rowan Williams, the current incumbent at Lambeth Palace, often gives the impression of being a thoroughly wet liberal who takes the soft option on every issue of our age. His undoubted intellect is seen as a barrier to both truth and communication — Gordon Brown in a cassock.

But wait, who is this speaking from the pages of Friday’s Daily Telegraph?

Addressing the Hay Festival of Literature on author Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, the Archbishop says, “First of all he takes the Christian myth, or a version of it, seriously enough to want to disagree passionately about it.”

Leaving aside the impression of clutching at straws, look at the words: Christian myth. Slip of the tongue, perhaps? Or the realization that a modern audience simply won’t take the infantilized story presented to us as fact any more?

I believe many theologians in the Church, whether of England or Rome, know this to be true. One historical Cardinal is said to have remarked, “The Jesus myth has served us well down the years”. Is Rowan Williams echoing that sentiment, but in a less cynical way?

Williams continues, “It’s not just dull or remote, it’s dangerous. You’ve got to tussle with it. It’s still alive.” The words of a mystic indeed.

But he’s not a pushover. He disagrees with Pullman’s atheism, but likes his “search for some way of talking about human value, human depth and three-dimensionality, that doesn’t depend on God.” By this he means Blake’s and Michaelangelo’s depiction of the Creator as an old bearded man looking down on us from a very great height. Inner resources can carry us much farther than a rigid anthropomorphism.

Then, something very intriguing: religious authorities shouldn’t “silence the demons” that people carry with them, the essential internal conversation between good and evil. C.G. Jung could not have put it better.

“The threat in Pullman’s novels,” he goes on, “is the Authority — people like me in his imagination — which wants to divide the human spirit and cut off and silence that demonic voice, that voice of the imagination.” Or even that voice of experience, he might have said.

I think this is a very significant moment for the old Church of England. Coming close to pantheism, or at least panentheism — where everything is God, even our enemies — the Archbishop speaks with the real voice of mysticism.

In these dark times, the inalienable lightness of darkness does need to be explained. Rowan Williams may well be its establishment prophet.

Who would have thought it?

John Evans

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