Gordon Brown’s announcement that the Government will no longer have the final word in the appointment of diosesan bishops in the Church of England has fascinated the General Synod that is meeting in York. The announcement ends two centuries of intrigue over episcopal patronage, and many in the Church ? with memories of recent prime ministerial interference ? will be grateful that appointments are not being sanctified by a prime minister, who, in theory, could be a Catholic. But it also reawakens the vexed issue of disestablishment, bringing nearer a break between Church and State for which many, within the Church and beyond, have been campaigning.
Despite a general feeling that the Church of England should not enjoy unique favour by a secular State, not all the bishops are unreservedly pleased at the prospect of a change. One issue that troubles some is money. Would disestablishment also mean disendowment?….
If Britain was still a Christian State or a member of Christendom, as it has been in the past, then the current responsibilities of the state in church affairs would be beneficial, but Britain is a secular state where many law makers are not members of the CofE; therefore, the state’s responsibilities in governing the church are misplaced if not dangerous to the nature of the church, which can be compromised in its service to a secular values such as egalite rather than the values of a christian state such as sacrificial love.
It seems inevitable that the church’s service to a secular state will corrupt its values and the focus of its service from God and the spiritual health of its people to the material needs of the masses.
It also seems inevitable that if the leader of a compromised state church, such as the ABC, is looked toward for spiritual leadership by churches outside the state, such as the provinces of the Anglican Communion, then the values of those provinces will be compromised by the values of the secular state. Indeed, the very nature of the institutional church seems to move toward the values of the secular state; promoting materialism over spiritualism and positivism over revelation.
Canterbury is very young in comparison with the ancient sees of the church, but its most striking impoverishment is its responsibilities to a secular state rather than its persecution by a hostile state, such as that suffered by Constantinople.