Does anyone remember the remarkable episode of "Yes, Prime Minister" in which Jim Hacker has to appoint a bishop? The candidates put to him all seem to be academics and political activists. Theology, it seems, is the route by which non-believers stay in the church. None of the candidates has ever actually served as a parish priest.
Unless I am misreading his cv, this seems to be the case with Archbishop Rowan Williams. Before his first bishopric (Monmouth) he was a theology lecturer at Cambridge, and prior to that at a theological college.