THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

COMMENTARY

by David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

January 10, 2025

By any measurable standard, the Church of England is a spent force.

While all the appearances of vitality are still in place - two archbishops, the Lord’s Spiritual, the money, the power, (but with increasingly less prestige); the CofE on the global Anglican stage is no longer relevant.

That a dozen or more global, mainly Africa archbishops who represent nearly 80 percent of the communion no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares, or even as their spiritual leader, speaks volumes.

Church of England archbishops, guilty of failing to safeguard the church from predatory priests and laity are falling out ecclesiastical windows like bad fruit off a tree. Justin Welby, George Carey, John Sentamu have all gone and by any measure so should Stephen Cottrell, probably the worst offender of all if the stories of his failed safeguarding are true. But he loves the power, as he steps in to temporarily take over now that Welby is out the door. The smell and lure of power is far too enticing to listen to naysayers who believe he should go.

He's a little man with the enigmatic smile of a cottonmouth snake let loose in a country garden; Cottrell will charm his way into his new job trying to please everybody, but in the end pleasing nobody. Mercifully his tenure will be short-lived as the church seeks a permanent replacement for Welby.

The British are masters at saying nothing brilliantly. No nation on earth can take the English language to heights of obfuscation like the British. For example, Archbishop Cottrell can take the word discipleship (a favorite word of his) and twist it in any direction he wants it to go and fudge it. He can make it mean whatever he wants it to mean, and people will nod wisely as though they understood and approved what he was talking about.

Under his watch an avowed “married” homosexual Dean took charge of Canterbury Cathedral, the most iconic cathedral in the Anglican communion. How does he reconcile his notion of “discipleship” with such a call? Such putrefaction ascended to the nostrils of God. I doubt one GAFCON archbishop would ever darken the doors of Canterbury Cathedral again, and would probably demand an exorcism before they did.

He is on record as saying that while the Archbishop of Canterbury won’t bless gay marriages, he will.

Buggery on Saturday night and breaking bread on Sunday morning, hardly fits the New Testament definition of discipleship or the profile of godly behavior.

Martyn Percy, the former Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, where he had been the dean for eight years, when he stepped down after an acrimonious dispute with the college lasting four years wrote; “The Church of England must die a natural death — then rise again.”

“With Justin Welby gone as Archbishop of Canterbury and soon to be forgotten, the Church has lessons to learn. Archbishops of Canterbury are expendable and rarely memorable. Before the Reformation, 16 were canonised. Nowadays, they might get a seat in the House of Lords upon retirement. So, with Welby gone and soon to be forgotten, what are the lessons to be learnt?”

Percy cited Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Becket and Cardinal Reginald Pole as examples of expendable archbishops.

Percy said Welby’s resignation points to a much deeper malaise for the Church of England. “This is not so much a church in crisis as a body nearing the end of its natural life. Like all organic bodies, institutions have a lifespan too; death is a normal part of the existential cycle. If there is to be a resurrection — not just endless attempts at resuscitation and rejuvenation — death must be embraced. The church preaches this. It must live it too.”

One could of course, accuse Percy of sour grapes based on his personal experience, but he has a point.

“The Church of England continues to live and flourish locally. All life is there, and that is truly hopeful. However, as a national hierarchical institution and international denomination, it has reached an advanced state of decay. Avoiding death only means that the Church of England will spend more time in a self-imposed purgatory of painful palliative stasis.”

The church needs an Archbishop of Canterbury who recognizes that less will be more in the future. Cutting back on the hierarchy and top-down management of churches — “heavy pruning”, to borrow a phrase from Jesus’s teaching — might let in some much-needed light and air for local recovery and growth at ground level, says Percy.

Sadly, when you have entrenched sin, recovery is not possible. Jesus himself affirmed the binary nature of sexuality, assuming the inseparability and distinction of biological sex. To deliberately go against the binary nature of sexuality is to break the moral law.

The Church of England will never rise again. It’s spiritually impossible. The same can be said for The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Both institutions are dying.

No amount of prayer, false compassion, pastoral care, depth-inspiring spirituality and theological nous will change the direction and inevitable death of the church.

Percy says what the church needs is a new realism in the next archbishop. But realism about what exactly? “The Church of England does not need another rallying call for revival. The people’s hopes in the pews rest on an authentic and honest candidate who does not deny reality.”

But honest revival, honest repentance is the only way forward, but there is very little evidence that will take place. If it didn’t happen under an “evangelical” like Welby what makes one think it will happen under a progressive? Impossible.

An article in The Living Church had these lines: “Underlying the appointment is a sobering reality. The Church of England continues to struggle. Its worshiping numbers remain below pre-COVID levels, ordinand numbers are greatly diminished, and the finances of many dioceses and parishes are precarious. The church is tearing itself apart on safeguarding, in which the balance between sufficient accountability for past failings and avoiding a culture of blame is proving to be difficult to strike.

“To make matters worse, not only is there a widening theological gulf between liberals and conservatives emerging through LLF, but there also appears to a mismatch between the composition of the College and the House of Bishops, which are majority liberal, and the larger Anglican churches, which are young, evangelical, and conversative.”

There you have it. In time GAFCON and GSFA will be the two arms of a single communion aided by the ACNA.

The Church of England is dead, all it needs now is a decent burial, but it might be difficult to find an archbishop to preside at the funeral. Perhaps the Archbishop of Nigeria might do the honors.

END