What does the Church of England think about the fact that it is established? How does it go about defending the indefensible? The growing consensus among Anglican leaders is that this seeming anachronism is a crucial defence against an aggressive secularism, a guarantee that Christianity exists in that inescapable cliche of religious discourse, “the public square”. The Bishop of Durham gave his version of this line in a lecture last week (pdf).<\/p>\n
He began by reflecting on the crisis of our democratic system. For politics to regain health, we need to rethink the role of religion in public life. The key problem is that “we have done our best to banish God from the public square”. Hardline secularists have had too much sway \u201d\u201c “and, absurdly, there are some Christians who have gone along for the ride, still believing the old fable that God and government don’t mix.” Since the Enlightenment, secular democratic ideology has edged God out of the political sphere, he says, and only a weak form of religion, deism, was permitted.<\/p>\n