Cross-check what matters when voting

Three perspectives to inform how we vote wisely.

Sam Rylands

Sam recently completed a doctorate in political theology and is the Vicar of St Andrew's, Fulham Fields.

A pen draws a cross in a box on a ballot form.

What principles will shape your vote this Thursday? What or who will primarily guide your decision in the ballot booth? Podcaster and former political advisor Alastair Campbell’s old adage “we don’t do God” suggests that religion and politics don’t mix. Yet some of the most important movements for social and political justice in modern history had Christians at their heart. Think Wilberforce, Fry, Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, or the lesser-known but worth-a-google, Melanesian Brotherhood.

What wisdom might the Christian faith have to offer when thinking, not just about this election, but how to approach politics in general? Like lions on the England football shirt, all good things come in threes– so, here are three Christian perspectives that can inform political engagement.

First, earthly kingdoms are penultimate. God’s kingdom is ultimate.

Perhaps the moment that Jesus is drawn most explicitly to comment on the politics of his day, was when he was asked about paying taxes. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Given how frustrating it can be watching politicians avoid responding directly to any question posed, we might sympathise with those who wanted a direct answer here. But for Jesus, to say yes would position him as a traitor to the Jewish people who wanted to resist and subvert the authority of the Roman Empire. To say no, however, would be to signal revolutionary intentions to lead a rebellion against the occupying Roman force.

Set within this political trap, Jesus responds by asking for a coin and turns the tables by asking, “whose face is on this coin?” “Caesar’s,” comes the reply. “Then give to the emperor what belongs to him,” says Jesus. Yet, before we allow this response to justify opting out of political practice or hallow every existing ruling power, Jesus continues: “But give to God what belongs to God.” And what belongs to God, we ask? Well, as the writer of the ancient Psalms poetry put it, “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Nothing short of the whole universe and beyond belongs to God, the creator of heaven and earth. So, in taking the coin, Jesus is not giving a blanket affirmation of Caesar’s rule, but challenges each and every earthly kingdom by relativising it in the light of God’s eternal kingdom. What has sustained so many Christians in challenging and renewing the political context of their day is the trust that before, behind, and beyond the rising and falling of each earthly authority stands God’s eternal kingdom. This kingdom is not in competition with the kingdoms of earth, vying to secure its own territory, but is a kingdom inaugurated by a king who wears a crown of thorns, forgives his executioners, and is raised from the dead to proclaim, “peace be with you!” The call to follow Christ within the political is to retain the perspective of this eternal life.

Second, politics needs a perspective beyond personal interest.

Holding an eternal perspective, however, is not to say this world or politics does not matter. In contrast, justice, compassion, and seeking a world as God intends it to be matters precisely because of eternity. How we live here and now has eternal significance. How we treat one another and care for all of creation has eternal significance. What belongs to God? We all do. Each person is made in God’s image. As a coin bears the image of its ruler, so we are marked by the image of God. When we consider our political responsibility, therefore, we must do so not with our own cares or concerns alone, or even primarily. Rather, we should ask what political responsibility we have towards others? How do my political decisions or actions impact my neighbour, both local and global– particularly those on the underside of the political power of the day? As the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotterill, recently shared, “as a Christian, I’m hoping and I’m praying, that when I vote, when you vote, we won’t be placing our vote according to what’s best for us, but for what’s going to be best for God’s world.” If God’s power is displayed most fully in Christ who came, not to be served, but to serve, giving his life for the sake of the world, then political power cannot be a means for securing our own advantage over and against others. A Christian approach to politics recognises that my flourishing is bound up and inseparable from the flourishing of all others.

Third, let’s disagree well.

However, even if we could agree on the importance of politics beyond personal interest, we won’t all agree on what this looks like in practice. For instance, whilst two people might agree on the need to ensure a welfare safety net for the most deprived in society, their perspectives on how best to achieve this might differ greatly. Christians are not immune from such disagreements and (not that you would know it from the promises of each political party) no political system can deliver heaven on earth. How then are we to reconcile our political differences?

Returning to the theme of belonging and image bearing, the church bears the image of Christ. The church is the Body of Christ, comprised of many different members yet united, as one body. One of Jesus’ final acts on earth was to pray that the church would be one in the same way that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. Unity in difference. This image offers a counterweight to how political differences are played out across the news and social media platforms. Here, to vote or think differently is often to become an enemy, or even to forfeit one’s belonging as a bearer of God’s image, another person worthy of inestimable dignity and value.

Belonging to Christ, however, is to know that belonging together runs deeper than divisions of race, gender, societal status, and political tribalism. It is to trust that my sister or brother in Christ, with whom I might strongly disagree politically, is a gift to me, a showing of Christ, that I would otherwise fail to see on my own. If Christ really is the way, the truth, and the life, then the truth is beyond my final possession of it. This does not mean indifference or relativism. As the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes, “unity is Christ-shaped, or it is empty.” But if we can recognise one another placing our penultimate political judgements under the same scrutiny of Christ’s coming kingdom, then even in our disagreements, the church, bearing together in costly communion, reveals a belonging together that anticipates the ultimate: a world where things can only get better.

Explainer

Creed

Leading

Politics

23 May 2025

6 min read

Why is it taking so long to find an Archbishop of Canterbury?

The Anglican tortoise and the Catholic hare.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

An archbishop raises a crown about the head of King Charles.

An archbishop in action at the 2024 Coronation.

It seems the Roman Catholics have put the Anglicans to shame by the speed with which they have managed to appoint a new Pope. Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, 21 April. Pope Leo was elected on the 8 May. Seventeen days. Pretty impressive. Very few large corporations would replace a CEO in that time, or nations elect a new leader.

Justin Welby, however, resigned on the 12 November 2024. We won't know the name of his successor until the autumn, and that person won't start in place until the spring of 2026. Well over a year.

The Church of England is playing the tortoise while the Roman Catholics are acting the hare.

So why is it taking so long? Is this just fusty Anglican bureaucracy? A depressing instance of Anglicans taking ages over everything, whether sorting out our divisions over sexuality or choosing a new Archbishop?

As always, there is more to this than meets the eye.

The first thing to say is, of course, that events took everyone by surprise. Justin Welby would have had to retire before his 70th birthday in January 2026, and the assumption had been that he would announce the date at some point before then. A process was already in place to make the appointment so that a successor could be named before he departed and start soon after, as usually happens. No-one foresaw the events that led to Welby’s surprise resignation over his handling of the abuse committed by John Smyth, outlined in the Makin Review. In the usual course of things, there would have been a relatively smooth handover. What we have is unprecedented – a year with no Archbishop of Canterbury at all.

There is, of course, the shambles at the Canterbury end, where the diocese has taken three abortive goes at electing their representatives for the body that makes the appointment, the Crown Nominations Commission. More on that here, but even that has not had a significant effect on the timetable, which is following its predicted course, despite bumps along the way.

Even so, many will say, could the system not have been hurried up? Maybe so, and it might have been wise to find ways to hasten the process a little, but the more fundamental answer is that’s not the way the Church of England works and never has.

The biggest reason is that the Church of England and the Roman Catholic churches have different understandings of what the Church is and how it is governed. In short, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the Anglican equivalent of a Pope.

Back in the days of the English Reformation, after Henry VIII’s ego-driven separation from Rome, which enabled him to divorce his wife who was unable to give him a male heir, and marry the younger and prettier Anne Boleyn, the English church found a kind of settlement under Queen Elizabeth I, several generations later. This proposed that the ‘Supreme Governor’ of the Church of England was not to be the Archbishop of Canterbury but the Monarch. It was a way of expressing the idea that the Church of England is the Church of the people of England. It was the people of England at prayer. ‘We hold,' said Richard Hooker, the great architect of this vision, ‘that… there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth.’

If you are a citizen of England, you have a right to be also part of the Church of England – to have your children baptised (once the vicar is sure you know what you’re letting yourself and your child in for), your marriage solemnised, and your body buried in the national church. The Church - although in a local sense is gathered group of Christians who attend public worship - exists for the people of England, whether or not they go to church regularly or not.

Because the Church of England is the church of the people of England, a much larger group of people need to be involved when an Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen. So far, there has been a wide period of consultation, involving the remarkable figure of 11,000 people who have given input – far more than most consultations of this kind. Moreover, the group that appoints the Archbishop is made up, not just of bishops, but lay people, priests, men, women, people representing the diocese of Canterbury, five representatives of the global Anglican Communion, others representing the national Church and so on.

The Church of England in that sense, is no respecter of persons, and refuses to treat the Archbishop as a Pope or a CEO.

For Roman Catholics, the church centres much more around its bishops. So, when it comes to choosing their leader, it makes sense to simply put all the cardinals (the most senior figures in the Catholic Church) in a room until they come up with a name from among themselves. Anglicans have a much longer, messier, more democratic process. It is not an election by a majority vote from a small electorate quickly convened, choosing among themselves, but a process of listening to a wide range of voices, both inside and outside the church.

Because he is not a pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury is in one sense, just another bishop (the next one may be a woman, but all Archbishops so far have been men). Yes of course, he’s an Archbishop, so higher profile than the others, but he is nonetheless a bishop who takes his place among the other bishops of the CofE. Archbishops of Canterbury are regarded with respect and honour by other CofE bishops and Archbishops around the worldwide Anglican Communion, as the (Arch)bishop of the first ‘Anglican’ church – Canterbury. Yet they have no legal jurisdiction at all outside England – or even outside their own Province of Canterbury in the southern half of England. He is not the ‘spiritual leader’ of Anglicans all over the world, like the Pope is for Roman Catholics.

As such, to put it bluntly, his appointment must take its turn among all the others in the queue. The Crown Nominations Commission is made up of people for whom this is not their day job, who give their spare time to it, and who have a programme of episcopal appointments to be made - the next in the queue are St Edmundsbury & Ipswich and then Worcester. Canterbury has to take its turn. To enable this one to jump the queue would be saying something that Anglicans have never said - that this role is much more important than any of the others and must be given special treatment. The Church of England in that sense, is no respecter of persons, and refuses to treat the Archbishop as a Pope or a CEO, without whom the church would fall apart.

The reason the Church of England can survive without an Archbishop of Canterbury for a while, is because its life is not dependent on a central figure, a charismatic leader, or a head office which issues instructions for all the branches to obediently follow. That may work in McDonalds but doesn’t work in the Church of England. The life of the Church of England is in its parishes and dioceses, which carry on doing their thing, even when an Archbishop of Canterbury is not available.

Of course, it might have been possible to speed it up a little. We have missed having an Archbishop speaking in to public life and providing a lead at the national level. But there are good reasons for taking time. And it’s not just inefficiency – it’s because the Church is made up of ordinary Christians, who all deserve a say – and that takes time.

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