This past week gave demonstrable proof of the politics going on in the Church of England where there is much talk of the Archbishop of Canterbury resigning after Lambeth 2008 and being replaced by the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu.

Never before have we seen so much talk about resignations and replacements, back-stabbing and denials including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, involving even his son Andrew Carey.

The whole thing reads like something out of a Susan Howatch novel.

While there has been occasional talk over the years that Dr. Rowan Williams was not up to the job, he being a tad too intellectual and therefore incomprehensible to the masses, and making mangled statements to the media that required Aristotle to untangle, there has never been serious talk that he would actually resign. When asked, he shrugged it off as media talk. But now there is very serious talk he might resign fueled by media speculation.

A couple of years ago, VOL's inside man in the Church of England opined that if Dr. Williams were to be offered a job at Harvard or Yale lecturing and writing on the Church Fathers he would jump at it, if the salary was good enough. It never happened.

Williams off again, on again, relationship with the former American Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold made few headlines, but it was clearly there despite all the public bonhomie the two men showed toward each other. The biggest insult came at Dromantine, Ireland when Griswold left the Primates meeting early but not before he accused Williams of lacking courage and spine for allowing the Global South Primates to beat him [Griswold] up for his apostate views on sodomy. But it was all smiles and photo op when Griswold turned up in London recently with Mrs. Schori in tow announcing his replacement. Williams smiled but said nothing.

But media reports in recent months and days over the state of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, has heightened to the point of overwhelming and downright nastiness with intrigue and much more.

Since he left office as ABC, George Carey has wandered the world, mainly the U.S. where he has been feted and dined by Evangelicals who continue to see him as a leader they can trust and look up to albeit without power or much clout. But he is loved and preaches publicly a sound gospel they can all identify with.

But his problems began earlier this year when he gave a lecture at Virginia Theological Seminary with the stated title: "A Communion In Crisis–A reflection". This was immediately picked up by the British broad sheets where Jonathan Wynne-Jones of The Daily Telegraph said the Church had fallen apart since he was in charge. Carey accused liberals of devastating the communion "that we once loved". A few weeks earlier, an open letter by a number of British clerics was circulated calling on Lord Carey to refrain from interfering in sensitive issues.

The backlash that ensued saw Carey issuing his own statement saying that his lecture on the state of the Church at VTS was not making him a "campaigner" but that the gist of his talk about the causes of the divisions within Anglicanism was caused by the consecration of a practicing homosexual in the United States. There were no grounds for taking my 'reflection' as an attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury, he said.

But the damage was done, and Carey became fair game for both the British tabloids and broad sheets. So indeed did Archbishop Williams.

The current archbishop's public statements bewildered both Anglicans and the press alike, with each trying to decipher not so much what he said, but what he meant. Nobody seemed to get it right, or at least that is what Williams thought.

Last week George Carey wrote a piece for the Telegraph saying he supported Rowan Williams and that they were working together.

"Anglicans have moaned about and criticized their archbishops, aided and abetted by national newspaper commentators, for as long as I can remember. For at least the past two decades, successive new Archbishops of Canterbury have been welcomed as a breath of fresh air, contrasted favorably with their predecessors for a short honeymoon period until familiarity sets in and people begin to long nostalgically for a cherished past or an impossibly utopian future," wrote Carey.

"The same commentators who are now suggesting prematurely that Rowan Williams's days are numbered said the same about me when I was in office. Those who accused Robert Runcie of interfering in my ministry in an unprecedented way are now criticizing me," he wailed.

"The only really substantial accusation of interfering with my successor's ministry that has been leveled against me is that I have taken up an invitation from the Bishop of Virginia to confirm adults. Yet, like all retired bishops, I have conducted these confirmations with the proper permissions and the full knowledge of Lambeth Palace," he said.

"Furthermore, I have communicated regularly with Lambeth, met the archbishop and taken his advice, and have cancelled meetings at some considerable personal cost in order to further his ministry in the Anglican Communion."

He went on to fume that it was completely untrue to claim that he was undermining or working against his successor. "He has my support and my prayers during a very difficult period in the life of the Anglican Church."

But then Damian Thompson wrote a piece for The Telegraph saying that Andrew Carey, George's son was backstabbing Archbishop Williams. "A campaign is also being waged against Dr Williams on Anglican websites, with Andrew Carey, the journalist son of Lord Carey, emerging as one of the critics," he wrote.

The blog in question is Ship of Fools edited by Simon Jenkins http://shipoffools.com. It is here that Andrew Carey writes under the pseudonym of SPAWN. Carey wrote on SOF denying that neither he nor his father was trying to undermine Dr Williams.

Carey, in four posts to SOF, defends himself saying, "I think Rowan Williams represents the best hope we have of stopping the church from going into outright schism. But there is already a serious split that it may not be possible to heal because the consecration was allowed of the gay bishop. Rowan and my father meet from time to time and get on well. He would not and does not recognize the idea that he is undermining Rowan because he is not."

But Dr. Williams and Lord Carey, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury for 11 years, have engaged in theological combat since the consecration in 2003 of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. But their differences first surfaced in 1998 when Lord Carey as Archbishop blocked Dr Williams from becoming Bishop of Southwark, wrote Andrew Pierce for The Telegraph.

Other more immediate cultural issues surfaced which prompted George Carey to say that the country was in danger of losing sight of its Christian heritage. One of the most telling recent cases is the action taken by student unions against Christian organizations on university campuses. He wrote saying he was appalled at a proposed law that would exempt religion from free speech. The Archbishop of York Dr. John Sentamu then jumped in criticizing the BBC for an anti-Christian bias earlier this month for condemning the British Airways ban on employees wearing a cross, while Dr Williams flew to Rome in BA business class. Williams has been silent on these issues except for the cross-wearing BA employee where he threatened to sell off BA stock from the Church's vast stock holdings.

All of this lead to an article by Andrew Pierce of The Telegraph speculating that Williams was fed up with his predecessor George Carey, and suggesting that Williams could quit over 'criticism from Carey'.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is privately in despair at the behavior of his predecessor Lord Carey of Clifton, who he believes has undermined his leadership of the Anglican Church. Senior clerics are so concerned about the criticisms that they fear the "tired" Archbishop will resign after the Lambeth Conference in 2008, a decade earlier than expected. One authoritative source claimed that Lord Carey was behaving like Ted Heath to Margaret Thatcher."

The speculation then went on to suggest that Dr John Sentamu would emerge as the favorite to replace him.

As SPAWN, Andrew Carey then complained that it wasn't conservatives who are now gunning for him [Williams] but some of his erstwhile liberal friends. "I've heard absolutely scurrilous and venomous sentiments directed against ++Rowan from some of my liberal Anglican acquaintances," he wrote. "On the other hand, I thought it was disgraceful when some evangelicals opposed him and called on him to stand down before he'd even been enthroned."

Andrew Carey was then accused by fellow bloggers for predicting that the coming Lambeth conference would be the archbishop's swansong.

"Does Spawn have inside information," wrote one blogger?

Carey wrote back vigorously denying he had made the prediction, "I've done a search on SOF and come up with no results," he wrote back. "I find it incredible that his fantasies are taken seriously by the Daily Telegraph," he ripped back.

But when confronted by another blogger that he did make those remarks, Carey backed down, "No, I'm not denying that I may have said something along these lines. I can't however recall doing so and it must have been some time ago. Did I say something about it during the period I had the spat with the Guardian diary?"

Carey then defended his father saying: "It's laughable to think that my father, for example, was ever the darling of conservative evangelicals. He was distrusted by them because he was far too much into ecumenical and interfaith dialogue for a start (and had been into the ecumenical side of things for years before becoming ABC). He also wasn't at his most popular with some elements in the Global South coalition when he put the 'To mend the Net' proposals into the hands of the Anglican Doctrinal Commission. Furthermore, Sentamu arouses mixed feelings in some Global South circles. I think it's fair to say that some of them believe that in his public statements on human sexuality and his comments at the last General Convention that he isn't to be wholly relied upon."

Carey concluded his blast saying: "++Rowan Williams is the only Archbishop of Canterbury we've got. In my view, he's the most able and interesting man on the Anglican scene at the moment and has the best chance of holding us all together."

Whether the archbishop's days are numbered or not is largely a matter of speculation, certainly he has not endeared himself of late to the left over his seeming backtracking on women's ordination, and the right don't understand why he has just doesn't stand up and say what he believes and knows about The Episcopal Church, which anybody with half a brain, who reads VOL, can find out. Does anybody think for a moment that Charles E. Bennison or Jack Spong stand in apostolic succession!

Williams prevaricating is not helping anybody. The Panel of Reference seems impotent; the Anglican Communion Network and eight Americans dioceses are still waiting for some sort of nod from Williams. There is talk of 10th and 39th provinces, but it is all still just talk. Only the Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield has had the courage and testosterone to do anything at a national level.

So the British penchant for back-stabbing will probably continue, and bloggers and broad sheet writers of one persuasion or another will continue to jockey for first place in the Williams 'will he go' sweepstakes. For the moment the knives will continue to be drawn and the stabbing will only persist.

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