Justin Welby, Easter and forgiveness: A gospel moment on Radio 5 Live

Monday morning isn’t where I usually expect to hear the gospel explained with vigour and vim. If I’m honest, I’m often not anticipating much in the way of either first thing. 

So tuning into Radio 5 Live last week for a catch up on the weekend’s news, I didn’t have much in the way of evangelistic expectations. But then presenter Nicky Campbell announced that the focus of the show was to be forgiveness, following the interview of the former Archbishop of Canterbury on Sunday 30 March with Laura Kuenssberg.

It had been a wide-ranging interview. They considered the abuses by John Smyth and Welby’s remorse about so many aspects of the scandal – not excuses he said, but explanation. He blamed being "overwhelmed" and was clear he had got it wrong. His valedictory speech in the Lord’s, complete with jokes about Simon of Sudbury’s head rolling and how we should feel sorry for his diary secretary, was a memory that now makes him wince. He had "not been in a good space at the time" and conceded he shouldn’t have done a speech at all.