Some of Holy Week and Easter involved visiting old haunts. My former employer, The Times, has set up Times Radio and sources at the paper tell me it is doing well. Occasionally I’m invited on to comment on a matter of religious significance, and on Easter Day it was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks on the government scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. He had said in his Easter sermon at Canterbury that the scheme could not stand up to “God’s judgement”. Inevitably, critics had attacked the Archbishop for interfering in politics. Normally I’m a little wary of entering the culture war arena out of consideration for my mental health. But this time I went for it. Good on Archbishop Welby. If the government doesn’t think its bishops have a right to call them to account, then perhaps they shouldn’t continue to benefit from their sanctifying presence in the Lords. Cardinal Nichols is also to be thanked for his slightly more nuanced comments. To me, there is nothing about this Rwanda scheme that is not reprehensible. A couple of days before this, I had gone into The Times building near London Bridge to talk to the company’s Christian fellowship about being a Christian in the public sphere. While I am not actually in the public sphere, I do often have to write about those who are. I am in any case aware of the courage that is needed, never more so than in our current age, to bring the question of God’s judgement into any argument around political ethics. So I applaud our Church leaders, and feel proud of them this Easter.
Picture by Ken Goodwin is of a farmer ploughing the fields in Rwanda.