Welby is just a symptom of the Church’s wider malaise

The ecclesial blob has lost its soul to management speak and wokery. It’s time the CofE returned to its parishioners

One of the most difficult things about Christianity is forgiveness; the belief that we should forgive those who repent, who show serious desire to atone for their sins – just as we hope that our own trespasses might be forgiven by God. Justin Welby has done the right thing, albeit far too late. Having admitted he’d erred, taken responsibility and resigned, his repentance should be taken seriously. The rest of that pathway to redemption is now in the hands of a higher power.
That said, the Archbishop’s welcome resignation should, like all acts of repentance, be the beginning of a process, not the end. First, there is the scandal itself. Welby was not the only high-ranking cleric to fail the victims of the appalling John Smyth. There are still clergy, many more culpable than Welby, named in the Makin review who retain their permission to officiate at services. There are still unaccountable structures within the Church’s methods of dealing with complaints. There are still countless victims who go unlistened to and ignored. If Welby’s resignation is to mean anything, it must be the beginning of better practice throughout the Church.
Second, and perhaps most significantly, is the issue of what Welby embodied long before Makin, but invariably linked to its findings. He was a symbol of a managerial elite, interested in process not people, in jargon not holiness, in making the Church more like the world instead of making people more like Christ.
The evangelical circle around Welby – influenced by a particular group of London churches – appeared smugly convinced that they alone were the standard bearers of the true church. This in turn created an accountability vacuum. Rather than embracing the plurality of thought and religious tradition which had ensured a balanced and accountable Church for centuries, Welby tended to recruit and promote in his own image – people who agreed with, or would at least fail to challenge, him.
This mix of clique mentality and blob-like managerialism created a particular outlook which regarded parochial ministry as, at best, an irritation and, at worst, an asset to be rapidly stripped in favour of small conventicles of the like-minded.
I have written before of the increasing sense that there are two Churches of England in operation today; the one which dictates from above and that which you encounter on the ground. Some worshippers have been, understandably, repelled by some recent pronouncements from the wackier echelons of Lambeth Palace. But go to your local parish church and you will find people of all backgrounds performing extraordinary acts of charity and decency. Indeed, attending church and being humbled by what I saw was part of what drew me back to faith after years of agnosticism. There is a vast disconnect between these two churches; but too often the Reverend Mr Hyde has been allowed to supersede the Reverend Dr Jekyll.
Over the course of Welby’s tenure and thanks to the culture which he and the shadowy CEO of CofE Inc, William Nye, engendered, parish priests were disparagingly described as “limiting factors”. The people in the pews and the rank-and-file clergy tasked with serving them were deemed a problem, not a treasure. The ecclesial blob’s support for Paula Vennells – whom Welby personally recommended for the role of Bishop of London – was no coincidence. Both belonged to the same top-down caste who mistrusted the people on the ground and were ultimately tripped up by their own standards.
“Wokeness” was certainly part but not all of this problem. For it itself embodied the remoteness between parishes and the church hierarchy – which often descended into active hostility. The recent Boateng race report, commissioned by the central Church of England, attempts to codify different types of parishes in a bizarre chart, deeming some of them to be essentially racist. High Anglicans are accused of preferring “white male leadership”, while rural parishes are described as being uniformly “conservative/traditional”, and their congregants casually smeared as “[viewing] UKME/GMH [Minority Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage] people… with suspicion” purely on the basis of their living in the countryside. The contempt is striking.
When the Church of England pledged £100 million to help redress the wrongs of historic slavery, it wasn’t simply the cause that irked some worshippers. It was also the contrast with the institutional Church’s eternal stinginess whenever a medieval roof needed replacing or a parish wanted a vicar who actually lived there, rather than having to dash between seven other parishes on a half-stipend.
Having so often claimed poverty when faced with such requests, suddenly the Church found itself flush with cash for “reparatory justice” and endless dubiously-titled DEI jobs. Like the explosion of business jargon within ecclesiastical structures, all this proved alienating.
Whoever follows Welby must make restoring trust within the Church their first priority, for it is currently near breaking point. That means more accountability, greater transparency, the eradication of a managerial culture across the board. Crucially, it means actually listening to those on the ground. Only then can the Church return to the people of England, and get on with serving them, loving them and leading them to God.