Quaker questions Justin Welby
Alastair McIntosh has questioned the role of the archbishop of Canterbury in blessing a cross made out of used shell casings
The Quaker writer and broadcaster Alastair McIntosh has questioned the role of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, in blessing a cross that was made out of used shell casings.
In a letter to the archbishop, Scottish Friend Alastair McIntosh challenged Justin Welby’s participation in blessing ‘a cross made out of used shell casings, used to kill our fellow humankind’. Justin Welby made the blessing at an event to commemorate the war in Afghanistan.
Alastair McIntosh wrote to the archbishop: ‘I appreciate the wrestled depth of prayer you must have given this. But how will it be seen by the jihadists? What message will they take from this day’s images? What signs to read of what we have become? Consider. Salutes and eyes directed to the Heavens as clattered warplanes shotgun rode St Paul’s Cathedral.’
The Quaker writer added: ‘Jesus never taught “just war” theory. He only taught nonviolence. That is the deeper meaning of the Cross that we might “sin no more”, this third millennium. One of your dear priests said to me last week: “Paul was once Jihadi John.” I pray that all of us be dazzled on that war-strafed Damascene road.’
Alastair McIntosh’s ‘Thought for the Week’ in the Friend on 6 March questioned whether Christians in Britain were living up to being called ‘People of the Cross’ in the wake of the beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya. A copy of the article published in the Friend was sent to the archbishop.
In his recent Easter sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday 5 April, Justin Welby offered a different message from that conveyed by his earlier blessing of a cross made from used bullets. Reflecting on the recent massacres of Christians in Kenya and Libya, he said: ‘Christians must resist without violence the persecution they suffer and support persecuted communities, with love and goodness and generosity.’
Alastair McIntosh said that he was heartened by this in a Thought for the Day broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland on 7 April.
