Eleven months after Justin Welby’s resignation, the Church of England announced that London bishop Sarah Mullally will succeed him next year, becoming the first woman to lead the national church and global Anglican body as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Welby stepped down in November 2024 over a scandal involving church abuse cover-up. He had held the position since 2013. Many evangelicals—who make up around a third of the Church of England—had welcomed his leadership. A former oil executive turned vicar who had grown up in evangelicalism, Welby sometimes worshiped at Holy Trinity Brompton, birthplace of the Alpha course and the UK’s best-known megachurch.
As archbishop, Welby advanced significant reforms, turbocharging church planting and streamlining bureaucracy to kickstart evangelism. But he also became associated with a highly divisive plan to introduce services of blessings for gay couples, which triggered a bitter civil war between mostly evangelical conservatives and their liberal antagonists.
By the time Welby left under pressure, he had burned through much of his goodwill among fellow evangelicals. Welby’s somewhat tangential association in the 1980s with John Smyth—an influential evangelical lay leader who beat young men and had his crimes covered up by the evangelical establishment—ended up being the thing that toppled him.
As she takes office, Mullally inherits the safeguarding scandals, which have continued unabated since Welby left, and the same-sex blessings saga.
Bishops approved in principle plan to outsource safeguarding investigations and discipline to an independent body beyond the control of the bishops, but much of the detail remains to be worked out. And while gay couples can today request blessings as part of regular Sunday services, the church continues to debate adding standalone blessings closer to weddings, as well as relaxing the ban on gay clergy getting married themselves.
For several years, Mullally led the Living in Love and Faith project, which produced the prayers, though she stepped back from holding a prominent role as churches implemented the blessings.
Some evangelical leaders have cautiously welcomed her appointment, despite their deep theological disagreements. Mullally has experience working with conservatives in the Diocese of London, which contains opposition both to the blessings and to women’s ordination. John Dunnett, the head of the Church of England Evangelical Council, noted that as bishop she has shown a knack for strategic flexibility and a graciousness to compromise across deep theological divides.
The evangelical council, which has led opposition to the blessings, has called for prayers for Mullally as she takes up the role, warning of the difficult and fractured inheritance she takes on.
“We pray that God will enable Bishop Sarah to hold to the apostolic faith and call the Church of England to recommit to the historic doctrines and formularies entrusted to it,” the group said in a statement, adding that either the church must halt its “drift away from a Biblical understanding of marriage and sexual ethics” or evangelicals must find a separate future.
Similar sentiments landed from Church Society, another group of evangelical Anglicans. The organization said it hoped to meet with the new archbishop soon “to discuss the urgent need for reformation and renewal of the Church of England in biblical faith.” It also lamented that Mullally will be the third archbishop in a row who does not speak up for the traditional doctrine of the church on marriage and sexual ethics.
Women have been able to become bishops in the Church of England since only 2014. In conservative and complementarian parishes that will not work under women, a male “flying bishop” provides oversight.
With this setup, Mullally’s accession to the top job does not significantly threaten evangelicals who oppose women’s ordination. Bishop of Ebbsfleet Rob Munro, the complementarian evangelical flying bishop, welcomed her promotion.
He said while her appointment would present new “challenges” for the churches under his care, he knew Mullally had a “long track record of gracious engagement and real understanding of the particular theological convictions we hold.” Munro said he had no doubt she would uphold the 2014 settlement that preserved conservatives’ place in the church.
A female archbishop was a bigger issue for Gafcon, the international network of conservative Anglican churches beyond the UK. A statement by its leader, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, said Gafcon received the news of Mullally’s accession with “sorrow” because the selection would “further divide an already split Communion.”
Mbanda suggested that because not all Anglicans worldwide recognize female bishops, it would be impossible for Mullally to act as a “focus for unity.” But even more problematic, he added, was her liberal approach to same-sex relationships.
“Bishop Mullally has repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality,” Mbanda said.
Cementing a break already declared with her predecessor, Mbanda said the Church of England had in effect relinquished its leadership of the Anglican Communion.
Gafcon plans to hold a conference of conservative bishops in Nigeria in March—shortly before Mullally is formally installed as archbishop—to take the lead on resetting the Communion.
The fractures with Gafcon and conservative Anglicans globally were largely irreconcilable long before Mullally was tapped as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. The position historically leads the Anglican Communion as “first among equals,” but Welby had already shown interest in new arrangements rather than the job automatically going to Canterbury.
Still, Mullally’s selection does reinforce the fissures between the mother church in England and its more conservative affiliates.
Closer to home, many conservative clergy and parishes have warned they too may formally quit the church if it does not turn back from blessing gay couples. Their leaders in groups such as Church Society and the Church of England Evangelical Council have demanded the hierarchy carve out a new ecclesiastical structure for them with their own bishops, synods, and canon law—effectively a church within a church—as their price for staying. The bishops have shown no interest in meeting this demand and are instead considering an expanded version of the flying bishops setup, officially known as delegated episcopal oversight.
Some evangelicals have opted to remain in the Church of England, reasoning that their liberal opponents will fade out faster than their more populous congregations, allowing them to eventually steer the church back toward their positions.
Church of England leaders generally expect Mullally to plough forward with the existing approach rather than shift either way on same-sex blessings. Currently, no one can compel churches or vicars to use the blessings against their conscience. The church parliament meets in February for a final debate on the issue, prior to Mullally formally becoming archbishop.
Leaders also look to Mullally for a similar middle-of-the-road course when it comes to church growth and evangelism. She is not seen as an energetic church planter in the mold of Welby, but neither has she shown much interest in demands from other bishops to funnel money currently spent on innovation and evangelism back toward traditional parish ministry.
