OF THE 38 provinces that make up the Anglican Communion, 37 are disestablished. None of them regret it for a minute. And there is no established Church or state religion in Austria, Belgium, France, Holland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United States?one could easily add another hundred. When the Archbishop of Canterbury embarks on a defence of the idea of establishment in the one country out of step with almost all others in this regard ? England ? one listens attentively to see how he deals with the overwhelming rejection of establishment in countries the world over. That is the real case he has to answer. What is it that makes establishment so necessary and desirable in England but not elsewhere?

Dr George Carey gave an address on St George?s Day (23 April) which was devoted entirely to a discussion of establishment. And he never once touched on this aspect. Yet his defence of establishment in England automatically presupposes that there is something profoundly wrong with the 37 countries that contain those other provinces of the Anglican Communion, and indeed with all the other countries of the Western world that seem to manage perfectly well without such an arrangement. He declared, for instance: ?Without honesty, trust, faithfulness to an obligation, respect for the rights and interests of others and love of neighbour, civilised society falls apart. I believe that process would become all the more pronounced in a society that abandoned its historic spiritual framework in favour of an avowedly secular one.? In other words, ending the establishment of the Church of England would be the beginning of the end of English civilisation. This deserves G.K. Chesterton?s famous response to similar arguments against Welsh disestablishment ? which F.E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead) said had ?shocked the conscience of every Christian community in Europe?:

Talk about the pews and steeples
And the cash that goes therewith!
But the souls of Christian peoples?
Chuck it, Smith!

Dr Carey did not seem to be aware that, by any measure, from teenage pregnancy and births out of wedlock to weekly church-going and levels of religious belief in the population, England is already one of the most secular countries in the world. Establishment has obviously not retarded secularisation. If anything it has accelerated it.

But if he ignored this objection to establishment, he dealt fully and at length with another: that establishing one religious institution by law automatically disadvantages, or assigns a second-class status to, all others. It is this argument that led to the ending of establishment over the past 200 years in most of the countries where it once existed. First he categorically denied that the special constitutional position of the Church of England did it any favours. If anything, it existed to do favours to others. ?We are committed?, he went on, ?to what I would call a ?hospitable establishment?. Hospitality requires a host. So it is part of our role, I believe, to seek to provide space and access, opportunity and the right atmosphere for the many dealings and interactions between faith communities and the wider society?As I said, we seek to do this as a servant, not as a master. There is nothing worse than a condescending host or one who seeks to hog the limelight incessantly.?

This means it is the job of the Church of England ? which alone is truly rooted and at home in England ? to play host to all other faiths and religions, who come to stay here, so to speak, as welcome visitors. Sad to say, Dr Carey has no understanding of how objectionable that doctrine is. It is profoundly chauvinistic. It tells any Catholic, Methodist, Jew, Muslim or atheist, born in England with full legal citizenship, that still they do not really belong to it. They are merely the guests of their hospitable host, the Church of England. Dr Carey may seek to avoid condescending language, but this is condescension in principle, big time. It is difficult not to take this personally. Is George Carey trying to tell me that because I am not a member of the Church of England, I am not quite at home, not quite English, not quite part of the ?We?? Is that what establishment is really all about?

Who are the ?We?, and who are the ?They?? It is the biggest political question of the age. The rise of the far right across Europe, dramatised by the participation of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the French presidential election, the assassination of Pim Fortuyn in Holland and, in a much smaller way, the recent electoral advances of the BNP in Britain, all express one kind of answer. ?France is for the French?, says Le Pen, and we know what he means. His definition of what constitutes authentic Frenchness would include Catholicism and would therefore exclude Jews, Muslims and Protestants ? including any members of Dr Carey?s flock. It is misleading simply to call Le Pen and his ilk racists. The definition of the ?We? they seek to foster is more complex than that, and includes various other elements of cultural identity, including religion.

Obviously this kind of nationalistic ideology can come in benign or malignant versions, and Dr Carey?s is as much the former as Le Pen?s is the latter. But both work by creating ranks and divisions within society, setting up a first-class ?We? against a second-class ?They?. The point is not how nice ?We? are to ?Them?. The point is that we should all be ?We?. Dr Carey?s address has made it clearer to me than ever that unless the establishment of the Church of England is ended, that ideal will never be fully realised.

Back to homepage