Appointment Of New Archbishop Continues Tragic Slide Into Irrelevance

This week, the Church of England’s leadership continued its tragic slide into irrelevance as it announced the appointment of Sarah Mullally as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglicans around the world had hoped for the appointment of an orthodox and faithful guardian of the faith who would address the serious decline in England’s established church and its dire standing in the global Anglican Communion. Sadly, those making the appointment have chosen to continue on a decades-long course of theological revisionism, cultural capitulation, and unprecedented division.

In fact, the Church of England’s recent trajectory has emptied churches and attracted the condemnation of Anglicans worldwide.

Unfit for the Role

If we leave aside the provocative appointment of a woman (which is disturbing enough in itself to those who hold to complementarian theology), Mullally’s record as a bishop, and in the General Synod of the Church of England, demonstrates how unfit she is for this role. As Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, the chair of the GAFCON Primates Council that represents by far the majority of Anglicans across the globe, has put it, she “has failed to guard the faith and is complicit in introducing practices and beliefs that violate both ‘the plain and canonical sense’ of Scripture and ‘the Church’s historic and consensual’ interpretation of it.”

The Church’s trajectory has attracted the condemnation of Anglicans worldwide.

In particular, she voted for the introduction of same-sex blessings (liturgical blessings for same-sex couples) into the Church of England and “has repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.” Mullally led the Living in Love and Faith project, a dialogue process on sexuality questions that created havoc in the English church.

How is such a leader to mobilize Christians for the re-evangelization of the British Isles? How will she provide a clear biblical voice in the public sphere? We see encouraging signs of disillusionment with secularism and the empty rhetoric of the New (now Old) Atheism movement, and increased interest in spiritual questions, particularly among young people in Britain. How will she take hold of the moment and proclaim Christ crucified and risen, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and the eternal life found only in the One described in Scripture as “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42)?

Global Anglicans grieve the lost opportunity this appointment represents.

Christ Has Built, and Is Building, His Church

Those who cherish the Anglican heritage and the litany of great heroes of the faith through the centuries who have blessed us—Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, Wesley and Whitefield, Newton and Wilberforce, Simeon and Ryle, Lewis, Stott and Packer to name just a few—retain a warm affection and lively interest in the Church of England and its mission. From the British Isles the gospel of the Lord Jesus sounded out in all directions across the world. Here in Australia, our debts to the Church of England are profound, beginning with our first colonial chaplain, Rev. Richard Johnson. So while the Archbishop of Canterbury has no direct influence on Australian Anglicans, we have been prayerfully engaged as this selection process has dragged on over the past year.

It’s good to remember that the Lord Jesus’s gospel mission doesn’t depend on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Christ is building his church. The Spirit is taking the life-giving gospel to the hearts of those who hear it across Britain. There are many faithful Christians, and many faithful Christian ministries, at work within the Church of England despite one fiasco after another at the top. New churches are being planted. Men and women are being converted. Believers are being strengthened, deepened, and matured in their faith. God’s Word is being clearly preached in many Anglican pulpits across Britain.

Alongside them, a host of biblically faithful ministries have emerged outside the Church of England’s structures where the challenges of a new age of evangelism are being embraced enthusiastically. That’s why, in a very real sense, the appointment of Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury is an entire irrelevance.

How Will She Treat the Church’s Critical Wounds?

Put not your trust in princes, the psalmist wrote (Ps. 146:3) and history tells us this includes princes (or princesses) of the church. Mullally will be Archbishop, it’s reported, for just six years before she reaches the mandatory retirement age. She has enormous challenges ahead of her, and little time to address them. Her background is in nursing, and it will be interesting to see how she treats the critically wounded Church of England.

The Lord Jesus’s gospel mission doesn’t depend on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Christ is building his church.

But I don’t believe she can solve its deepest problem: a profound drift away from the biblical Christian faith that has accelerated into a gallop in recent decades. She certainly can’t do this apart from her own personal repentance and a willingness to openly and unapologetically obey “the whole counsel of God,” not just isolated expressions taken entirely out of context and recast into the image of the prevailing culture.

I have prayed this morning for the Archbishop-designate. While she and the entire hierarchy of the Church of England are largely irrelevant, it may yet be that the Lord will use this appointment to galvanize the faithful in the urgent work of evangelism, discipleship, and faithful witness to the gospel, the only real hope for Britain, global Anglicanism, and indeed the entire world.