Extremism will be beaten by love and a warm welcome for refugees, says Welby

The Archbishop of Canterbury called on Britons to disarm extremists with love and to welcome refugees in his New Year’s Message. 

In the message, broadcast on the BBC on New Year's Day, Archbishop Welby urged Christians to offer hospitality to those fleeing persecution.

Recalling his visit to Marsh Academy School in Canterbury yesterday, he said he had been honoured to meet privately with a teenage boy who had fled violence in North Africa.

Soldiers had stormed his school and threatened to abduct him when he was saved by a teacher and eventually escaped to England.

The welcome shown to him by the school was a model for others, the Archbishop said.

“The hospitality of people here brings love, hope and joy. If we imitate them society becomes a far better place,” he added.

He said that it brought to mind an inscription in a chapel in Canterbury Cathedral that was set aside for refugees fleeing persecution in France in the sixteenth century.

That inscription remembers “the glorious asylum which England has in all times given to foreigners flying for refuge against oppression and tyranny”.

Jesus was a refugee, the Archbishop continued, who tells Christians to welcome “the alien and the stranger, the poor and the weak”.

“In today’s world hospitality and love are our most formidable weapons against hatred and extremism,” he concluded.