‘I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be normal’: Justin Webb and Justin Welby on their chaotic childhoods

telegraph.co.uk:

Archbishop of Canterbury is entirely distant from the sin of murder. Several have been victims, as we know, but this one appears willing to be a perpetrator.‘So, if I reach behind me to the axe that’s hidden over there and attack you savagely, you have to say, “Oh well, there we are.

Programmed to do it. One of those things.” I don’t find that very satisfactory…’We are discussing free will. For reasons I will get to later, I am close to reaching the rather terrifying conclusion that we don’t have it, and he, naturally enough, feels strongly that we do.

It is part of a conversation, sometimes animated, sometimes reflective, around the themes of my book, The Gift of a Radio, which, with typical generosity, he had agreed to read.I had asked to meet him because it seemed to me that the book might strike a chord because of our family histories and because it is about forgiveness and atonement, which, let’s face it, are subjects almost everyone outside the religious establishment has rather given up on.

Justin Welby warms to these themes. ‘Brilliant,’ he says of the book. ‘I couldn’t put it down.’ Do archbishops tell little white lies to make you feel comfortable?