Today in St Paul's Cathedral, Justin Welby's election as archbishop of Canterbury will be confirmed by a commission of bishops. From that point, six weeks before his enthronement in his own cathedral, he will be archbishop in "spiritualities" and public expectation. Part of that expectation will be the leadership he exercises in the church and nation, an expectation which has already been strongly expressed. The dean of Liverpool says Welby "will make an excellent leader of the Anglican communion"; Ekklesia, a thinktank, says Welby "can offer the kind of leadership needed at a time when idols have been falling".

In many ways this is too trivial to note. We expect the "leaders" of our organisations to provide "leadership", and leadership is uniformly a good and necessary...