The Background Story to Justin Welby

By Dr. Marianne Leeds

Special to VIRTUEONLINE

www.virtueonline.org

April 9, 2025

Welby did not read Theology at Cambridge. He studied Law in year 1, and modern history in years 2 and 3. He graduated with a second-class degree in Modern History in 1978.

He went from Cambridge to a job in the City and from there to work in the oil industry.

Sometime later he was drawn into Alpha, which was and is very much an upper-class phenomenon, a theology-lite social circle, and from there decided to seek ordination.

He went on to train at Cranmer Hall, Durham, in 1989, and studied theology there for two years, graduating with an MA in 1991.

While he was there, he came very firmly under the influence of the college principal, another Evangelical public schoolboy named Ian Cundy, who saw himself as some kind of management guru, which clearly appealed to the former oil executive Justin Welby. Evangelical theology and gospel ministry gave way to delusions of a management revolution in the Church of England, and Welby went to Coventry Diocese (where the bishop was another Old Etonian) to be a curate at first, then Vicar of a parish while spending much of his time at Coventry Cathedral promoting its Reconciliation Ministry, based on the bombing of Coventry Cathedral during the war.

It is clear that he retained very close links with Cundy, who became Bishop first of Lewes in Sussex, and then Bishop of Peterborough, where he set out to implement his management plans for the Church of England, which he called “Setting God’s People Free” – free from clergy, parishes and church life as people know it in England. He also produced a version for the House of Bishops and set about persuading his colleagues to adopt it elsewhere.

Perhaps the most enthusiastic adopter was his disciple from Durham, who was suddenly and astonishingly catapulted into office as ABC, despite lacking any significant experience as a bishop, or any higher qualification in theology – but with a plan to revolutionize the Church of England with his own management strategy. Ian Cundy died in 2009, but his mantle had been literally handed on to Welby, who inherited his cope and mitre and other robes and wore them throughout his time in office.

Welby was a close associate of several ordained city figures, including the now disgraced Paula Vennells, a part time minister in charge of the Post Office. They came up with a plan to reinvent the House of Bishops by creating a talent stream of clergy candidates who displayed management rather than theological prowess, to be appointed as bishops, including senior people from other professions who it was thought could switch from a secular role to being a bishop, such as Sarah Mullally, now Bishop of London, former Chief Nursing Officer for England.

At the same time, he remained clearly under the influence of Cundy, and eventually a proposal called Vision & Strategy was presented by Welby and the current ABY to the General Synod, not for approval but as a fait accompli, in which the historic parish system would be left to wither on the vine, with its resources progressively transferred to high profile HTB/Alpha style plants around the country. Significant amounts of money which should have been funding the parish ministry across the country were handed over to unicorn projects, many of which spent the money but failed to flourish once it was gone forever. The impact on the dioceses and parishes of the Church of England has been disastrous, with many churches having to close their doors, or share one priest among many churches.

The combination of Welby’s manager-bishops (few if any competent at management, and even fewer having actually read theology) together with the Cundy program for the demolition of parish ministry has been a long nightmare for the Church of England, and one which will continue long into his enforced retirement, with many of those he appointed still actively setting the Church free of clergy, places of worship and of basic theology. He will be remembered for his disastrous handling of the largest safeguarding failure in the Church of England’s history, set out in the Makin Report. But his attempt to remake the Church of England in the image of his former college principal has been the greatest failure of his time in a great office for which he was always ill-equipped from the beginning.”

ChatGPT:

Justin Welby (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and Lord Stephen Green (former chairman of HSBC and former UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment) have a longstanding personal and professional connection.

Their Relationship:

· Both men worked together in the oil industry in the 1980s. Specifically, they overlapped at Elf Aquitaine (now part of TotalEnergies), where Welby worked before entering the priesthood.

· Later, their paths crossed again in the City of London. Stephen Green was a senior figure in banking (HSBC), while Welby was involved in ethical investment and financial ethics through his work in the Church and its financial oversight bodies.

· Welby has publicly spoken of Green as a friend and mentor, particularly during his transition from the corporate world into Christian ministry.

· Green, being both a banker and an Anglican priest (he was ordained while working at HSBC), embodied the intersection of faith and finance — something that resonated with Welby’s own journey.

Context of Their Public Association:

· Their relationship came under scrutiny around 2012-2013 when HSBC (under Green’s leadership) faced criticism over money-laundering scandals. Welby was asked about his connection to Green but defended the idea that ethical business leadership was possible, even in banking.

· Green wrote extensively about ethics in business, notably in his book “Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World”. Welby, as Archbishop, has continued to campaign for ethical practices in the financial sector, possibly shaped in part by conversations with Green.