Ask NT write anything is sponsored by Logos. Start going deeper in the Bible with a free trial at

logos.com slash NT.

Hello and welcome to the Ask Ante Write Anything podcast, the show where we explore Jesus,

the Bible and the Life of Faith.

I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia, and of course, I'm joined with...

With Tom Wright from Oxford in England. Hello.

Tom, it's good to see you again. Once more, we've got some great scintillating questions to get into, but I want to begin

with one of my own. I mean, I'm not allowed to submit questions, so I've got to ask them

while we're together. The UK, the Church of England, is getting ready to find, to elect a

new Archbishop of Canterbury. What do you think are the qualities that make a good

Archbishop of Canterbury? You know, experience in the oil industry by any chance, merchant,

banker? I mean, is there anything that you have to have on your CV in order to be an Archbishop of Canterbury?

Well, unfortunately last time I looked, the angel Gabriel had ruled himself out of this particular one.

But there are so many things that different people want.

And of course, we've all been watching events in Rome, as they've just chosen a new Pope quite recently. And as an Anglican, I'm a bit jealous that you can say, okay, old one's gone, new one in, within a month, done, that's it, and everyone just has to sit down, shut up and take their medicine. If they don't like him, then that's too bad. This is the one we've got. Now, we are quite different in the Anglican communion. And of course,

the Archbishop of Canterbury has to be a uniting figure for the whole Anglican communion,

which is a worldwide communion, not simply for the Church of England. People often say it's

become a cliche that the average Anglican today is black and does not speak English as her mother tongue.

And there are far more Anglicans in church on a Sunday in Nigeria alone than in the whole of

America and England put together. So we need to recognize this is not just can the Church

of England get its act together. At the same time, there is a lot of stuff going on

in the Church of England where the Archbishop has to be and is a public figure. What he or she

...