I think her challenge is to reconnect the Church of England with English society. This is a Church that can only operate if it is embedded in culture and society, and it’s drifted away from that, and she’s got to try to reconnect it. We are in cultural wars and the Church of England’s whole point is, after civil war, to hold things together.
Professor Linda Woodhead for The Times
09 October 2025
King's alumna Dame Sarah Mullally named Archbishop of Canterbury
King's Professor Linda Woodhead talks to the media about the first woman appointed as the head of the Church of England, and the challenges she faces in her tenure.
The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally has been appointed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. From 1980 to 1984 she read Nursing Studies at Southwark Polytechnic and the Nightingale School of Nursing (now the King's Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care) and she also held a clinical nursing post at St Thomas’ Hospital early in her career.
Professor Linda Woodhead, F.D. Maurice Professor in Moral and Social Theology at King's, is quoted in multiple media articles on the challenges Dame Sarah Mullally has to face and what the Church of England needs from a new Archbishop.
Professor Woodhead works across different disciplines, particularly theology, religious studies, and the social scientific study of religion and has written extensively about the decline of institutional religion, especially the churches, and the rise of alternative spiritualities. She was quoted further for the archbishop story on BBC World Service, CBC News (Canada), Reuters , The Times , Insajder TV Serbia, ABC Australia and La Croix France.
Dame Sarah Mullally was appointed as an independent member of King's College Council in 2016. She is also a member of the Fellowships and Honorary Degrees Committee.
Dame Sarah was consecrated as Bishop in July 2015 as only the fourth Woman Bishop in the Church of England and was Bishop of Crediton from September 2015 to March 2018. Dame Sarah became Bishop of London in April 2018.
She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to nursing and midwifery. She is a Privy Councellor and member of the House of Lords.
In this story
F.D. Maurice Professor in Moral and Social Theology
133rd Bishop of London