In The Conservative Woman, Daniel Jupp considers the recent schism in the Church of England, which has left the original church shorn of the vast majority of Anglican worshippers across the globe:
“Canterbury Cathedral aerial image” by John D Fielding is licensed under CC BY 2.0 
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Today, though, the English Church is broken. The Anglican Communion, which encompassed all the places across the world touched by English exploration, discovery, trade and power, where English Christian missionaries often led the way, has witnessed a devastating schism. At the start of this month Dame Sarah Mullally was appointed the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. As is tradition, the appointment was approved by the Prime Minister and the King, but the nomination came from the Church.
Whether Anglican Christians worldwide approved doesn’t seem to have been considered. Based on multiple past fissures between the part of the Church active in the United Kingdom and the (much larger) Anglican communities globally which had each time been papered over, it may be that the hierarchy in England assumed that the same would happen again.
If so, they were wrong.
The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (also known as Gafcon) represent the Anglican faith in Africa. Their response was to declare publicly that they would no longer send delegates to Church meetings in the United Kingdom, no longer consider the Archbishop of Canterbury as first among equals or a seat of authority to which they deferred, and no longer consider themselves in the same communion as the Bishops and clergy of the Church of England within England. Perhaps even more tellingly, they asserted that they were the true Anglican communion, more loyal to the instructions of the Bible and Anglican interpretation of those than priests in England. There’s a subtle but powerful distinction there – they were saying not that they had broken away from an Anglican vision of Biblical instruction and Christian identity but that the Church in England had done so.
African Anglicans now assert that they are the true Anglicans, and that the organisation within the UK is not. And in terms of the number of people who follow their message, they are right to assert this.
In losing the African churches and the global, more conservative branch of Anglicanism, the Church of England has lost 80 per cent of Anglicans on the planet.
Imagine a company that lost 80 per cent of its customers. Or a political party that lost 80 per cent of its voters. Or a nation state that lost 80 per cent of its territory. These would in each case be recognised as unmitigated disasters.
Now imagine this following a previous disaster, which was the end of Justin Welby’s period as Archbishop over a scandal based on not being firm enough and honest enough about paedophile cases in the clergy. One would think the Church might be looking for a non-controversial appointment intended to restore moral trust immediately and defuse criticism.
They did not do this. Knowing the much more conservative and traditionalist stance held by the majority of Anglicans, they chose not to listen to those people, and did something it knew to be passionately opposed by them.
There is an intense irony here that gets to the heart of the self-inflicted problems of the Church of England today. Sarah Mullally has been very clear on the kind of Church she believes in – she’s a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and activism, she has strongly backed asylum and migration, she is a self-declared feminist, and she is both politically and it seems religiously progressive. As Bishop of London, she boasted about representing a diverse and multicultural city, and put her experience in handling diversity as one of the key qualifications and evidence of positive experience she could bring to being the Archbishop of Canterbury.
This was an intensely reality-averse selling-point. London’s slightly lower trend on the relentless decline of Christian faith and attendance compared with the UK as a whole is based not on Mullally’s competence and persuasion. It is based on traditionalist, conservative-minded members of the African Anglican communion in London being more likely to go into a church.
And these people hate woke attitudes and politics.
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[…] TO BE FAIR, THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND HAS GIVEN UP ON GOD: “The Church of England has lost 80 per cent of Anglicans on the planet”. […]
Pingback by Instapundit » Blog Archive » TO BE FAIR, THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND HAS GIVEN UP ON GOD: “The Church of England has lost 80 per c — October 28, 2025 @ 02:00
The repulse of Mulally is well deserved. The march of activists through the church has been fouling the institution for decades. It is symptomatic of England, itself. If Charles were devout, he would have rejected her appointment.
Comment by Thomas Hazlewood — October 28, 2025 @ 03:31
It’s been whispered for literally decades that HRM “reverted” to Islam. I’ve seen no actual evidence, but as the head of the Church of England, he’s been very, very friendly to Islam.
Comment by Nicholas — October 28, 2025 @ 11:51
[…] “The Church of England has lost 80 per cent of Anglicans on the planet” « Quotulatiousness […]
Pingback by Wayward Christian Empathy | Kingdom Venturers — October 28, 2025 @ 04:05
the door to Rome remains open
Comment by DaTechguy — October 28, 2025 @ 05:34
Ah, but the Vatican seems to be following the same path blazed by the Church of England:
Comment by Nicholas — October 28, 2025 @ 11:49
This is not the first time the African church has been asked to take a position of leadership in western Anglican communions. Twenty years ago, the diocese of New Westminster (Vancouver, BC) chose a schismatic bishop. He went on to mandate unorthodox policies. After a couple of years of talks, a group of congregations chose to seek a new bishop to lead them. They found an bishop out of the African church.
Comment by Pete EE — October 28, 2025 @ 09:58
I hadn’t heard of this … I guess it wasn’t something the mainstream media of the day thought newsworthy. (And even then, the media as a whole would have been on the side of the bishop.)
Comment by Nicholas — October 28, 2025 @ 11:52
In the United States, the Episcopal Church declared two years ago that it fully supported medical intervention for affirming care for transgender people of all ages. This was a not subtle way of indicating they support hormones and surgery for minors. That was the end of my association with that church. At some point, the church needs to realize that the people who are more inclined to support the church in the first place tend to be more socially and religiously conservative. When they quite intentionally turn their Church into nothing more than a very left wing social justice agency, they’re going to lose the very people who might actually fill the pews. And yet the Anglican Church in the UK and Episcopal Church in the United States seem hell-bent on driving away their last adherents.
Comment by David H. — October 28, 2025 @ 10:17