The news that Dame Sarah Mullally has been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury – spiritual head of the Anglican/Episcopalian Communion – marks a landmark moment, signalling just how far Western Christendom has moved from the brutal, tribal misogyny of the Bible. It underlines a central truth: religions do not provide society’s moral framework. Rather, morality evolves as societies progress, and religions are dragged along, sometimes kicking and screaming. The alternative, as history shows, is increasing irrelevance and rejection – a trajectory the Christian churches have been on since at least the mid-20th century.
In this blog-post, I’ll trace the historical shifts that culminated in the abandonment of what was once considered a cornerstone of Christendom: male domination and female subservience. For centuries, the priesthood was the exclusive preserve of men, while women were consigned to serving men, bearing children, and running households – denied political and economic power, which was also reserved exclusively for men.
The Foundational Misogyny - the Bible Commands it.
This appointment is all the more striking when set against the backdrop of Christianity’s long history of misogyny, rooted firmly in the texts that its adherents call sacred. From the earliest books of the Hebrew Bible to the letters of Paul in the New Testament, women are depicted as subordinate to men, defined largely by their roles as wives, mothers, or temptresses. The Bible reflects the values of the patriarchal tribal societies from which it emerged: women were property, often bought and sold, and their value was bound up in fertility and obedience.
The Bible even incorporates an attempted justification for this misogyny and strictly 'ordained' roles with the myth of Adam and Eve, with Eve's 'sin' justifying hers and her female descendants' role as the obedient servant of men (Genesis 3:16). Eve herself was supposedly created as 'an helpmeet' for Adam when none of the animals God created proved suitable (Genesis 2: 20-23).
Far from being accidental, this patriarchal framework was codified into doctrine. The Church Fathers and later ecclesiastical authorities reinforced and extended these norms, presenting them not as cultural artefacts of an ancient Near Eastern society but as divine commandments. Through the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the Church institutionalised this male dominance: the pulpit, the altar, and every position of authority were reserved exclusively for men, while women were consigned to silence and obedience.
In short, what today’s Anglicans celebrate as progress would have been regarded by their predecessors as a dangerous heresy – a betrayal of “God’s order” that they believed was revealed in Scripture itself.
The Beginnings of Tension as Society Moves On and Religion Digs In
While the Church clung to its patriarchal order, the wider world was changing. From the Enlightenment onwards, secular society began to question inherited hierarchies and champion ideals of liberty, equality, and human rights - ideas which, along with democracy and accountability of government to the people, are conspicuous by their absence in the Bible. The 19th and 20th centuries saw women gain access to education, property rights, and, eventually, the vote. Women entered the workforce in ever greater numbers, proved themselves in politics, science, and the arts, and demonstrated beyond question their ability to lead and to think independently.Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
1 Corinthians 13: 33-34
But rather than welcoming these changes, the churches often resisted them. Theological arguments were marshalled to justify the exclusion of women from authority, with biblical passages cited as though they were immutable law. As late as the 20th century, mainstream denominations still argued that women were unsuited to the priesthood, that leadership was divinely ordained for men, and that women’s “natural role” was in the home.
Even when the wider culture embraced women’s rights, churches dragged their feet. The ordination of women priests in Anglicanism came only after long and bitter struggles, with many within the Communion still objecting to this “innovation.” And the idea of women bishops – let alone a female Archbishop of Canterbury – was dismissed as unthinkable not long ago.
This tension illustrates the larger pattern: religion does not set the pace of moral progress but resists it, adopting change only when the alternative is to risk irrelevance. Religions function as a break on moral development....the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy. [Dame Sarah's support for the blessing of same-sex couples, promotes] unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.
Most Reverend Dr Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda
Chairman of Gafcon's leadership council.
Religion as Follower, Not Leader.
The slow acceptance of women in positions of church authority is not an isolated case but part of a broader pattern. Time and again, when societies have evolved morally, religion has followed reluctantly, often only when it could no longer credibly resist.
One clear example is slavery. For centuries, Christian churches not only condoned but actively profited from slavery. The Catholic Church sanctioned the enslavement of non-Christians through papal decrees such as Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455)[1], while the Church of England owned slave plantations in the Caribbean through its missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, branding its enslaved workers with the word “Society” [2].
In America, Protestant denominations divided over slavery, with Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists defending it as divinely ordained. Preachers such as Thornton Stringfellow and James Henley Thornwell published tracts asserting that Scripture sanctioned slavery [3]. Slave-owners and their clerical allies proclaimed that slavery was sanctioned by God, woven into the divine order. Yet when society at large began to turn against slavery, recognising its inherent brutality and injustice, churches slowly shifted their stance. Today, no mainstream denomination defends slavery, and many even try to portray abolition as a Christian achievement – despite the historical reality that the loudest opposition came first from secular reformers and only belatedly from church leaders....Jesus Christ recognized this institution [slavery] as one that was lawful among men, and regulated its relative duties... I affirm then, first (and no man denies) that Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command; and second, I affirm, he has introduced no new moral principle which can work its destruction...
Rev. Thomas Stringfellow, (1855) Baptist minister
Culpepper County, VA, USA.
A more recent example is LGBTQ+ rights. Only a generation ago, many denominations vehemently opposed any recognition of gay and lesbian people as equal citizens. Homosexuality was routinely denounced from pulpits as sinful, deviant, or even demonic. But as society became more accepting, churches have been forced to soften their rhetoric, reinterpret their scriptures, or face growing irrelevance among younger generations. The debates now raging within the Anglican Communion over same-sex marriage echo almost exactly the debates that once surrounded the ordination of women.The Church’s official position matches the clear teaching of scripture by saying that sex belongs within one man, one woman marriage. Nevertheless, bishops and clergy have been allowed to sow endless doubt about what Christians throughout history and around the world have recognised is God’s pattern for sexuality.
Christian Concern (2022)
These cases make the point starkly: religion does not set the moral direction of society; it trails behind it. Whenever churches are credited with progress, it is usually because they have belatedly adopted values that society had already embraced.
The Significance of a Female Archbishop.
The appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally to the role of Archbishop of Canterbury is undeniably historic, yet its deeper meaning lies less in what it changes and more in what it confirms. It does not represent a sudden leap forward by a bold and progressive church; rather, it is the latest step in a long, reluctant journey towards aligning Christian institutions with the moral expectations of the society they serve.
The symbolism is powerful: the office once occupied exclusively by men for nearly five centuries of Anglican history is now open to a woman. It signals that, at least in the West, the Anglican Church has finally accepted what most of society accepted long ago — that leadership ability is not determined by gender. But this change comes decades after women became heads of government, judges, scientists, business leaders, and university chancellors. In that light, the Church’s decision looks less like moral vision and more like institutional survival.
Nor is this acceptance universal. Across much of the Anglican Communion, particularly in its more conservative provinces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, women are still barred from senior leadership or even from ordination. These branches of the Church continue to argue that scripture forbids women from holding authority over men — an argument that mirrors the one once used to justify slavery and, later, segregation.
So, while the headlines hail this appointment as a triumph of progress, it might better be seen as an admission that the Church can no longer afford to cling to ideas that the wider world has already rejected. The step is historic, yes — but also overdue.
A Mirror, Not a Moral Compass.
The appointment of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury is a milestone that reveals, not divine inspiration or timeless moral leadership, but the adaptive instincts of an institution struggling to stay relevant in an age that has outgrown its ancient prejudices. Far from leading moral progress, Christianity has repeatedly shown itself to be reactive — changing only when resistance becomes untenable, or, in this case, when church attendance has fallen to the point where the survival of the church itself is in doubt; when baptisms and church weddings are both at new low points and the biggest problem facing many parishes is now what to do with all the redundant churches.
Religions survive by reflecting the societies in which they exist. As the moral consensus of those societies evolves, doctrines once held sacred are quietly reinterpreted, downplayed, or abandoned. The Church that once defended slavery, opposed democracy, condemned contraception, and excluded women now presents itself as a champion of equality and compassion. The moral direction did not come from revelation but from human reason, empathy, and social progress, what was once accepted as normal is now seen as repugnant.
This latest development therefore stands as a testament not to the moral leadership of religion but to the capacity of human societies to evolve beyond it. Every concession, every reform, every “first” within the Church follows a pattern: first denial, then resistance, and finally reluctant acceptance when the old position becomes morally indefensible.
In that sense, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is both a symbol of progress and a reminder of how slow religious institutions are to embrace it. She embodies not a triumph of theology but a victory for secular morality — a morality forged by people, not imposed by gods.
Conclusion
Religions are not the architects of morality but its reluctant beneficiaries. As societies evolve, their moral and ethical frameworks adapt to new realities — driven by reason, empathy, and lived human experience. Religions, bound to ancient texts and traditions, must then reinterpret themselves to survive in this new moral landscape. Those that fail to evolve become fossils of a bygone age, preserved only as reminders of the prejudices humanity has outgrown. Christianity’s slow acceptance of women’s equality is one more example of this evolutionary process: the faith adapting to a changing moral environment in order to avoid extinction. Like any organism in nature, a religion that cannot adapt to its surroundings will not endure — and the churches, however unwillingly, know this.
One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
Arthur C. Clarke, interview with New Scientist, 10 February 1990.
We do not need God to be good or to have good morals. Morality predates religion.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006).
The moral sense is not a gift from religion. It is a product of evolution.
Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011).
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the coloured races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organised churches of the world.
Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927).
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