As readers probably already know Justin Welby was interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on 30 March. You can listen to the interview here, and watch it here. There has been much reporting and comment on the interview; some is below.
Laura Kuenssberg BBC Justin Welby: I failed to act on abuse scandal as scale was ‘overwhelming’
Laura Kuenssberg and Sean Seddon BBC Welby: I forgive serial abuser John Smyth
Laura Kuenssberg BBC After Justin Welby’s failures, obscurity is perhaps not his to choose
Madeleine Davies Church Times Welby looks back at his Smyth decisions and resignation in BBC interview
Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Justin Welby was too ‘overwhelmed’ by scale of abuse in C of E to take action
Ben Quinn and Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Justin Welby says he forgives serial abuser John Smyth
Tim Wyatt The New Statesman The confessions of Justin Welby
Angela Tilby Church Times BBC interview shows tragedy of Welby
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Welby and Kuenssberg
Rebecca Chapman The Spectator What was the point of Justin Welby’s reconciliation interview?
Tim Wyatt The Critical Friend The scandal of grace
Andrew Brown The slow deep hover Here we go again
Douglas LeBlanc The Living Church Welby’s Interview Prompts New Backlash
I thought Tim Wyatt’s article spot on. far too easy to jump on the Welby-bashing bandwagon. Would any of us have done a better job?
I see the bandwagon is being boarded below.
I know there are homeless: but I own a home. I know there are people desperately hungry: but I choose what to have for dinner I know there are people facing injustice: but I am silent I could go on, of course. There is a long list of things I know about and which I could do something about. I might not solve them – my efforts could have miniscule effect- but I could do more than I am. In that I am no better than Welby, so no, maybe I wouldn’t have done a better job. But I didn’t… Read more »
Laus Deo
Indeed
I mean Tim Wyatt”s article in the Critical Friend, not the one in The Spectator.
I have little respect for most of the other articles linked above.
Nor even Tim Wyatt in the New Statesman, perhaps Nigel?
yes, that one! I liked the Critical friend one, not the new statesman one.
Most of the articles make very pertinent points about, for example, Justin Welby’s past inability to ‘read the room’, abstract compassion for victims not matched by concrete interpersonal action, and a muddled theology of forgiveness. Welby’s public agonising suggests that he is increasingly aware of this. Angela Tilby nailed it with her customary clarity and charity: “I found it impossible not to be moved as he sat still like a prisoner, or at least as a penitent … ” Being so moved is a desirable human response, not least for the Christian community. It should, though, in no way detract… Read more »
“A muddled theology of forgiveness”. And there’s a lot of it about; as in Tim Wyatt’s otherwise thoughtful piece in Critical Friend in which he reduces a hard won craft – the work of a lifetime, and even beyond, for some – to a fridge magnet slogan for the Christian life.
Much to reflect on as we enter Passiontide.
I was referring less to +Justin’s words, which he did go on to qualify, and more to Tim Wyatt’s glib: “Like it or lump it. We are the forgiveness people.” In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan puts to Aloysha, his pious brother, the case of the landlord who throws the child of one of his serfs to the dogs: “I don’t want the child’s mother to embrace the torturer. The sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive.”
I think that’s right: in the case you mention the mother cannot forgive the perpetrator for what he took from the child. But she can forgive him for what he did to her, including the loss of her child. (In the real world forgiveness is much messier than it might be in the theoretical world, however.)
Agreed. in the modern world we see the sufferings of children in war and the issue of forgiveness is to the front. I was amazed, in my trips to USA, how many vietnamese have settled and prospered there, and seem to get on with their lives. Reconciliation – isn’t that one of Welby’s priorities?
A craft? I thought forgiveness was an activity, a decision?
Clearly from my postings I have been an advocate for truth and justice and independent safeguarding. But laying all the blame at Welby’s feet is a mistake made by journalists, or Angela Tilby. and is a convenient diversion from the need of the CoE to reform itself. Welby is simply a lightning rod for the secular world and sadly for some from within the church.
Paraphrase: ‘I was stupid to give that final speech’ says the man who is giving an interview, and repeating his mistakes in traumatising victims and survivors by his lack of action, empathy and understanding…
A commenter on the Stephen Parsons blog describes the interview as Welby’s “Prince Andrew moment”. That nails it. It was cringeworthy and uncomfortable to watch.
It was uncomfortable to watch- was he perhaps advised to do it to ensure everyone else left was given a clear run?. But the Church of England is not a one man band Where was everyone else during JW’s tenure? His advisers, his colleagues, William Nye, the AC , and on and on. Where are they now , rushing to put things right for victims and survivors- not. Where is ABY (when not bullying the XWarrington)?
The entire picture is unedifying in the extreme
The best thing Welby could do is keep his mouth shut and avoid the limelight as much as possible. The damage he continues to do every time he opens his mouth is astounding, and I have yet to meet anyone of any churchmanship who thinks otherwise.
You haven’t yet met me! Never say never – it only takes a single contrary case to demolish your thesis.
Sorry – flippant remark. Had a touch of the sun.
A thought that comes to mind when Bishop Welby was asked if he forgave John Smyth, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warning about the dangers of Cheap Grace. Jonathan
I am sure i will get a lot of kick-back for the following, but will say it anyway. I have a lot of sympathy for Justin Welby. Not only because we taught at the same school in Kenya, Kiburu secondary School. Yes, sometimes the words he says could have been more carefully considered, but I like that kind of vulnerability. I am minded of Keir Starmer, who at the start of the Gaza war was caught out on LBC. But if you look at the Labour party policies, which he would have been behind, they were very clear and called… Read more »
Don’t think, don’t say, don’t ask questions, Isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?
Surely what I was encouraging was the opposite of what you accuse me? I am one of those whose stateents can be easily misinterpreted – I was trying to expand the agenda, and divert focus from the bandwagon, of which we have had far too much. ‘The rest’ is the bandwagon.
Just who are you including in your admonition to ‘be silent’? The Smyth survivors who have spoken out since the interview to say that Justin Welby has still not apologised to them? The survivors whose cases were being dealt with by the ISB personnel who were summarily sacked, and who have been left dangling ever since? Those who reported their abuse to Lambeth Palace in 2013 and are still waiting for compensation? Why should they be silent? And why should Justin Welby be more deserving of our prayers than those victims and survivors are?
Hear! Hear!
A few strawmen there. I don;t see a need to rake over old ground, I never said Welby is more deserving, I said he is deserving. I stand my ground.
When I said ‘be silent’ i did not of course mean ‘be silent’, I meant stop leaping onto the anti-Welby bandwagon. That should have been clear without my having to explain.
Nobody is undeserving of our prayers. I don’t need to insult this audience by reminding them of the teachings of Jesus.
Minor correction, what princes Andrew & Harry lost was right to wear the uniforms of their special royal honorary senior ranks in the military, not their last active service rank. For Andrew his last service rank was Commander RN (though even that was a special royal promotion for his final specially established job in London!), while Harry made it to Captain in the Army Air Corps. Wearing these uniforms on a formal occasion would have been their right as retired officers, but it would have been an all too obvious step down from 3* Flag Rank (Vice Admiral) in the… Read more »
I thought the correct uniform for retired officers was bowler hat and rolled brolly!
So he thinks he was stupid to give his final speech in the Lords, does he? One of the things I used to emphasise most when I taught reflective practice in the dim and distant past was that the whole purpose of reflective practice was not going through some overengineered (or not) process as some kind of mystical virtue signalling. The purpose lay in changing future actions (or not) in the light of critical reflection on what has gone before. So why, then, has +Welby pushed himself back into the spotlight from which he had successfully retreated, to do himself… Read more »
I am in the process of recovering from a long period without being able to hear. It was only resolved just before Christmas when a skilled technician prescribed more powerful hearing aids. Learning to hear again has not been the instantaneous process that I thought it would be and one of the challenges has been to discern what is ‘noise” and what is not – and as a consequence to value a return to silence. When I heard Justin’s interview I’m afraid it fell into the category of ‘noise’ and created more questions than it resolved and I’m sorry that… Read more »
I find Justin’s decision to be interviewed very selfish. The CofE needs to focus of the next Abp of C, not the last one. This feels like the retired vicar who won’t move out of the parish.
Tim Wyatt writes in The Critical Friend: ‘It is shocking to suggest that even someone guilty of the most horrendous crimes against vulnerable young men, causing lifelong emotional and psychological harm, can be forgiven. It is outrageous for Welby to have the temerity to offer grace out to someone as bad as Smyth. It’s also fundamentally Christian.’ Well, no it isn’t. In Mat 18:6-7 Jesus describes the terrible judgement which will await those who put a stumbling block in the way of ‘these little ones who believe’. Smyth’s brutal and sadistic treatment of these teenagers and young men put a… Read more »