[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
There are few experiences more simultaneously humbling and spiritually uplifting than entering a medieval cathedral – those uniquely magnificent, soaring structures designed to bridge heaven and earth, adorned inside and out with artwork and sculptures of astonishing detail and power, by craftsmen whose worldview was suffused with the sacred. It would take an utterly soulless person to want to desecrate such beauty. Or a woke ideologue.
Enter the militantly woke Church of England, which is at the center of two recent controversies that have brought the already declining Church to an official schism.
First came the announcement that a woman – Sarah Mullally, former Bishop of London and nurse-turned-priest – has been named Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time in the history of the seat, which dates back to 601 AD. Considered “theologically liberal,” the self-described feminist Mullally is pro-LGBT inclusion and pro-abortion rights.
Archbishop Henry Ndukuba of Nigeria, who arguably leads the Anglican Communion’s largest church, called her selection “devastating,” and faulted its “insensitivity to the conviction of the majority of Anglicans who are unable to embrace female headship in the episcopate.”
Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, chair of the primary governing and leadership body of GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) – a conservative, evangelical movement within global Anglicanism that emphasizes adherence to biblical authority and traditional doctrine – issued a statement expressing “sorrow” at the appointment, declaring that it “abandons global Anglicans” and proves that the Church of England “has relinquished its authority to lead.”
Only days later, Mbanda published a letter announcing an official split from Canterbury and declaring GAFCON the true leadership of the Church:
We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
[…]
Today, Gafcon is leading the Global Anglican Communion.
As has been the case from the very beginning, we have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion. [Emphasis in original]
As if Mullally’s appointment weren’t divisive enough, amid that controversy came the news that the Church of England saw fit to collaborate with “marginalized” voices to splash the walls of ancient Canterbury Cathedral with temporary graffiti.
The Times of London reports that the “Hear Us” art installation features removable graffiti stickers posing questions for God, such as “Are you there?”, “God, what happens when we die?” and “Why did you create hate when love is by far more powerful?” A Cathedral statement attempted to explain:
This project focuses on partnering with marginalised communities—such as Punjabi, black and brown diaspora, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA+ groups—to collaboratively create handwritten literature responding to the question, “What would you ask God?”
The statement added:
These contrasts and conversations between ancient architecture and contemporary messaging, and between tradition and innovation offer new interpretations of faith and worship practices, demonstrating that spirituality is not static, but an evolving journey.
The project is the brainchild of “vegan/queer” poet Alex Vellis — who uses “they/them” pronouns — and Cathedral curator Jacquiline Creswell. On the Cathedral website, Vellis blathers,
Language is the people who speak it, and graffiti is the language of the unheard. By graffitiing the inside of Canterbury Cathedral, we join a chorus of the forgotten, the lost, and the wondrous. People who wanted to make their mark, to say “I was here”, and to have their etchings carry their voice through the centuries.
Let me make something perfectly clear, as Barack Obama was fond of saying. The Progressive insistence that minorities are silenced under the jackboot of a white supremacist patriarchy is a demonstrable lie. In an era in which literally everyone 13 and older has access to innumerable social media platforms and can rev up their own podcast, no one today is unheard – least of all supposedly “marginalized” communities like blacks and “queer folk,” who actually have the biggest megaphones in our far Left-dominated culture today.
Graffiti is not “the language of the unheard.” It is the vandalism of entitled, petty little criminals who fancy themselves to be resistance artists but are simply uglifying the private property of others. A cathedral, for God’s sake, is not there for you to “make your mark” and carry your “voice” down through the centuries. This may be painful and incomprehensible to a generation that has found its identity in victimhood, but a cathedral is not about you. The proper response to this sacred space is humility and reverence, not having your own ego affirmed.
Founded in 597 AD as a Catholic church by St. Augustine (not the Church Father Augustine who wrote the spiritual autobiography Confessions), who was commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons, Canterbury cathedral has served as the mother church of the Anglican Communion since the English Reformation of the 16th century. It is culturally notable as the cathedral to which Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims traveled and in which T.S. Eliot set his play about the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, martyred at the altar by knights acting on what they believed was King Henry II’s command, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Now it is the garbage disposal of woke subversives like feminist Archbishops, vegan/queer poets, and the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Rev David Monteith, who acknowledged that the sacrilegious art installation was “undoubtedly jarring” and “disruptive” but said that it represented “sincere questions of faith and meaning.” Sorry, Very Rev, but Christians have been wrestling with sincere questions of faith and meaning for two thousand years without having to vandalize the most glorious religious spaces ever constructed.
Vice President JD Vance tweeted his befuddlement about the installation: “It is weird to me that these people don’t see the irony of honoring ‘marginalized communities’ by making a beautiful historical building really ugly.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) weighed in as well: “It’s tragic how great Nations are fallen. Consumed by self-destructive pathologies embraced by their ‘elites.’ God help England.”
Even before these recent debacles, the Church of England was already in freefall. In 2010, attendance at Sunday services of the Church of England averaged 908,900 people, the UK Times reports. By 2024, the number had plunged to 582,000. The schism will likely cause many to abandon a sinking ship and seek other faith traditions like Catholicism.
But the problem is not confined to Anglicanism. As has been often noted, Christianity writ large is in decline across Western Europe. A 2021 census revealed that, for the first time, fewer than half – 46.2% – of the people in England and Wales identify as Christian, down from 59.3% in the previous census of 2011. A major reason for the waning of Christianity in the West is not, as some try to argue, because Christians aren’t evolving and getting with the times by being more inclusive of the LGBT community, but precisely because so many Christian denominations are changing with the times. That is why there is a surge of interest among young people in the most traditional expressions of Christianity, like the Latin Mass. Serious young people are rejecting the empty promises of a decadent secular culture that has made an idol of social justice activism, and searching instead for real meaning, stability, and purpose in their lives. That search is not fulfilled by churches that are indistinguishable from the world.
Wokeness – or cultural Marxism – divides, subverts, and destroys every institution it infects. Indeed, that is the point of cultural Marxism – to erode the foundations of Western civilization until it collapses and can be remade according to the Left’s utopian vision. We can now count the Church of England as its latest victim.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
