My advice for the new Archbishop of Canterbury | Rowan Williams

It might sound odd to approach Easter thinking about fear. But it’s striking that the earliest gospel finishes by telling us that the women who came to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty initially ‘said nothing because they were afraid’. Nothing is going to be the same again: being afraid is the most natural reaction. We are all on the back foot: the ‘cultural Christian’, who likes to have a little bit of Christian decor in the house; the Christian nationalist, who wants non-Christians to know their place; the liberal Anglican, who wants everyone to feel comfortably at home. If what is said to Mary and what is done on Easter Day are indeed world-changing matters, we do well to be apprehensive. Only then can we begin to see just what we are to be thankful for. Release. Transformation.