The Power of Reconciliation, Justin Welby

JULY BOOK OF THE MONTH

REVIEWER: John Griffiths

BOOK: The Power of Reconciliation
AUTHOR: Justin Welby
(Bloomsbury, June 2022)

The torrent of headlines that followed the February 2023 General Synod made me pick up this book with particular interest. Critics tore into the House of Bishops for creating an intolerable situation about same-sex relationships, and demanded a resolution one way or the other. I imagined Justin Welby holding up a copy of the Power of Reconciliation in the chamber and shouting ‘Just read my book!’ Because in this book, Justin Welby lays out his approach to reconciliation, born out of decades of work that started at Coventry Cathedral with the International Reconciliation Ministry, where he was Reconciliation Canon.

This is not a methodology, or a manual. Nor is it a straightforward read. In fact, the book has to be read very slowly. And it is all the better for it because one of the most profound insights into reconciliation is that it needs to follow its own pace, and can be destroyed by proceeding too fast or too slow. There is a cycle: 6 Rs: researching, relating, relieving need, risking, reconciling, and resourcing. And these revolve until the parties are reconciled.

The last part of the book is particularly powerful because this process can seem very abstract until concrete examples are given – these are climate change, migration and populism. It is only when you have worked through the 6 Rs that you are ready to see these issues in their complexity. Without taking the journey, you are far more likely to plump for one of the positions and search for compromise.

The scope of the book makes it useful but also daunting. Can you really address a dispute between different factions in a church or local community in the same way as you do between nations and corporations? But its value is that it will bring you pause before you leap to judgement or swift resolution. If you are concerned about the current state of the Church of England, this book will also bring an understanding that peace-making is not an overnight process but is achievable. It is a deeply positive book and I commend it.

Reviewer: John Griffiths
John Griffiths is a Reader in the Church of England. He is a trustee of LWPT the charity behind Preach magazine