Disestablishment \u2013 separating the church from the state \u2013 is mooted from time to time. \u201cWould it be a disaster? No,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cNothing is a disaster with God.\u201d Establishment is \u201ca conglomeration of different bits of history. There\u2019s no Establishment of the Church of England Act that you could repeal \u2013 it\u2019s a complicated process. And if you mean, by privilege, that the archbishop of Canterbury is often involved in royal weddings, or crowns the monarch, or whatever, that\u2019s really a decision for parliament and the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But neither would disestablishment be liberating for the church. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t make any of that [the grassroots social action] easier, as far as I can tell, because that\u2019s all done at a local level. We\u2019re an incredibly delegated, dispersed organisation. All of those things happen because local Christians reach out to those around them, with other faith communities, with those of no faith; they do all that because they follow Christ. So I don\u2019t think [disestablishment] would make it easier, and I don\u2019t think it would make it more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
A consequence of establishment is that the UK is one of only two countries in the world that reserve seats in their legislature for clerics, the other being\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a fact relayed with some relish by Welby to a group of business leaders at Warwick University. But in contrast to the Iranian parliament, the\u00a026 Lords Spiritual<\/a>\u00a0in the UK\u2019s upper house now include two (soon to be three) women, who are among more than a dozen appointed as bishops since the church made a\u00a0historic change to canon law in 2014<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a move championed by Welby.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I look back over the past five years, at what\u2019s been achieved in the Church of England, the most significant would clearly be the ordination of women to the episcopate. Am I delighted it\u2019s happened? I\u2019m more than delighted, and I\u2019m even more delighted that, since it became possible in law, about half the bishops that have been appointed are women.\u201d He would like to see a woman take over as archbishop of Canterbury at some point, he says.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Archbishop @JustinWelby<\/a> speaking in our Great Hall last night at the National Beacon service for @thykingdom_come<\/a> #ThyKingdomCome<\/a> (photo credit @danforshaw<\/a>) pic.twitter.com\/bPq4eYrFfY<\/a><\/p>\n — MethodistCentralHall (@MCHW) May 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n