Faith in the Public Square with Bishop Justin Welby

What if the most political act in history was God taking on human flesh? In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to explore what it means to follow Jesus in a complex, pluralistic, and politically charged world. 

Drawing on the Incarnation, John 14, and decades of global ministry, Welby reflects on human dignity, solidarity with all people, and why an apolitical Jesus is no savior at all. From interfaith neighborliness to immigration, public witness, and the courage required of the church today, this episode invites listeners to imagine a faith rooted in Christ, lived boldly in context, and marked by hope, humility, and love. The claim is simple and bracing: following Jesus means honoring the dignity of every person and showing up where life is fragile, complicated, and real. Listen in for the full conversation. 

Justin Welby was Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Communion from 2013 to 2024. Born in London in 1956, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history and law. For 11 years—five in Paris and six in London—he worked in the oil industry; his booklet, Can Companies Sin?, drew on this corporate experience and evolved from his dissertation at theological college. He was Bishop of Durham, Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, and Canon of Coventry Cathedral, whose international reconciliation work he led for five years. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he set three priorities for his ministry: a renewal of prayer and religious communities across the Church; supporting churches and Christians to be agents of reconciliation and peace-making in places of conflict; and encouraging and inspiring Christians to share their faith. 

Transcript

Incarnation And Human Dignity

Bishop Welby 0:00

The dignity of the human being that comes from the incarnation is what must drive the church in every single way. And the second thing is God became human in a specific place at a specific time. When you look at that, you realize every expression of Christian faith is expressed in a context. And God accepted that and expected us not to live as Jesus lived in the first century, but to live as we do live in the 21st century, to be the presence of God as God's people.

Bishop Wright 0:56

We're just so glad that you are here and your wife is here with you. You're on a bit of a tour of the U.S. Thank you for making time. What a great gift it is to us to just uh sit with you a little while and to pick your brains about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Uh you've had uh uh an extraordinary um unique um sort of panoramic view of Christendom, uh having traveled to so many quarters of the world and to see uh how so many Christians are living and uh bearing witness. And so uh let's start there as you have uh as you are reflecting now on your years as uh as Archbishop of Canterbury, I wonder is there a story uh or a biblical image or something that comes to mind that begins to get its arms around um what you've seen over the last series of years?

Jesus As The Way, Not A System

Bishop Welby 1:51

I think uh surprisingly and uh hopefully encouragingly it comes back to Jesus. Yes. And it comes back to John uh John's Gospel chapter 14, first few verses, and in which Jesus says, in answer to Philip saying, Where are you going? We don't know the way, and he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Yes. And in a really brilliant, I think, seminal commentary on John's Gospel written by Professor David Ford, which came out in about 21-22, um his one of the great themes of that is that we follow a person, not a set of rules or dogmas or doctrinal statements, important as they are. Yes. We follow a person. And I think in travelling round the world, whatever you saw, wherever one saw either remarkable churches, I can think of churches under persecution, uh Anglican churches under persecution doing acting with a supreme courage. I can think of Anglican churches in civil war, in the midst of civil war. Anglican churches in places of enormous prosperity. And wherever it was, these words never change. There's never a point where Jesus says, Well, actually, in this situation, that's the way. Yes, right. It's always I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I think that is why God's people, the whole church, not just the Anglican Communion, are held in the span of those words.

Faith Across Cultures And Religions

Bishop Wright 3:57

That's quite a a claim to make given that the Anglican Communion uh itself is now, you know, uh some say 86 million, some say 96 million, whatever it is globally, in lots of different cultures, lots of wonderful languages. And of course, there are many more Christians than that the globe over. But we live with Muslim neighbors and Buddhist neighbors and Jain neighbors and Hindu neighbors. And so just I I think it would be a great gift to us to just see your mind work a little bit about how we can say, with our full throw, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, as we live with other people who believe so radically differently.

Bishop Welby 4:31

I think there are two things that really matter in this. The first is we think through the implications that God came to us. God's self came to us in Jesus Christ and revealed God's self as much as could possibly be wanted, required, or asked for in any way at all, as much as we needed. And sends the Holy Spirit to continue that process of living in Christ. And when you start thinking through the implications of incarnation, that God became human, put on human flesh, not as a disguise, but in reality with everything. Yeah, this is the God who had to have his nappies changed, his diapers, I think they're called. I find that it points us to the immense dignity of being human. And uh we've been talking today and over the couple of days we've been here, when we we had a meal together, we we've been talking about you and I about um various people. We talked about Trevor Huddleston, talked about Desmond Tutu and um Dr. King. And uh you reminded me of the force of um Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail. And I was just glancing back at that because it had such an impact on me when I first saw it and I go back to it. Why was he so driven as his local the the local people um church leaders in Birmingham at the time said to interfere? Right. Why was Tutu interfering? Why was Trevor Huddleston interfering? Why did Jesus interfere? Because God became human, yeah. And when we see that, it changes how we must live. And that basic truth of the dignity of the human being that comes from the incarnation is what must drive uh the church in every single way and place. And the second thing is God became human in a specific place at a specific time and um wandered round Galilee and Israel and you know, dealt with all that was going on, the Roman occupation, all the rest of it. And when you look at that you realize that every expression of Christian faith is expressed in a context. And God accepted that and expected us not to live as Jesus lived in the first century, but to live as we do live in the twenty-first century, and yet to be the presence of God as God's people.

Bishop Wright 7:43

Yeah, I hear you I hear you saying uh something about solidarity, right? There's there's something about for the people who can say Jesus is the way, truth, and life, it there's something about that that puts us in solidarity with all people. Howard Thurman, uh uh Dr. King's great teacher and a great American mystic, uh talks about this. Uh his Christianity, he believes, puts him beside all people, not over and against anyone. Uh and I think that's what we're we're trying to say. And I think that's actually the best expression of Jesus, who was a local phenomenon, who walked uh beside people who did not believe as he believed. Uh he actually, as you know, he ran afoul uh with the people who actually read the same books that he read, so to speak, uh and worshipped in the same style that he worshipped. And yet um his solidarity with all human beings put him in conversation with and close proximity uh to people who uh were anathema and who were uh who were beyond the pale for good religious people.

Solidarity With All People

Bishop Welby 8:44

I think I I entirely agree. And that when we um when we talk to our Muslim neighbor, our Hindu neighbor, our Buddhist neighbor, uh whoever it happens, Jewish neighbor, whoever it happens to be, that is absolute absolutely essential. We are in solidarity with their need for hope and life and and dignity and value, and often their physical needs and their as well as their psychological and spiritual needs. And I think the other thing that has really struck me in the last two or three years, and goodness knows, um I must be as thick as two short planks, as we say in England, that um not to have really I mean I knew it, but it just hadn't somehow landed. Of course, God in the incarnation becoming human is in solidarity, as it says in the first chapter of Colossians, with the whole of creation. We read that at the King's Coronation. And uh Colossians 1, 15, 23, read by Hindu Prime Minister. Yes. And there it is. And there it is that you know the whole of creation is redeemed in Jesus Christ.

Bishop Wright 10:01

Yes. You know, you you you brought this up, uh the King's Coronation, and and I'm aware, uh, and and I'm uh you will have to tell me if this is unique for for um people serving as Archbishop, but you were uh you were there at the um officiating at the the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle uh at the funeral services uh for uh Queen Elizabeth and then for the coronation of King Charles. Is that right? Uh yes, that is right. So is that is that unique? And what what was that like? Because there you're occupying the space of spiritual leadership, uh, and at the same time you're uh you know you're sort of uh lifting, I think, and and I think making more buoyant um the whole of life.

Bishop Welby 10:47

Well, each of those events was extraordinary. It's not unique, I suspect. I mean, you know, I think uh it's what art yeah, it it goes with the job. It goes with the job, sure. As it were. Um it has done. But I think um what was extraordinary, um well, what was extraordinary at the wedding of of Prince Harry and and Meghan Markle was uh the sermon from the Episcopal Church presiding bishop at the time, um Michael. And uh it was uh uh it it blew people away. There was a friend of mine who was watching the wedding in a pub in Glasgow, a bar in Glasgow.

Bishop Wright 11:33

Sure, sure.

Creation And Cosmic Christ

Bishop Welby 11:34

And uh the place was packed, and they were all chattering away and looking at the screens from time to time, and then Michael began to preach, and my friend said it went entirely silent. And this guy turned to him at the end of the sermon and said, Now, if that's what God's about, I think I need to know about that. Yeah. And I mean so it was an extraordinary moment. The funeral the funeral just to see so many heads of state and government in one place to honour one person. And one person whose life was given in Christian service. Yes. And the coronation, again, that sense of laying an immense weight on someone. I think that's what happens at a uh in a different way, obviously the inauguration of a you of a new United States president. Yes. That um every time they stand up there at the Capitol and um take the oath, um there is a weight. I mean this is something quite extraordinary. We symbolize it more clearly with a very heavy crown. Um and uh but it's the same thing. It's you are responsible for this people. And certainly the coronation had that great sense of you know the different things that he gets given, some of which are slightly baffling. You know, why is he given two gloves? Yes why is he given armlets and and all the rest of it? But the sword of justice, the crown, the orb with the cross on top, yes, um the Bible. Oh that that says everything there is about what it is to be in human society and what we call on our leaders to do.

Royal Moments And Public Witness

Bishop Wright 13:44

To do, yeah, to do and to be, indeed. And so um as a as an archbishop, uh as the Archbishop of Canterbury, you were also a member of the upper house, is that right? Yes. Of the House of Lords, yes? Yes. Is that right? And so so there you are, sort of occupying uh, you know, sort of you're right there in the middle of it all, right? Yeah. And so what was that like? Because we've been thinking a lot here in America, especially, I think lots of places have been, but what does it mean to have faith now in what people call the political sphere? Uh what is what does witness mean? Um, and so there you were, um, in a room full of, let's say, politicians, um, trying to hold forth, I think. And so what was that like?

Bishop Welby 14:30

Terrifying. Yeah, right. Think about the House of Lords, it's an appointed chamber. And um you get in there through all kinds of ways, um uh uh uh apart from being archbishop or one of the 26 bishops who who are there, has no upper limit, has no size, you know, test or anything like that. And so uh one of the things a member of the House said to me when I first went in, just remember, every time you speak, whatever subject you speak on, there is a world expert listening to you. I mean, there's Nobel Prize winners in science and medicine. Yeah. And that is pretty scary. Yeah. So you you and you know, the heads of the former heads of the armed services, security services it's a it's a scary place. I I never took it for granted. Every time I went in there, you know, I I felt what a privilege it was to be there. Um that's that's one thing. The second thing about it is that it is a very effective house. Okay. It has no veto powers apart from the power to veto any government uh uh move to extend um its term before another election. So if a government says, well, we're due to have an election in three months' time, but the polls are pretty negative, so we're going to pass a bill saying we can go on for another three years, the House of Lords can veto that completely. Oh, wow. So that it's but it's the only power. It used to be much more powerful, but that's rightly changed. But what it does have is amending and reviewing power. So you spend a lot of time literally going through um potential acts of parliament bills, as they're called, uh line by line, word by word. And so you're sitting till two in the morning um doing that. And in that you have to be a Christian presence. Okay. In other words, uh I think one of the great demands on the bishops is that when they speak, they speak not from self-preservation for the church as an institution, but from a sense of what a good and holy society looks like. Yes. And uh sometimes we succeed. Historically, we've not always succeeded. Every single bishop voted against the abolition of slavery. And the Great Reform Bill of 1832, every single bishop which which reformed our electoral system enormously and started the move towards a democratic system. Um we uh uh every single bishop voted against it. There's a wonderful story of the Archbishop of Canterbury uh in his carriage um going somewhere uh very shortly after that, and the church was incredibly unpopular for having voted down the reform bill. And um uh uh someone threw a dead cat through the um window of the carriage, which landed on the Archbishop's chaplain, who said, Your grace, someone's just throwing a dead cat at me. And to which the Archbishop calmly replied, Just be grateful it wasn't alive. Yeah, right, exactly.

Faith Inside The House Of Lords

Bishop Wright 17:57

You you you're talking about occupying uh this the space as a Christian, um, even in this sort of political space. Yes, and and so there's there's a perception by some that to to uh to give voice to anything uh that may be controversial and be deemed political is just a bridge too far. Your wife uh mentioned the uh uh in our conversation about this, uh, you sort of give us the image of being told to go back to your box and stay and stay in your religiosity. Um and so people are worried about uh religious leaders being too political, uh uh and I'm worried about religious leaders being apolitical.

Bishop Welby 18:36

Yes.

Bishop Wright 18:37

And uh I wish we were worried more about an apolitical presentation of Jesus, which does not seem to emerge from the scriptures as I read them. Uh Jesus was not partisan, he was in fact political. And an apolitical uh Jesus, I think, is of no good use, especially to people on the margins who are oppressed. So what are your thoughts about that?

Bishop Welby 18:56

Well, I agree that an apolitical Jesus is not a savior. Yeah, there you are. I mean, the incarnation is the most profoundly political act, because it is to ch it has changed every bit of policy, of the polis, as Aristotle called the gathering of the people. The polis has been changed more by the incarnation of Jesus Christ than by any action of any political leader in history throughout human history. Yes. So God is deeply, deeply political, but not party political. Right. I always assumed that um you know that that Christians you'd have Christians of the left, Christians of the right. I might disagree with them, but they they were my sisters and brothers in Christ. That's the first point. And therefore, I was incredibly careful not to do ad hominem attacks, not to attack the people. Whereas we say in football, which I believe you call soccer.

Bishop Wright 19:58

We do, yes.

Bishop Welby 19:59

Well, it's really called football.

Bishop Wright 20:01

So my wife tells me, yes.

Bishop Welby 20:03

Oh, yes, she would. She'd know. But in football, the old saying is you play the ball, not the man, from the days when we uh had um only men playing football. Yes. So that's the second point. You don't do the attacks on the person. That's been seen by some of our great Christian political leaders, um going right back to the people who led the way in the abolition of slavery in the early nineteenth century, and particularly the slave trade, um were very careful those in in not indulging in personalized attacks. Right. I think the other thing is we have terrible warnings from history about what happens when the church gets politics in the wrong way. I've talked about the Church of England being on the wrong side in the slavery debate, in the debate on the uh Great Reform Bill in the 1830s in in in the UK. But there are worse examples yet. I mean, for instance, um uh one of my great heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, uh, in the 30s and 40s, when the German church was completely subordinated to Adolf Hitler and bought into his teaching hook, line and sinker. And that was catastrophic. You think of other times when the church has been an oppressive governing body and uh not so long ago in Church of England terms. So uh getting it wrong is a disaster but everything we say and do is part of the police, is political in the strict sense of the word. And if we're not political, we're not dealing with human beings. I and if I wanted to be slightly um lighthearted about it, I would say well the politicians always uh interfering in religion, so why shouldn't religious people interfere in politics?

Bishop Wright 22:30

And so to be sure, there's a needle to thread here. Uh, and yet, um, with all of that uh care that you bring to this, you have found your voice on um um immigration, for instance. Um, why did you have to speak up about immigration? And and my guess is that you knew the speaking up, even carefully, uh thoughtfully, prayerfully done, would still have a cost. So why'd you have to speak up?

Bishop Welby 23:04

Because I remember the moment very, very clearly. And in my notes, seeing the two paragraphs coming that were going to cause the trouble. And the strength of the temptation to skip them. Wow. I was so frightened. And I knew it was right. I'd consulted my colleagues, it wasn't an individual decision. I consulted colleagues. And it was because the way the program at the time was being described did not pay attention to the humanity of those who were affected. Um and I mean I I was clear, I would still be clear, I am not in favor of open borders.

Bishop Wright 23:59

Right.

Immigration, Borders, And Mercy

Bishop Welby 24:00

No country in a world where there's a hundred and twenty million refugees and IDPs, internally displaced people can handle that. Not even the United States. Right. And when we look forward, anticipate the results of what is now going to be seen as of what is now certainly two to two point five degrees rise in global temperature through climate change, uh you people uh anticipate somewhere that number going from 120 million to somewhere around a billion, 1,000 million people. We in in the reconciliation work that I did be involved in, we had a team and there was one of them was a very good analyst. We analyzed 26 separate places that are currently not at war, which risked being in serious conflict under the move the pressure of the movement of people. Yes. So I'm not in favor of open borders. I am strongly in favor of a global approach, a new global convention, which would take ten years to negotiate. I'm not in favor of not caring who comes in. It really matters. I am what we said is we need to have controlled immigration, we need to control our borders, but we also need to be part, as one of the richest countries on earth, we need to be part of the effort to mitigate the suffering that is leading people to take such dangerous ways to come to our country or to other countries. And you mitigate that, I think you have to work on the push factor, so uh um enabling a renewal of economic activity in areas destroyed by war or the neighboring-two percent of refugees go to the country next to the one they come from.

Bishop Wright 26:04

Okay.

Bishop Welby 26:05

And never go anywhere else. Right. So what are we doing to make sure that those tens of millions of people are having a rapidly growing economy? That's one way of reducing the pressure. Cut off cut it off upstream. We were careful to say that, but all people here, of course, is the government is wrong. Right. Exactly. And then the press will typically say, you know, the Archbisho Archbishop calls for open borders. Yes. Um the other half will say, and who are you to speak? Trevor Burrus, Jr. And and people will say, Who are you to speak? There's a chapter, one of the best, best books on the Christian in politics, uh was written by my great, great predecessor of the Second World War, Archbishop William Temple. Um, and uh it's called Christianity and Social Order. It's out of print, but you can get it on the web. It's short, it was the war. There wasn't much paper, paper was rationed, so it had to be short. There's a chapter in there, which is basically called towards the end of the book, um, which basically says, Why should the church be entitled to speak? Isn't that extraordinary? It is. Right back then, it was just as controversial as it is now.

Bishop Wright 27:20

Sure.

Bishop Welby 27:20

It always has been. The Bishop of Chichester at the time, George Bell, one of our greatest 20th century bishops, um, in uh 1939 wrote an essay uh entitled The Church in a Time of War. And the question was, what does the church do in a time of war? He says it must be even more the church, even more the presence of Jesus.

Bishop Wright 27:47

I I'm so glad you said this. Um there's a couple things, that was really rich. There's a couple things to say there. I think what I hear you say uh is the the church has an obligation to minister the and the conjunction, A N D. And that is uh secure borders for sure, and all of that matters and the dignity of people. Human being. And let's get coalitions together and let's figure out how we deal with this. Uh, and we say it so wonderfully in our Eucharistic prayer, because we are all inhabitants of this uh an island home together. And so we're gonna have to figure this out together or suffer uh for that. And so uh it is important. And interestingly enough, too, there's precedent with uh who are you to speak, because as you know, Jesus is wandering around doing his thing, and it is the religious class who come to him again and again and say, by what authority? By what authority? You've stepped overstepped your boundaries, by what authority. So we know this is just uh seemingly this is just uh part of the work. I'm I'm hearing you say this, and it all sounds so very reasonable, and I happen to agree with you, and I'm grateful that you did not avoid those two paragraphs, and that you said that because um I think we need to encourage courage uh among the clergy and the laity now, perhaps more than ever. And you said as much um when you addressed us at the Candler School of Theology the other day. And I was very taken by what you said. You said, I and I believe I'm paraphrasing here, I believe you said that to be baptized and to be followers of Jesus makes us revolutionaries.

Bishop Welby 29:27

Yes.

Bishop Wright 29:28

And so so how are we revolutionaries? Just say a bit about that, because I I think there's something there, particularly for young people who are wondering: is the church worth its salt at all anymore? Does it have anything to say? Is it is it grandmother's you know place of sentimentality? What's uh does it have any heft, any gravity for us now?

Bishop Welby 29:50

My experience of working with young people over twelve years and and astonishingly, and by the grace of God alone, we're seeing an increase in the number of young people coming to Church of England churches at the moment, particularly young men, um, is that when we uh tell them what Jesus can do for them, yeah, sure, this historic figure, you know, da-da-da. Yes. When we say, This is what you need to do for Jesus, in whom they haven't really believed, and and we say, I used to say, look, you know, this is uh we are not uh to follow the beaters, the best choice you can ever make as a human being is to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. That was one of my favorite things to say. And I said, that's the best choice you can ever make as a human being. Um and then I'd say, but it has consequences. It will be terrifying, it will be very hard work. It will take you to places you've never imagined you might go and you never wanted to go.

Bishop Wright 30:57

Yes, exactly.

Courage, Authority, And Saying Hard Things

Bishop Welby 30:58

This is the riskiest, most dangerous, most exciting, most wonderful, extraordinary life you could ever have is simply to follow Jesus Christ. And you, by the time you'd said that, all their young people, their heads were up. They they're on for that. Um this is not a generation of wimps. I think this is a great generation we've got coming up. A great generation. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing about the church speaking out is that is what God does. So is that is what we must do. If the German church in nineteen twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty had said this hit the guy is lethal, read Mein Kampf, and you will see what he's about. This denigration of Jewish people is intolerable, and of black people as it happens at the time, what he called the slave races of slavs, then who knows? But they'd have had nothing to be ashamed of in 1945. Nothing. They'd have had a rough time. But they might just have stopped. What happened? Right. Right.

Bishop Wright 32:37

Yeah, it it is uh, you know, I am I'm thinking a lot about uh this wonderful uh Bible verse from Paul and uh and Corinthians. Uh how shall they prepare for battle if there is an indistinct sound? Oh, yeah. Uh and and and and it's not supposed to be bombass or bluster or any of those sorts of things, not even particularly aggressive. It is uh a clear proclamation. Uh and you you uh what you said just a minute ago about being able to look at young people in the face and say this uh with all the truth in you, that the best life would be to live for Jesus. Uh and and so that's the encouragement for all of us is that we, uh lay and ordained, can say that of our own volition to people um and be believed because it is true in our own lives.

Bishop Welby 33:27

It and yes, that's right. Um it is so and it is so moving. I was reading um something a couple of days ago about Archbishop Van Tuan, who was a cardinal archbishop in uh Vietnamese origin. Uh he was co-adjutor archbishop of Saigon when it was taken by the communists in 75, the end of the Vietnam War. And uh he was arrested. He spent 13 years in prison, nine in solitary. I met him once. He was he wrote a book called uh Testament of Hope in the year 2000. I really recommend it to anyone hearing this. It is the most beautiful, it's it's the addresses he gave to the Curia, the sort of bureaucracy of of the Vatican, um, in Lent 2000. It's hilariously funny in places. He talks about the faults of God, the six faults of God.

Bishop Wright 34:28

Okay.

A Dangerous And Beautiful Discipleship

Bishop Welby 34:28

Uh with tongue in cheek. But he was someone who uh he talked uh talks about when he was arrested, he thought who's gonna care for the sheep in my flock. And then he was put on a boat to North Vietnam in conditions of indescribable suffering for him and everyone else in the boat, 1500 people in the hold of this cargo vessel. And he had nothing except a number. And he said he heard the voice of God saying, Now you have only me. And what inspires me so much about that is I was talking about it a couple of days ago, as you say, at the uh the theology school, that that's where we have to be. And he spent nine years tortured, ill-treated, bringing people to Christ. He not only started a church somehow from solitary at the parades every morning, even to count the prisoners, not only started a church without ever being able to preach a public sermon, uh, he started a seminary and trained and ordained two priests. How did he do that? Resourceful, yeah. I mean, he celebrated the Eucharist, the Mass every day with enough rice to wine to hold in the palm of one hand and one grain of rice, which was his bread. He he was hilarious. He talked to me about when he was out of um uh out of prison uh in house arrest in this village, and uh this bloke, this man from the mountain tribes, came out of the forests and saw him and said, I'm looking for a Christian. And Van Tuan said, Well, I'm a Christian. And he said, We've been listening to a radio station from the Philippines up in the hills, and we all want to become Christians. 5,000 of us. Wow. So Vantuan looked at me. I mean, we were we were in a group of three of us talking, and Vantuan looked at me and he said, So, what do you think of that? A Pentecostal radio station in uh in the Philippines has made 5,000 more Catholic Christians.

Bishop Wright 37:04

There you go, exactly right.

Bishop Welby 37:06

And and I just said, Well, that's God. That is God. You know, this and but there you saw someone who knew that nothing could, you know, in the words of Romans, nothing could separate him from the love of Christ.

Bishop Wright 37:21

Right. And and here again we hear, at least I hear in what you said, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, right? If you can just have that uh that true faith uh and uh we'll leave all of the uh the bad news and the sad news to God and we'll just do our bit. It's amazing what God will do with that.

Bishop Welby 37:41

It is. And I think one of the exciting things about living in the church today, and I'm sure it's true here, uh we have a daughter with some learning difficulties. You know, forty-fifty years ago, um There'd have been no place for her and we'd have been encouraged to put her in a home or something, I suspect. I mean, she only had very moderate learning difficulties. Yes. Now she's welcomed and asked to contribute to the life of the church. We are in a time where in the grace of God more and more people are saying nobody is out with the church, the opportunity to be part of the living body of Christ. And to minister and be ministered to. Both. Yes. Nobody. And that is such a what wonderful time to live.

Cardinal Van Thuân’s Witness

Bishop Wright 38:37

Well, let me just say about that as as we're wrapping up. You know, I I'm looking at you. We've had uh I've had the privilege of having a chat with you and your wife for the last couple of days, and uh you you are retired, I suppose we're using that language, maybe not quite, uh, but you're you're not serving this archbishop anymore. You're doing some other things, um, and you don't seem to be retiring as you present. Uh you've you've got energy. It seems like you've got a glimmer to the eye and some hope. Um there are people who are depressed, they look at decline in the local parishes and so on, and and um you know they're looking back and um they're they're wondering what has happened to the to the faith of their childhood, et cetera, et cetera. Uh so help me parse all of that. You you have some enthusiasm and some excitement about the church. I certainly do. And yet, as we look out, we see the church as a general matter declining. Uh certainly the mainstream Protestant denominations declining. You and I can both tell stories about meeting young people who are on fire for the Lord and want to serve. But yet there's it's a tale of two cities. Um that's a very good way of putting it.

Bishop Welby 39:43

It is a tale of two cities. Um one of my favorite books. Yeah. And it is I think I would say first of all, we need to recognize we're in a hugely privileged position as bishops, having served or serving as bishops. Yes. Because on the whole, lots of people tend to turn up when we're there. That's true. And you know, people are interested, and you know, it it we're very privileged. But I would say, yes, we look around, and I've been a parish priest, you're a parish priest, that that you see the decline around you, you know what it feels like. But God is God. And when we focus on the institutional church, yes, there is much to be depressed about and much to to jettison and lose. When we focus on God's people, it's a very, very different matter because the Holy Spirit is still at work. There's um when I uh Archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Darcy, the I just reckon I used to go around every tried to be every other week, it was a bit less than that, on a Sunday to a what you would call a parish visitation. Yes. And um I just saw it was virtually impossible to find a church that wasn't running a food bank or caring for its community in some new way, a debt cancelling or whatever it happened to be.

Bishop Wright 41:26

Yes.

Bishop Welby 41:26

Whereas 30 years ago, or even before 2008-9, the Great Recession, the financial crisis, they would have been the churches that were that engaged would have been a small minority. And I know that's true over here. Yes. If we get on, love G I'll put him in very simple terms. Our job is to worship God in Jesus Christ and to witness to the love of God to the world around us. If we do those two things to the best of our ability with the resources he gives us, then there's nothing more we can do. Yes. The rest is above our pay grade. Right. Yes.

Bishop Wright 42:15

You know, I I heard you in response to a seminarian say the other day, uh, you have found, and please correct me, you have found when when churches are sort of outwardly facing, they are likely to bump into Jesus. And when they are inwardly facing, they are likely to just bump into each other.

Bishop Welby 42:35

Is that did I get that right? You did get that right, and and I'm more and more convinced about that. Um it's not a super a sort of hyper-spiritual comment. It's just when we face inwardly, we see a close up a lot of the ugliness of the church. And we face outwardly. Yes. Yeah, I'm not saying we obviously have to deal with issues within the church. We have to deal with issues of prejudice, of abuse, oh of safeguarding, of all these things. Those are necessary. That's not inward looking. That's making sure the church is healthy. But when we look outwards and go out, we do find that Jesus has usually been going there for a long time before we got there. Exactly.

Bishop Wright 43:26

And he's still at it. I'm working on my uh my uh sermon for annual council, and uh it is he Jesus is uh commissioning the 70 and sending them to the places that he himself intends to go. Exactly. Yeah. And another way to say that, of course, is that find me there. You know, find me there. Um if you you know you want to see me afresh, I'll be in these locations. He's putting a marker down. Um that's where the adventure is. And uh, you know, I think that still uh is energizing, has an energizing effect on so many people.

Bishop Welby 44:00

I think that's right. Another thing I say is just, you know, the task is, you know, as he says, the fields are white for harvest. Therefore to the Lord to send laborers into the harvest. We look out and it just seems utterly overwhelming. But one of my uh own little cliches, uh and I live off cliches, I'm afraid, is that just because you can't do everything, it doesn't mean you should do nothing at all. Exactly right.

Bishop Wright 44:28

Exactly right. Well, so that brings us really to the last bit here. And so you've you've had uh a wonderful life. Yes. You've you've uh you've been an executive. Um you you cashed that in and became a seminarian and became a vicar and uh on and on, a cathedral dean, a bishop, and then archbishop. And so so what does one do now? I mean, you've been married to Caroline almost 46 years, you're a dad as well. So what what does one do? I don't know yet entirely.

Bishop Welby 45:05

Fair fair answer. We're exploring together those areas where the Lord has given us a passion. And for part of that passion, one of the things that really presses my buttons, is the work of the transformation of destructive conflict into disagreeing well. Not agreeing, but disagreeing disagree. Disagreeing well. And uh which the short word for that is reconciliation. Yes. Um not surrender to each other, but learning to disagree and love. I think you know, in if God gives me strength and health and gives us both strength and health, and um Caroline over the years has found the Lord leading her into ways she never imagined to do with uh supporting particularly bishop spouses in areas of frontline conflict and municipal and tension. Um if he gives us health and time uh perhaps that'll be a way forward. Yes. I hope so. Yes. Um but either way it's I again I'm quoting my wife here. We just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and follow Jesus.

Bishop Wright 46:29

I'm hearing you say discipleship never ends. No. And discernment uh uh about how to join how to join Jesus where Jesus already is. It never ends. It never ends.

Bishop Welby 46:40

I and yeah, I'm very aware of that. Um I think one of the things the Lord's been laying on my heart recently is it doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be public. Uh one can come become quite addicted to that too easily. But a walking, it just has to go on walking with Jesus. Like Van Twan, his public, respected ministry as an archbishop disappeared literally in ten seconds as he was snatched off a pavement into a car. That didn't stop his ministry. It just meant nobody heard of him for thirteen years. Yes.

Decline, Hope, And Outward Focus

Bishop Wright 47:25

It's been a delight uh to be able to share faith with you and uh to talk about this amazing life of following Jesus. Uh certainly, on behalf of the Diocese of Atlanta, all of our men, women, children, teenagers, and feisty seniors. We wish you and Caroline well as you continue to explore ways to serve. So thank you, Bishop Justin.

Bishop Welby 47:46

Thank you very much, Bishop. It's been a huge pleasure and an enormous privilege to be invited to speak with you. Wishing you well. Thank you.