My phone immediately blew up with text notifications when Sarah Mullally was named the 106th archbishop of Canterbury late last week.
“Did you hear?” and “Can you believe it?” became a common refrain. My personal favorite — “BOOM” — accompanied a link to an article from The New York Times.
Not since the Church of England was established in the early 16th century has a woman been the “leader of the church and as first among equals among bishops” in the global family made up of 85 million members. The Anglican Communion, which consists of 44 different churches around the world, includes The Episcopal Church in the United States.
Cara Meredith
When Mullally becomes archbishop in late January and is then formally installed at a service two months later, she will oversee a diverse collection of believers that hail from 165 countries and speak 2,000 languages.
As an Episcopalian, I am delighted to see a woman in the highest position of leadership in the church. Her appointment communicates that gender is a nonissue in the kingdom of God: She is respected and valued for who she is as a human, not for any differences in anatomical parts or perceived complementarian roles.
To her, and to us all, we are reminded that “God is no respecter of persons” as Acts 10:34 says. Likewise her “support for the revisionist position on same-sex marriage in the Church of England,” which advocates for changing church doctrine to fully affirm and celebrate same-sex unions, makes me want to pump my fists in the air. Although The Episcopal Church already affirms such in its doctrine, I remain hopeful for the belonging and inclusion this could bring to the communion worldwide.
But the values I espouse are the very things that agitate her opponents.
In an article for The Gospel Coalition, Lee Gatiss, chairman of The Global Anglican, writes that the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Primates Council contends that “the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy,” and her support of same-sex marriage “means she has failed to uphold her consecration vows (to hold, teach and defend the ‘doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it’).”
Similarly, Religion News Service reports that while there are a “number of Church of England bishops who will not be willing to receive Communion from a woman, some African churches in the communion are expected to bridle at a female leader.” Some also speculate that “the appointment of a woman to head the Church of England may also impact Anglican relations with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, which have male priesthoods.”
In reality, only nine of the 44 worldwide bodies in the Anglican Communion either ordain LGBTQ clergy or are willing to bless or perform same-sex unions. Likewise, only half affirm women in all three orders (bishop, priest, deacon) of the church.
“I fear she’ll also be the one sweeping up all the broken, jagged shards left behind on the cathedral floor.”
Sarah Mullally may be shattering the proverbial stained-glass ceiling, but I fear she’ll also be the one sweeping up all the broken, jagged shards left behind on the cathedral floor.
Of course, the archbishop of Canterbury-designate is more than qualified for the position. A former nurse, priest and bishop, Mullally also served as an administrator in the National Health Service and chief nursing officer of England, the youngest person to ever hold that job. Proponents muse that her vocational experience and calm demeanor are exactly what the Anglican Communion needs moving forward.
I have a feeling Mullally knows this about herself and her calling as well, even if she never would say it outright.
In light of her appointment at Canterbury Cathedral last Friday, she referenced the ritual of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples during Holy Week: “Washing feet has shaped my Christian vocation as a nurse, then a priest, then a bishop. In the apparent chaos which surrounds us, in the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.”
Of course, Mullally is not unaware of the situation at hand. She knows church attendance is in decline and disagreements about the role of women continue to exist, but she also knows churches within the communion hold a wide range of positions “about homosexuality, about same-sex marriage, about LGBTQ clergy,” including that “some Anglican churches in Africa operate in countries where homosexuality is illegal.”
“I do not know if the uniting love of Jesus will be enough to heal our broken parts in the end.”
As Lauren Frayer, international correspondent in London with NPR, noted on Morning Edition, in a previous sermon Mullally told a story that happened more than 100 years earlier: “Suffragettes had tried to detonate a bomb under the bishop’s seat where she was being enthroned, and she joked, you know, she’s not literally carrying bombs, but she will embrace that role of being subversive.”
As for me, I do not know if the Anglican Communion will be able to fully lean into its mission to live lives inspired by Jesus’ “love and teaching and to bring that transforming and sacrificial love into all aspects of society.” I do not know if the social issues that already divide us and the differing, unwieldly interpretations of Scripture are enough to bring us together when we need it most. I do not know if the uniting love of Jesus will be enough to heal our broken parts in the end.
But what if the new archbishop of Canterbury actually brings more unity than division? Too often, the mission of the church leads to division, exclusion and colonization — even in a church that centers itself in Scripture, tradition and reason that radiates the gospel and centers on the beauty of the sacrament. But as Brian Recker writes in Hell Bent: “Mission can also lead to connection and liberation. It can work to fulfill Luke 4:18, when Jesus says, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor,’” “freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”
And for this reason, I am not without hope.
Cara Meredith was raised in the American Baptist Churches in the USA but currently worships as an Episcopalian. She is a freelance author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation.
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