Disestablishmentarianism and Antidisestablishmentarianism

[jack]

Sometimes I feel like the Church of England should either disestablish or bite the bullet and actually represent everyone, regardless of religion or lack thereof. I like having a comparatively fluffy national church, but when I saw it did do things I disagreed with, I suddenly felt uncomfortable having it enshrined in the constitutions.

The first is the obvious choice. But the second has some attraction for me. In many ways, couldn't you say that the right to have services and get married in churches, have "moral" representatives in the house of lords, choose the sexual orientation of bishops, etc, etc, are the equal legacy of everyone English, not just the faction which is currently identified as 'chruch of England'? I realise that's likely to be controvertial to both anti-disestablishment and disestablishment opinions :)

Comments

[simont]

I like having a comparatively fluffy national church

The natural reading of that statement, mostly inspired by the "comparatively", is that it's better to have a comparatively fluffy national church than one which is unpleasant and unfluffy, and that seems like a more or less uncontroversial statement to me. But in context, it looks as if you actually mean that you think there's something to be said for having a comparatively fluffy national church as opposed to no national church at all, and it's not clear what you think the advantage is.

Ruling out arguments based on the rightness of its actual religion, what are the actual plus points of having the C of E be a nationalised church rather than just another private institution among many? I've always vaguely assumed that any secular arguments in favour of continuing establishment were more or less based on tradition: "it seems to be working well enough and it would cost effort to change", with a side order of "if we disestablish the church then it might turn out it was doing some obscure but vitally important job which suddenly isn't getting done" (and possibly also "here is a specific such job"). Are there others?

[jack]

Good question. I didn't consciously mean, "I prefer it to not having an established church", but there might be some of that. And yes, I think the reasons (at least for me) are just a sense of sticking with what I know.

[ptc24]

There's a somewhat Machiavellian argument, similar to one for the monarchy: it occupies a space which might otherwise get occupied by something (more?) pernicious. Traditionally, when making this argument, one makes comparisons to how things are in the USA.

[rysmiel]

That would be pretty much my position, yes, though I tend to think of it as like vaccination against more unpleasant memeplexes that might otherwise run free.

[simont]

I suppose the question raised by that is, why does the church's official status affect how well it does that job? If it's to be a vaccine against more harmful forms of religion, is it not sufficient for that purpose that it should simply be widespread and well known, and would it not be just as good a vaccine if it were disestablished but otherwise unchanged?