Christian Political Theology in Polarized Times

Rowan Williams, in full Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth in the City and County of Swansea, was the 104th archbishop of Canterbury (2002–12), as well as a noted theologian, archbishop of the Church in Wales (2000–02), and the first archbishop of Canterbury in modern times chosen from outside the Church of England. He has written extensively across a very wide range of related fields of professional study – philosophy, theology (especially early and patristic Christianity), spirituality and religious aesthetics. He has also written throughout his career on moral, ethical and social topics and, after becoming archbishop, turned his attention increasingly on contemporary cultural and interfaith issues. As Archbishop of Canterbury his principal responsibilities were pastoral – leading the life and witness of the Church of England in general and his own diocese in particular by his teaching and oversight, and promoting and guiding the communion of the world-wide Anglican Church by the globally recognized ministry of unity that attaches to the office of bishop of the see of Canterbury.

Eliza Griswold, a contributing writer covering religion, politics, and the environment, has been writing for The New Yorker since 2003. She has written and translated four books of nonfiction and poetry. She is the author, most recently, of “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” a 2018 Times Notable Book and a Times Critics’ Pick, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, in 2019. Griswold has held fellowships at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New America Foundation, among others, and has been awarded various prizes, including the J. Anthony Lukas Prize, a pen Translation Prize, and the Rome Prize for her poetry. Her second book of poems, “If Men, Then,” was published in 2020. She is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.