Terry Sanderson: If Rowan Williams hasn't come out in favour of disestablishment, it's because he knows it would kill his church

my highlights in blockquotes, as usual

Dec 18, 2008 16:30:00 GMT Share

The Archbishop of Canterbury has once again raised the issue of disestablishment, but isn't very enthusiastic about the idea. Why would he be? His church is already in a precarious position, with numbers of worshippers dropping like a stone. Without the support of the state and left to its own devices, the Church of England would be dead and gone within decades, ripped apart by its own internal rivalries and left penniless by the indifference of the population.

Williams says that his hesitancy over disestablishment is caused by the rise of non-belief and the desire of secularists to see religion pushed from the public square.

The Archbishop misunderstands secularism. What he describes is certainly not the kind of secularism promoted by the National Secular Society, of which I am president.

Although a secular state would mean that religion would have to take its place with the vast array of other interest groups that lobby our democratically elected government, it does not mean that religious people would be disenfranchised or discriminated against. No, it would simply mean that the growing minority religions and the vast majority of people in this country who have no interest in religion would achieve equality.

Of course, if you have long-standing privileges taken away from you, it will feel as though you are being discriminated against. The Church of England should realise that it has had its day. According to the latest edition of Religious Trends, from Christian Research, less than a million people now attend its services regularly (and this is predicted to drop to 100,000 by 2050) and so it has no business being part of the state and purporting to speak for us all. It does not.

The bishops' usual response to this is that they are the voice of all religion in government. The foot in the door for faith, as Rowan Williams put it on the Today programme. This is, of course, nonsense. Minority religions may be even smaller than the Church of England, but they can speak for themselves and their own interests, and they increasingly do.

Another idea that the Church of England constantly pushes (and is reiterated by Giles Fraser on Cif today) is that the Church is somehow the "centre of all local communities". But this isn't borne out by the reality.

Although the domineering presence of church buildings can hardly be overlooked, and they are familiar landmarks in every town and village, they cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called "the centre of the community". Few people go anywhere near them – unless there is some kind of secular event like a concert or evening class going on.

The number of church weddings is dropping, the number of secular funerals is rising and there is widespread unease about "faith schools". The Church may well have influence in communities, but it wouldn't be greatly missed it if weren't there.

And if you ask most people in this country who "their" bishop is, I guess the answer from about 99% of them would be a blank stare and an uncomprehending "Eh?"

Disestablishment would be a mammoth legislative task that would stretch over decades. This government doesn't have the stomach for it and nor will the next. Disestablishment will only come if the church sees that it would have a better chance of survival as an independent entity rather than an arm of the state. And for the church to set in train the process of disestablishment would be rather like asking for assisted suicide.

If, as Rowan Williams implies, he's scared of the competition from secularism and atheism, then his hurch has conceded that it has no legitimate claim to special treatment.

So though Williams has once again waded into the debate, he hasn't faced the real issue: his own Church's demise.