Dr Nsungbemo Ezung
Wokha Town
Dame Sarah Mullally, a liberal Anglican leader, was appointed as the Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the 110 million Anglican Christians worldwide) in October 2025 and thereby creating a history of becoming the first woman to head a major Christian denomination in more than 2000 years of Christianity. With the question/dispute over the theological validity of women’s ordination in the Church ministry as old as the life of Christianity itself, the ascendency of Sarah Mullally to the top leadership of one of the oldest surviving Christian denominations in the world represents the triumph of Feminist Theology, which promotes a greater role of women in a Church ministry.
Feminist Theology, which occupies a prominent place in the contemporary Christian theological discourse, calls for rewriting the text of the Holy Bible, as it feel that the male-centric Biblical position on women is discriminatory in nature. The Bible, according to the advocates of Feminist Theology, did not empower women enough to take the leading role in the Christian leadership and ministry, and for Christian women to be emancipated requires relaxing the Biblical definition and position of priesthood and leadership of the Church. Feminist Theology thus offers to the world a thought-provoking view on our understanding of the Bible; whether the Bible is to be taken as an infallible Word of God that does not change and that God demands total obedience from His faithfuls or just as a text that is subjected to human understanding and interpretation. Feminist Theology relegated the Bible to just a text for human society to interpret and use according to one’s understanding and convenience, emphasising the primacy of human reason over faith and obedience to God.
However, more than being the first woman head of the Anglican Church, also known as the Church of England, which itself is a course-changing Christian exercise, Sarah Mullally’s views and positions on some of the critical theological and social issues are deeply disturbing and concerning for all Bible-believing Christians in the world. Described herself as a ‘feminist’ she holds a compromising position on the Biblical definition of marriage and calls for a relook at the Christian traditional position of marriage as an exclusive union between one man and one woman. She considers accepting those who rebel against Biblical definition of marriage as an “inclusive love” on the ground that everyone comes under the framework of God’s love.
Sarah Mullally’s position on compromising God’s sacred design for marriage under the guise of God’s love is nothing more than misplacing the concept of love and compassion. It’s an act of using compassion and love to accommodate the liberal ideas (diluting Biblical values and principles for governing humanity) within the Anglican Communion. The Bible is clear on the purpose of compassion, love and forgiveness. Compassion is not a licence to sin or to live in sin by violating God’s command. Instead, compassion gives an opportunity, through the Cross of Jesus Christ, to sinners to repent and reconcile to God. The assurance that Jesus loves all sinners and is ever ready to forgive any kind of sin of a sinner does not mean one is free to commit sin or to normalize rebellion against the Divine command. Liberal Christian theology, to which the new head of the Church of England belongs, represents a tragic departure from the Bible-based Christian faith and advocates challenging the timeless truth of the Word of God.
The Church of England originated following a dispute between the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the King of England over the issue of the marriage of the latter. In 1527, the proposal of King Henry VIII of England to annul his marriage with his first wife was rejected by the Pope on the ground that the King being representative of the conscience of the nation required maintaining moral and spiritual propriety in both public and personal life. The dispute culminated with the then Archbishop of Canterbury annulling the first marriage of King Henry VIII without the formal approval from Rome, excommunication of King Henry VIII by Pope Clement VII and the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome in December 1534 through the British Parliament’s Act of Supremacy declaring King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England.
There was an instance in history where the King of England, Edward VIII, had to abdicate his throne in December 1936 because his proposed marriage to an American Commoner and divorcee happened to be not in accord with the Biblical mandate of marriage, and due to which the Church of England, which he then headed, was not in a position to recognize his marriage. That was the time when the Church of England was in full communion not with the pattern of the world but with the Word of God, where even the King and his question of marriage were subjected to the mandate of the Church. It was unthinkable and unacceptable in those days for the Church of England to have a supreme head of the Church whose wife was a divorcee. Since then, the permissive mindset has captured the hearts and souls of Christians and the Church worldwide, where many Churches around the world are no longer bound by the Bible, and instead, relegated their Churches to just a human institutions to be functioned based on human conveniences.
For the Church of England, which is supposed to be the body of Christ, to return to the Biblical root it has to come clean on its position on marriage and reaffirm its commitment to the unchanging Biblical principles that governs Christian marriage, else the Church today stand at the risk of becoming a dying Church.
The Church of England serves as the guardian of the world’s oldest surviving monarch, the British Monarch, with the British Monarch itself being based on the foundation of Christianity. The Church is today unfortunately fast drifting leftward and therefore will have an enormous impact on the Christian world. It will embolden liberal ideologies to make a further inroad in the Churches worldwide and pull away the Churches and the Christians from the Word of God. The advent of the new head of the Church of England symbolizes the triumph of liberal theology over Biblical principles. And in such a time as this, it makes the role of the Bible-believing Christians all over the world more important than ever before to boldly preach and defend the Word of God if Christianity has to survive.
