Author, columnist, speaker
A Tale of Two Cultures
By Robert Knight
This week, the Church of England made history by installing its first female Archbishop of Canterbury.
A color photo of priestess Sarah Mullally in full regalia, complete with her golden robe and miter, graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
For feminists, it was another cultural triumph. For traditionalists, it was yet another sign of the church’s surrender to woke ideology.
The Church of England is down from about 3 million members in 1955 to around 1 million today. Of those, about 413,000 attend weekly church services, compared with 1.5 million in 1955.
The cause of the decline has been linked to immigration and population trends, growing secularism (half of the United Kingdom population now self-identifies as non-religious) and the church’s gradual embrace of liberal doctrines.
Ms. Mullaly, for example, once described herself as “pro-choice rather than pro-life.” She later added some nuance, saying, “This is a complex debate, and I don’t think my or others’ views can be so simply categorized.” Sure, they can.
She also champions the social justice and LGBTQ agendas that are turning the once-staid institution into an English version of a Marxist, San Francisco-style “church of what’s happenin’ now.”
She supports gay clergy and ceremonial blessings of same-sex couples but has stopped short of advocating same-sex marriage. She says she hopes this will help keep the worldwide Anglican Communion together. This is no easy trick when its only growth is in conservative, Third World congregations where they take the Bible seriously.
In the United States, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), a member of the Anglican Communion, is in a similar tailspin, with leftwing leadership and a dwindling flock, some of whom who have fled to conservative Anglican congregations.
ECUSA embraces gay clergy, same-sex weddings, transgender activism, and unrestricted access to abortion for “those who can bear children.”
In 1955, there were about 2.7 million Episcopalians, of whom 1.5 million attended weekly services. By 2023, ECUSA membership was down to 1.5 million, with 413,000 people attending services. For some reason, they stopped issuing statistics in 2024.
They still do have a lot of beautiful, empty buildings from which the spirit has flown.
Why does all this matter? The Church of England was once the spiritual heartbeat of the whole English-speaking world, along with Roman Catholicism. It played a huge role in the formation of America’s Protestant ethic and the views of the founders of America’s constitutional republic.
When roots dry up, a plant dies and other things grow in its place. Among those things taking root in what was once America’s mother country are atheism, agnosticism, and Islam.
The UK’s Muslims now number more than 4 million and account for 6.5 percent of the population, including 15 percent of Greater London.
Between 2011 and 2021, the Muslim population increased by 1.2 million.
Half of Muslims in the UK are British-born, and this segment is growing far faster than the general population, which now numbers around 68 million.
At the same time, Jews, who have played key roles over the course of British history, including the two terms of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, now number about 313,000, making them only the fifth largest religious group behind Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Hindus.
Not uncoincidentally, Great Britain has seen a rise in anti-Semitism, especially in urban areas once considered safe.
On March 23, two men were arrested in London for allegedly setting fire to four Jewish-owned ambulances. Police are investigating the possibility that the perpetrators were part of an Islamist group with links to Iran.
Since the advent of America’s and Israel’s war with Iran on Feb. 28, several anti-Jewish attacks have taken place in Europe. On March 14, a bomb was exploded outside a Jewish school in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. The day before, five teen-aged suspects in an arson attack at a Rotterdam synagogue were arrested. On March 9, a bomb was set off near a synagogue in Liege, Belgium.
The point is that Jews—and Christians—have reason not to be complacent as the West’s rich religious traditions are sapped by secularism, liberalism, and a vibrant Islam. A culture that won’t defend its core values is ripe for replacement.
Think of what a young, radicalized Muslim thinks when he sees Zohran Mamdani take over New York’s Gracie Mansion and lead a ceremonial Islamic feast on the floor of the mayor’s office.
How about when he sees hundreds of his fellow believers occupy Times Square and Washington Square in Manhattan for open-air prayer sessions not far from 2001’s Ground Zero?
You couldn’t blame him for thinking that he was on the winning team and that America’s Judeo-Christian culture was on its way out.
Likewise, consider what a young, radicalized Muslim living in London thinks when he sees the Church of England being led by a woman quite comfortable with whatever modern conceits are pasted into her faith’s sacred text.
In “The Abolition of Man,” C.S. Lewis wrote that modern Western society was worse off because of the rise of what Arnold Schwzenegger later called “girlie men.”
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” Lewis wrote. “We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Or we replace them altogether with a female Archbishop of Canterbury who is no Maggie Thatcher.
Illustration by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times.
Beware of the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
By Robert Knight
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear appears to be readying for a presidential run in 2028.
The telegenic Democrat was on a speaking tour last year in early primary state South Carolina. In September, he has a book coming out entitled, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
His publisher summarizes it this way: “By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, he believes we can start to heal as a country.”
Compassion and kindness are God-given, but I thought we were in the midst of healing from the nightmare of the Biden years, with its promotion of atheism, illegal immigration, sexual anarchy, and attacks on Catholics and pro-lifers.
Mr. Beshear, like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, identifies as a Christian and a moderate and gets priceless media cover while supporting the Democratic Party’s radical social and economic agenda.
In 2023, for instance, he tried to block a state bill protecting minors from “gender affirming care.”
The law prohibits doctors from subjecting gender-confused teens to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible, disfiguring surgeries.
The law also bans males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Most people think this makes sense.
Beshear insisted that such a law “would hurt kids and their families” and violate “parental rights.”
He claimed there was no evidence of widespread harm. To which I would say one butchered child is too many and that evidence of harm is voluminous, including the growing number of suicides and trans-related violence.
On the same day of Mr. Beshear’s veto, both houses of Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode it. Naturally, a federal judge, Rebecca Grady Jennings, issued an immediate injunction halting enforcement. The case is still in litigation.
A year earlier, Ms. Jennings, one of President Donald Trump’s few clunker appointees, struck down a Kentucky law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and requiring medical oversight for abortion pills.
Gov. Beshear also vetoed that bill, and the legislature overrode him.
In South Carolina, which went for Mr. Trump by 30 points, Mr. Beshear emphasized his Christian faith while boasting that he was “a proud, pro-LGBTQ+ governor.”
This is a stance that ignores Jesus Christ’s clear restating of God’s creation of male and female and God’s marriage-based sexual morality from Genesis.
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Beshear said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn’t want people picking on those kids.” How about protecting them from quacks who sterilize them and turn them into lifetime medical cases?
By the way, politicians love to haul out the term “children of God” like a magic amulet. The Bible says we’re all created in the image of God, but that we’re not children of God unless we believe in Him and submit to God’s authority. Until then, we’re on the other team, and I don’t mean the New Jersey Devils.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” John 1:12 says. If we’re automatically children of God, we wouldn’t need to be, as Jesus said, born again.
Anyway, Mr. Beshear is not the only wolf in sheep’s clothing. Democrats have become quite adept at using Christianese and buzzwords to fool people. President Barack Obama often gave biblical scholars heartburn over his misappropriating Jesus’s words to justify sexual sin and confiscatory redistribution of wealth.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico is battling hard-left U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. Like Mr. Beshear, Mr. Talarico touts his Christian faith while cleaving to a radical agenda.
“He delivers left-wing orthodoxy in centrist packaging and fights Christian nationalism with Scripture,” the Wall Street Journal explains.
If you’re a patriotic Christian, he’s talking about you and your family as a threat to America.
Much of his rhetoric revolves around Marxist class envy, such as, “Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
During remarks opposing a bill protecting kids from transgender treatments, he said, “Jesus never once condemned transgender people.”
Well, Jesus didn’t need to, and He welcomed all repentant sinners. The Hebrew Scriptures are crystal clear on sexual morality. Sexual confusion is the province of paganism, which historically often involved child sacrifice as well.
Any comparison to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ Democratic Party inferred by readers at this juncture may not be coincidental.
In a 2024 interview with MSNBC, Mr. Talarico said, “Christian nationalism is dangerous. … When politicians use the Bible to push division and hate, they’re not following Jesus; they’re using His name for their own agenda.”
This is classic projection, accusing your opponents of exactly what you’re doing.
At the University of Texas on Feb. 6, Mr. Talarico said, “I’m a Christian progressive. I believe the Gospel is inherently radical—it challenges the powerful, lifts up the poor, and calls for justice in every sphere of life.”
When progressives talk about “justice” they mean “social justice.” This is envy, disguised as compassion and politicized to enable governments to redistribute income and rewrite society’s moral code.
In the first six weeks of 2026, Mr. Talarico raised $7.5 million to Ms. Crockett’s $2 million, even though she still has a lead in polls. He has raised $20 million since September.
Will Texas, like Mr. Beshear’s Kentucky, fall for a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) in Frankfort, Ky. on June 8, 2025. (AP photo in The Washington Times.