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Since taking office, Dr. Fisher has been anxious to work out a new relationship between the established (official) church and the British government, which still has an embarrassing amount of authority over church matters. His goal is a sensible British compromise, which would effectively give churchmen the right to run church affairs, while leaving titular authority with the state.
Inside the church, the archbishop feels that the consciousness of "Anglicanism" is stronger than ever. As long as the "circle" of fundamental doctrines is kept intact, he believes that the very tension between High and Low Church factions is insurance against error. Says he: "In the church there must always be tensions. The Anglican Communion is the one church in Christendom which is trying to preserve within a fundamental unity the necessary tension apart from which truth deteriorates. The glory of the Church of England is that we're all in the circle; we're all wrong and we're all right."
This philosophy of the archbishop's has been strained by two well-known extremists: Bishop Ernest Barnes of Birmingham, who has denied much of the church's doctrine, including the Virgin Birth, and Dr. Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean of Canterbury, who walks a tight Communist line. Although Dr. Fisher is annoyed by both, he has taken no action on either.
The Middle Way. As spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Dr. Fisher is one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches. He also favors church unity—as an ideal. But, practically speaking, he has his reservations. "The World Council of Churches," he sums up, "is not a church. It is none of its business to negotiate a reunion between the churches. The World Council and the Council on Faith and Order (see below) can go on forever without ever discussing the question of doctrinal change." If the council tried to force any changes in his church's creed, said the archbishop, "we should clear out."
In this ultimate stubbornness, the archbishop is supported by most Anglican churchmen. In his quiet way, Anglican Fisher has intensified the predilection of his flock for their middle way in Christendom, and has added to their confidence that it is a true way, a good compromise between Geneva and Rome.
*By Anglican count. By Roman Catholic reckoning, the see of Canterbury became vacant in 1558 at the death of Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last archbishop in communion with Rome.
† In 1948, when Danny Kaye's automobile narrowly missed him in a London street, the archbishop told the comedian: "Young man, you very nearly attained a measure of real fame."