This Foundation seeks to understand the signs of the times and to look forwards by encouraging faith in the public square. It might seem paradoxical, therefore, to look backwards through anniversaries for wisdom to apply. Yet it would be arrogant for this generation to lose sight of the challenges which faced our predecessors, the risks they took and the opportunities which they seized. By reminding ourselves constantly of conditions and attitudes long ago, we can become less judgmental of the past and more creative in addressing the present and the future.
Listening to reviews of 2025, commentators inside and outside faith communities are wondering why people are so disaffected with politics, religion, the media, universities and other institutions. The William Temple Foundation has been looking throughout the year at the Church of England’s 1985 Report on ‘Faith in the City’ and we have also studied the Church’s 1945 Report, ‘Towards the Conversion of England’, in each case seeking to enhance understanding and to learn lessons for our times.
In addition to those 40th and 80th anniversaries, William Temple’s maiden speech in the House of Lords as Bishop of Manchester one hundred years ago could have been answering the question of 2025, ‘Why are people so disaffected?’ Temple’s analysis was that,
‘I think there is quite sufficient evidence to show that where you get really bitter disaffection towards the institutions of the country it is nearly always in districts where bad housing prevails. There are other causes of industrial unrest in abundance, but there is nothing which makes the settlement of industrial disputes so difficult as the embittered atmosphere due to housing conditions, which any of us with an ounce of imagination must see at once are of a kind to produce the most profound irritation and nervous fretfulness. There can be little hope of real political and social well-being becoming established in the country until we have genuinely solved this housing problem.’
The connection with industrial unrest was timely. A few months later, Temple played a significant part in finding ways forward during the 1926 General Strike. He pursued the housing question over the years and our Director of Research, Professor Chris Baker, drew attention on a panel at St Paul’s Cathedral this autumn, in partnership with the Church Urban Fund, to Temple’s views on housing in his 1942 book, Christianity and Social Order.
One of the reasons for this Foundation following William Temple’s arc across the North 100 years ago when he was Bishop of Manchester and 90 years ago when he was Archbishop of York, is that he was only the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 to his untimely death in 1944. While he was one of the most distinguished holders of that office in history, and served at a pivotal time, he gave much in his previous episcopal roles in the North and he also learned much.
Each of those decades was bleak in terms of politics, economics and world affairs. Yet Temple was always uplifting in far more difficult times than we are experiencing, most obviously as the middle one of the three Archbishops of Canterbury during the Second World War.
William Temple’s broadcasting stands out as a model of faith in the public square. The texts of his Christmas broadcasts can be re-read for signs of hope today, alongside the Christmas messages of our Monarchs and the Urbi et Orbi messages of successive Popes. At the end of the year in which he became Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1942, he broadcast Christmas messages first to Canada and then to all English-speaking people across the world, then broadcast a message on the last Sunday of the year reflecting on the passage from the old year to the new one. All three transcripts can be found in The Church Looks Forward, published by Macmillan in 1944, together with his broadcast in September 1942 on the National Day of Prayer called by King George VI. There was some controversy over whether it was right to pray for victory. William Temple’s way through that, also summed up his Christmas messages: ‘I suggest as a brief prayer for our country, which is also an act of dedication, “O God, make us worthy of victory”.’
Amen to that. It applies to whatever evils you think we are facing, not only the horrors of Nazism which faced Temple and the world in 1942. A country which did not create the promised ‘homes fit for heroes’ after the First World War had been called to account by Temple in 1925 and similarly he was calling for the country to be much more conscious of social justice in life after this Second World War was won. The battle in both Wars was, as Temple put it in the inter-War years, between those who believed in a Power-State and those who believed in a Welfare-State. Temple explained that it was fundamental to human flourishing that people should be able to make a contribution to the common good, to the well-being of society, to the welfare of the state.
The Ghost of Christmas Present. Illustration by John Leech, 1843.
Going back a further one hundred years before World War Two, in December 1843, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol had Scrooge being shown by the Spirit of Christmas Present two children with Want and Ignorance on their foreheads. In his 1942 Report, Temple’s friend William Beveridge ventured that there were five Giant Evils, those two of Want and Ignorance, plus Disease, Squalor and Idleness. Decent housing, health and education are fundamental to victory over each of these evils. ‘Scrooge’ has become in common parlance a term used for those who do not understand the Christmas spirit but Dickens’ Scrooge was transformed by the revelation of Christmas Present. Reminded of his previous attempts to deflect responsibility towards prisons and workhouses, Scrooge became the epitome of a bountiful philanthropist. William Temple’s whole character was the embodiment of that spirit of generosity and redemption which Dickens had captured one hundred years before Temple’s Christmas messages as Archbishop of Canterbury. In that spirit, we could vary William Temple’s prayer as we contemplate how a year of disaffection might give way to a year of hope: O God, make us worthy of Christmas Present.
Simon Lee is Chair of the Trustees of the William Temple Foundation.
This blog is written the day after the Foundation published a Temple book entitled ‘Towards the Conversion of the Church of England by the rest of England’, and of course just a few days after the announcement that Bishop Sarah Mullally would become the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury marked a watershed moment—the first woman to hold this position in its 1,400-year history.
Bishop Sarah, 63, brings an unconventional background to Lambeth Palace, having served as England’s Chief Nursing Officer at age 37 before her ordination in 2001. When named Bishop of London in 2017, she spoke of having “always had one vocation: to follow Jesus Christ, to know him and to make him known, always seeking to live with compassion in the service of others”.
In these early days following her appointment, we share the findings of our book in the hope that it may offer some new and creative thinking as she contemplates this life-long vocation.
The premise of the book is the 80th anniversary of Towards the Conversion of England published in 1945. Back in 1943, at the request of the Church Assembly, Archbishop William Temple set up a commission under the Bishop of Rochester to “survey the whole problem of modern evangelism.” We wanted to set up a roundtable discussion from eleven key witnesses representing a variety of perspectives and walks of English life, meeting at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine in Limehouse earlier this summer. These included Simon Lee, Tariq Modood, Abigail King, Lawrence Goldman, Sarah Joseph, Al Barrett, Val Barron, Andrew Brown, Peter Robinson, and myself.
The aim was not to provide an historical review of the original report but to take the premise of its title and turn it on its head. Instead of the Church playing a pivotal role in spiritual revival of the postwar English nation, the premise of this roundtable is that the renewal of the Church of England relies on it listening to and engaging with the new forces that are shaping England. It is a reverse idea of mission that has an acute theological, historical and cultural relevance for these times.
The consensus from our contributors suggests that Bishop Sarah Mullally inherits a Church of England at a defining inflection point. Our conversations identified a stark reality: a profound disconnection between the established Church and the English nation, driven by multiple reinforcing crises of identity, trust, and vision. Here are some of our key findings.
Diagnosing the Loss of Identity
The problematic confronting Mullally operates across several interlocking dimensions. Historically, the disappearance of Imperial Britain has left the Church institutionally ‘orphaned’ without a clear organizing purpose—the seventy-year arc from Suez (1956) to Brexit (2016) represents not merely political decline but the erosion of the framework within which Anglican identity made sense. Culturally and sociologically, this dislocation manifests in the sharp decline of rural infrastructure—the regular loss of pubs, schools, banks, and shops creates a dangerous vacuum where both Church and State are perceived as having abandoned ordinary citizens.
The 2021 Census data reveals the scale of transformation: Christian affiliation has dropped from 72% in 2001 to 46%, whilst those identifying as having no religion have risen from 15% to 37%. Yet this trajectory toward a post-Christian society masks a more complex reality—England remains dynamically religious, with minority faith groups thriving. The paradox is striking: whilst sociological narratives emphasize secularization, government interest in faith as an indispensable partner for policy delivery has never been stronger.
Younger generations exemplify this paradoxical moment. Gen Z prizes authenticity, fluidity, transparency, and collaboration, yet their pursuit of these values occurs within a world that feels fragile and precarious, shot through with existential anxiety. Spiritual hunger roams through what one might call the crumbling ruins of institutional Christianity. Many young Christians report looking with envy at the depth of commitment their Muslim friends show toward religious identity.
Bureaucratically, the Church suffers from adherence to top-down centralized governance models that appear out of touch. Power is misaligned—those thinking they possess it often lack it, whilst actual power lies with Church Commissioners, wealthy parishes, and externally funded networks veering toward socially conservative agendas.
The Theological Crisis
Perhaps most surprisingly, it is the theological dimension reveals the clearest manifestation of identity loss. In a relentless quest for cultural relevance that might refill churches, the Church has lost sight of Memory and Tradition’s value. Anglicanism in the opinion of some or our roundtable members has ‘deliberately overlooked its past,’ missing opportunities to connect congregants to rich theological heritage that could provide meaning and continuity.
On the other hand, some of our number felt that the Church has lost its prophetic tradition and roots, with institutional self-preservation prevailing over prophetic risk-taking. This has allowed Christian message and identity to be increasingly co-opted by the Far-Right with disastrous consequences. The Protestant emphasis on personal belief contrasts sharply with minority religions expressing faith through shared practices. Christianity has evolved toward belief and good works whilst abandoning distinctive practices—yet other religions maintain practice-based identity even when belief may be uncertain.
Five Pathways to Reconnection
Against this diagnosis, five trajectories emerge from our findings toward rediscovering an Anglican identity that might be able to reconnecting with the English nation:
First, dig deep into theological and prophetic traditions. In an era of dangerous populism where the English flag is increasingly yoked to Far-Right agendas, the Church needs to reconnect itself to long-term memory (anamnesis) of roots and traditions. For Gen Z navigating paths toward grounded authentic life, the Church has opportunity to offer a more satisfying spiritual menu—something demanding, deep, and countercultural. The Church must outline confident, authentic approaches to Christian faith and English Christian traditions in ways that counter religious illiteracy about not only Anglicanism but religion and faith generally.
Second, act local as an expression of resilience and solidarity. In contexts where trust in national infrastructure has broken down, the local becomes the locus of organization and relationality. The Church’s value lies in its unique ability to connect across social strata. The model of broad-based community organizing brought to the table by some of our witnesses creates ‘relational power’ offering genuine alternatives to both elite indifference and far-right mobilization. The idea of ‘the parish’ needs reimagining beyond its bureaucratic status into something more akin to a terroir—representing a combination of physical attributes, local customs, artisanal skills, and traditions that give unique flavour to a place.
Third, hold the space for dialogue about what it means to be English. The Church needs to rediscover its confidence as a national institution by convening public debates about what it means to be an English people in times of great transition. Its greatest historical strength has resided in holding together a wide variety of disparate theological views in loose coalition. Within radically polarizing social discourses, the ability to stand back, listen, take a via media, and be a container for widely divergent views takes on an urgent political and cultural significance.
Fourth, give away power to gain greater influence. The future credibility of the Church lies in giving away resources—buildings, finance, people—to meet community needs rather than gathering people into Church structures. The call from our report is for a massive injection of resources and moral vision into creating a new national network of ‘community owned and created children’s centres and hubs’ with priority given to those areas with the highest rates of child poverty increase. Such moves would restore trust and credibility where reputation has been damaged by the inability to deal effectively with child and adult sexual abuse.
Fifth, create new coalitions across faith and secular partners. The Church’s public leadership role needs to reflect the decisive shift in how policy now regards faith. Faith communities are now seen as indispensable partners for government resilience planning and healthcare (as examples). The Church still has enough skin in the game to become a key generator of relationships across difference, facilitating and strengthening these relationships as a contribution to weaving more cohesive communities.
Paradoxes Confronting the New Archbishop
Our report concludes that Bishop Sarah faces several paradoxes that may frame her mission priorities. Loss of identity within the English nation is yet in a context of pockets of spiritual and religious revival, and a renewed search for meaning, especially amongst younger generations. Whilst there appears apathy towards some expressions of institutional Christianity, interest in faith from government has rarely been so marked. Trust in centralized authority is debased, yet the search for local solidarities across difference is vibrant and innovative.
The glass, perhaps, is more than half-full. The future, though fraught and appearing fragile, is also one of opportunity for forging new connections and discovering new forms of public leadership. In doing so, the Church might rediscover its own rootedness and identity as it leads others in the same search—benefitting the Church whilst helping ensure stability and space for many more expressions of English identity to emerge, creating as they do a culture of hope, pride, and innovation.
By Chris Baker, Director of Research at the William Temple Foundation.
Read ‘Towards the Conversion of the Church of England by the Rest of England’ Temple Book here.
Sign up for our online book launch, featuring Linda Woodhead and John Denham, here. 7-8.15pm 28 October 2025.
