Church and state – a problem looked at all wrong
“…no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”
Article 6, United States Constitution
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
United States Constitution First Amendment
Britain has no laws forbidding the involvement of the Church in the state. Quite the contrary.
Our Monarch is the head of our Established Church. The bishops of that church sit in our House of Lords. There are various laws on the statute books which enshrine the special status and privileges of the Church of England. The terminology, ritual and ceremony in which many of the most important affairs of state are conducted are all based on religious liturgy.
Whilst the American constitution is in many ways an outgrowth of the political theory and traditions of 17th and 18th Century Britain it is in some important ways based on a reaction to them.
Much like Montesquieu’s separation of powers which was also based on British constitutional arrangements and theory, the foundational documents of the United States are really an attempt to manufacture an idealised version of how its theorists thought the British Government ought to have worked.
The nature of the relationship between church and state is therefore much misunderstood – and even those who do understand it tend to focus on the wrong aspects of it.
There is an abiding belief amongst many British people that there is something vaguely wrong, or even possibly illegal about involving churches in service delivery, in community engagement or in receiving grants. This view is especially prevalent in the huge number of quangos which now rule so much of the country, but also in local government, and even in business and the charitable sector. It is this vague feeling, possibly stemming from watching too much American television, which leads to the hostility so many Christian charities face, and even some of the incredibly silly anti-Christmas posturing we see at this time of year.
This is of course nonsense, and as this site has commented previously, given the general incompetence of the British state and its agencies in just about everything they do they really should welcome people trying to do good, whatever their motivation may be. Charities and businesses meanwhile need to re-acquaint themselves with reality and recognise that most of their customers are actually pleasantly surprised to see them engaging with Christianity.
Even amongst those who do understand the relationship between church and state and who make the legitimate case for separating the two there is a tendency to focus on just one side of the problem.
The main reason for the United States refusing to establish a national church was because of the massive variety of Christian denominations which existed in the states at the time of independence and which have deep roots in different waves of migration from the UK and other parts of Europe. Establishing one denomination as the approved church would be seen as a slight to all others.
More than that, there was a very real perceived risk that an established church could drive some form of religious persecution and discrimination as was the case in so much of Europe. Avoiding putting the power of the state in the hands of the church was seen therefore as a great way of reducing the chances of internal repression and conflict in what was then a very fragile and, politically active and freedom loving country.
But having a close and sometimes symbiotic relationship between the church and state doesn’t just shape the state and how it uses its power.
It shapes the church too.
It is this aspect of the established church which gets too little attention – especially in England were the problem is greatest.
The Church of England used to be jokingly referred to as “The Conservative Party At Prayer” – making the point that the established church was so very establishment that its thinking, actions and assumptions were all shaped by the establishment orthodoxy at the time. It has ever been thus and is still so, it is just that the nature of our Government and its sprawling establishment consensus has changed.
The Church of England could more correctly these days be called The Guardian or BBC at prayer – or given the relative decline of religious activities in church, perhaps The Guardian tea rota and local committee meeting.
This is reflected overwhelmingly in the increasingly open political messaging adopted by the leadership of the Church of England and its increasing willingness to genuflect in front of establishment norms and values over those of the faith it is meant to represent.
Because its values and increasingly its leadership and personnel are so establishment the Church of England is increasingly losing its way in terms of Christian faith.
And this doesn’t just matter to those of us who are Christian. It matters also from a political and social perspective.
Churches can play a key social, not just in doing good and encouraging good, but in setting moral and social norms and preserving unifying traditions and ways of life.
As the church turns itself increasingly into just another quango we are losing this and so much of the fabric of society weakens as a result – inevitably causing establishment socialist politicians to clamour for yet more Government provision through Government agencies to intervene in our lives and “do something” which we were previously doing for ourselves.
Those who advocate for disestablishment and for a separation of Church and state are often seen as somehow anti-church and motivated to protect Government from the influence of Church.
In the UK we have reached a position where this is now absolutely necessary in order to protect Church from the influence of Government.
