The Disastrous Reign Of Archbishop Justin Welby

Welby became a symptom of the church’s wider malaise, one headline opined.

The moment it finally fell apart for Welby was his failure to uphold Lambeth Resolution 1:10 at the last Lambeth Conference. He hemmed and hawed and chose climate change to pin his hopes of unity on. It was a debacle. Poor Global South Anglicans still burn wood, not to mention that they’re burning dung which richer nations use. Poor people still use less fuel. Solar is the luxury of wealthy mostly western nations. Oil still fuels cars and planes that richer nations use.

Planes do more damage to the atmosphere than most anything and Welby racked up tens of thousands of miles on British Air pushing climate change.

It is profoundly ironic that the Archbishop of South Sudan, one of the worst strife- ridden nations in the world, struggling with civil war and poverty, vigorously opposed Welby at Canterbury calling on him to repent over his stance on homosexuality. Archbishop Justin Badi told Welby in clear unmistakable terms to repent. It fell on deaf ears.

Welby carried on like a dictator convinced of his own righteousness and to hell with what the Africans thought.

It should not be forgotten that on two critical issues – the persecution and slaughter of African Christians, Welby was mostly silent, especially Nigeria the worst hit country in the world for the persecution of Christians; but God help an African primate who dared to speak up opposing homosexuality, Welby was all over him. Think Ghana where an anti LGBTQI bill found Welby flaring his pro-gay nostrils, resulting in a phone call to the primate where he railed on about homophobia and his lack of inclusion. The Ghanaian archbishop put Welby in his place and Welby was forced to back off.

It is deeply ironic that Welby could not turn his own church around. Despite an elite club of Iwerne Camp evangelicals groomed to be the next generation of leaders, England is demonstrably secular and increasingly Muslim, with less than one million out of 66 million who think Jesus and the Church of England relevant to their lives. The fastest growing church in England is Nigerian!

Islam is the number one practiced religion in England, Catholicism is number two, the Church of England is number three. The Church of England is the Conservative Party at prayer, though one doubts the prayers go much higher than the ceiling.

What of the future? Who will replace Welby? Speculation abounds. I am reliably told that there is not one solid orthodox bishop enough to swing the church back to its biblical and reform and catholic roots. Those days are gone.

Can his successor, whoever he or she is, hold the fragile coalitions together even as it looks as though they are pulling the church apart? The task seems impossible. It probably is.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that an African Archbishop could be nominated to lead the communion. King Charles might “earn” eternal life if one was nominated that he accepted. More than likely it will be a liberal leaning Brit, possibly even a woman. A Lord’s Spiritual without much spiritual.

After all the liberals can now point the finger at evangelicals and say, ‘you rail against homosexuality but you have sexually abusive types like John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher, and John Pavlovitz, it is hypocrisy to say you have all the truth about human sexuality. Who are you to point the finger’? In today’s climate that is a valid criticism though ontologically meaningless.

Whoever is elected the credibility of the office has been forever tarnished. The Church of England is no longer the credible Mother Church it once was, to lead the communion.

Africa, Asia, and South American Anglicans do not need Canterbury to get to Jesus. That might be the most powerful message to emerge as GAFCON and the GSFA nibble away at the remnants of a once godly church with church plants on UK soil.

Welby will go into an early retirement emotionally beaten up and lost. No amount of money, homes and a fat pension will ameliorate or assuage the humiliation that he must be feeling. At the end of the day, no side agreed with him.

His climate change stuff will be ignored. His baptism of buggery will be forgotten. Lambeth Resolution 1:10 will still stand as the bench mark of sexual orthodoxy, and the Africans will eat liberal lunches as they slowly intrude on UK soil to stick it to the progressive incumbent that follows. The CEEC might yet win a round or two in their desire for a parallel province, but the legal and ecclesiastical ramifications will try and test their resolve.

The hollowed-out Church of England will continue to hollow out, empty of meaning, purpose, hope, and a gospel they are too embarrassed to proclaim, even as angelic cathedral choirs intone that Jerusalem will one day be built on England’s green and pleasant lands. That day too, is done.

Justin Welby stirred and reaped the whirlwind of hypocrisy, futility, and failure. He deserves nothing and, at the end of the day, nothing is what he got.

END

THE DISASTROUS REIGN OF ARCHBISHOP JUSTIN WELBY

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
November 26, 2024

History will not be kind to Justin Welby, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

His 11-year tenure as the church’s leader and the titular head of the Anglican Communion has been nothing short of disastrous. He is an example of why the smug never inherit the earth or the church.

He came in as an Alpha evangelical and departed a theologically compromised leader, alienating not only evangelicals in the Church of England, but millions of fellow evangelicals in the Global South who looked to him for leadership, but found only weakness, wokery, prevarication, cunning, and subterfuge.