“Christian leaders are often guilty of ‘souping up, the common good,” says Noah Gould in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, is no exception. In his latest book, Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope, Welby sets out to create a new social and political vision for the United Kingdom based on the common good.”
The most precise definition Welby offers is that the common good “looks not to averages but to the totality of flourishing in a group.” He uses the story in Jeremiah 29 of how, when the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, the prophet Jeremiah urged them to “seek the welfare of the city.” Based on this idea, he outlines a list of policy and cultural changes, including greater income redistribution, decreasing Britain’s reliance on the banking industry, and broadening the definition of family to include cohabitation.
The full text of the essay can be found here.
