Ask anyone what they’ve gleaned from the myriad profiles of the latest archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and you’d probably get two recurrent answers. He went to Eton, and he was a financial executive in the oil industry in the 1980s before he came to the priesthood. Some might add that he had a colourful father (a former whisky bootlegger who became an alcoholic), but the main observations so far are that he’s posh and well connected and he understands business.
This has led in turn to some assumptions – and I, too, have contributed to them – that Welby is about to shake up the management of the Church of England and is part of a rich and powerful network of Christians who have the money and confidence to get things done. He even looks slightly scary, with his gaunt features and rimless specs. There is talk of him inviting some of the fustier passengers in the Church’s administrative structure to reapply for their jobs. If they don’t come up to scratch, Welby will pick up the phone to one of his wealthy evangelical friends in the City and get the budget for more professional operatives.
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