By Rev Dr Andrew Atherstone, Tutor in History and Doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Darton, Longman and Todd, 2013. 152 pages including index. £7.99The press reports of Justin Welby’s first 57 years of life focus on his colourful life as the son of a bootlegger who died an alcoholic, the only child of a broken home and brought up in elite boarding schools and university, linked by family and step relationships with England’s political elites. Following university he was introduced into a career in finance in the oil industry by his step-father. Successful engagement in the launch of a new oil company and trading in the city in debt, derivatives and currency over eleven years led by 1989 to a six figure salary.
But into this predictable education and career of the well-connected young Englishman, stepped God in the shape of many people. Major Bill Batt, an evangelical layman and chairman of the South American Missionary Society, knew him from his earliest days and committed to pray for him every week. A meeting with Simon Barrington Ward, then General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society led to him spending his “gap year” between school and university at Kiburu Secondary School near Mount Kenya. Here he began to think about faith and read the Bible.
His spiritual journey from that point could be replicated hundreds of times among clergy of his and other post-war generations in the Church of England. He was converted following an evangelistic sermon in Cambridge, witnessed enthusiastically to fellow students, and spent summer holidays on Christian holiday camps at Iwerne Minister. He changed from reading law (badly) to getting an upper second in history. He took digs with Mark Ruston the vicar of the Round Church. And God brought another person into Justin’s life, a newly converted eighteen year old girl, Caroline, whom he was asked to look after as she went up to Cambridge from his London church, Holy Trinity Brompton. Shortly after graduation they were engaged to be married. To this only child of a broken home was given a Christian wife and eventually six children.
Then God upped the tempo. Told by Bishop John Hughes of Kensington as he followed ordination discernment that “there is no place for you in the modern Church of England”, the only reason that he and Caroline could find for dropping from a salary of £100,000 to £9,500 plus housing ‘was the overwhelming feeling that it was the right thing to do – it was a call from God.”
He served for seven years as rector of Southam in Coventry Diocese and demonstrated that a typical Anglican parish could be reoriented from decline to growth. He revived children and young people’s work culminating in a holiday club of 181 with 80 helpers in a town of 6000. He introduced Alpha courses and small groups for Christian nurture. The church was repaired and reordered. And different styles of worship were developed.
He taught the faith through sermons and through “Thought for the Month” in Southam Parish Church News: “If Jesus did not rise from the dead, the Christian faith is not true. If His bones were found, I ( and I hope all other clergy) would quit.” “God gives us choices…the choice we make has consequences for ever.” “Throughout the Bible, it is clear that the right place for sex is only within a committed heterosexual marriage.” “All human beings are fallible..the Bible calls it sin….Christianity is real about the disease and the cure for the disease.” Justin Welby calls himself a conservative evangelical with good reason.
He served as chairman of the South Warwickshire General Hospitals NHS Trust following a series of scandals. He was an adviser to the Association of Corporate Treasurers and served on the Finance and Ethics Committee of the Von Hugel Institute, a Roman Catholic Research Centre in Cambridge. Human flourishing is part of his theological universe.
The Welbys went to New Wine Conferences each year. In 1996 he travelled with SOMA (Sharing Our Ministries Abroad) to Uganda, in 1997 he trained local leaders in Tanzania in Alpha Courses and in 2000 he took a team from Southam to Uganda for three weeks.
Atherstone tells this story with insight as himself one who has served in a parish. He also recounts Welby’s work in the Coventry Community of the Cross of Nails while exploring in some depth Welby’s developing understanding of reconciliation. It is this exploration that gives significant depth to the well-written and easily digested book which can be read in two hours.
Welby himself reflected on lessons from treasury management for conflict resolution: synthesise a lot of information quickly and under pressure; flexibility in attitude, analytical models, planning and execution; and steely determination towards key goals.
His reconciliation ministry developed six “Rs” for work in conflict situations: Researching – carefully listening to all sides and also identifying ‘spoilers’ with a vested interest in continuation of the conflict and planning to deal with them ; Relating – to people not to an office and not because they are good but because they are there; Relieving – alleviating the socio-economic roots of conflict; Risking – and trusting the sovereignty of God; Reconciling – to enable warring communities to continue to disagree without violence or mutual destruction, a process that cannot be contained simply within the Church; and Resourcing – enabling communities to address their own conflicts without outside assistance. Christ’s shed blood was ‘the fountain of reconciliation with God , from which all other reconciliation flows’.
From his study of Thiselton’s commentary on 1 Corinthians Welby noticed that although the Corinthians were in error on several major theological issues, the Apostle Paul continued to treat them “as fellow members of the family of God”.
In moving to Liverpool as Dean and then Durham as bishop he focused on risk-taking in decisive leadership interwoven with collegiality and consensus. Reflecting on the office of bishop he urged “holding authority but refusing to dominate by ‘institutional models of control’, or ‘top-down management by command reinforced by status’. In Durham he addressed the declining income of the diocese by turning the disreputable parish share scheme on its head, asking the parishes what they could contribute and then shaping the budget accordingly. This risky strategy might generate less cash but would lead to better morale and unity. He was the first bishop of Durham in centuries to dispense with the services of a domestic chaplain.
Besides his extensive exposition of Welby’s theology and practice of Reconciliation, Atherstone’s work will be most valuable as people size up with whom they are dealing as Archbishop, his way of operating and his goals. Such people may include the Chancellor of the Exchequer with whom Welby has already crossed swords, managers of oil companies, or parish clergy and lay leaders who will recognise in Welby’s own journey of faith, his theological and mission commitments, his successes and failures ( the International Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry was financially unsustainable), and his decisive actions in the face of genteel decline in the parish, Liverpool Cathedral and the Diocese of Durham much that they have also experienced and dream and pray for.
Reviewed by Canon Dr Chris Sugden