Justin Welby makes great strides, but his greatest challenge is yet to come

[hrmjustin]

John Bingham

It could have been like one of those moments in a country parish where a trendy new vicar rolls up with plans to rip out the Victorian pews to make way for a drum-kit and an overhead projector. The arrival of Justin Welby, a former businessman whose brand of Christianity is marked with the zeal of the convert, as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury had the potential to ruffle more than a few feathers in the established Church.

Within months of his enthronement, a year ago today, he seemed on course to do just that. He had overhauled his staff, with a series of new appointments. He had persuaded rival factions to take part in something akin to drama therapy sessions to confront their differences over women bishops, and he had delivered a blistering address to the General Synod on how it needed to face up to a sexual “revolution”.

But a year into the job – which combines the work of a medieval prelate, a FTSE chief executive and a world-weary inner-city rector – he has scored a series of successes that would have seemed unthinkable in the past. After decades of argument and years of tortuous legislative twists and turns, the Church of England is on the brink of finally approving the admission of women into the episcopate.

Instead of attracting the usual headlines about an embattled primate seeking to quell divisions, he has successfully shifted attention, at home at least, to matters such as payday lenders and food banks. And remarkably, in a country where fewer and fewer inhabitants profess any religious faith, his views on everything from banking reform to military action in distant countries is actively sought out and reported. Even what might have been his first major public gaffe – the revelation that the Church had an investment in Wonga, the lender he publicly pledged to try to put out of business – he turned to his advantage with a plain-spoken admission of embarrassment.

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