Meghan Markle and Harry: Justin Welby discusses wedding claims

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The Archbishop of Canterbury releases the first episode of his new podcast series The Archbishop Interviews on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds today. Justin Welby reveals his faith acted as a “safety net” during periods in his life when he battled depression. He said it was “very odd” to feel the love of God but a “real, vicious sense of dislike of oneself” at the same time.

In the first episode, which airs on Radio 4 at 1:30pm, he speaks to author Elif Shafak and the pair discuss the topics of faith, doubt and depression.

Archbishop Welby has been accused of being “woke” in the past for voicing his opinions on current issues including the controversial Edward Colston statue that was toppled in the summer of 2020.

He launched an attack on the use of terms like “snowflake” in a speech addressing the House of Lords in December, and sought to defend young people.

He said: “We hear much nonsense of the snowflake generation who seek safety.

“Younger generations are much more concerned than their older counterparts about the safety and protection of minorities and more willing to call for restrictions on speech to achieve this.”

He added: “We need to keep a sense of perspective here. No-platforming is not a new phenomenon and there is evidence to suggest that it is very limited.

“The way I can remember minorities being addressed 40 to 50 years ago shows that more concern about safety then would have been a good thing.”

Archbishop Welby said that freedom of speech can sometimes mean “freedom for the powerful to bully and abuse”.

He cited the BBC as an example of “true freedom of speech”, but quickly added that the broadcaster does sometimes “get things wrong”.

His remarks were both supported and disputed by a number of other Lords and Ladies in the House.

Baroness Anne Jenkin of Kennington was one of those to object, and expressed particular concerns over the “troubling increase in intolerance and the so-called cancel culture”.

She claimed female academics, lawmakers and other women have had to take legal action to protect both their livelihoods and reputations.

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She said: “These women have been intimidated, harassed and bullied for sumply expressing opinions that everyone once took for granted: that women are adult human females, and that biological sex matters.

“Professor Kathleen Stock has been hounded out of her job at Sussex University for her belief that biological sex is binary and immutable — a belief that I would call a scientific fact and a fact of life.”

She added: “Criticism of gender identity ideology is not an attack on trans people. It is not transphobic to support women’s rights.”

The alleged cancellation of Prof Stock, J.K. Rowling and other outspoken women have raised further questions over the ongoing culture war in this country.

Archbishop Welby claimed in 2018 that God cannot be defined by human gender. He said human language is “inadequate” to describe “our father”.

He discussed the culture war too in an appearance on the BBC’s Political Thinking Podcast last year, focusing on the historical figures that have raised controversy in the last few years.

He addressed the statues and monuments of those involved in the slave trade and stressed that he was “deeply committed to contextualisation” of these figures and said the church should not “unconditionally celebrate” them.

He urged people to “reflect on whether this person was wholly bad, worth a statue or just a normal human being who lived in his or her time and got things really wrong”.

Asked whether the UK was engulfed in a culture war, he said: “In some ways we are — an unhealthy one, yes.

“It depends how you want to fight it. We are in a time where culture and historic inherited culture is questioned very, very deeply; where culture’s power and privilege are questioned very deeply.

“Let’s be suspicious, let’s ask the hard questions. But let’s do it in a way in which we learn to disagree well and let’s avoid saying that someone who disagrees with me is unfit to be called a human being and heard or published or whatever it happens to be.”

He said cancel culture is “very, very dangerous”, and though we may “repent” of the past, we “cannot erase it”.

The Archbishop Interviews is on BBC Radio 4 today at 1:30pm. It will also be available on BBC Sounds.

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