Sources have confirmed that the Eton-educated bishop will be announced as successor to Dr Rowan Williams as early as Friday, after the Crown Nominations Commission put his name forward to Downing Street.
It marks a meteoric rise for the former oil executive who has been a bishop for only a year, but insiders described Welby as “the outstanding candidate”.
Last night a spokesman refused to confirm his appointment. But it came a few hours after he pulled out at short notice from a planned appearance on the BBC Radio 4 discussion programme Any Questions due to take place in County Durham on Friday.
Well, finally, a new Archbishop has been chosen. May he not be afraid to speak his mind and stand up for the Faith.
A man of faith, I pray.
Spot on, Cennydd. That is exactly what CofE and the wider Communion need. I am not hopeful, but let us see.
In the meantime, there is work for all of us to do.
We don’t deserve him but the Lord, thankfully, usually does not give us what we deserve. He is true Christian gentleman. A gentle man. Christ’s man.
The Welby’s are in our prayers.
Tory
A much more appropriate choice than his two immediate predecessors. Let’s hope he concentrates more on saving the CoE and less on the AC, which is in the end just a big distraction. Welby being a proper Englishman with a Lincolnshire surname, a good education, and the kind of family background which will make him welcome (he is, after all, related to a good proportion of the hereditaries in Debrett’s) where Carey and Williams couldn’t be comfortably, will be a big help to the Church.
There’s an evangelical/catholic shift the C of E goes for in its abp of C transitions, but there’s also sometimes a competent leader/head-in-the-clouds change it goes for too: Williams // Ramsey ; Welby // Fisher. Perhaps.
LOL – winning over the Debrett’s folks is surely the pressing issue facing the CofE
The first time he has an opportunity to ‘disinvite’ TEC from some meeting, and doesn’t (and he won’t by the way), he’ll be pilloried and thrown onto the extremist conservative trash-heap of do nothing ABCs.
For those needing to see it, this won’t be the man to tell KJS to stick it in her ear. Poor Mark Lawrence is unlikely to find quarter with this new ABC.
Unfortunately, he seems to be all for the meme that was going around in 2003, which was that all of these divisive issues from TEC were really just “secondary issues” and not intrinsically communion-dividing.
Which means that in his mind his main task is to get those who believe the Gospel to talk to and reconcile with all the others who believe another gospel because after all, if we would all just be engaged in “mission and ministry together” we’d all be able to muddle along together, even though we all disagree on these comparatively trivial non-communion dividing issues — which,oddly, was precisely what Frank Griswold’s and KJS’s line was too.
So I look for another ten years like Rowan Williams, who was and is also a Christian believer. The big question is . . . how long will it take for the Global South and for those who believe the Gospel in ACNA and TEC to recognize what Welby’s thesis is?
It remains to be seen. I’m certainly hopeful that the various networks that have been set up to communicate with the Global South and others have sprung into action ahead of time to let them know what Bishop Welby’s modus operandi is.
Driver8 – part of the problem with the CoE is that their hierarchy has become distant from the facts on the ground, which is that still it’s the people in charge who really run the show. The patron of my living also has the right of presentation of 31 other rectors on the family’s estates. More often than not lay patrons understand the way the people think in their regions better than the bank clerks we now call bishops. As well having a big say in clerical appointments, these people are important elements in local and national society due to their wealth, control of large swaths of land, and political connections. Neither Carey nor Williams had real relationships with the people who matter outside of official contacts. Welby is not socially isolated as they were. Apart from his own ancestry, Welby’s mother is married to a Labour peer, to give one example. His connections in the level of society are a huge benefit. The CoE has its origins in the cooperation of the powerful with the Church since the time of St Augustine, and maintained its position through that same means. Part of the TEC’s decline can be traced to the fact that ever since it pursued its radical social levelling strategy in recent years, its repeated biting of the hand that fed it has only alienated America’s upper classes from the church which they had regarded as their natural home, resulting in a progressive weakening of TEC’s social as well as theological credibility.
[blockquote]The big question is . . . how long will it take for the Global South and for those who believe the Gospel in ACNA and TEC to recognize what Welby’s thesis is?[/blockquote]
I suspect not long. Frustration with the office of the AbC will continue to be at a high level until Welby proves himself one way or the other.
The Global South, Mrs Schori, and the entire Anglican Communion ought to be on the next ABC’s far back burner for his term in office. Basically, they are all a big distraction and an intractable pain in the rear, if paid attention to, when he has far more important things to do… which is to revive and strengthen the Church of England.
A senior priest, thanks for your #9, very interesting.
I agree with your point that issues like the Global South and TEC are intractable (at least in the terms that ++Williams tried to deal with them). But surely they are a part of the Church of England’s life now, whether CofE likes it or not, so some sort of interaction with them is unavoidable? There are many people in CofE who actively work to have CofE endorse TEC, work closely with TEC, and follow its lead. Equally there are many others who have the opposite view – that CofE leadership should make clear that it does not endorse TEC, and its principles will not be followed in England. How can Welby avoid taking a stance on those issues? As we have seen with Rowan Williams, trying to sit on the fence simply won’t work – there are just too many people in CofE with strong views on the issue.
After all, the whole point of the TEC controversy relative to England is that each side thinks that TEC reflects the future of CofE – the liberals want CofE to go down the same path and the conservatives think this would be a disaster. Now I appreciate that there are probably a very large number of people who don’t fit in to either camp, but there are still enough who do that the ABC is going to have to take a position.
[blockquote] “The Global South, Mrs Schori, and the entire Anglican Communion ought to be on the next ABC’s far back burner for his term in office. Basically, they are all a big distraction and an intractable pain in the rear, if paid attention to, when he has far more important things to do… which is to revive and strengthen the Church of England.” [/blockquote]
That sounds wonderful in theory, but totally impractical in reality. The issues exemplified by Schori, AC and GS are precisely the same issues that exist in CofE right now. Those controversies are with you, and they are the whole point of “reviving and strengthening the Church of England”.
[blockquote] “More often than not lay patrons understand the way the people think in their regions better than the bank clerks we now call bishops.” [/blockquote]
But is there really any significant difference between the views of such lay patrons and those of the bishops? I am sorry, but the almost total dominance of liberal bishops in CofE has occurred on the watch of those lay patrons – either they agreed with their appointments, or they had no real power to prevent them.
Either way, how will ++Welby’s connections with them make any difference?
[blockquote] “The patron of my living also has the right of presentation of 31 other rectors on the family’s estates.” [/blockquote]
Sure, but what is the practical effect of that? Isn’t England largely urbanised?
‘There will always be an England’
…as long as A Senior Priest is around
Sr Priest #9 – thankyou for an illuminating post.
There are four aspects of +Welby’s formation that I find very encouraging:
1) HTB – as someone who understands and cooperates in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, he is a fully functioning Trinitiarian Christian. He knows people can change under the influence of the Spirit. He operates from an optimism of grace rather than a psychic draining, soul sucking hermeneutic of suspicion.
2) JPII – he is much influenced by Catholic social thought, epecially JPII’s social vision. I only hope he will be just as careful a student of JPII’s anthropolgical vision. That is the antidote to what ails us Anglicans.
3) Business and finance – he understands how organizational systems work and what keeps them from working. He has massive systemic dysfunction to manage and hopefully, in time, he can bring it into health.
4) Reconciliation ministry – he followed the legendary Andrew White at Coventry and traveled the world as a mediator of level 5 conflict. He understands that relational reconciliation is a precondition of theological and institutional reconciliation. Theological and institutional reconciliation will not happen in a generation (at least), but that does not mean we can’t work on the healing of relationships. Many people have been deeply damaged over the past two decades, mostly (but not entirely) at the hands of revisionists. We must bind up those wounds first so we can begin the demanding decades long work of healing a divided church, a church split, in part, by a false anthropology.
I believe he understands all of this, and much much more. These are some of the reasons I am grateful for his appointment.
And as well he is anti SS marriage, how convenient for us, my friends. Add that to the natural entree to the places he’ll be needing to access and you can see how pleasing it will be to have Justin Welby as ABC.
Oh, yes, MichaelA, England is largely urbanised, but it’s still full of country houses. The point I was trying to make is that Welby has opportunities Carey and Williams never had.
ASP, many thanks. Very interesting points.
A query which you might be able to help me with: My daughter lived for a while in a new suburban estate in South Gloucester which had been rural only a few decades previously. A number of new CofE churches had been established in the district. If those churches are established within old parish boundaries and a lay patron still holds the advowson for that parish, does he also get the patronage over the newly established churches?
Tory+, those are hopeful points, that’s true.
Equally there is cause for concern. +Welby’s undiscriminating praise for TEC in a speech given to the TEC House of Bishops in March this year is one: http://www.collegeforbishops.org/assets/1145/bishop_of_durham_reflections_to_tec_hob.pdf
Note the following:
[blockquote] “The issues in Africa are far more complex than they look. There are the changes in relative power, as many African churches also find a welcome sense of confidence and capacity so often stifled in the past. There remains the evil legacy of colonial power, which has poisoned the ground on which to sow the seeds of reconciliation.†[/blockquote]
Most African Anglican leaders have repeatedly made clear that they do not subscribe to this sort of paternalist liberation theology, but rather view the real problem for reconciliation being the failure of many liberal western church leaders to hold firmly to the teachings of scripture and the traditions of the church.
Note also these comments made by +Welby a few months ago in which he praises +Shannon Johnston of Dio. Virginia, a fanatical liberal who has oppressed faithful Anglicans over many years and continues to do so: http://centeraisle.net/2012/07/09/from-todays-issue-the-answer-to-division-in-the-anglican-communion-is-mission/
If he is to be a minister of reconciliation in the Anglican Communion, +Welby is going to have to demonstrate that he can empathise with +Johnston’s victims, as well his cronies.