Media Watch: Church of England mood “febrile and anguished”

Church of England mood “febrile and anguished”

On 16 February, reporting on the recent annual meeting of the General Synod, Sunday Times journalist Cathy Newman described the mood as “febrile and anguished”. She reported that “Left rudderless by a string of abuse scandals, many among the clergy think the church should separate from the state and bishops be evicted from the Lords.” Newman quoted Revd Rob Thompson, a synod member and a vicar in a northwest London parish, as saying, “A liberal secular democracy shouldn’t have bishops automatically sitting in the House of Lords and deciding our laws.” Diarmaid MacCulloch, Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford, put it more bluntly: “Just chuck ’em out. They’ve not contributed much in recent years, they don’t represent Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. It is well said that only Iran otherwise includes clerics in its legislative bodies.”

Newman also reported that some clerics would like to see disestablishment of the church. “I personally would favour the Church of England being disestablished,” said Julie Conalty, Bishop of Birkenhead and deputy lead on safeguarding. Thompson agreed: “I believe in disestablishment. I think we should cut our ties with the monarchy as well. Disestablishment would be a big shake-up symbolically but I don’t think it’s an enormous shake-up in practice, in terms of how our nation operates. It simply puts the church in its proper place in a society which is more plural and diverse.”

A secular version of blasphemy

On the same day, Kenan Malik wrote in The Observer about a recent Qur’an-burning incident in Manchester. Martin Frost was convicted of causing “racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment or alarm” to Fahad Iqbal, a passerby, who told the court in a victim impact statement that he was “shocked, disgusted and offended” by what he saw. Malik calls this “a form of blasphemy restriction but in secular garb, a crime of distressing an individual rather than transgressing theological norms”. He also referred to the attempt on the life of author Salman Rushdie by Hadi Matar in 2022 and quoted from Rushdie's recent book Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024). Matar was convicted of attempted murder in February.

Prayers in the House of Commons and the 50% Faith Cap on Free Schools

On 17 February, online magazine Politics.co.uk published two articles in its “Opinion Former” section. One, by the National Secular Society, addressed the recent motion to end prayers before House of Commons sittings, which was signed by MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, and the SNP. The other, by Humanists UK, discussed the Government’s decision to retain the 50% faith cap on free school admissions.