“A VERY good man, doing very good work, on behalf of his Maker.” Alastair Campbell’s judgement on his guest, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the end of the podcast Leading: The Rest is Politics (Goalhanger Productions, released Monday of last week) (News, 25 October), could hardly be more complimentary, coming from the famous old grump, who doesn’t do religion. That, in itself, will prove unnerving for some close observers of the Anglican hierarchy, even leaving aside the passage in this interview dealing with same-sex relationships, heavily trailed on social media, which has been criticised as undermining the determinations of the General Synod.
The passage in question started off well enough. Turning abruptly away from affable stories of the Coronation, Campbell declared, “Let’s now turn to gay sex.” “I do all the time,” was the Archbishop’s response, with a wit almost Runciean in its aridity. The question that followed was one that Campbell had evidently asked him before, and just as bluntly: “Is gay sex sinful?”
The Archbishop had, on that occasion, in an interview with Campbell for GQ magazine, prevaricated (Press, 6 October 2017). Had he a better answer now, demanded his inquisitor. The Archbishop might have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had responded by asking for a better question. After all, he had shown himself unafraid earlier in the interview to refer to our generally fallen, sinful nature — even declaring that the problem with politics is that it posits systems that are based on a presumption of humanity’s essential goodness: a remarkable reading of political philosophy which, nevertheless, went unnoticed by his hosts.
In this context, Archbishop Welby might legitimately have run from the gay-sex question to the hills of semantic obfuscation. What do you mean by sin? In a world of sin, what does it mean to be sin-ful? Go away and come back when you have a question worthy of an answer.
His willingness to answer on Campbell’s terms takes us back to that more general anxiety that this interview as a whole will have produced; for here was not merely the confected chumminess of podcast-land. Archbishop Welby, Campbell, and Rory Stewart evidently like one another’s company. They josh and banter. Rory knew Justin’s mother; they had Eton in common; Alastair and Justin were both at Cambridge. And, of course, lots of Alastair’s best friends are Christians.
In such congenial company, the Archbishop seemed sufficiently relaxed that he could gloss the whole unsavoury question of sexuality in the Church of England. Alastair and Rory understand realpolitik, and the need to appease those African bishops.
Paradoxically, in this milieu, some forms of honesty are prized above rubies. Thus, the Archbishop’s revelations of poor mental health were praised for their courage, as were his protestations of embarrassment for their authenticity. Perhaps the Archbishop is eyeing up a podcast slot of his own in Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger stable: The Rest is Religion, co-hosted with a clubbable atheist — Stephen Fry will do.