Let’s drop the pretense and say out loud what everyone already knows.
People are leaving the Church in Wales because it is now led by an openly lesbian archbishop who openly lives in a way Scripture calls sin, and somehow we are supposed to act shocked by that.
According to a BBC article, Cherry Vann became the first openly gay archbishop in the world this summer. She later acknowledged that her sexuality has driven people out of the church. “Some, sadly, have felt the need to leave, and I take that very seriously,” she told BBC Wales.
What did she think was going to happen?
Christianity has never been vague about sexual morality. Not once. Sexual intimacy outside of God’s design for marriage is consistently identified in Scripture as sin. That includes homosexuality, just as it includes adultery, fornication, and every other sexual expression outside biblical marriage. And the problem is unrepentant behavior, especially in church leadership.
Yet the BBC frames this as a story about intolerance rather than truth.
Vann said the Church in Wales is “working hard to welcome LGBT+ people,” while also admitting that some believers “find that really difficult.” That framing misses the point entirely. Christianity welcomes sinners. It always has. What it does not do, or is not supposed to do, is place unrepentant sin on a pedestal and call it spiritual authority.
Vann described criticism of her lifestyle as personal attacks. “It can be very hurtful,” she said. “It feels like an attack on who I am and who God has made me to be.”
But Christianity does not begin with self-definition. It starts with repentance. The gospel does not affirm who we are in our sin. It calls us out of it. That is not cruelty. That is mercy.
Order Jonathan Cahn’s Newest Book, “The Avatar” on Amazon.com!
The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans said the quiet part out loud, describing Vann’s appointment as “another painful nail in the coffin of Anglican orthodoxy.” That statement was not hateful. It was accurate. When biblical authority is abandoned, orthodoxy dies.
The broader context makes this even more challenging to ignore. Vann took leadership of the Church in Wales after her predecessor resigned amid safeguarding failures, excessive drinking and sexual misconduct. She herself admitted, “I think there is a big cultural issue in the Church.”
She is right. But culture problems do not start with scandals. They start when sin is normalized and repentance is removed from the equation.
And none of this should surprise anyone who has actually read the Bible.
Scripture warned plainly that this would happen. The apostle Paul wrote that before Jesus’ return, there would be a rebellion, the great falling away, where many would abandon sound doctrine (2 Thess. 2:3). That warning was not abstract. It was predictive.
What makes this moment especially absurd is watching it be sold as Christianity itself, with help from institutions like the BBC, which has turned what should be a theological crisis into a sympathetic puff piece.
This is not a call to hate Cherry Vann. Scripture does not call for that. We are commanded to pray for her. Pray for repentance, restoration and truth. The hope should be that she turns away from a path that contradicts God’s Word and returns to the narrow road that leads to life.
But let’s stop acting confused.
When a church blesses what God forbids, faithful believers will walk away. That is not cruelty. That is Holy Spirit conviction.
And no amount of media praise can turn apostasy into Christianity.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
