Rowan Williams, the Welsh cleric tabbed as the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, became an honorary white druid in a sunrise ceremony inside a circle of stones—and immediately sparked accusations from Church of England evangelicals that he was promoting paganism

Christian Century, August 14, 2002

* Rowan Williams, the Welsh cleric tabbed as the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, became an honorary white druid in a sunrise ceremony inside a circle of stones--and immediately sparked accusations from Church of England evangelicals that he was promoting paganism. Williams donned a long white cloak and to a fanfare of trumpets and the sheathing and unsheathing of a six-and-a-half-foot sword, stepped into the circle at the Welsh cathedral city of St.

David's to take a Bardic name for induction into the highest order of the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards. The 1,300-member Gorsedd is a society of Welsh poets, writers, artists and musicians, said Williams, and any suggestion that either he or it "is even remotely associated with paganism is deeply offensive." That did little to stem the criticism. Angus Macleay, a figure in the Anglican Church's Evangelical Reform Group, said Williams "needs to consider what will other people, non-Welsh members of the Anglican communion, think he is doing."