A Must-Read! Andrew Atherstone's Biography of Justin Welby.

No one can deny that the odds stacked against the Church of England are huge: declining congregations; slim representations of youth; internal divisions made very public – all earning them a none-to-be-envied public image. Surrounded by this grim backdrop, how refreshing to read Andrew Atherstone’s biography of Archbishop Justin Welby. There is light on the stage; a striking player has emerged.

What is so remarkable is Welby’s positivity in the face of almost seemingly unsurmountable odds; his buoyant vision for the church in the face of its poor public image; his hope for the re-evangelisation of the nation when it seems in many places that congregations are shrinking and losing heart; his courage in taking risks when one would think timidity would be a more fitting response to the church’s predicament; above all his simple and unwavering certainty that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, ushered in by His death and resurrection, is God’s answer to our need - when certain strands within Anglicism leave us wondering, ‘just what do they believe?’

I love Welby’s stress on ‘human flourishing;’ our mission is a holistic one and yet he would urge us never forget the most important part: announcing the Good News of God’s reconciling love. His focus is: “Churches must be Christ-centred, consciously and explicitly, full of passionate love for Jesus or they are nothing.”
 

Is it really possible for the Church of England to find unity? Will it listen to Welby’s call to find unity despite wide differences of outlook, to down weapons in the war of words and listen well to ‘opposing’ sides as brothers, not enemies and, most of all, to put on love above principles and tightly-held opinions? One can only hope.

Welby is a wide-lensed evangelical, believing in a mix of old and new forms of worship, leaning for personal inspiration on Benedictine and Ignatian spirituality, living with an open mind and a listening ear and yet, at the same time, holding to the supremacy of the Bible. 

I am deeply impressed by the man; his vision, his gift of friendship and the holding out a brotherly hand to those who would disagree with him and his clarion call for the church to express, “diversity without enmity.” 

I believe his message, embodied in his own character as much as his words, has application to other parts of the Church beyond Anglicanism.  Maybe a new era is being ushered in when the ‘peace-makers’ within the church will come to the fore, when we will listen to one another’s hearts, learn to live with differences and work together; we are after all just fellow servants.

Loan Sharks, Credit Unions and Justin Welby

“Walking up the shadowy, half-lit path towards the flat where we sat, he knocked on the door and entered.  He did not look round at the little group of people sitting in the room.  Instead his gaze went straight toward the older lady in the wheelchair by the door. She felt for her purse and handed him some money. Then he was gone. “A while ago he lent me some money,” she explained. "Now I have to repay at 30-40% interest.”

‘Loan shark!’ I thought.  ‘What a beastly thing to do!  Preying upon the poor who find themselves in debt and then charging them exorbitant interest.'

In ancient Bible times God commanded His people never to charge interest on loans to their neighbours. Why? Because God is on the side of the disadvantaged, the poor and the destitute and is against all who oppress them. He does not want anyone to be short of food and the everyday things that are needful.  God says that when the poor cry to Him, He will hear for He is full of compassion towards them (Exodus 22:25-27).


The above is an extract from my diary when I lived on the St Ann’s estate in Nottingham.  (I lived there for seven years: 2004-2011.) The woman mentioned did live in poverty and, no, she did no smoke, take drugs or for that matter drink alcohol to eat away her benefits.

 Middle-class people take some things for granted; an annual holiday (at least one), new furniture when the old gets scruffy, enough credit to pay the electricity bill, a car. Indeed, one middle-class colleague at the college where I worked made this comment to me when a fourteen year old girl, Danielle Beccan, got shot and later died whilst walking home one late evening from the Goose Fair: “Why didn’t her parents pick her up from the fair?" I looked at her, incredulity in my eyes. Most people I knew in St Ann’s did not have a car. In the close where I lived, only one person out of twenty-two, as I far as I knew, owned a car.

In the same year as I wrote this extract (2008), Nottingham City Homes, which manages council owned properties in Nottingham, published this statement: "Up to 10,000 households in the East Midlands are exploited by loan sharks each year. Loan sharks charge extremely high rates of interest and often use violence and intimidation and blackmail people who fall behind with payments.”
 
 I really welcome Justin Welby’s intervention in recent days, his support for credit unions* with their low interest rates, his offer of church property to house them and his encouragement to church members to offer their expertise in running the unions and so help the poor out of debt.  He’s siding with the poor. He’s standing in a great tradition.
“If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.  If you take your neighbour’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbour has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” Exodus 22: 25-27 NIV

*Credit unions are organisations offering financial services and are owned and run by their members for their members. Interest rates offered by credit unions are much lower than most loan companies.