WC:

So I have to ask the first question - what did we do?

RW:

Nothing personal!

WC:

There was a bit of a clue online, because about three weeks ago, we were in your diary online, and then suddenly we disappeared from that said diary about a couple of weeks ago. And so I wondered how long you’ve had to keep it quiet?

RW:

Well, we only knew really on Thursday this week.  So it’s all had to be done rather quickly, because being Archbishop of Canterbury does involve you keeping in touch with people like the Prime Minister and the Queen about what your plans are, so we had to get it out rather promptly before somebody leaked it.

WC:

So do you actually have to go to somewhere like the Palace, or do you do it on the phone, or by a letter? How does that work?

RW:

It would take a long time to explain. We had to set up a kind of shadow system, ready to go, just in case this appointment came through on Thursday. So we’d had lots of letters, lots of phone calls in the last couple of weeks, in case the College decided they were inviting me.

WC:

So there was kind of advance warning to them to do all that sort of thing.

RW:

Yes.

WC:

Now, many people may not know, but being Archbishop of Canterbury isn’t really one job, is it?

RW:

No, I think at the last count it was about seven. Because the first thing, and it’s really an important first thing, is that you’re the Bishop of Canterbury. You look after churches in East Kent. And although the Bishop of Dover does a great deal of that work on my behalf day to day, I think that’s really the centre of it all. Because that’s the opportunity I have to go around the parishes on Sundays and just meet congregations, like this morning; a chance sometimes to go to schools, to do a study day with the clergy, and (for me, very importantly) the big events at Christmas and Easter.  Our time is to be spent in Canterbury, with our people, and I can visit the prisons and the hospices and some of the homeless centres at Christmas at Easter. All of that is the bottom level of it all.

Then, you’re the senior bishop in the Church of England; you have to chair all that goes with that. And you’re the senior bishop of the Anglican Communion throughout the world, which means travelling quite a bit. Last year, that took me to five different African countries; this year it’s going to take me to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. We were thinking of a trip to China, but that didn’t prove possible this year. So that’s just three of a range of responsibilities, and there are some others, too.

WC:

Do you think the job is becoming impossible for one person? It seems like you’re quite overwhelmed sometimes with what’s expected of you.

RW:

People have been saying that it’s impossible for one person for about 80 years - but people have gone on doing it. I suppose, just in the nature of the case as time goes on, there are little adjustments that happen. For example, the Bishop of Dover now does a lot more in the Diocese of Canterbury than might have been the case 60 years ago, because it’s just not realistic to try and run a Diocese in a contemporary way with all these other things as well.

WC:

What are you going to miss most?

RW:

I think I’m going to miss some of the trips to developing countries. I said that last year I’d been in five different African countries: the visit especially to Congo last summer, and to Kenya, those were amazingly moving. To see what the Church at grassroots in these countries can do and does do with people who are suffering desperately – with women who have been raped in civil war, with children who have been abducted and coerced into militias.  The Church is there for them. To see that on the ground – it’s such a privilege to see and understand what our Church can do there. And although I hope to keep some contacts in the developing world and with development issues, that regular contact is something very, very special and very enriching.

WC:

Couldn’t agree more. We’re going to do a bit of that – we have some visitors from Kenya this morning who will be talking later.

RW:

Wonderful.

WC:

You mentioned in your interview last week that two things that you’re most pleased about in the last 10 years are the Anglican Alliance umbrella with development and aid overseas, and Fresh Expressions. What convinced you of the need for Fresh Expressions?

RW:

God.

WC:

Always a good place to start!

RW:

In the sense that, when I was working in Wales, I was more and more conscious of new things happening.  Not things that I or the Diocese had invented, but things that were just growing up – new kinds of community emerging, new sorts of ministry developing. And more and more, in the last three or four years, especially, when I was Bishop of Monmouth in Wales, seeing God at work in these unexpected contexts, seeing the development of a new church on a housing estate in Newport, seeing an amazingly creative youth ministry in East Cardiff, the development of a healing ministry in Cwmbran.

And when I first became Archbishop of Canterbury, I thought, “Well, there ought to be some way of connecting all that with the mainstream of the Church more effectively and more intentionally.” And that was just the time when Graham Cray was publishing his report on the mission-shaped church. It seemed like one of those moments that God had prepared - things slotted together.

WC:

Absolutely. And what do you think the wider church needs to learn from the Fresh Expressions movement? What can it learn in a general context?

RW:

Church always begins with what God is doing. The Church exists not because people decide to club together to start a society. The Church begins with a lot of people, as it were, drawn into one room by the force of Jesus’ personality and life and death and resurrection, and kind of looking at each other and thinking, “What are we all doing here together?”, and working it out.

And that’s, I think, how the Church really begins to generate itself, or rather God begins to generate the Church. So when you see God at work in these settings, you see that the initiative lies with God. A healthy church is one that constantly points to the God who takes these initiatives and invites people into that sort of fellowship of Jesus - and you take it from there, I think.

WC:

Yes. I suppose the other side of the coin is that sometimes new expressions can become a bit full of themselves, shall we say, and so what would you like Fresh Expressions churches, maybe like Springfield, to remember about the rest of the Church?

RW:

I suppose remember you’re not the first people to read the Bible. There’s 20 centuries of people praying and thinking through scripture and passing on their wisdom. That’s what we mean by tradition. It would be wonderful if we could recover a really lively and positive sense of what tradition meant. Not this great weight pressing down on you: “this is how we’ve always done it”, but there’s this great reservoir of experience and wisdom which we’re free to draw on and grow with.

I think that is one lesson that all new kinds of congregation have to bear in mind. The more traditionally mainstream kinds of church need to know that the Church is always being restored and renewed from unexpected places; the new renewing bits of the Church need to remember that God has not abandoned his church over 20 centuries, and has been giving gifts all the way through to learn from. So it’s that balance, what I once called the “mixed economy of the Church”, which I think keeps us fit.

WC:

Yes. Now moving on slightly, you had a recent conversation with Richard Dawkins in Oxford - if you like, the new high priest of the atheist movement. Do you get nervous before set pieces like that?

RW:

Yes, I was quite nervous about that, really, because I never feel I’m at my best in debate. You have to be quick on your feet and sort of clever and slick, and I always feel a bit anxious about that. I like to think about what I say and I’m not always very good with words, so yes, I was nervous.  But I asked lots of people to pray, and, it’s a bit different, but I had the same sort of experience last October when I went to meet President Mugabe.  And I asked a lot of people to pray and beforehand I thought, “What on Earth is this going to be like?” And as soon as it started, whether it was Mugabe or Dawkins, I just felt, “Well, a lot of people are doing the heavy lifting. I ought to be able to relax.” And mysteriously, it’s possible.

WC:

And it was remarkable, actually, how well that debate went in terms of as a conversation. It’s between the two of you. Some of the things that he actually responded to, I thought, were very interesting.

RW:

It felt more like a conversation than a kind of head to head. And because I know him a bit, and like him as a person, and we have a respectful relationship in that sense, it didn’t feel too much like a gladiators’ combat.

WC:

But on a general point, on the rise of the new atheists, if you like, the secularists: do you think actually the real issue for them is not necessarily Christianity but actually radical Islam? And that actually it’s more of a reaction against, if you like, radical Islam, and we are a surrogate for that?

RW:

That’s a very interesting point and I think there’s a lot of truth in it. It’s the last decade, isn’t it, that’s seen the great rise of anxious secularism, real suspicion of religion in public. I think it is 9/11 that brought that to a head in some ways. And because we’re also in a culture where a lot of people simply don’t know how religions work, whether Christianity or anything else, I’ve sometimes said that the trouble with some government initiatives is that they assume either that vicars are imams in dog collars, or that imams are vicars in turbans. That there’s one way of being religious - either you’re a sort of committed fanatic who wants to subordinate the whole of society to your agenda, or, you’re a sort of woolly liberal who can be persuaded somehow to go along with whatever is happening in society.

And the Church is neither of those things. The Church is what it is, it’s the body of Christ, it’s the new creation, it’s the assembly of Christ’s friends with good news to share, and that doesn’t fit neatly into either of those categories. I guess that some Muslims would want to say: we’re not coming with massive political agendas either; we want to let you know about the God we love and try to serve. But that doesn’t get across very readily to people in the media sometimes - in politics too.

WC:

But does it also open opportunity for the Church, because I’ve never known the Church to be so talked about.

RW:

Yes, quite - it does open opportunities. I often think back to a time when I was invited by a friend of mine to speak to her GCSE Religious Studies class in North London years ago. She was doing a term on the parables, and clearly none of the children in her class had any notion of the parables. They’d never heard the story of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. And when you tell those stories for the first time, they have an amazing effect, because, you know, they are pretty good stories. And to be able to talk about something that is fresh, unfamiliar, to people and get across the newness of things that we’re too familiar with - that’s a great privilege. So I think you’re right, I think it is an opportunity.

WC:

Now, you’ve sat in the middle of some of the most fractious debates in society and the Church in the last decade, and received criticism virtually from all sides. What has sustained you?

RW:

Well, I suppose there’s the one word answer, again. And making sure that the discipline of daily silence and listening to God doesn’t crumble under the pressure. And the generous prayers of so many people who really do regularly support myself and my family in prayer. That’s massively important, and knowing that that’s going on is a great gift. And also there’s the sense that, as I’ve sometimes put it, I know at the end of the day that I am not answerable to the Editor of the Guardian or the Daily Mail. I’m answerable to my saviour. And just trying to keep that in focus, which is sometimes difficult because of course it always hurts. Why wouldn’t it? But ultimately, you’re not answerable to anybody except your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ and the Lord of the Church.

I remember, I met in South Africa many, many years ago, a wonderful man who had had a really horrific experience with the then government of South Africa. He’d been under house arrest, he’d been stalked and persecuted in all sorts of ways. And I said at the end of our meeting, “It’s so important to hear what you have to say - you’re a very important person to so many of us.” And he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, you know. You get to the point where you know that they can’t really touch you.” And what he meant by that was he knew who he was answerable to. In a tiny, tiny way, I understand about one millimetres worth of what that means.

WC:

But you have been remarkably able to come off with that gracefully over 10 years.

RW:

Well, that’s kind of you to say so. I’ve still got nine months to make a real mess of it!

WC:

Are you hopeful about the future of the Church of England?

RW:

Yes, colossally. Partly because I’m hopeful about God, who doesn’t give up on any church. Partly because I see so many good things at grassroots - the stories that don’t get into the press (because nobody wants to read good news, do they?). And the sense that the Church is stirring in all kinds of ways, as represented by a place like this; that the Church remains, in extraordinary ways, often in the most deprived and challenged communities, a community that people trust, a place people trust. And I’ve quoted endlessly something one of my old students used to say, that the Church is where you put the stuff that won’t go anywhere else in our society. The anger, the anxiety, the celebration, the lostness, the foundness. Nowhere else in society holds all of that - those deep and important and difficult things for people.

WC:

And who do you think has been the most influential person in your life, in your spiritual journey - other than Jesus?

RW:

Two people, I think. One was my vicar when I was a teenager, who was an absolutely brilliant priest, somebody whose humility and integrity and insight were just a daily inspiration for me. I can’t tell you how fortunate I was to have somebody like that. He was 26 years in the same parish and devotedly served that parish without looking for any larger stage or opportunity. And the “humility” thing - I suppose it’s because I remember when I was a stroppy teenager, arguing with him about things; and his willingness to listen and not just to throw me out of the vicarage in exasperation; and that patience, that generosity of spirit. So he had a huge impact. He made me see what a real priest was like.

And then a bit later on, when I was a student, meeting an old Benedictine monk who lived in a monastery on the Isle of Wight and for many, many years, really up to his death, he was another person who kept me sane and anchored. Somebody who again had a very unobtrusive life; he’d become a monk at the age of 18; he’d hardly ever left his monastery. But had a warmth and a wisdom and an unshockability which was extraordinary. Yes, those two people really marked me, held me, inspired me.

WC:

And final question... no. My watch has stopped - this is far more fun, isn’t it? What’s been your most moving overseas visit?

RW:

Difficult to say. Congo last year comes very, very high on the list, because an evening I spent with about 30 or 40 young people who had been abducted as teenagers from their villages, taken into the militias, they’d been trained in killing; they’d done terrible things and they’d had terrible things done to them. The women had been abused sexually, as well as abused in other ways. And the Church had not given up on them - in many cases, people from local congregations had literally gone out into the bush to look for them, to go to the militias and say, “We want our children back.” And person after person of that group said, “If it wasn’t for the Church’s faithfulness to us, we’d still be in a kind of hell.” So that is unforgettable, absolutely unforgettable. That’s the Church being itself in a major way.

And then a very early visit I made to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. It was about a year after the civil war in the islands had ended.  And during that civil war, seven members of the Melanesian Brotherhood, which is a kind of monastic order in the islands, had worked as peace makers, and they’d been killed in cold blood by one of the rebel groups. And that had so shocked the islands that it had kind of triggered a peace making process. I was there a year after that, and able to dedicate the memorial to those seven martyrs. But also I was able to go into one of the prisons in Honiara and meet one of the militia leaders who’d been involved in all this and pray with him - and that was an extraordinary moment, too. These are the privileges that the post brings. You’re allowed into these very deep places with people.

WC:

I can imagine. I’m going frivolous now, as is my nature. I was rather excited the other day - my youth pastor had been telling me, finding out lots of different facts about you.

RW:

Oh, dear.

WC:

And she announced that...

RW:

Do you know where she lives?

WC:

You’ve already met her. She announced that you were into blackberries. And I said, “That is exciting. I love blackberries as well.” And then she says, “No, not blackberries. Black berets.” So is this a time for a confession here? Do you like black berets to wear?

RW:

I do like black berets to wear, yes. I keep losing them, though.

WC:

Favourite composer?

RW:

Bach.

WC:

Favourite author?

RW:

Classically, probably Dickens. Contemporary, AS Byatt.

WC:

If you could only rescue one possession, assuming all your beloved were safe, what would it be?

RW:

Oh... no idea.

WC:

Don’t come to one of our small groups. It’s the classic question.

RW:

I know, I know.

WC:

Favourite film?

RW:

The Muppet Christmas Carol.

WC:

Favourite book?

RW:

Too many to name.

WC:

Okay. Favourite comedian?

RW:

Contemporary?

WC:

Either, any.

RW:

Dylan Moran.

WC:

Okay. Favourite TV programme? You’ve been linked to quite a few over the years.

RW:

I have, yes. I still have a very soft spot for Father Ted.

WC:

If you could sit down for dinner with anyone on the planet, who would it be?

RW:

Living today?

WC:

Yes. Or maybe not - maybe the last 100 years.

RW:

Last 100 years... Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

WC:

Archbishop, thank you.