A ‘Church for England’, but whose understanding of Englishness?
by Archbishop Cranmer:
Much has been written about the Archbishop of York’s article in the Telegraph, in which he set out his vision for England woven with his preferred themes of Englishness, calling for the Church of England to be a church for England, rather than just ‘of’. And his plea for the new preposition has received no comment at all; indeed, in all the column inches of opinion that have been written about this piece – ranging from caricatures of the Archbishop’s baffling embrace of English nationalism and Enoch Powell, to his perfectly credible articulation of a vision by which English identity might at least cease to perish, if not be saved – there has been very little analysis of what he might mean by ‘Englishness’, and how his understanding of the meaning and purpose of national identity might be reified in the parish, and supported from Bishopthorpe Palace.
Not to mention Lambeth Palace.
The principal hurdle to the Church of England being or becoming a church for England is that thousands of clergy already believe it to be precisely that. The Church is for England in its divine service, in its material provision, in its community compassion and its spiritual mission. It looks into the eyes of the little girl dying of cancer in Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital; it listens intently to the convicted murderer wallowing in HMP Belmarsh; it weeps with those who are burying their mother in St Giles’ Parish Church, and it puts tins of tomatoes and packets of pasta into picky hands from the foodbanks of Liverpool Cathedral. A church that serves the people of England must be a church for England, must it not?
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