Charles Moore writes,

I am amazed. I first saw this man 40 years ago, when we were both pupils at Eton. Later, I was with him at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the shyest, most unhappy-looking boy you could imagine. Now he is 105th in the line that began with St Augustine. He seems to be loving it. I remark on the change, and he agrees. “That’s something to do with the Christian faith,” he says.

The Most Rev and Right Hon Justin Welby had just led Charles Moore into the garden of Lambeth Palace with a tray heavy with coffee cups (sorry no photo), down its wide steps and into wider lawns.  Past editor of The Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph, following The Spectator, who continues to write for the last two, Moore finds fellow Old Etonian Welby to be by far the most relaxed Archbishop he’s interviewed in that ancient abode. (This archive photo doesn’t do justice to that of Saturdays’ News Review & Comment section by Heathcliff O’Malley.)

Charles Moore’s op-ed pieces are expressed now and then upon a firm Christian faith which, I believe, is from a Roman Catholic perspective. I recalled my pleasant surprise when the New Year edition covered His Grace’s pre-inaugural visit to – of all places – a conference at Trent Vineyard Church where the Elders laid hands on him in prayer and blessing (here and a video).  Journalist Charles Moore may have had that event in mind when opening his interview with a question on charismatics  – and got more than he’d bargained for!

More morsels from Moore.:

Is it necessary, I ask, for a true Christian to have had a personal conversion experience? “Absolutely not. There is an incredible range of ways in which the Spirit works. It doesn’t matter how you get there. It really does quite matter where you are.”

Does he know Jesus? “Yes. I do. He’s both someone one knows and someone one scarcely knows at all, an utterly intimate friend and yet with indescribable majesty.” (emphasis added)

(On the Pope’s Ignatian and Franciscan spirituality) It is spirituality that the two men share, and it is overcoming the divisions of 500 years: “One of the most exciting trends in western Christianity is that the Spirit of God is drawing Christians together.”

Where will his discussions with the Pope lead? “I haven’t a clue,” he says, disarmingly. He thinks that the ordination of women bishops, though he vigorously supports it, is the biggest obstacle to unity with Rome, but he also believes that both Churches now accept that they must “walk together’’.

As ever, it is a highly readable and eloquent example of journalism and an interesting informative interview with a man who is, ‘trying to find new ways in which this country, despite the secular age, can give its allegiance to God again’.

But what particularly amazed his interviewer and how did this Archbishop become a Christian? Read Charles Moore’s I Was Embarrassed – It Was like Getting Measles to learn the answers to those and other questions.

This Saturday feature came a week to the day I read the Telegraph’s Religious Affairs Editor’s remarks about His Grace Welby’s concern over the ‘overwhelming’ sea-change in attitudes toward sexuality (here). In part, he is reported as saying,

“Anyone who listened to much of the Same Sex Marriage Bill Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland. Predictable attitudes were no longer there.

The opposition to the Bill – which included me and many other bishops – was utterly overwhelmed, with amongst the largest attendance and participation and majority since 1945. There was noticeable hostility to the view of the churches.

“In some things we change course and recognise the new context.

“In others we stand firm because truth is not set by culture, nor morals by fashion.

“But let us be clear, pretending that nothing has changed is absurd and impossible.”

Quickly scanned that early Saturday morning, these claims made a deep contrast with what was to come during that mentoring day in Windsor.  I started writing about that in connection with the Book of Esther (here) and will continue to unravel that theme.