Archbishop Speaks Out: Why Pray? Why Bother?

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has been causing a bit of a stir with his recent opinion piece in the Telegraph. Williams, it seems, has decided he'd better say something about both the tsunami and the number of 'I-don't-believe-in-God-because-He-lets-people-die' op-eds appearing in response to the tragedy. (Though if he was worried about the effect Polly Toynbee might have on the state of British Christianity, he needn't have bothered -- Guardian readers didn't actually accept a moral authority higher than U.N. weapons inspectors in the first place.)
Still, having committed himself to the task of shoring up the battered faith of Anglicans, it's a pity, really, that Dr. Williams makes such a mess of it:

The question: 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't – indeed, it would be wrong if it weren't. The traditional answers will get us only so far.

The 'traditional answers', according to Williams, have to do with God not stepping in when things get dangerous. 'How dangerous do they have to be?' muses Williams. 'How many deaths would be acceptable?' His answer, somewhat oddly, is that there isn't one, at least not from God, and that asking Him for one is pretty pointless, really:

So why do religious believers pray for God's help or healing? They ask for God's action to come in to a situation and change it, yes; but if they are honest, they don't see prayer as a plea for magical solutions that will make the world totally safe for them and others.
All this is fair enough, perhaps true as far as it goes. But it doesn't go very far in helping us, one week on, with the intolerable grief and devastation in front of us. If some religious genius did come up with an explanation of exactly why all these deaths made sense, would we feel happier or safer or more confident in God? Wouldn't we feel something of a chill at the prospect of a God who deliberately plans a programme that involves a certain level of casualties?

The ever-reliable Limeypundit offers a rebuttal to this from the viewpoint of someone who, it seems, still believes in the sort of old-fashioned God whose Mysterious Ways are not bound up with making the likes of Dr. Williams 'feel happier or safer or more confident':

[T]here is, of course, the small matter of the greatest miracle of all: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and all that it made possible in reconciliation of the human race with God.
One would presume that His Grace, the de facto leader of a church of some 70 million people and a Bible scholar and theologian of some 30 years' standing, would be aware of that.

Indeed. Another thing that appears to have escaped Dr. Williams' mind is the small matter of 70 million Anglicans. As interesting as his ruminations on God and the apparent powerlessness of prayer might be to other atheists in the CofE clergy, what follows isn't exactly the sort of stuff with which to inspire the faithful:

The odd thing is that those who are most deeply involved – both as sufferers and as helpers – are so often the ones who spend least energy in raging over the lack of explanation. They are likely to shrug off, awkwardly and not very articulately, the great philosophical or religious questions we might want to press. Somehow, they are most aware of two things: a kind of strength and vision just to go on; and a sense of the imperative for practical service and love. Somehow in all of this, God simply emerges for them as a faithful presence. Arguments "for and against" have to be put in the context of that awkward, stubborn persistence.

Did the head of the Anglican Church just describe faith as an 'awkward and stubborn persistence'? You bet he did. When this man tells us 'the traditional answers won't get us very far', you know he means it.