In his book, A Church in Flux: Building on “The True Foundation,” Paul Purifoy recognises the church at a crossroads with a call to “Take Up Your Cross” on a journey of rediscovery, renewal and revival. In his book, Purifoy peels back the layers of church and leadership distortions and the need to return and be set apart for the core principles that define believers.  Lovett H. Weems, Jr., in his book Take the Next Step: Leading Lasting Change in the Church, provides a helpful way to navigate and understand the attempts to remove Church of England bishops from the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament. The attempts’ could be the “first step” towards disestablishment.’ According to the Rev the Lord Griffiths of Bury, a Methodist minister, ‘there appeared to be a growing acceptance that the days of the bishops automatically claiming 26 seats were number and even the Church of England had ‘little heart’ to confront the threat.’ [3] Lord Griffiths aptly warned of ‘potential repercussions,’ including moving ‘the nature of the House (and possibly Parliament as a whole) in a secular direction. It might well raise the spectre of the disestablishment of the Church of England with radical changes in our constitutional life. However, such possibilities lie in a distant future. The question before us is whether the current proposals to amend the Hereditary Peers Bill amount to the first step towards that end.’

The House of Lords was always composed of people who inherited their titles or had them granted by the monarch.   In recent years, the hereditary peers have been subject to an election between them, and the Prime Ministers have arranged for many more non-hereditary to be added. Some of the senior bishops were also members of the House of Lords. The move to discontinue the bishops and more of the hereditary will possibly make the House of Lords an elected body like the House of Commons.    If the bishops were no longer to be members of the House of Lords, this would be a way of separating the Church of England from the state.  Since the reign of Henry VIII, the monarch (apart possibly from Mary I, a Catholic) has been the head of the Church of England.   

My reflection on the House of the Lords in a secular direction is an awakening to a missional episcopacy, recovering the apostolic character of ministry and leadership. Apostles served as ambassadors (not as lords), persons called and ‘sent out’ to serve and share the Gospel of the Lord. House of the Lords in secular direction is to awaken the church to be set apart for its missional character and eschatological reality, bearing in mind that the church’s ministry, mission and evangelism have been overlooked, understated or compromised under the guise of secularism. Ministry flows from mission just as Episcopacy flourishes in mission, evangelism, and ministry. Missional Episcopacy beyond a social status or career that promotes the services of a few privileged persons to the church or government structures rather than God’s mission is prophetic and counter-cultural. To recover the apostolic character and the essence of missional Episcopacy, the House of the Lords in a secular direction offers the church the opportunity to overcome what Donald E Messer, in his book, A Conspiracy of Goodness: Contemporary Images of Christian Mission called ‘our stereotypical allergies to mission,’ and ‘dysfunctional theologies … more concern about the inner life and system of a bureaucratic church than mission.’ A dysfunctional theology of Episcopacy is extremely clericalised. In contrast, a missiological theology of Episcopacy enhances corporate mission shaped by the idea of the laos – all the people of God, both the clergy and lay. The church and leadership decline when mission and evangelism are not done intentionally, and the need and status of the clergy dominate Church thinking and meetings.

Missional change happens in the church’s life because it tries to situate itself better theologically, spiritually, and institutionally to live into God’s future. It is no news that the state, the church and leadership struggle to find their place in the new and increasingly shifting moral, generational, social, theological, cultural and spiritual landscapes. I reflect that the episcopal emphasis on the role of ecclesiastic leaders with the influence of the state laws indicates tension, conflict, renewal and revolution of mission.[1] In 2011, there was tension between a former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the British Coalition Government, which was said to have endangered and diminished the archbishop’s importance. The archbishop’s view resulted in the opposition’s readiness ‘about how to reform the Lords … pushing for Anglican bishops to lose all their seats.’ [2]

In 2024, the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, over the John Smyth scandal, the Church of England’s General Synod debates on its safeguarding rule, and the recent resignation of the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt. Rev. John Perumbalath, after allegations of harassment and sexual assault, points to the tensions and a paradigm shift in the church and not just for the sake of change.

There was a joke question – what is the longest word in the English language? The answer was “disestablishmentarianism,” so people with this view have been around for a long time. Removing bishops from the House of the Lords could be the first step towards disestablishing the Church of England. The survey, conducted 2013 for Prospect magazine, asked, “Should the Church of England and state continue to be connected?” The survey found that most people in Britain think the Church of England should be separated from the state.[4] Between the polls in 1957 and 2013, there was a catastrophic collapse in personal belief in the tenets of Christianity. In 1957, 37% said it should separate, with 37% saying it should stay connected (26% did not know). In 2013, 51% said church and state should separate, with 27% saying it should remain connected (23% did not know). It is important to note that the ties between Church and State in Britain do not come from biblical principles or apostolic practices. Until 311AD, when the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed he saw a vision of a cross, the Church and Empire remained separate for the first three centuries of its existence.

The current tensions at the House of the Lords point to a call for a paradigm shift in the church, bearing in mind that separating Church and State does not mean the church should be silent on political issues. The paradigm shift concerns the church being independent of government and with ‘a greater right and responsibility to hold the government to account, particularly in policy areas where the Bible clearly lays out the Christian position.’ [5]. William Wolfe rightly said, “The Church wins. The church lasts. The church is forever. The Church of Christ is the eschatological reality, the final hope, and the eternal, enduring institution. The church will far outlast any earthly governments and their petty mandates, ultimately triumphing over the state in the end.”

For the church to find its place in the current tensions within and without, it must be ready for a change to remain faithful to the Gospel as the salt and light of the world. The excuse of making unity our priority continues to end up with a greater degree of disunity, but if we put evangelism first, we have to be united; that is missional unity (Jn 17:21). The current tension in the Church of England and House of the Lords offers windows of opportunities for the church to rethink, reimagine, and retool for 21st-century church and episcopal ministry before the future passes us by. Disestablishment is a wake-up call for the church to the challenge of secularisation, including church and leadership decline.

The nature and essence of missiological theology reminds us of Jesus’ word, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk 1:15). The time has come for the church to be set apart in spreading scriptural holiness and not as an agent of government. The nature of missiological theology is about opportunity, change and faith, not allowing the secularist’s campaign to set the terms of the state’s relationship with religion. The church is in danger of Episcopacy becoming an end itself, causing the church and leadership to decline, become weaker and hinder discipleship as the church’s core business. Bishop T. T. Solaru, the first Methodist Church Nigeria bishop of Ibadan, said, “Episcopacy is not an end itself. It is a means to the supreme aim: Spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land.’ [6] The nature of missiological theology operates in the public square for Christians to express unpopular views reflecting Christianity and the Gospel’s spreading.

The nature of missiological theology warned against what Patriarch Professor Bolaji Idowu, the first Patriarch of Methodist Church Nigeria, called ‘ecclesiastical cosmetic’ that serves the vanity of the church, superficial, busy but guilty appearance, lacking humility and servant’s heart. Olegario Gonzales De Cardedal warned that ‘episcopal attitudes have survived, which resemble more closely those belonging to the old imperial assemblies than servants of the cross.’ [7] 

The word of Emil Brunner, ‘The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning,’ reminds us that just as the church is mission, ministry, especially Episcopacy, is missional, and every Christian is a missionary. House of the Lords, in a secular direction, awakens our hearts to the timeless truth of the Gospel of Jesus while navigating the turbulent waters of contemporary society. House of the Lords, in a secular direction, calls for prayer to recognise and overcome the tools that the adversary, Satan, employs in his attempts to hinder God’s mission and evangelism. The tools are pride, illusion, deception, and truth manipulation. We must always turn to the Bible to navigate the House of the Lords in a secular direction.  

[1] Okegbile, Deji, ‘Bishop on Horseback’: Towards a Missional Episcopacy (London: Sadlprint, 2024), p. 20.

[2] The Times, Friday, June 10, 2011, thetimes.co.uk. No 70282, pp. fp, 4-5.

[3] The Rev the Lord Griffiths cited in Jonathan Petre, ‘Lord move ‘could end link between state and Church,’ in Methodist Recorder, Issue 8721, February 14, 2025, fp.

[4] https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/12/majority-of-britons-believe-state-and-church-should-be-separate

[5] https://www.evangelicalmagazine.com/article/comment-the-church-and-state/

[6] Bishop Solaru cited in Okegbile, Bishop on Horseback, p. 15.

[7] Cardedal, Olegario Gonzales De, ‘Episcopal Root and Branch,’ in Peter, Moore (ed), Bishop: But What Kind? (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 54.