Currently the Church of England is the only ‘established’ church in England and as such is the official state church. The British monarch is the ‘Supreme Governor’ of the Church of England. Many of the Church’s laws are approved by the British Parliament, and its senior bishops (26 of them) sit in the House of Lords as ‘Lords Spiritual’. The Church of England works with other churches and acknowledges other denominations as fellow Christian communities – however these other churches do not have the privileges enjoyed by the Church of England.
The question this blog seeks to address is ‘Should the Church of England be disestablished? The fact is that as Theo Hobson has argued in his book Against establishment: an Anglican polemic (DLT 2003) “the radicalism of Christianity does not square with the official, pompous, imperial, feudal and royal aspects of the Church”. Similarly Andrew Rumsey, an Anglican vicar, points that “Jesus had little time for the religious establishment of his own day, and scandalised it by his teaching and actions”.
Jonathan Chaplin, an Anglican minister, who has served on the Ely Diocesan Synod and is the author of Faith in Democracy: framing a politics of deep diversity (SCM 2021), in an interview stated that
disestablishment would not prevent the Church [of England] from remaining pastorally open to all comers… It might have fewer privileged platforms from which to engage in national politics, but it should shed such privileges (e.g. no, or fewer, bishops in a future House of Lords), but it should shed such privileges anyway as theologically unjustifiable.
The Church of England needs to learn to see itself as a peer of other communities, enjoying no more than public parity with them. There are ample examples already in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, of “well-enough functioning church-state relations not marred by the debilitating constitutional entanglements and cultural expectations generated by English Establishment”. The establishment of the Church of England doesn’t deliver what it claims, and other churches (such as the Roman Catholics in their social engagement) do offer the things that are deemed to be important to the established Church of England.
My own experience is that many Anglican churches refuse to share civic occasions with other churches. For instance, on Remembrance Day in many places only Anglican ministers preside, as if all the people whose deaths in war were only Anglicans. Similarly, on other civic occasions such as ‘Justice Services’ at which judges, barristers, solicitors and others engaged in the law’, there are no representatives from the other Christian churches.
The fact is that in in 2024, Anglican (Church of England and Church in Wales) worshippers only accounted for approximately 34 per cent of all regular churchgoers in the UK, a decrease from 41 per cent in 2018. While the Church of England has seen four consecutive years of growth in attendance up to 2024, it remains a smaller component of the total churchgoing population than in previous decades. 31% of churchgoers are Roman Catholics, a significant increase from 23 per cent in 2018. 10 percent of churchgoers are Pentecostals. The other 20+ percent of churchgoers are Baptists, Methodists, independent evangelical and so-called ‘new’ churches.
Furthermore, among 18-34-year-olds, only 20% are Anglicans, whereas 41% are Roman Catholic and 18% are Pentecostal. Regular weekly or monthly attendance is generally more widespread among Catholics and other Christians (around 50% and 40% respectively) compared to Anglicans (roughly 20% of Anglicans). The 2025 Bible Society survey on church-going suggested that the ‘quiet revival’ amongst the under-forties is primarily impacting Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches, rather than causing a massive surge back to the Church of England.
As many readers of this blog will know, when I retired at the age of 70, I began to attend Chelmsford Cathedral, where my wife and I were warmly welcomed, even although we are Baptists. On those occasions when I differ from Anglicans in their interpretation of the Bible, I remind myself of a saying by Richard Baxter, the 17th century Puritan, who was vicar of Kidderminster, which may go back to Augustine: “In essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, in all things liberty.
To return to the question “Should the Church of England be disestablished?”, my answer is most certainly.
I’ve always felt that the Church of England should receive a little more from the state as the established church. It has the obligation of looking after so many historically important buildings. ( comment from a Methodist.)