Should the Church of England be disestablished?
by Jonathan Chaplin, Law & Religion UK:
The national service of thanksgiving for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at St Paul’s Cathedral on 3 June reminds us of the powerful and intimate bonds still tying the British state to the Church of England. The Church again stepped forward to perform its well-rehearsed ‘chaplaincy’ function to the nation at a poignant moment of collective national celebration. Few noticed this, but the Church was not only celebrating the 70-year reign of the British monarch but also that of its longest-serving ‘Supreme Governor’, a constitutional status right at the heart of its established role.
The weekend’s joyous celebrations were hardly the moment to focus on the merits or demerits of Establishment. The question was entirely bypassed by most commentators, amounting to at least tacit endorsement. The Church Times’s Platinum Jubilee double issue gave pride of place to a robust defence of Establishment by a leading cleric but allowed not a peep of dissent on the matter across its entire 64 pages.
The question of the legitimacy of Establishment will, however, not go away any time soon. On the contrary, the cumulative impact of a series of extant or looming challenges will only place it under a sharper spotlight. These include: the inevitability of another Coronation in the near future and the need to revise the coronation and accession oaths; recurring demands for a reform of the House of Lords, including the presence of the Lord Spiritual; the ongoing clashes between the religious freedom claims of religious organisations and the imperatives of equality and non-discrimination law; the likelihood that surveys will soon confirm that fewer than 50% of British people self-identify as “Christian”, never mind “Church of England”; the declining capacity of the Church to maintain a genuine “presence in every community” in England (as its strapline puts it); the deepening religious pluralism of Britain; and more.
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