IN THE second series of the BBC sitcom Rev, the Revd Adam Smallbone is seen giving advice to Nigel, a Reader hoping to be selected for ordination. “The Bishops’ panel will be very wary of anyone who’s got certainty about being called to God,” he warns. “It’s frowned on to chase preferment. It’s right to be doubtful.” Nigel takes this advice to heart, dutifully writing down “Be doubtful” and interpreting Adam’s repeated insistence that he has no desire to leave parish ministry as “very convincing” (“You’ll be Archbishop at this rate!”). A recent New Statesman feature has suggested that the notion of nolo episcopari (“I do not want to be a bishop”) remains an “unwritten, and largely unspoken, rule of appointment to high office in the Church of England”. The bearer of the last name to be put forward by the Canterbury CNC observed: “I don’t think anyone could be more surprised than me at the outcome of this process.”

With a deficit of trust identified in several Church-wide reviews, and debates about power and accountability surfacing repeatedly in the General Synod, Archbishop Welby’s successor will be under more pressure than ever to show humility. Setting cynicism aside over whether such professions are genuine, there is, of course, a biblical mandate for church leaders to act as servants, on the model of Christ who washed his disciples’ feet. Given the scale of the challenges that the Archbishop will inherit, confessions about feeling daunted and relying on God are to be expected. Yet we must also hope that whoever takes on the mantle finds joy in the task set before them, and is not afraid to express that. After all, they will have had to articulate enthusiasm and a sense of calling during the CNC interview process.

There is a danger that too sceptical a view of preferment, in which individuals determinedly set about climbing the “pyramid” identified in the O’Donovan review of the CNC, seeking power and status, obscures another picture: one in which the Holy Spirit is calling gifted men and women to the episcopate. A healthy recognition of human frailty and a wariness about deference — not least in the wake of so many safeguarding scandals — should not tip over into outright cynicism about any candidate and their motives.

“If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work,” 1 Timothy 3.1 tells us. The epistle does not rebuke the ambition. But it does go on to make clear that careful discernment is necessary: this person must be “above reproach”. When the identity of the next Archbishop is revealed, churchpeople will be called upon to trust in faith that their motives have been discerned to be genuine, and that the good work before them will be undertaken with joy, as well as humility.