Justin Welby’s Apostatic Idolatry

My first publication for Substack in 2022. It's time to look at it again. This was the longer version of my (then) recent piece for The Conservative Woman published 4th January 2022.

In the Name of the Hands and of the Face and of the Holy Space: Justin Welby’s Apostatic Idolatry.

Justin Welby has seen fit to encourage the take up of booster injections by alluding to what he claims, “Jesus would have done.” Welby infers that because getting the injections is an action to be undertaken on behalf of “others” it is incumbent upon us to follow Christ’s example and take unto oneself the latest (but surely not the final) injection. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Welby has considerable influence. For this reason, his remarks require critical analysis because what he claims surely contradicts the essence, if not the spirit, of scripture.

The “what would Jesus do?” question has become a guiding principle for many Christians. Yet the strategy is risky. We run the risk of confecting a Jesus to suit our own ideas or, as in the case of Welby, moulded to fit the prevailing political winds. There is always the danger of putting words into Jesus’s mouth or skewing one of his parables to suit. Yet, even taking the archbishop’s exhortation at face value, one might ask, who are the “others” for whom one is now obliged by God no less, to take an un-trialled and potentially dangerous medical procedure? Firstly, these “others” are our fellow citizens, who are presumably similarly obliged to undergo the procedure for us, as their “others.” The supposed goal is the maximising of (and collusion with) a newly devised concept of herd immunity which no longer includes the God-given natural immunity we have hitherto acknowledged as scientifically valid until what seems like yesterday. Secondly, the alternative set of “others” to whom we are now obliged consists of a variety of highly paid state officials, many of whom have vested financial interests in our submission to the injection.

I see nothing in the scriptures that translates as a modern requirement for anyone to undergo the risks associated with the injection process. I do not recall Jesus pushing his curatives against anyone’s will, threatening them or demanding his healing be undergone for the sake of others. There could be no profit motive behind his actions. Moreover, the many accounts of Jesus’s healing the sick actually resulted in successful outcomes. The blind could see, the lame could walk. And throughout, Jesus encourages the people to have faith, not in human technology, but in God. Jesus did not do “social distancing” with lepers, wear face coverings or make any other virtue signalling gestures. Quite the reverse, virtue signalling is a frequent focus of criticism for Jesus. Yet on the contrary for Welby, it is of great importance to appear to be following the government’s line to the point where he is unafraid to place Jesus at the service of tawdry politicians and their advisors.

Shall we give the archbishop the benefit of the doubt for one moment and ask if he believes that he is doing good in joining the ranks of the celebrity drug pushers? After all, one might be able to make a case for the injections if they actually performed like vaccines by conferring sterilising immunity, and were clearly going to bring to an end the era of restrictions. Additionally, if the mRNA injections were safe, allowed families to be together without government interference and brought a return to the joyful public worship of God, Welby might have a point. We would see the last of the dehumanising (and useless) face masks bringing an end to the ever-increasing engorgement of landfill sites and sea-beds replete with the filthy hateful things.

We know now after nearly two years that this is not the case. Unlike traditional vaccines more and more “boosters” are ordered in advance of any empirically established need and at great cost to the tax-payer. These advance orders are set to produce gargantuan profits for the pharmaceutical companies. Furthermore, many of those tasked with taking decisions regarding these procurements have vested interests in these juicy financial returns. As Welby surely knows, you cannot serve both God and mammon, as written in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13. He should also know that Jesus’s own inherited tradition was (and remains) a truly radical one. When God speaks to Moses, he declares:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. (Deuteronomy 5:6) (Exodus 20:2-3)

The commandment against idolatry is frequently misunderstood, yet I see it as increasingly relevant in this new Covidian world, and reveals something important regarding the archbishop’s position. The supposedly “jealous” God is not the petulant attention-seeking God many have assumed. A better translation understands God here as impassioned about the oneness and unity of God and this is purposeful and instructive. Yet we frequently fail to understand why this unity is so important. (And here I might add for the agnostics, it does not matter whether or not you “believe” in God, for the purposes of discussion it is important that you recognise him as a particular character in our culture’s principal foundational text; that he represents (is) what is good.)

What is always under threat when we slide into idolatry is our relationship to our fellow humans and our attitude towards the natural world (and ultimately God). Our relationships become distorted by idols, here interpreted as illusions and lies. Idolatry in the present-day amounts to the world of distractions, mediated knowledge and imagery, and even the focus upon one’s “image.” Here, Justin Welby’s virtue signalling comes to mind. Often, idolatry manifests as glamour in celebrities who hide behind “good works” to conceal deception and greed. Idolatry is evil, using fear and anxiety to entrap people. Fear affects our ability to think clearly, and as Laura Dodsworth has admirably shown in her recent book A State of Fear, the government has deliberately used fear to control the population throughout this Covidian saga. It has used precious resources on psychological manoeuvring to control and “nudge” and to limit reasonable questioning via censorship. It has set out to create anxiety and chaos rather than to reassure and heal. This damaging and wholly undemocratic approach does not amount to a rivalry with God, rather it is the very antithesis of God. The government’s attempt to (re)create “reality” in an Orwellian Big Brother fashion, amounts to lies, untruths, insincerity and malevolence. There is now so much evidence accumulating in this regard that it is beyond credibility that someone as educated and presumably as religious as Justin Welby could remain completely unaware of this. Welby claims he “cannot understand” how anyone can refuse to fall into line and take the injection. However, paying close attention would provide him with all of the understanding he needs.

Perhaps the real scandal is that no one needed to die with Covid as Robert Kennedy Jr. and others have so carefully detailed. Not only because right from the outset there were drugs available that could have saved lives, but because it is likely that the illness we have named “Covid” need not have existed at all. The dubious research into creating “gain-of-function” viruses may well have created the virus in the first place. Even assuming the latter point to be open to question, the banning of Ivermectin and other re-purposed medicines in order to push the new un-trialled mRNA injections upon the world’s population is demonstrably sinful. Many millions have been injured by the technology, in addition to the thousands of deaths associated with the virus.

In this context, to make a claim for what Jesus “would or would not have done” or thought is specious at best, and sly at worst. Welby claims that the “scientists” (whom he does not name) are “good people acting in difficult circumstances.” Whatever their shortcomings, he says, “they know better than us.” It is a pity he cannot extend the same courtesy to the equally, if not more, highly qualified yet silenced scientists trying to speak out on the part of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. These are the scientists who have nothing to gain, and much to lose. Welby has uttered not one word about governments across the world using coercion, threats, mandates and “passports” all technically illegal within the framework of international law and the Nuremberg Code. Even Welby’s preferred scientists have admitted that the injection does not prevent infection or transmission. Therefore, Welby’s sickening descent into choosing the powerful over the weak, the rich over the poor, and the demonising of truth is an example par excellence of idolatry in action; it is a kind of state-olatry.

The biblical scholar Yoram Hazony draws attention to God’s love for those who resist the power of the state. The bible is frequently suspicious of worldly power and depicts God’s support for a nomadic shepherding lifestyle. When the Hebrews are faced with famine, they turn to Egypt for help. As Hazony points out though, Egypt behaves like a “crime family” offering help for the price of freedom. A Big State leads to bondage and slavery. The answer to slavery is to resist the power of the state, but not to dissolve into chaos and anarchy. The concept of a limited state therefore is the preferred compromise. Here we recognise the behaviour of our modern elected western governments when they adopt for themselves the concept of the “Big State” and its offer; in return for your safety, we require the sacrifice of your freedom and ultimately, democracy. When the public co-operated with the government’s request for a so-called “lockdown” and the associated restrictions, it was the smaller state version of power they imagined they were following, not the enlarged behemoth it has now become.

Has the archbishop given any consideration as to where this is all going? He has summarily dismissed the idea of the Covidian saga being attached to a wider conspiracy, an opinion he bases on his own church’s organisational ineptitude. However, this is disingenuous. There is credible speculation based on openly published material that the World Economic Forum’s figurehead, Klaus Schwab appears to be advocating one world government, with a totalising ambition not seen since WWII. The attempt to get us to that place begins with man playing God. We have Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates funding the creation of experimental genetic mRNA injections. Then we have the subsequent and deliberate creation of a two-tier society comprising of the “unvaccinated” and the vaccinated, the former being openly demonised, the focus of Welby’s shameful demands, and the frightening and bullying of whom the archbishop joins in with rather than condemning.

Giving in to Schwab’s (and others’) vision of a one world government would mean a kind of enslavement of the whole world and, if true, must be understood as the ultimate in idolatry. The injections appear to be part of the steps towards a one world plan, imposed like Pharaoh from above and on high, on the basis of wealth and power, not knowledge or wisdom. We know this because world leaders and Big Tech are afraid of any discussion or dissent and are acting in lockstep, refusing to listen to reason. Power that comes from wealth and worldly ambitions, greed and abuse is not the basis for a truly religious or goodly life. I cannot fathom how Justin Welby can construe that Jesus would have submitted to any of this, let alone advocate such submission to others.

Welby claims that it is immoral to refuse an un-trialled genetic compound that is the gateway to a passport system which is subsequently a gateway to a surveillance state. The microchip version of your “passport” is already touted by Sweden, human rights are now repackaged as “privileges” in Ireland. Seriously, what is there for Jesus to like? I dare not ventriloquise Jesus, however, one question that comes to mind is have you no faith in your immune system?

The only way I can comprehend his stance is to construe Welby as an apostate. His words make sense only if one assumes that he has chosen to abandon Christianity and has entered into a new Covidian cult based on illusions, lies, power-grabs, bullying, human sacrifice and totalitarian regimes. That the Covidian cult slyly makes use of religious tropes whilst it quietly demolishes true religion makes Welby’s stance especially egregious. How one of the country’s most important religious figureheads could take this position must give many cause for concern. My plea to those who are awake to this tragedy is to live not by lies; rather, as one of Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Rules for Life exclaims, “tell the truth!” I sincerely pray that Justin Welby returns to the Christian fold and works for the good, not the powerful in this most terrible of times.

This essay was originally published on 11th January 2022.

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