Archbishop Welby fully subscribes to the liberal-progressive worldview, and one of its tenets is that all men accused of sexual assault are guilty until proved innocent. Despite the legitimate criticisms of Lord Carlisle and others, he's ideologically incapable of taking any stand in this case other than the one does, because to acknowledge he's wronged Bishop Bell's reputation would force him to confront the poverty of his imagination, and just for today he's unwilling or unable to walk down that difficult and painful road.

I have a certain sympathy for his position, knowing myself how horrible such a process of self-examination can be, but think it shows him to be utterly unfit to remain as head of the church, and the sooner he resigns, the better.

I agree that he should resign for a number of reasons, the least of which may be "poverty of his imagination." Disbelief in the scriptures (and/or disobedience) through the support of heresies is a much worse fault in a bishop, especially an Archbishop of Canterbury. He has disqualified himself for the office.

He advertised himself from the beginning as an "evangelical" but all that meant was he was not big on Catholicism. One of the first and most important tenets of evangelicalism is a very high view of the doctrine of the authority of Scripture. Welby has proven again and again that this does not describe him; instead he is a PC revisionist.

isn't this case all about the unpublished evidence?

Or about flat out lies. Only God really knows the truth. Which makes the late public allegations against the late bishop without any purpose except for the accuser's material profit.

Welby and the Church have treated the late Bishop Bell disgracefully. It is all part of the hysteria that has grown up surrounding 'child abuse accusations'. As far as I am aware nothing 'Carol' has alledged has been properly tested to establish if there is a grain of truth in any of it (which one has to doubt) but on the strength of nothing at all the Church has been happy to trash the good name of a very devout and pious man, and send her a cheque for £15000 for the sake of it. Makes you sick.

Whether there is any truth in the accusation, only God, Carol, and Bishop Bell knows, so we will never be able to determine his guilt or innocence this side of heaven. Nor will we be able to deterrnine her guilt or innocence of breaking the commandment against giving false testimony against another person. This makes the accusation nothing but victimization grandstanding.

Because she has been rewarded for her allegation, it can only encourage false accusations down the road for others in high positions who have gone on--- because those accusing of abusive events in the distant past cannot be proven to be lying and thus can easily get away with it. Especially is this so these days when the accused are considered guilty until proven innocent by the church and media when it comes to sexual abuse, even when only one person does the accusing. He is unable to defend himself and there is no proof. What happened to the protocols of justice?

The 'Protocols of Justice' have been reversed - there is a 'Presumption of Guilt' and those accused, always you will note behind the Curtain of Anonymity, are assumed to be guilty and have to prove their innocence.

It is beyond parody that Welby and the other idiots running the Church should pay this woman £15000 (plus as much again in 'costs') for what exactly ?? I firmly believe that she ought to have had the courage of her convictions to name the Bishop publicly so we can all see who she is and what she is. There ought not to be anonymity in these 'historic cases' but let the full light of common day shine. And I also believe that of you falsely and maliciously accuse like 'Nick' and 'Jane' then you should suffer and you must be prosecuted for attempting to Pervert the Course of Justice. If 'Nick' etc have signed a statement for the Police that is exactly what they have done. One last thing: no compensation payments unless there is irrefutable proof beyond reasonable doubt that the abuse took place, and even then I'm minded that if the alleged abuser is dead not a penny should be paid. Turn off the money tap and you turn off these silly stories.

Welby does not understand the meaning of Christian humility. To him it means making grovelling apologies for sins that were not committed to people who neither need or deserve them, all for the purpose of signalling his virtue to the political classes. In doing so he betrays other Christians and sets them up as targets for all kinds of false accusations. He values the falsehoods of a corrupt society more than he values the truth. Like so many in the clergy he has fallen into the trap of idolatry.

As the desperate man with the excessively busy spade disappears below ground level, I would offer him one encouraging thought: I don't believe that the opinion of democratic majorities among interested parties or impressive groups of senior academics can ever be taken as proof of what is true; indeed it's possible (though unlikely!) that one man or woman alone out of the 7.6 billion world population could be right in what they believe.

But I then have to offer a very painful observation: what counts here is judgement rather than truth – because we shall never know the complete and certain truth about George Bell any more than we do about anyone else who has ever lived, including Archbishop Justin Welby himself. And it is Justin's manipulative use of that universal uncertainty as a way of casting doubt over someone else's reputation which is so unpleasant, so destructive and ultimately so irrational.

Wobbly Welby is doubly deluded. First, because he apologises for things he is not really responsible for. Second, because he refuses to apologise for something he is actually responsible for. Leon Festinger also speaks of confirmation bias. 'A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point,' Festinger said. He also spoke of the 'disconfirmation bias' in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. When hit with the cognitive dissonance of what was actually happening in terms of Global Warming (i.e. there was more Global Cooling), the Leftists pushing their scaremongering changed the terminology to Climate Change.

Your last sentence reveals the typical Leftist disingenuity and lack of integrity; when their facts turn out to be erroneous, they just change the language. They
simply don’t care about the facts, only about their Leftist political goals.

I am concerned however with everyone being caught between the Confirmation Bias and the Disconfirmation Bias simply for having strong convictions.

Your excellent description of the type reminds me of a certain little reptilian mocker hereabouts.

Dr Gomes

If Welby resigns; then what can we millions of orthodox Anglicans do to assist a candidate favourable to us?

There are likely to be many in the Tory party who will help us, as they too are keen to support a traditional world-view (as it will assist their politics).

Please advise.

The Tory Party of 2018 hates tradition. Have you not observed their recent behaviour?

He was appointed by Cameron in his bid to get as man old school ties into as many top jobs as he could.
If you want to get conservatives anywhere then work to have the new Headmaster at Eton replaced ASAP !

"He is trying to resolve his cognitive dissonance by standing by his slander that the heroic Bishop of Chichester, who sheltered Jewish children during the Second World War, was a child abuser who has a ‘significant cloud’ over his name, despite evidence to the contrary. The sordid saga has demonstrated that it is actually the Archbishop of Canterbury who has a ‘significant cloud’ over his name and office. It is the ‘significant cloud’ of self-delusion."
*
I have to say that if the words penned against the Archbishop had been penned against a Rabbi , the perpetrator would have been accused of the worst kind of anti Semitism
*
The only crime that the Archbishop has committed is to be reasonable and caring. And that in the view of the alt right penned above is the worst kind of crime

Ah! So now brown-skinned Gomes from Mumbai is a member of the alt right? What else do you have to throw at him? Skinhead? Neo-Nazi? Or you think like the transgender freaks he is simply 'self-identifying' as a white supremacist? Or, I guess you meant Alt key and right click on the computer, didn't you?

David, you wrote: "I have to say that if the words penned against the Archbishop had been penned against a Rabbi , the perpetrator would have been accused of the worst kind of anti Semitism."

Ah, yes, but the Archbishop is no Rabbi ! It is his outrageous behavior and words, not his race or religion, which we are critiquing here. No comparison to anti-Semitism. Instead, some of us might reasonably be accused of anti-ABCism, or antiCofE-leaderism, or just plain I-don't-like-or-trust-Welby-ism.

Brilliant!

Lindsay,

You are in debt to Gomes.

You have implicitly suggested that he is a racist.

In order to discharge the debt: apologise.

Never happen.

Are you daft?

I think David Lindsay wonderfully proves Dr Gomes' point. Here, right before our eyes, we have another glorious example of cognitive dissonance. Like Welby, Lindsay is one hundred percent sincere, but completely deluded. Incidentally, he is the only one who marks an 'uptick' arrow for himself to show how much he appreciates his own comment!

He is telemachus not David Lindsay. A leftist extremist cod-communist troll who intervenes on conservative websites under a hundred different names just to make mischief.

David Lindsay has dropped his trousers and scooted away. He's not come back to defend his claims. Wonder why....

No. He's a leftie, so he is deranged.

I used to wonder why it was that conservatives are called the “right” and liberals are called the “left.” Then I discovered Ecclesiastes 10:2 -- “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”

Bang! Boom! Another brilliant one!

Thanks, I got help for that one.

The sanctified lie. There’s a concept. In a sense a state church only exists to sanctify whatever truth or lie the state wishes to pursue. To bring the population into line with their betters, via the leverage of religion, and prevent any notion of a higher authority from causing civil disobedience. Welby is just doing his job: Adjusting reality to expediency. In this case he serves his own interests, not those of the state, but the principle is the same.
Elsewhere Anglicanism has grown up. The 95% of Anglicans in other lands will not tolerate much more of this from their ‘Primus inter pares.’ Nor indeed will English Anglicans, who are establishing independent congregations in increasing numbers.

Hurrah for the orthodox rebellion!

His refusal to acknowledge the truth is the measure of a pygmy. A political fool bereft of honesty. Beneath contempt

Please don't insult pygmies. You might be guilty of heightism or shortophobia. I was going to say Welby is a Lilliputian, but then I thought, why, what have the Lilliputians done to me, that I should insult them thus!

Well, General, in his case he can’t even claim to be standing on the shoulders of a giant. A really bad case of him sharing the same stature as a pygmy without the cultural accreditation. Nor fig-leaf.

They said he was an oil man. They meant oily.

Slimy is more like it.

It is about Welby’s ego but it is also about his faithlessness and total lack of prophetic insight. Welby’s erroneous perception is that liberal Political Correctness really IS correct and that the Left is on the right side of history. Doesn't he know that the Left cannot be right? (see Ecclesiastes 10:2).
Welby very much wants to please his constituency-- which does not include Jesus or orthodox Bible-believing Christians. I see zero godly discernment.

It takes no humility or repentance for Welby to apologize by proxy for the Church of England for its past imperfections, for he does not feel personally guilty for these social blunders. He is accusing others, not himself. He is saying, in essence, that he would never have supported apostolic doctrine versus women bishops or homosexual behavior and would not have taken part in the Reformation. “It wasn’t me, it was those past Church leaders. I am way better than that.” Self-righteous ego.

There is no way this self-righteous left-leaning post-modern Pharisee is going to apologize for anything he has personally done, especially for something that makes him look good in eyes of his Left-loving people. He will criticize clergy for acting biblically but then apologize by proxy for the CofE when it upholds biblical doctrine.

Screwtape and Wormwood are cheering wildly that Welby and his supporters have been so easily deceived.

What if he did apologise? What if he turned against the liberals?

I for one, would rally to his defence.

A heartfelt and sincere apology from Welby would be miraculous (a God inspired and empowered act) and so I would accept it. But I am not holding my breath waiting.

Have we not seen enough of Welby's ideological stand in the short term he has been the ABC? He will rather malign the reputation of a dead man who served the persecuted Jews and Jewish children and stood with Dietrich Bonhoeffer than say sorry. He has said sorry to people who do that which is against the scriptures and that's what Welby's apologies are for. He does not stand for the truth of the scriptures nor dose he stand for those who practised the Gospel like Bishop George Bell. If Welby and his well wishers plan the destruction of Jules Gomes, I will not be surprised because telling the truth is not present ABC's line of work.

My dear brother,

I accept your rebuke.

If he did apologise, it would be extremely gracious and like Donald Trump's recent apology, he would win the hearts of many.

Well said, Bruce.

Indeed. Welby falls over himself to apologise publicly for the faults of others but refuses point blank to apologise for his own failures. Classic narcissism.

The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector comes to mind.

A weak man with no convictions at all let alone Christian ones.

The most effective falsehoods contain grains of truth. It is true to anyone with life experience that our heroes often have feet of clay. We learn to live with disappointment (and that, btw, will happen to the youth cult around Corbyn). However, to make this understanding the basis of all our actions is a pathological folly. It ends in extreme cynicism and, often, the desire to topple heroes from their pedestals (again, this is happening in a concrete way on the far left).

It starts with the realisation that humans are flawed and can end with demonisation. I suspect (and who can really know what's going on in Welby's mind?) that there is some bitter disappointment in his past driving his refusal to rehabilitate a CoE hero. Or perhaps it's a deep instinct founded on this disappointment that, having exonerated the Bishop, some new accusation will surface pointing to Bell's "feet of clay" and sticking to his guns now is the safer option.

Either way, knowing we are all flawed is the basis of Christianity and should result in mercy as well as judgement. It certainly shouldn't end in cynical pre-judgement.

Here is my guess. Sticking to his guns is really about psychological defensiveness (denial) and stubborn self-righteousness. Welby believes that he is too brilliant and discerning to ever be wrong, so do not expect a public apology (ever) from Welby for anything he has personally done.

Spiritual pride may be the worst of sins because it prevents repentance, and without repentance one cannot receive God's forgiveness. People will not reach out to receive what they do not think they need. Forgiveness starts with the grace of God, providing honesty and humility through conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit. However, pride and self-righteousness blind a person from the truth of his own sin and thus block the receiving of God's grace--- as happened with many of the Pharisees during the ministry of Jesus.
Turn around, Welby, you are following in some very evil footsteps.

Not so much a Christian Archbishop. More the wimpish CEO of a struggling charity wedded to the promotion of the Labour party.

‘Wedded to’?
Surely you meant ‘in a civil partnership with...’