Justin Welby’s reformation

Justin Welby is working in Thomas Cranmer’s old study in Lambeth Palace, a room that looks as if it hasn’t changed at all since the Book of Common Prayer was written here almost six centuries ago. It feels like a mini-monastic retreat: there is a desk, a crucifix, several Bibles and not much else. The 105th Archbishop of Canterbury studies and prays here, deciding how best to lead a national church whose Sunday services are now attended (according to its own figures) by barely 1 per cent of England’s population. These are new times — and require new tactics.

When he was enthroned six years ago, he was seen as just the man to provide the new tactics. He’s a convert, who was ordained in his thirties after a career as an oil company executive. He has literally risked his life for his church when working as a missionary in Niger Delta: a militia leader ordered him to be taken outside and shot, but he was saved by the intervention of a local elder. His current job is less dangerous but by no means easier. It requires huge reserves of strength, imagination — and optimism.

‘The decline is flattening,’ he tells me.   But to understand the modern Church of England, he says, you need to look at the far-larger ‘worshipping community’. ‘Churches across England are now involved in more than 33,000 social projects. Food banks, night shelters, debt counselling, family ministry — all kinds of other things.’ Since the crash, he says, the Church of England has launched into all kinds of social action helping those affected – food banks especially. He seems almost offended when I ask if it really counts as religious activity. ‘Feeding the poor? I think Jesus would have thought of it as a form of religious activity.’

The bright spot, for him, is vocations — which he says will soon be at a 40-year high.