He will bring a positive commitment to church growth. Welby said he is committed to the Fresh Expressions movement championed by Archbishop Williams. As Dean of Liverpool Cathedral he had kept traditional worship but alongside started a café church. “We soon found we were struggling to find space for people, having previously struggled to get them to come along.”
He is firmly committed to women joining the episcopate. “I will be voting in favour,” he declared. He recognises the church faces “deep differences” over sexuality. “It is absolutely right for the state to define the rights and status of people cohabiting in different forms of relationships, including civil partnerships. We must have no truck with any form of homophobia, in any part of the church.”
He stated his support for the recent bishops’ statement opposing same-sex marriage but added that “I know I need to listen to the LGBT communities, and examine my own thinking prayerfully and carefully.” London newspapers such as the Telegraph took this and a rejection of “the language of exclusion” as an “olive branch” in what is a very fraught debate. He pointed out, however, that what the Church of England does “deeply affects the already greatly suffering churches in places like northern Nigeria.”