In defence of Justin Welby: mediator, not homophobe
Journalist James Macintyre writes an interesting article on the Christian Today website looking at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s much-misrepresented comments on gay marriage at the Greenbelt Festival this summer.
How strange it is to be at an event and then see it misreported. Stranger still to see that misreporting to be based on your own report of that same event.
Last weekend, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to the Greenbelt festival in Northamptonshire for the first time. There was a mood of enthusiastic anticipation on the Saturday lunchtime when Welby sat down on the main stage with the ‘Gogglebox vicar’ Kate Bottley, in front of hundreds of festival-goers. But despite the initial applause, there was no guaranteeing a favourable reception for what he had to say, especially on the inevitable question of sexuality. Greenbelt veterans warned that the festival’s crowds could be “spiky”. Their centre of gravity was certainly left-of-centre.
Yet in the event, Welby’s carefully balanced answer when the question came was well received, not just because it was unusually human, but because it was, broadly, progressive.
Read the rest here.