WHEN the dust settles, how will Justin Welby’s archiepiscopate be remembered? Will he be seen as one of the great Archbishops of Canterbury of modern times, or was his a career of unfulfilled promise? In recent years, as his mind has turned to retirement, the Archbishop has been increasingly concerned to secure his “legacy”. What is that legacy to the Church of England?

Of course, it is far too soon to say. Proper analysis must await the release of his papers, which, under the Church of England’s current 30-year closure rule, will become available between 2044 and 2055. Even here, the Church of England lags behind best practice: the Government and the National Archives now release papers after 20 years, to enhance public transparency and accountability.

But some significant themes are already apparent. He has been an atypical Archbishop. There has been none quite like him, and we will probably not see his like again. His appointment in 2013 signalled a decisive break with the past. Every previous Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation had been ordained in his twenties, but Welby was ordained at 36. Not since the 17th century had an Archbishop had less episcopal experience before appointment to that office. Yet he brought to Lambeth more business acumen than all his predecessors put together. He was welcomed by the press as “CEO of the C of E”, a leadership style that he readily embraced.

Other Archbishops have been theology professors, or headmasters, or college principals. But Archbishop Welby was different, fresh, exciting. That sense of buoyancy is reflected in my own biography of his early ministry, The Road to Canterbury (Books, 29 August 2014), published to coincide with his enthronement. Lord Adonis said that Archbishop Welby had “what it takes to be a great leader of what has become virtually a leaderless institution”. Another peer welcomed him as “the best person we’ve had for ages”.

ARCHBISHOP WELBY’s rise through the ecclesiastical ranks was meteoric: from canonry to Canterbury in just five years. Before Lambeth, everything that he touched turned to gold. He was promoted so rapidly that he never stayed in one place long enough for the sheen to wear off. In each post, he was a breath of fresh air, bringing decisive action and a wave of optimism. He enjoyed a succession of honeymoons.

It began the same way at Canterbury. Lord Williams’s tenure had ended in tears, literally, when hopes for women bishops crashed in the General Synod. Immediately, Archbishop Welby offered a fresh way forward (the Five Guiding Principles), and legislation was promptly agreed. It seemed almost miraculous, after years of wrangling. Here was Welby the great reconciler in action. The Midas touch had struck again. It will go down as one of his greatest achievements.

But Canterbury has proved a very different prospect from everything that he faced before. The honeymoon quickly came to an end. If he had been Archbishop for only three or four years, he would be remembered as a ministerial genius. But 12 years is another matter entirely: it allowed time for his flaws to become increasingly apparent, and for his mistakes to catch up with him.

For the biography, I interviewed Lord Williams in the Master’s Lodgings at Magdalene College, Cambridge, after he chose, voluntarily, to retire from Canterbury at the age of 62. Typically self-effacing, he acknowledged: “Justin is, frankly, immeasurably better than I ever was at prioritising.” Professor David Ford, one of Archbishop Welby’s closest theological advisers, observed that he stood out from his predecessors by the level of his “strategic thinking”. This has been another marked feature of Archbishop Welby’s Lambeth career. It has been strategy on steroids.

At first, that strategy was focused on three emphases: renewal of prayer and the religious life; reconciliation within the Church and wider society; and evangelism, which the Archbishop summarised as “telling people the good news of Jesus Christ”.

These headlines were easy to express and easy to support. They did not involve political lobbying, synodical debates, or internecine culture wars. It was back to basics in the Christian life: love God and love your neighbour — just the fillip that every parish needs. These emphases have combined fruitfully in the annual Thy Kingdom Come initiative, another of Archbishop Welby’s lasting legacies. Likewise, his sermon at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral — perhaps the most widely broadcast sermon in human history — was a model of appealing Christian witness (News, 23 September 2022).

BUT what became of these simple priorities? Too quickly, they were lost in the din of ecclesial strife and drowned out by the Archbishop’s reformist zeal. Somewhere along the line, he was transformed into an activist project-manager. No problem has been too great, no culture too intractable, for him to tackle. Although he often denied that he possessed papal powers, he was not afraid to operate via executive order, forcibly closing every parish church during the Covid crisis, for example.

Archbishop Welby has pushed for change in almost every area of Church of England life, as expressed in its national institutions: Lambeth Palace, Church House, the General Synod, the House of Bishops, the Church Commissioners. It has been a Sisyphean labour. Some of his reforms, to make the Church of England safer and more diverse, have led to significant improvements. Other reforms, such as the redistribution of financial assets and the Prayers of Love and Faith, have been explosive.

Lord Randolph Churchill famously described Prime Minister Gladstone, in 1886, as “an old man in a hurry”, trying to rush through as many reforms as possible before he was removed from 10 Downing Street. Justin Welby, in recent years, has been an Archbishop in a hurry. Aware of the need for “legacy”, he has tried to force as many reformist schemes over the finishing line as possible.

But, amid all the top-level project management, with numerous spinning plates and rushed solutions, he has sometimes missed what is most important. Parishes have been overlooked, collateral damage in the Archbishop’s grand reformist strategy. People have been overlooked, as the Makin review reveals — human beings crushed by the institutional machine (News, 15 November).

THIS has been the Archbishop’s ultimate undoing. In a tragic symmetry, his appointment was welcomed enthusiastically by every part of the Church, and his resignation was energetically demanded by every part of the Church. Whether the Smyth scandal will permanently overshadow everything that went before, only time will tell.

The Archbishop is at his best when at his most vulnerable. Early in his time at Lambeth, he received unsettling news about his paternity, but spoke movingly of his identity in Jesus Christ, not DNA (News, Comment, 15 April 2016). His desire to be first and foremost a disciple of Jesus also pervades last week’s resignation letter, written in deep humiliation (News, 15 November). Stripped of power, he points us all to “the person of Jesus Christ, my saviour and my God; the bearer of the sins and burdens of the world, and the hope of every person”.

The lowest moments in Archbishop Welby’s career have, ironically, been among the highest points of Christian testimony. This, perhaps, is his greatest legacy.

The Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone is Professor of Modern Anglicanism in the University of Oxford, and author of Archbishop Justin Welby: Risktaker and reconciler (Darton, Longman, & Todd).