A church on its knees: the Welby legacy

When Rowan Williams announced he would be retiring as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2012, speculation was rife as to who would succeed him. Betting markets were active, with the bishops of London (Richard Chartres) and York (John Sentamu) both hotly tipped. But insiders noted that they were both old enough to hit retirement age before the next Lambeth Conference and canny observers spotted that the Bishop of Durham appeared to have all the qualities needed. The only catch was that he had very little episcopal experience, having been a bishop for less than a year.

In fact, Justin Welby had been noticed by insiders for some time. Before Williams announced his retirement, one bishop went as far making a wager with The Church Mouse that Welby would be Williams' eventual successor, with a Mars Bar set as the stake. Mouse paid up in full in due course.

There was a lot in Welby's background that marked him out. An impressive individual whose managerial experience in the oil industry was seen as a benefit to a church declining in numbers and in need of institutional reform to shore up its finances and fill up the pews. Bishop Welby had reformed the financial structures in Durham on his arrival there, transforming its precarious funding position.

Dr Welby, as he was then, had also worked in reconciliation and peacemaking. He displayed impressive courage and commitment and was kidnapped by armed groups on several occasions while negotiating with Al Qaeda and rebel groups in Nigeria. Not only was this a credit to his character, it also gave him global relevance in a world where Islamist terror groups were on the rise.

He fit the bill as an evangelical, following the pattern of alternating anglo-catholic and evangelical Archbishops of Canterbury and seemed to tick all the boxes required.

However, he was surprised to be considered a leading candidate. When invited for an interview, Mouse understands, he felt his chances were so low he simply turned up and spoke his mind in answer to the questions, in contrast to other candidates who presented well-prepared and politically astute scripted answers.

Despite his seemingly privileged upbringing - Eton and Cambridge then a career in the oil industry - his childhood was not a happy one. His parents were both alcoholics who divorced when he was three. In 2016 he discovered that his biological father was not Gavin Welby as he had always believed, but was Sir Anthony Montague Browne, with whom his mother had had a brief fling shortly before her marriage. Justin provided a DNA sample to the journalist who was researching the story for a book and handled the news admirably in public saying 'my foundational identity is to be found in Jesus Christ'. 

“My own experience is typical of many people. To find that one’s father is other than imagined is not unusual. To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal. And he said that he found who he was in his religious faith, “not in genetics”.

He has frequently been open about his personal experiences, speaking on several occasions of his own experience of losing a child. The Welbys tragically lost a daughter at just seven months old in a car crash in France, which he described as 'a constant reminder of the uncertainty of life’. He used his experience to offer support and advice to other grieving parents.

He has also been open about his mental health, speaking in 2023 about his use of anti-depressants and the support that his family and faith have been. Typical of Justin Welby, he didn't just let the news get out, however. He spoke about it on Radio 4's Thought For Today and hosted a mental health conference at Lambeth Palace. 

Welby's family have been by his side throughout his time in Lambeth Palace. His wife Caroline is an ever-present support and has formed a unique ministry of her own, establishing Women On The Frontline, a ministry for women across the Anglican Communion. This has led to her adopted title 'Mama Canterbury' in many nations.

Humility has been a hallmark of his leadership. He has an interview and speaking style which is open, honest and always looking for how God at work. He has frequently disarmed interviewers who are used to combative verbal duels with politicians with self deprecating humour, by simply answering the question put to him and by admitting his own, or his church's, mistakes and embarrassments.

Mouse was told that when the removal lorry had finished unloading its contents at Lambeth Palace, Welby walked into his new study and his heart sank as he looked at the extensive shelving that formerly contained Rowan Williams's personal library and was now barely half-full with Welby's. But the church was looking for a leader, not an academic theologian, and that is what we got.

On his appointment as Archbishop in 2013, Justin had two major issues on his to-do list. First was the issue of admitting women to the episcopate. In a sad end to Rowan Williams' time in office, legislation to allow women to become bishops was narrowly defeated at General Synod and the church was reeling from this outcome. It was an embarrassment to the wider public and the divisions in the church had been deepened by the process. The other issue was the continued decline in church attendance. Rowan Williams offered no major coherent response to decades of decline and many were demanding the church authorities 'do something.

On the first issue the new Archbishop made an instant impact. He put in place a series of structured listening and engagement sessions between leaders on both sides of the debate. These were not intended to find solutions - simply to meet and understand each other. After a year, sufficient goodwill had been built up that allowed new legislation to be presented which, on the face of it, offered far less to conservatives in firm concessions than the legislation that had been defeated two years before. In place of legal provisions for conservatives to continue under the oversight of male bishops came commitments from all sides to abide by a set of guiding principles which promised that everyone would be valued in the church and all would commit to the ongoing 'flourishing' of the other. It has become mandatory for candidates for ordination to assent to these principles.

That commitment has been a source of controversy and frustration for some, but it did the trick and the new legislation sailed through in 2014.

However, if there was a hope that this would usher in a new period of peace and harmony among the church's warring factions, that hope was to be short-lived. Conservatives had been organising for some time under the banner of GAFCON, a global organisation formed in 2008 in light of the US and Canadian churches' decision to embrace full inclusion for LGBT Christians and the election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in 2003.

The GAFCON movement took an agnostic position on the ordination of women and centred their view of orthodoxy around the issue of same-sex relationships, adding it to the historic creeds in the form of the Jerusalem Declaration. As the Church of England resolved the issue of female ordination, fissures grew wider around sexuality.

In his first year in office Justin Welby addressed the GAFCON conference. There was hope among some GAFCON leaders that Welby was at heart 'one of us'. He spoke of the need for new structures that recognised the UK's complex colonial history with many Anglican provinces and the shift in the centre of gravity in the Anglican Communion towards the global majority world. He also spoke of his own recent opposition to legislation on same-sex marriage in the House of Lords. If that was intended as an appeasement strategy, however, it was doomed to fail. In the years ahead Welby would be unable to comply with GAFCON demands, including that 'Godly discipline' be exercised on provinces within the Anglican Communion which liberalised too much on sexuality. GAFCON leaders would go on to extend their boycott of gatherings of Anglican Primates. Relations soured and the stream of angry open letters from GAFCON denouncing the Church of England and Justin Welby personally would follow. 

The issue seriously marred Welby's tenure, as years of inconclusive theological reviews, facilitated conversations and synodical debates only led to increasing divisions. Conservatives eventually aligned under a new Alliance, declaring quasi-independence under a new 'de facto province' outside the formal structures of the church. Despite the increasing division very little actual change has actually been proposed, with progressives only able to go as far as blessing same sex relationships but not conduct same-sex weddings in churches. The position of clergy wishing to marry same-sex partners is yet to be decided and the formal position of the church is that its doctrine of marriage and sex are unchanged.

Welby's own view on sexuality has changed, however. Shortly after he was consecrated Mouse met with Welby at a reception and he was clear that he did not believe same-sex relationships were in line with scripture and was sceptical that he could endorse them even if they were, on the basis of the persecution that Christians in Africa would face if they were in communion with a church which held this stance. He repeated similar comments in public later. Fast forward ten years and he has finally found the words to say that he did not think that gay relationships are sinful, but that sex should be within committed relationships, whether gay or straight. The interview caused howls of rage from conservatives and forced a clarification from Lambeth Palace, but to some extent the cat was let out of the bag.

Alongside handling the new legislation on women bishops, one of Justin's early priorities was to establish the Community of St Anselm, a religious community for young people based at Lambeth Palace. In itself it is a modest programme, offering a group of young people a year living in a quasi-monastic community centered around prayer and service. But it is intended to be a symbol of the kind of church Justin Welby hopes we will be and the role that Lambeth Palace can play. Members of the community can be found at major events for the Anglican Communion as well as at Lambeth Palace with the intention 'that Lambeth Palace be not so much a historic place of power and authority, but a place from which blessing and service reach to the ends of the earth". Those who have taken part have spoken of the transformational impact it has had on their lives.

Justin Welby took on a number of causes personally, on issues of justice. Following the financial crash, the UK saw the rapid growth of payday lenders, loaning money to the desperate and cash-strapped at eye-watering rates, operating outside the traditional financial regulatory system. Welby declared a 'war on Wonga' (the most prominent payday lender) in response.

But it wasn't just words. Welby spurred the Church into creating its own Credit Union to demonstrate the ethical alternative to payday lending. He served on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards to be an active participant in public policy, not just a voice on the outside. Wonga went bust in 2018 and a raft of new financial regulations were introduced, including an interest rate cap. Looking back, many observers declared Justin Welby's crusade a success.

Archbishop has been also consistently spoken up for refugees. In 2016 he housed a family of Syrian refugees at Lambeth Palace, helping to publicise a government scheme which allowed families to host refugee families in their homes. More recently he has rebuked the previous Conservative government for their hostile rhetoric about refugees arriving on small boats from France and opposing their policy of removing refugees to Rwanda. While some Conservative politicians and commentators took the view that Welby should stay out of politics, most within the church and in the wider public took the view that it is right for religious leaders to speak out on moral issues.

On the issue of church decline, Justin Welby had a plan. It began with a process of reviewing 'what works' in growing churches, culminating in the report From Anecdote to Evidence. From there the Archbishop convinced the Church Commissioners to unlock tens of millions of pounds in funding to support new church plants and growth initiatives under a new Vision and Strategy. The new strategy was essentially to focus investment in churches which had the desire and capability to grow. That meant offering up money to churches and dioceses who could bid for cash if they offered the promise of some more bums on seats.

The jury is out on this strategy. On one level, the decline in numbers has not slowed, so we are yet to see meaningful benefit. When Welby was consecrated Archbishop the average weekly attendance in the Church of England in its annual October survey had fallen just under one million worshippers. In the last published statistics in 2022 the church had lost a third of its congregation, falling to just 654,000. All measures of engagement, such as marriages and funerals conducted are in continued decline.

Of course, some would argue that we don't know how bad the decline would have been without this investment and that it may need more time to see the effects flow through. But there is precious little evidence of meaningful growth so far. Where growth has been seen, studies seem to show that even churches which have seen impressive growth are taking a large portion of their new recruits from other churches in the area or from those who had stopped attending church for a while and that the number of genuinely new Christians being formed is very low. This is extremely problematic, as it means our evangelistic strategies do not really involve converting anyone but just convincing people who already consider themselves Christians to come to church. In a country where the number of people who consider themselves to be Christian is declining rapidly, this strategy is cannot be enough.

Others have criticised the strategy on theological grounds. It has had the effect of pushing resources into largely evangelical churches and in new initiatives rather than into the heart of parish ministry which is increasingly cash-strapped. Rural parishes typically now share a single priest across a number of parishes and there is little in the growth strategy to give them hope of being considered a 'good investment'. Anglo-Catholic ecclesiology roots its ministry in the parish and it is often not well received when a nearby evangelical church sets up within the parish boundaries under the guise of a 'new thing'. It also leads to the creation of less diverse church communities, rather than the parish-focused local community gathering of the church family. In response, a campaign called Save The Parish has been launched to attempt to re-focus the church leadership (and the cash it is dishing out in investment funding) on traditional parish ministry.

One prominent voice who has spoken out against the strategy has been the Bishop of Chelmsford, who spoke openly of her scepticism. This is particularly significant since she is hotly tipped as the favourite to succeed Welby in Canterbury.

Welby's tenure has been an eventful one in the wider world. The COVID pandemic was a traumatic event for communities around the world. For the church there was debate about an appropriate response. Church leaders instinctively kicked in with practical support for their communities, and the Archbishop did the same. Typical of his humble approach to the role, he secretly volunteered to chaplain at St Thomas's hospital, a stone's throw from Lambeth Palace. However, the advice to churches to shut their doors to try to reduce the spread of the virus was controversial. The impact of the pandemic on the church was significant, with many parishioners never to return. Congregations are still recovering in numerical terms.

He has also had a number of prominent roles, most memorably conducting the first coronation since 1953, after having conducted the funeral of the Queen. Prince Harry and Megan's wedding was another moment which put the Archbishop in the spotlight, although he was somewhat overshadowed by the sermon by a barnstorming sermon from Bishop Michael Curry which made headlines around the world.

No discussion of Welby's legacy could fail to mention the issue that brought about his resignation, however. The succession of abuse scandals has been deeply distressing. Early in Welby's tenure Bishop Peter Ball was jailed for sexual offences against 18 young men. The church was heavily criticised for its handling of the case as it emerged that he had continued to officiate in churches after having resigned in 1992 following a police caution for gross indecency with a 19 year-old man. Further high-profile cases including that of Mike Pilavachi and Jonathan Fletcher have all been subject to reviews which found that abusive behaviours were known about by the leaderships around them, but safeguarding had failed.

The resources of the central church institutions have struggled to keep up with their workloads as significant numbers of historic cases have emerged, despite an increase from just a single employee when Welby was appointed Archbishop to a team of 55 today. A review in 2022 found 383 cases which requred investigation or review. A similar review in 2010 found just 13 cases. Following each new revelation, new failures are exposed and more independent reviews are commissioned. But action has been slow.

It was the case of John Smyth which eventually led to the first ever resignation of an Archbishop. Keith Makin's review into the church's handling of Smyth's abuse was long delayed and victims of Smyth's abuse had been deeply frustrated by the way the church had engaged with them, including broken promises by Justin Welby personally to meet with them - a promise which took three years to be fulfilled in the form of a Zoom call.

When the review was finally published, it revealed not only the shocking and harrowing extent of Smyth's abuse, but also the fact that scores of people within the Church of England new about it in detail but did not report it to the police. When the case finally reached the desk of the central church authorities in 2013, Justin Welby was a brand new Archbishop. He was told that it had been reported to the police and he need do nothing more, but Makin concluded that Welby did have a responsibility to do more than simply take that advice and move on. He could and should have followed it up to make sure appropriate actions were being taken. In the event, it turned out that the police had been spoken to, but had not actually opened an investigation until the case was reported on Channel 4 in 2017.

The case was all the more eye-catching as a young Justin Welby was himself an attendee at the Iwerne Camps where Smyth groomed his victims and had met John Smyth and was close to many of those named in the cover-up.

While there were much harsher criticisms for those who actively covered up Smyth's abuse, Welby came under fire from Smyth's victims and their advocates and a coalition of those with historic grievances against the archbishop, including conservatives appalled at his change of view on same-sex relationships. It was impossible not to get a whiff of opportunism from some conservative voices who called for Welby's head following the Makin report, but their criticisms resonated with a wider call that he should take ultimate responsibility for the failures of the institution he led.

So what kind of Church of England does Welby leave behind him?

It is without doubt a humbler one in many ways - some good and some not so good. It is quite a bit smaller than the one he took over and it is an even more divided one. It would be some comfort to think that he has laid the foundations for future growth with the hard work of reform and renewal done. But sadly there are precious few green shoots to indicate that the seeds of growth planted have taken root, despite the many millions of Church Commissioner cash invested.

Welby's personal style has made the Church a more prominent voice on the national stage. He has grown in his public profile steadily and despite reports to the contrary has grown in popularity, according to YouGov. By contrast, when asked whether people have a favourable or unfavourable view of the Church of England the results are a depressing -7%.

In the short term, it remains a church struggling to deal with the Makin report, with a review into 30 church officials and clerics who were criticised in the report. Many consciences must be examined and more work is needed to quickly establish an independent safeguarding body and a funded redress scheme for victims. The track record of Archbishops' Council should also come under scrutiny as the body responsible for safeguarding in the Church which has dragged its feet on both these.

The issue of the Church's position on same-sex relationships is also unresolved, with little hope of consensus any time soon. The hope will be that the current proposals to allow blessings settle down and somehow opponents reach a reluctant acceptance of the new reality. But that won't be sufficient for proponents of further change and opponents have not shown a willingness to compromise.

So Welby leaves a Church on its knees. Humbly praying that the Lord has something new in store for the Church of England in the years ahead, but struggling with the challenges before it. 

Whether this reads as a negative critique of Justin Welby's time in Lambeth Palace or not depends on whether you believe there were alternative paths that could have a greater chance of success. For Mouse's part, my judgement is that he probably did as well as he could. He has chalked up some notable successes on women bishops and on the culture of the church, and demonstrated personal integrity on a range of issues and occasions. Could an alternative plan have halted decline? Very unlikely. The downwards trend line stretches all the way back to the late 1920s and is driven by demographic and social change, not the actions of senior clerics or positions on recent issues. The hope that a deus ex machina solution is available in the forms of funding from the Church Commissions seems increasingly illusory, so perhaps a new plan is needed, either as replacement of enhancement.

But it is the actions of the extreme wings of the church which have left the deepest scars on the last decade in the Church of England under Justin Welby. The challenge for the next Archbishop is whether they will be able to tame these extremes and bring a sense of unity behind the threat of existential decline.