As Anglicanism splits, surely it is time to disestablish the Church of England?

Editorial By Terry Sanderson

Twelve hundred right-wing bishops and other clerics from the Anglican Church around the world have gathered in Jerusalem this week to participate in an alternative to the ten-yearly Lambeth Conference.

The gathering was called the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), and it certainly got off to a gaffe-strewn start when the star of the show, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, was refused admission to enter Jordan, where the conference was originally due to be staged.

It was rapidly relocated to Jerusalem, and the bigots who had gathered commenced to batter the liberal wing of the church.

Ostensibly this conference was about the Church’s confused approach to homosexuality, but in reality it was about a power struggle. Its real intent was to decide who actually controls the Anglican Church – the conservatives or the liberals, the developed world or the “global South”.

Of course, the clerics in the developing world have looked on contemptuously as Europeans have abandoned their “faith” – if indeed, they ever had it. Europe no longer cares for religion; its churches are neglected and, for the most part, unwanted.

But in the developing world in Asia and Africa, religion is vigorous and, apparently, growing.

Given this situation, the preachers of the global south are asking “Why is the seat of power in Lambeth Palace — in a country where indifference to religion rules — and in the hands of someone who does not represent us or our opinions?” Indeed, they called Rowan Williams a “relic” and having “a colonial mindset”.

It’s a legitimate viewpoint, and eventually the official split will come and “Anglican 1” will operate in countries where religion is strong and “Anglican 2” will remain, shrivelling rapidly and muttering like some old vagrant from the edges of European society.

The problem is that there are some in this country — Bishop Nazir Ali of Rochester springs to mind — who will belong to “Anglican 1”, whereas the Archbishop of Canterbury will belong to “Anglican 2”. So which of them will represent the Church of England, by law established? And given that both of them are out of step with the opinions and lives of most people in this country, why should either of them have any privileged influence over us?

Will we find our national church run by spineless jellyfish or by raving bigots? For myself, I couldn’t care less what happens to the Church of England. Let it destroy itself with this crazy internecine warfare. Few would miss it.

But we cannot have such a Church as part of our state structure. It will never be clear who is calling the shots – Lambeth or Abuja. We cannot have legal representatives in our legislature that are answering to a foreign power. The only solution is to disestablish the Church of England.

There are many other reasons why the CofE should lose its special status, and we have rehearsed them many times at the NSS. You can read our reasoning here.

We know that any attempt to write a secular constitution for Britain would be long and acrimonious. The process of disestablishment would be highly complex. The centuries of overlap of church and state has created a tangle of legislation that would take generations to pull apart. But that does not mean that the process should not be started.

The present Government won’t do it, and nor will the next. It is unlikely that the Church will volunteer to cut the cord and so it seems we must wait for a crisis to arise.

But that may come sooner rather than later in the febrile climate that presently surrounds religion in Britain. In the meantime we have to continue our campaign of attrition, attacking establishment piecemeal, untying one knot at a time until the Church and state are at last independent of each other.
See also:
This is about power, not sex
Is the Anglican split inevitable?
Nobody’s told the Africans that you aren’t supposed to take the Bible seriously
Do we need a global Anglican communion?

27 June 2008

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