Why Brazen Defiance of God’s Word Can Never be “Consecrated”

Earlier this week, Dame Sarah Mullaly was crowned Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior position of spiritual authority in the Church of England. That sentence ought to be unfathomable. 103 of the previous 105 archbishops of Canterbury—stretching back across fifteen centuries—would have found it impossible to imagine, because it ought to be (and is) a theological impossibility. And yet, here it is, right before our eyes, like a great ecclesiological magic trick.

We knew it was coming. It was inevitable after the moment that same Church ordained its first woman priest in 1994, and its first woman bishop in 2015. But though we knew it was coming, and though we knew the appointment had already been made, there is something about watching it, hearing the words of the actual service, witnessing it happen before our eyes in the great Westminster Abbey, that brings the grim reality back into focus. It renders the magic trick a frightening “reality”, reminding us that things really are as bad as they seem.

These very public events, watched by millions, capture the public imagination as no other church in the nation can. It brings to the surface the inevitable fruit of the many small and large compromises that led to an “impossible” moment like this. Every dereliction of duty. Every omission of truth. Every foolish word. Every act of cowardice. It all crystallises in moments like this, reminding us of the utter disappointment, the tragedy that is what became of our Church of England.Subscribe

There was a particularly notable moment in the service, where—at the point at which it was stated that there had been no objections to Mullaly’s appointment as archbishop—Paul Williamson, a conservative Anglican priest (who had already raised a formal objection beforehand, which they had “filed away” on a technicality) raised his voice aloud at the appropriate moment. Did the Church authorities heed this objection? Of course not. They had him escorted out and he was later described as a mere “heckler”.

This is ultimately what happens to those who speak against the liberal cult which has successfully infiltrated the formerly great Church of our formerly great nation. As I argued last year in “Wolves in the Cathedral: Why the Church of England is Dying from the Inside Out,” while the Church has been busy creating “safe spaces” for supposedly marginalised liberals, it has made itself a distinctly unsafe space for faithfully conservative Christians.

The Tragic Yes and No

Of her appointment, Sarah Mullaly herself declared on social media:

There are a number of “extraordinary” things about this statement.

Read it all at That Good Fight