I blogged recently about how - in reality, by whom - the ministry of the Church of England is funded. This included the observation that, by virtue of being the Church "by law established", the CofE is regarded by some as a sort of quango - not part of the Government, but essentially supported by it or by the population at large, like the BBC or the NHS. This is demonstrably not the case; and living with this persistent false impression is one of the crosses we English Anglicans bear (I am not complaining about this - we have other, heavier ones; and other Churches have their own, some of them heavier still).
But it led on to consideration of what, given that it's not money-related, establishment actually means. In France, where the Church is rather explicitly un-established, the State nonetheless has full responsibility for the maintenance of all churches built before 1904. In Germany, there is a Church Tax, which citizens are not forced to pay but which they have to opt out of, and which brings in millions of euros a year to its Churches. (The RC Church in Germany regards Catholics who do not pay as having automatically ex-communicated themselves.) The Swedish Churches receive similar state subsidy; and in Greece, Orthodox priests are paid by the Government - an arrangement which most think is unlikely to be affected by the current meltdown of the Greek economy. The point is that none of the Churches in these countries is described as "established", but are unequivocally in bed with their respective Governments when it comes to state handouts.
In England, by contrast, the monarch is the Church's "supreme governor on earth" (not its "head" - that's Jesus Christ); its liturgical forms have to be approved by Parliament; one of the Church Commissioners - they who have responsibility for the Church's assets - is an MP; 26 bishops sit in the Lords (for the time being, anyway) and five of them are Privy Counsellors. But the point is, none of this translates into a penny of hard cash. The Church does benefit from English Heritage funding for listed buildings (like other custodians of such), but this is always conditional, and reflects their perceived architectural and historic value, not their religious function.
So in what does "establishment" consist? The CofE is not, and in fact was only briefly in historical terms, the Church that you have to belong to to be a citizen of England. While it has frequently asserted its pre-eminence, sometimes rather cruelly, it has almost always accepted de facto plurality, and finally waved the white flag in 1829. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in that year removed the requirement that, to go to university (which, at the time, meant Oxford or Cambridge) or to hold any kind of public office, you had to be a communicant Anglican. As a result of that process, what we are left with - as the Bishop of London sometimes says - is merely the "theatre" of establishment. He adds that, taken together with the lack of a financial relationship, this makes the CofE effectively less "established" than some of the "unestablished" Churches on the Continent.
If David Cameron is serious about changing the Act of Settlement - which some say would necessitate amendment of other, equally foundational, legislation springing from the Revolution of 1688 - we may hear more about these matters. Some of the debate will no doubt generate more heat than light; but it might just dispel some of the myths.
Now, have you filled in your Gift Aid envelope?
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