Church and state: a marriage of convenience

I HAVE an argument against disestablishment to make. It is not an argument that an established church is the best constitutional arrangement in all circumstances, or that we would need to invent it if we did not have one. But it is the best available arrangement within the particular circumstances of the British constitution as it is today.

The first point in favour of establishment is that it now means very little in practical terms. It would be an immense trouble to get rid of, and for what benefit?

Between roughly 1688 and 1828, to be a member of the Church of England was necessary if you were to be a full citizen. The boundaries of the church were set wide, but they were firm and clear, encompassing requirements ranging from election to the House of Commons to entry to Oxford University. There are now only two posts under the British constitution for which there is a religious qualification: to be a bishop in the House of Lords, and to marry into the Royal Family. I do not suppose that many of us feel it a burning infringement of our civil liberties to be disqualified from either role.

Besides, no one can doubt that the Church of England would, if pressed, waive the requirement in the Act of Succession of 1707 that members of the immediate royal family must be believing Anglicans. Many people believe it has already waived that requirement for bishops.

No, it is only a keen student of the affairs of the Church of England who would notice the effects or existence of the constitutional arrangement of establishment. Broadly, these are that 24 bishops sit in the House of Lords as of right, and the Prime Minister has a voice in choosing them and other senior churchmen. Also, legislation passed by the General Synod is the law of the land, and must be approved by Parliament.

The chief drawback of these arrangements is that the wrong people are sometimes appointed to important jobs, and the wrong decisions are sometimes taken. But in this, the establishment can hardly be said to differ from any other known form of church government.

I would say that the greatest effect that establishment still has on the Church of England is in keeping it open, and giving its priests a sense of duty towards everyone in their parish. This is a rather diffuse benefit, but it is real and necessary. There are strong voices within the Church of England that would turn it into a sort of club for nice people interested in being good: at a recent meeting of the Anglican Evangelical Assembly, a motion was proposed (and, happily, defeated) which would have required any couples marrying from the same address to repent in public of their nasty previous fornication.

So, establishment does no one any real harm. Rather like smoking marijuana, the worst it does is to induce a sort of woolly benevolence towards the world, and that is no reason to ban it.

But the second and more serious argument is that disestablishment would itself send a powerful message that would be corrosive of democracy, citizenship, and all the virtues that the Charter 88 campaign is trying to promote.

There is one clear message that the existence of an established church sends out: that there is a necessary link between private and public morality.

The presence of bishops in the House of Lords; the existence of a religious coronation ceremony; the prayers at the start of every session in the Commons; all testify to the importance of the link between being a good person and being a good citizen. Some such link is absolutely essential in a democracy; indeed, it is the foundation of any politics.

To disestablish the church without replacing its symbolism and historical weight would be to make a claim that, ultimately, public morality and private beliefs can get along quite well without each other.

Let us take an example which is normally cited as a reason for disestablishment: the prospect of a royal divorce. To propose that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England (the monarch) could be a divorced man (and perhaps one who has remarried a divorced woman) is to say something profound about contemporary English morality. Our arguments about the Prince of Wales's marriage reflect our concerns about the morality of marriage in general. They could not perform this useful function were it not for the monarch's position as Supreme Governor of the church.

To take the high-minded line that the royal marriage difficulties should not affect anyone else is the sort of mistake which gives sneers like 'the chattering classes' their force, for it removes people from politics.

The strongest general criticism of Charter 88 is that it cannot tell us what sort of people are to inhabit its brave new state.

The separation of public and private morality is fundamentally damaging to the idea of community. And if you take away community, democracy becomes nothing more than the tyranny of the majority. It is ironic that the policies of Charter 88 should seem to promote the ideal of a citizen as consumer, nothing more or deeper.

This article is based on a speech at last weekend's Charter 88 conference.