The noun \u201ccrisis\u201d\u009d may be a journalistic clich\u00c3\u00a9 but it aptly describes the state of the Church of England. When Justin Welby is enthroned in March as Archbishop of Canterbury, he will command respect for his personal and spiritual qualities, and the loyalty of 85 million Anglicans worldwide. But he has a huge task in healing a divided Church.
\nWe wish him well in it, knowing his deep understanding of the significance of faith in an age of scepticism. The message that he and other servants of the Gospel will proclaim from the pulpit tomorrow is that Christianity is bound up with history \u201d\u201d that in ancient Palestine 2,000 years ago, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
\nContemporary mythologies had accounts of divine and miraculous births; but Christianity declares Jesus to be God incarnate. Through all the rigours of ecclesiastical politics \u201d\u201d and the traumas of religious persecution in such countries as Zimbabwe, Iran and Pakistan \u201d\u201d Christians affirm that God is concerned with the stuff of human life, for, in a particular time and place, He became human.<\/p>\n