The Most Reverend Justin Welby

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this Christmas week is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby.

Presenter0:40

Ordained as a priest in nineteen ninety three, nineteen years later he was appointed to lead the Anglican communion of some seventy seven million people, spread across a hundred and sixty seven countries.

Presenter0:51

Hardly a front runner when the job vacancy came up, he himself said it would be a joke, and perfectly absurd, if he were appointed. Does that mean, then, that the Almighty has a pretty good sense of humour?

Presenter1:02

His faith has brought him high office but could it be that in the beginning, when he found God at university, it gave him something a good deal more significant, a sense of much needed comfort and security, after an often turbulent and uncertain childhood.

Presenter1:16

Although his mother's side of the family provided love and stability, his father was something of a playboy and an alcoholic, and his childhood was punctuated by his parents' early divorce and significant money worries. One particular Christmas was spent hungrily staring out of the window as his father lay in bed all day.

Presenter1:36

He says When the Church is working, it is the most mind bogglingly, amazingly, extraordinarily beautiful community on earth. It heals, it transforms, it loves.

Presenter1:46

It changes society.

Presenter1:49

Sir Justin Welby, you flew in from where this morning?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby1:52

Uh see you at the end.

Presenter1:53

You landed at five AM and you're sitting in my studio just a matter of a few hours later. How how did we find you?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby2:00

Confused?

Presenter2:02

In terms of managing to carve out any time uh for yourself, where you are able to be just in a space in your own head without people requiring things of you, do you manage to do that in a in a week or in a day?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby2:10

Soft

The Most Reverend Justin Welby2:13

Yes, um when I'm in London or at Canterbury, morning prayer and evening prayer and a midday communion are really really important. Times of silence, when I'm travelling, trying to find a space, you know, during a flight or something, just to be silent in prayer and contemplation, those are really important. And then, of course, days off and holidays are wonderful.

Presenter2:37

I've heard you say the ironing's a good time.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby2:41

Yes, I developed that when I was in a parish because I wasn't praying enough and the earning was building up with the business that we were all in and five children at home. And I discovered that you can do earning without thinking too much and you don't fall asleep, so you can keep praying, but that the earning doesn't interfere with the prayer.

Presenter2:59

How do you know when a time of prayer has finished? How do you know when enough is enough?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:05

Do you know? I've never been asked that. I don't think enough is ever enough in prayer, because prayer is about.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:12

Engaging with Jesus Christ, us allowing his presence to shape us and to bring what is in us to him, or just to enjoy his presence. There's never enough of that, and certainly not in this job is there ever enough of it. So I don't think I can answer it because I don't think I've got to enough yet.

Presenter3:32

One of the great upsides of your job, I imagine, is being surrounded so often by exquisite music.

Presenter3:39

How have you gone about choosing your list of eight disks today?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:43

With enormous difficulty.

Presenter3:45

Yeah

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:45

Indeed.

Presenter3:46

I'm sorry about that.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:47

That's quite alright.

Presenter3:48

Uh

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:48

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:49

The family would tell you that I am incapable of remembering music however much I enjoy it.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby3:57

When I was asked, my mind instantly went totally blank. So I've been pottering around with one of my colleagues. They've been saying, well, don't you like this? And I said, Oh, yes, I like that and yes, but I like that more. And so it's a pulling teeth job. But we've arrived.

Presenter4:10

Right, well, let's check out the first molar then. Um, you're your disc one this morning. What are we going to hear?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby4:15

It's in the jungle. It's a joke, really. In the family, we play lots of games together. There's a particular car game which destroys the packs of cards called Racing Demon. And the more of you there are, the more destructive and noisy it is. And it requires huge concentration. Everyone's yelling. And one of the things I used to do to put people off was to start singing this song. And given my singing skills and the family joining in in harmony, you could actually bring the entire game to a halt amidst screams of protest from the girl who was winning.

Speaker 35:03

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.

Speaker 35:11

In the jump of the cry

Presenter5:21

That was the tokens and in the jungle. So, Archbishop, it's it's clear you do a lot of travelling. Near the top of the Foreign Office's list of places that Britons should absolutely not go right now is South Sudan. You went there earlier this year. And you were there particularly to do what?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby5:37

Uh there particularly to meet the Archbishop. South Sudan is essentially very large majority Christians. It was in the civil war and the two sides had just gone for the town.

Presenter5:44

That's the

Presenter5:47

And you were consecrating at one point you went to consecrate a mass grave.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby5:50

Yeah, as soon as we drove off the airstrip there were bodies around and the smell of death, thousands of people had been killed there. And we went to the cathedral where we found the bodies of the cathedral clergy who had been murdered and there was one grave filled in and another one ready to be filled and I was asked to consecrate and bless it.

Presenter6:11

When you leave a scene like that, how do you manage to replenish yourself? How do you manage to deal with such scenes of horror that that most of us, thankfully, will never be confronted with?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby6:22

I've talked to one or two people at the BBC about this, ask them the same questions, because of course reporters do this more than any of us. That is a classic area for silent prayer. Holding this scene before God with yourself and him and the scene. Talking with family and friends.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby6:42

I don't know how you do it. You do it over time. It's.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby6:47

It's not the impact on me that matters, it's the impact on the people who were in the town.

Presenter6:54

Let's talk for a minute about many of the heavy responsibilities then. You've inherited a string of often quite troublesome theological conundrums within your church. The issue of women bishops, which has very recently been resolved by the appointment of the first Church of England woman bishop, let's talk for a moment about same-sex marriage. You yourself have spoken against same-sex marriage. What do you think it is about homosexual relationships that should make them in the church's eyes inferior, less equal, not open to the same opportunities that you afford all the other brethren?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby7:30

I'm really not going to answer the question very well because we're now into conversations within the church, both globally and locally. And I think if I sort of weigh in at this stage, it's inappropriate. It's something that, as you go round the communion, and having visited all the provinces, I'm very aware of this, that is seen by many as an absolutely central understanding of obedience to Christ in both directions, either in favour or against.

Presenter8:03

Given that, as I mentioned, between sort of seventy five, eighty million people are members of the Anglican Communion, a typical member, as I understand it, is a sort of twenty nine-year-old sub-Saharan African woman with a child. You know, that is your typical member.

Speaker 38:18

Yeah.

Presenter8:20

Here you are trying to straddle both what is required from these members in in sub-Saharan Africa and what is required of members in Europe. It seems to me an almost impossible position. You yourself have admitted that it could be the very thing that leads to the church splitting apart.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby8:37

Yes, in human terms it looks

The Most Reverend Justin Welby8:42

impossible and many people say you shouldn't bother to try, we shouldn't be bothering to try.

Presenter8:47

How much frustration do you feel that sometimes this great Anglican communion is in in danger of tearing itself apart?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby8:55

Oh, there are moments, but the reality is that when I listen to people, I know that

The Most Reverend Justin Welby9:02

I'm listening to people for whom not j just the issue of sexuality, but the whole way in which the Church lives and exists and reaches out to people, what it looks like to be a holy church, is something on which they feel passionately and are deeply, deeply, deeply disagreeing. And if you love them, you listen carefully.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby9:22

And in obedience to the work of the Spirit of Christ in that body, we have to seek to love one another.

Presenter9:29

Let's have another piece of music, Justin Welpy. Tell me about your second disc of this morning. What what is this and why have you chosen it?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby9:35

The second one is Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral Symphony. And this brings back memories of Norfolk, being at my grandmother's house, often with my mother, and being very happy there. It's where I learnt to sail and it brings back that sense of security and safety and a place that was good with the family.

Presenter11:09

The pastoral part of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, played there by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Carrian. So, Justin Welby, your parents, Jane and Gavin, were married in nineteen fifty five. They had their wedding reception, I understand, at eleven Downing Street. How come?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby11:24

My mother during the Second World War was brought up by her uncle and aunt and her uncle was Rab Butler and he was at the time, I presume, since it was eleven Downing Street, it m he must have been when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Presenter11:40

And you were a honeymoon baby. You were born in nineteen fifty six?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby11:43

Yes.

Presenter11:43

Yes. And your parents divorced when you were only three years old. What what do you remember of those very early years?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby11:50

My earliest memories are probably a couple of years later, so nineteen sixty one it must have been. I remember my mother taking me to tea with her former boss, uh who was Winston Churchill. She worked for him for six years.

Presenter12:04

Oh, that's a good one. We're not going to let that memory go. Give me some details then.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:08

I knew it was important, I can't remember why. And I remember a very, very old man and he cried.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:17

I don't know why.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:19

And because he cried, I cried, and then we sat and had tea.

Presenter12:22

Goodness me. Did you talk to your mother about that later and does it?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:26

Oh, I've talked to her about it since, and she said, Well, he cried quite a lot.

Presenter12:30

Did she ever have to do the sort of sitting by him while he was dictating notes from the bath and all that sort of stuff?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:34

Bath, I can't swear to bath, but certainly bath, yes.

Presenter12:38

And your dad had been a I mean, at one point, as I understand it, a rather successful businessman. He ran whiskey companies. He also was an aspiring Tory politician.

Presenter12:47

And I said in the introduction, and I have read that that latterly he had terrible problems with alcohol. Wh when did you start to notice those problems?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby12:56

When I was about twelve, as I grew up, he was always unpredictable.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby13:01

Sometimes.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby13:03

uh very full of rage and anger and expressing that very loudly. But I don't know if he was drinking then. I I remember noticing as a child that he didn't drink alcohol at parties, he drank soft drink. So I don't know if he was drinking secretly. I mean

Presenter13:22

And you were in his care when when your mother spent a

The Most Reverend Justin Welby13:24

I spent a lot of time in his care. I can't honestly remember what the arrangements were, except there was always a lot of arguing about it. But uh I think he legally had custody of me.

Presenter13:35

Your housemaster's report, and I think it was written to your grandmother actually, said about you and I'm quoting directly here many a boy would have driven off the rails completely

Presenter13:45

by the problems which Justin has had to face, and I admire enormously the patience and wisdom he's shown in dealing with them.

Presenter13:52

That was how it looked on the outside. How di how did it feel on the inside, dealing with them?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby13:59

Felt very painful.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:02

at times, but I didn't know anything else, so it felt that that's what happens in life, if it's one of the bad bits. Norfolk was wonderful.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:17

London was usually a bit complicated.

Presenter14:17

London

Presenter14:20

When you're at Eason, I imagine there's probably quite a lot of church going there. I mean, I mean

Presenter14:24

How many times a week? Twice a day, goodness.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:25

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:27

So fourteen times a week, I presume.

Presenter14:29

Did it make an impact?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:31

Not a lot.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:33

I can't remember very much happening in chapel apart from the headmaster falling out of the pulpit, I'm one occasion.

Presenter14:40

Well, you would remember that what happened.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:40

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:40

Oh, I don't know. I think he leant against the door of the pulpit and it opened and he had a microphone on with a wire round his neck and it came taut, so he sort of squawked slightly and we all looked up.

Presenter14:51

What about Christmases when you were younger?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby14:55

Used to go to church on Christmas Day and you went to service and it's a washed gently over you and you went out and then you got on with Christmas.

Presenter15:04

And the the Christmas that I spoke about in the introduction it was a Christmas you were due to spend with your dad, and there he was deciding to spend the whole day in bed. What what else do you remember about that day?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:10

Memory again.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:16

I did think this was a pretty bad day.

Presenter15:19

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:19

Um

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:23

I think I went out once or twice, but yeah, everything was closed. I didn't know really what to do with myself all day. I suspect I watched Telly a bit.

Presenter15:24

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:31

and sort of scrounged around the fridge for something to eat and yeah there was something no doubt there was something I think I had a sandwich I can't remember but it was it was a grim day that was a grim grim

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:45

Dang.

Presenter15:47

Let's take some time for music. Justin Welby.

Presenter15:50

Tell me about this, your third of the morning.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby15:53

It's an Advent anthem by John Tavenagh. God is With Us. And when I was at Coventry Cathedral as a canon doing the international reconciliation work at one of the great services during December, it was sung from one end of the cathedral to the other, and it said everything. It was the breaking into the darkness. And if you're doing reconciliation work, there's a lot of darkness about. And hearing proclaimed, God is with us. Christ is here.

Presenter17:31

The host singers was part of John Taverner's God Is With Us and Memories for You, Justin Welby, of Coventry Cathedral. Now here's the thing you got a C in history, a D in English, and an E in French. How did you get into Trinity College, Cambridge?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby17:46

I've always asked myself that. In those days you got a second chance, so that you did your A levels, and then you went for an interview, and then you had an exam in one subject.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby17:59

And I uh there were a lot of complexities going on during A-level. There was my father was going through a particularly bad patch. It's not an excuse, but I think it may have had some impact. And in the autumn term, the seventh term in sixth form, I just got my head down and worked as hard as I could. And it was just history, which I adore. And to my surprise, I got in.

Presenter18:23

And did you have fun at Cambridge?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby18:25

Loved it.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby18:27

I remember walking along by King's College one summer morning to a lecture and thinking, I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be here. I just can't believe I'm so lucky to be here. And I met my wife there and I made some good friends and there was lots of rowing and stuff on the river.

Presenter18:45

Have you got a little competitive edge in you?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby18:48

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby18:53

Yes, I'm I'm I I yes, I try not to let it get out of hand.

Presenter18:58

Mm-hmm.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby18:58

Unsuccessfully.

Presenter18:59

And you did experience this this moment of conversion.

Presenter19:04

It's a tricky old thing to talk about this because it's easy to make it sound rather sort of parallel. Yes. In your words, tell me what changed.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:08

Uh

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:13

Between school and university, I was working in Kenya teaching in a school and I was sharing a house with a practising Christian, someone who read his Bible every day and prayed, and it meant something, and that had a huge impact on me.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:28

And after a year of running away from that in my first year at university, at the beginning of the second year.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:34

A friend of mine.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:36

Asked me along to hear someone talk about Christian faith. And then we went back to his rooms and he explained.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:45

The simple thing that on the cross Jesus died so that in some extraordinary way I could know God.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby19:55

And it just made sense. And it brought together all the things I'd heard and experienced. And

The Most Reverend Justin Welby20:07

I prayed and something changed. There was a presence. Christ came into my life, for want of a better phrase.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby20:15

There was someone who knew me better than I knew myself, and who loves me more deeply than anyone, despite knowing absolutely everything about me, including the things I deeply dislike about myself.

Presenter20:30

And as you say, you had also met uh your wife Caroline at Cambridge. After graduation you took a job in the oil industry and you went to live in Paris. I'm wondering if if the church was whispering in your ear from the sidelines, even at that point.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby20:47

Caroline would say it was.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby20:50

I would say if it was whispering, it was whispering very quietly.

Presenter20:56

Let's have some more music, Justin Welby. Tell me about this. Your fourth of the day.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby20:59

Fourth of the Day is a South Sudanese song and it's because it picks up the influence that Africa has had in my life. South Sudan we've spoken already about the impact that visit had on me that sense of their faith and trust and joy in God in the midst of absolute horror.

Speaker 321:22

Yes, sir, what I see. Oh, they see, yes, sir.

Speaker 321:27

Oh, the Jesuit, why are you at the deep oldest, one yesterday, all the heels of the sea, oh, the teacher, oh yes to what they see, all the health of

Speaker 321:45

The button ginger

Speaker 321:48

One year to my sentence, all the healers

Speaker 322:07

What is the number one? Number one. What is the number one?

Speaker 322:13

Jesus, what is the love to murder? Jesus, what is the love to murder?

Presenter22:21

Yeso Odesi, sung by Cachipo of South Sudan, and you've said that one of the things you love about that music, Justin Welby, is that these are people in South Sudan who manage to find such joy amid so much tragedy that they have to bear. Um you yourself and your family experienced a terrible tragedy. It was nineteen eighty three.

Speaker 322:37

Hmm.

Presenter22:38

And your firstborn daughter, Joanna.

Presenter22:40

who was only seven months old, was was killed in a a horrific car crash.

Speaker 322:44

Hmm.

Presenter22:44

You've said of that experience.

Presenter22:47

We, meaning you and your wife, learnt of the fallibility and the brokenness of the world in a completely new way.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby22:53

Hmm.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby22:54

Yeah.

Presenter22:55

Can you explain a little of that?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:01

A E

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:04

The sense of

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:07

Uh saying goodbye. It was the day we moved back to England.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:11

And I was finishing off some work at the office in Paris. Caroline set off with a friend. Someone else was driving. And they had a car crash. And, you know, it happens to so many families, doesn't it? You know, they get the call. And the police rang up, and we went up and found that Joanna was in hospital and she died five days later.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:36

It's just

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:38

The constant reminder of the uncertainty of life. The only certainty in life is Christ, everything else is contingent.

Presenter23:48

You yourself, doubtless, will have spoken to so many people in in very similar circumstances. We all do. Our lives are peppered by these sort of tragedies.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:52

Some

The Most Reverend Justin Welby23:55

Yeah.

Presenter23:58

It very often is the case that people will say, Well, that was the moment when.

Presenter24:05

I thought if there was a god, he wouldn't let this happen. But in fact, it can be the thing that takes them.

Presenter24:11

Further away from whatever.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:13

Yes, that is absolutely true.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:15

That's absolutely true. And you find also a huge number of people who say, well, that was the moment where I found God. It's extraordinary.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:24

Anyways, I was being asked this in Sierra Leone. Why Ebola? Why is this happening?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:30

And I never try and give answers except to point to the Christ who died on a cross as a young man unjustly, unfairly. All I know is that

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:44

Even when I was struggling to know that God was around, I knew that people in the church loved me.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:49

And that was the love of Christ at work.

Presenter24:52

You have said that um if you do not take hold of the anniversary referring here to the anniversary of Joanna's death it will take hold of you.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby24:57

The anniversary.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:00

Yes, I think I said if you don't attack it, it will attack you. Right. And other significant dates. Birthdays particularly, Christmas. And whether there there's a faith or not is irrelevant, I think the most helpful thing is to celebrate the person, to remember them with love, to remember what they gave, what

Presenter25:03

Right.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:22

You gave them.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:24

In other words, attack the day so that it doesn't attack you.

Presenter25:29

In a tangible sense.

Presenter25:31

How do you imagine eternity?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:34

Very strange you ask that to day. I was asking myself that yesterday morning.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:39

And I think I came back to the conclusion that I usually come to is that I can't.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby25:45

All I know is that it's good. There is nothing that is not good in it. And actually I'm content with that.

Presenter25:55

Justin, well, be on that note. It's time for some music then. Tell me about this. It is your fifth of the morning.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby26:00

Matt and Beth Redman, they're songwriters in the contemporary worship scene.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby26:05

And it expresses brilliantly what we've just been talking about.

Speaker 326:09

Blessed be your name, In the land that is plentiful, Where your streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name.

Speaker 326:25

Blessed be your name When I'm found in the desert place

Speaker 326:33

Though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name.

Presenter26:39

Blessed be your name, Matt and Beth Redman. Um it was nineteen eighty nine then, Justin Welby, when you chose to leave the oil industry. Uh you took a degree in theology at Durham.

Presenter26:50

You've said you couldn't get away from the fact, the sense that God was calling you, but that you went there, k is it right, kicking and screaming?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby26:55

No, that's absolutely spot on.

Presenter26:57

Why are you so reluctant?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby26:58

I was loving what I was doing. I was in a job with people I really liked.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:04

doing some fantastically interesting work.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:07

And I had good responsibilities. Uh, what's not to like?

Presenter27:12

And where I saw a terrific photograph of you, this sort of thrusting young man in the mid eighties standing on the trading floor of Barclays Desert Ware right when, you know, city life was the life. How different a man do you feel now from that?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:21

City life was the life.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:25

Totally.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:26

Totally. Being a clergyman is a process of being trained by the churches in which you work.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:37

And I've had very good trainers. And through the life of those churches, you are.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby27:43

Corrected, changed, disciplined, transformed by the Spirit of God at work.

Presenter27:49

You obviously, through being Archbishop of Canterbury, you can bend the ear of power. I'm thinking of when you said the Church of England was going to take on the people who do the very high interest loans, and then it transpired that actually the Church, who has massive investments, had a relatively small investment of I think it was £75,000 in Wonga itself. Now this wasn't something that you, of course, knew about.

Speaker 328:08

Then won't get away.

Speaker 328:11

Sorry.

Presenter28:12

It beautifully illustrates the point, though, that when the church tries to get involved, it very easily can come a cropper.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby28:20

Oh, totally. And it does that especially if we come across as holier than thou.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby28:25

But when we do that, we have to do it with both the passion of Christ and a deep sense of humility at our own failure and weakness. I cannot speak to people without being aware of my own sin, my own failure, and of the failure of the church. And if I come across as I'm perfect and you're rotten, and so I'm now going to tell you how to be perfect like me, I mean, that is just the most awful way to deal with people.

Presenter28:55

Time for some music, Justin Welby. Tell me about this, you're sixth.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby28:58

One day back some years ago, early 2007, a letter came through the door inviting me to become Dean of Liverpool. And I remember being at Anfield on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and this being sung, and then going back to the cathedral and finding Everton and Liverpool scarves all over the cathedral. But this amazing, wonderful, poor, battered, thrusting, lively, humorous city coming together.

Speaker 329:39

And y'all

Speaker 329:43

I do never

Speaker 329:55

Oh man

Presenter30:05

Jerry and the Pacemakers and You'll Never Walk Alone and strong and wonderful memories for you, Justin Welby, of being dean in Liverpool there at the Cathedral. I mentioned that you said when you were in the running, I mean you put yourself forward to be interviewed for the job of Archbishop of Canterbury, you said it would be a joke and perfectly absurd if you were appointed.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby30:25

Yes, I didn't put myself forward. We were all told to write a proposal. I see. So I agreed to do I I did. And that quote is pretty accurate, yes. And it seemed to me to be.

Presenter30:28

I see.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby30:36

Clear the time.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby30:39

Why did you think it would be a joke and upset? Well, I've been a bishop for six months or something ridiculous. And amongst the bishops there are some very remarkable people.

Presenter30:49

Did you feel, then, at the beginning of doing the job that you weren't up to the task?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby30:53

Oh, I still do most of the time.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby30:55

Imposter syndrome is a is a constant companion.

Presenter30:59

One of your children, your daughter Catherine, has said you are a man of grace and humility, but also authority a brilliant man, she

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:06

I didn't know she said that.

Presenter31:06

The

Presenter31:07

I'm I'm wondering then what your faults are after that list.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:10

Oh golly, I'm not going to tell you my faults on the radio.

Presenter31:14

Yeah.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:14

Uh

Presenter31:14

The ba-

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:14

They asked me that.

Presenter31:14

Uh

Presenter31:15

Well, I can ask you. You can not answer. Just a couple?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:20

I find it very easy to be lazy. I have a flutter by mind. No, let's stop there.

Presenter31:26

Um evangelism, as I understand it, is a priority for you. I'm wondering if that's just a smart growth strategy, that one.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:32

Oh no, no, no, no It's the nature of God.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby31:35

Evangelism is a sort of churchy word for seeking to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people. The very nature of God is to reach out into a world that needs his love and his light, and that's our response is to imitate that.

Presenter31:54

You know that for some people the good news of Christ might be one thing, but what they find appalling is the things that are done in the name of religion. We are we are all in the shadow of uh the massacre in Peshawar.

Speaker 132:04

We are we are

Speaker 332:05

Yeah.

Speaker 132:05

Uh

Presenter32:09

Does it boggle your mind sometimes what humanity is capable of in the name of religion?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:13

Yes.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:15

It does, not only in the name of religion, I think just what humanity is capable of.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:21

My experience is that in many conflicts religion is a very good and simple hook to hang extremely complex conflicts on. And the trouble is the more you use the hook, the more it becomes the reality. And in the end, it becomes the underlying reality.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:37

We have to be realistic about the failures of the church.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:41

but also confident in the love and the light and the truth of Christ.

Presenter32:47

Time for some more music, Justin Welby. Tell me about this, then. This is going to be your seventh of the morning. What are we going to hear?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby32:52

This was written for my installation at Canterbury Cathedral as Archbishop. It was commissioned by my mother and stepfather. And it's the first few words of the Rule of St. Benedict, and that's this sixth century founder of the Western monastic movement.

Presenter34:10

Michael Barclay's Listen, Listen, O My Child, sung by the choir of Canterbury Cathedral. So, Justin Welby, you and your wife Caroline find yourselves in the delightful position of being grandparents now, and your children are all grown up. You've got two sons and three daughters.

Speaker 134:20

You choose to

Presenter34:24

And what do you think the impact on your family has been so far of this enormous job that you've taken on?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:29

I think it's encouraged their habit of making sure that I remember her.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:36

How fallible I am.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:38

Remorseless teasing.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:40

It's been a fantastic time of drawing closer as a family. That's been one of the blessings.

Presenter34:46

Alone on the island, then? I'm going to cast you away, as you know. Um

Presenter34:51

You're a man who likes his daily routine, whether it's the ironing or polishing in the shoes or going for a run and praying while you do it.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:53

What is the iron?

Speaker 134:55

Prayer.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:56

Well you do

Speaker 134:56

Bill

The Most Reverend Justin Welby34:58

Well, I hope I'd be able to go on with at least the prayer and reading the Bible.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby35:04

Exercise. Dear, oh dear, the thought of building shelters and so on. My DIY skills are worse than negative.

Presenter35:11

As you're cooking.

Presenter35:13

Inventive.

Presenter35:14

That'll be useful then.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby35:15

But yes, it would be useful.

Presenter35:17

Tell me about your final piece of music. What are we going to hear now?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby35:19

The final bit takes me back to Coventry and it's Benjamin Britton's War Requiem, which was written for the consecration of the new cathedral. And it's just a passionately

The Most Reverend Justin Welby35:33

powerful intersection of the poems of Wilfred Owen with their pacifist commitment and also at the same time the Requiem Mass. And it it's my favorite bit of music in the world.

Speaker 135:44

Hey, hey. Yeah.

Speaker 335:45

Uh Yeah.

Speaker 336:25

What passing bells for these motives?

Speaker 136:26

Well spot these will die.

Speaker 336:35

Only the monsters and what are the guns.

Speaker 336:42

Only the stock of your rifles are rapping in battle.

Speaker 136:43

The lipos

Speaker 336:45

Can cat about hasty.

Presenter36:50

The Requiem A Turnum, part of Benjamin Britton's War Requiem, and we heard the Bach Choir with the London Symphony Orchestra chorus and the Highgate School Choir accompanied by the Melos Ensemble and the London Symphony Orchestra. It's time then, Justin Welby, to give you these books. As you know, you get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you're allowed to take one other book as well. What's it going to be?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby37:10

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Presenter37:13

And what will the Archbishop of Canterbury's luxury be, I wonder?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby37:16

The complete series of the West Wing, all seven uh years of it. It's what we go to when we just need to switch off.

Presenter37:27

Well, it's yours. And finally, if the waves threaten to wash away the disks, which one would you run through the sand to save?

The Most Reverend Justin Welby37:35

I think I'd go for Matt and Beth Redmond.

Presenter37:37

It's yours. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby37:42

Thank you.

Presenter38:23

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.