A tale of 2 cultures

Last week, the Church of England made history by installing its first female Archbishop of Canterbury.

A color photo of priestess Sarah Mullally in full regalia, complete with her golden robe and miter, graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

For feminists, it was another cultural triumph. For traditionalists, it was yet another sign of the church’s surrender to woke ideology.

The Church of England is down from about 3 million members in 1955 to around 1 million today. Of those, about 413,000 attend weekly church services, compared with 1.5 million in 1955.

The cause of the decline has been linked to immigration and population trends, growing secularism (half of the United Kingdom population now self-identifies as non-religious) and the church’s gradual embrace of liberal doctrines.

Ms. Mullaly, for example, once described herself as “pro-choice rather than pro-life.”She later added some nuance, saying, “This is a complex debate, and I don’t think my or others’ views can be so simply categorized.” Sure, they can.

She also champions the social justice and LGBTQ agendas that are turning the once-staid institution into an English version of a Marxist, San Francisco-style “church of what’s happenin’ now.”

She supports gay clergy and ceremonial blessings of same-sex couples but has stopped short of advocating same-sex marriage. She says she hopes this will help keep the worldwide Anglican Communion together. This is no easy trick when its only growth is in conservative, Third World congregations where they take the Bible seriously.

In the United States, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), a member of the Anglican Communion, is in a similar tailspin, with left-wing leadership and a dwindling flock, some of whom who have fled to conservative Anglican congregations. ECUSA embraces gay clergy, same-sex weddings, transgender activism and unrestricted access to abortion for “those who can bear children.”

In 1955, there were about 2.7 million Episcopalians, of whom 1.5 million attended weekly services. By 2023, ECUSA membership was down to 1.5 million, with 413,000 people attending services. For some reason, they stopped issuing statistics in 2024.

They still do have a lot of beautiful, empty buildings from which the spirit has flown.

Why does all this matter? The Church of England was once the spiritual heartbeat of the whole English-speaking world, along with Roman Catholicism. It played a huge role in the formation of America’s Protestant ethic and the views of the founders of America’s constitutional republic.

When roots dry up, a plant dies and other things grow in its place. Among those things taking root in what was once America’s mother country are atheism, agnosticism and Islam.

The U.K.’s Muslims now number more than 4 million and account for 6.5 percent of the population, including 15 percent of Greater London.

Between 2011 and 2021, the Muslim population increased by 1.2 million.

Half of Muslims in the U.K. are British-born, and this segment is growing far faster than the general population, which now numbers around 68 million.

At the same time, Jews, who have played key roles over the course of British history, including the two terms of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, now number about 313,000, making them only the fifth largest religious group behind Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus.

Not uncoincidentally, Great Britain has seen a rise in anti-Semitism, especially in urban areas once considered safe. On March 23, two men were arrested in London for allegedly setting fire to four Jewish-owned ambulances. Police are investigating the possibility that the perpetrators were part of an Islamist group with links to Iran.

Since the advent of America’s and Israel’s war with Iran on Feb. 28, several anti-Jewish attacks have taken place in Europe. On March 14, a bomb was exploded outside a Jewish school in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. The day before, five teenage suspects in an arson attack at a Rotterdam synagogue were arrested. On March 9, a bomb was set off near a synagogue in Liege, Belgium.

The point is that Jews – and Christians – have reason not to be complacent as the West’s rich religious traditions are sapped by secularism, liberalism and a vibrant Islam. A culture that won’t defend its core values is ripe for replacement.

Think of what a young, radicalized Muslim thinks when he sees Zohran Mamdani take over New York’s Gracie Mansion and lead a ceremonial Islamic feast on the floor of the mayor’s office.

How about when he sees hundreds of his fellow believers occupy Times Square and Washington Square in Manhattan for open-air prayer sessions not far from 2001’s Ground Zero? You couldn’t blame him for thinking that he was on the winning team and that America’s Judeo-Christian culture was on its way out.

Likewise, consider what a young, radicalized Muslim living in London thinks when he sees the Church of England being led by a woman quite comfortable with whatever modern conceits are pasted into her faith’s sacred text.

In “The Abolition of Man,” C.S. Lewis wrote that modern Western society was worse off because of the rise of what Arnold Schwzenegger later called “girlie men.”

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” Lewis wrote. “We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Or we replace them altogether with a female Archbishop of Canterbury who is no Maggie Thatcher.

This column was first published at the Washington Times.