Long life | 15 November 2012

The BBC and the Church of England are two rather similar institutions, both designed for the comfort and consolation of modest, well-meaning Englishmen who don’t like to be shaken about or threatened by anything disagreeable or jarring. The BBC is in trouble because it allowed a major current affairs programme, Newsnight, wrongly to accuse a ‘leading Conservative politician’ of monstrous sex crimes against children without even the most basic of traditional journalistic checks. In the midst of this crisis came the appointment of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, in the person of Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham. Welby seems like a very decent fellow, but could he nevertheless constitute a threat to the essential character of the Church of England?

Such a threat, if it exists, wouldn’t be from any improper impulse on his part but, quite the contrary, from a keen enthusiasm for the Church’s mission. There is, of course, nothing wrong with Welby’s faith; the worry is the enthusiasm.