What Next From the Church of England?

As an English Protestant, I’ve always found it thrilling how many different brands there are in the USA; I’ve met American Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and many more. The importance of these sub-denominations is demonstrated amusingly by the confession scene in “Catch Me If You Can,” when the stylish con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. comes clean to his fiancée. “I’m not a doctor. I never went to medical school. I’m not a lawyer, or a Harvard graduate, or a Lutheran.” She gasps, “You’re not a Lutheran?”The rich variety of ways of being a Protestant seemed typical of the sprawling grandeur of your big country; we, on the other hand, had the Church of England. It was described in 1917 by the suffragist Agnes Maude Royden as “the Conservative Party at prayer.” Many changes have taken place since then. The Church of England was born in flames so that Henry VIII could marry Anne Boleyn, who, though a Catholic herself, owned and shared banned books, including the work of William Tyndale, who made the Bible accessible to the common man and was subsequently burned as a heretic by the Catholic Church. With the reign of Bloody Mary, the martyrdom of Protestants became epidemic, as detailed in Foxe’s “Book Of Martyrs.”St. Paul’s Cathedral at London. Via Pexels.comThough I was raised in an irreligious family — my parents called themselves “C of E,” which was in the 20th century as near as working-class English people ever came to proclaiming themselves atheists — I have always, after a fortunately brief teenage period of disbelief — loved identifying as a Protestant. The word itself is so beautiful, proud and rebellious. Being an “Anglican,” on the other hand, sounded so suburban.Now, it simply sounds mad. As a feminist, I was predictably pleased (looking back, perhaps pathetically pleased) when, earlier this year, Sarah Mullally was made Archbishop of Canterbury. A cynical side of me thought that a woman had finally got the top job because the last “A of C” retired disgraced after it was disclosed that he had been aware of child abuse which took place during his tenure and we could trust a woman to be less tolerant of paedophile peccadillos. My scepticism about her level of intellectual rigor has been backed up by such tone-deaf pronouncements as “our national conversations about immigration continue to divide us, when our common humanity should unite us.” This is how populism happens; when the elite never listen, and forever lecture.Then a few weeks ago Dame Sarah jumped the shark, proudly posing for pictures — on September 11, no less, 25 years to the day after the Islamist attack on the USA — while presenting an award for “interfaith cooperation” to an imam.There the imam stood, with his covered wife and his covered daughter, while Dame Sarah smiled like a Cheshire Cat, revelling in her freedom to do everything from show her lovely blonde hair to reach the top job in the nation’s top church. Regrettably, it turned out that he had once referred to Osama bin Laden as one who should be called “Saifullah” — “the Sword of God” — so the award got taken away.King Charles III at John O’Groats, Scotland. Martin Grimes/Getty ImagesThe episode seemed tragic-comically illustrative of the shambles the C of E has become, just another of the batty battalions in the Woke war against the common sense of the common man. If one wanted to be superstitious one could say that it died definitively with the late queen, whose faith in her national church was so straightforward and affecting, like everything about her.King Charles, on the other hand, spent a deal of time as Heir Apparent constructing an “Islamic garden” and wittering on about being “Defender of Faiths” as opposed to “Defender of the Faith.” That the Catholic Andy Burnham now seeks the abolition of the 1829 law which bars his kind from having ministerial powers over the Church of England seems somewhat beside the point, as congregations dwindle to an all-time low.Presumably to make up for this — and to make a whole lot of money — earlier this month, the C of E signed an agreement with Fabric nightclub, which temporarily lost its licence some years back after drug-related deaths, to hold raves in St. Paul’s Cathedral.Lots of people have their own favorite scary moment when there seemed to be no way back for a country which has lost its way, and I think that mine was the “Satanist on a submarine” story of 2004, when a naval technician was given permission to practice Satanic rites onboard the vessel he was serving on as a member of the British Armed Forces.A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: “We are an equal opportunities employer, and we don’t stop anybody from having their own religious values.” In this vein, I fully expect the C of E to host, in the foreseeable future, pagan celebrations in one of our grand cathedrals with perhaps a cheeky wren-sacrifice at some point, while the Archbishop of Canterbury smiles on benignly at this fine example of interfaith cooperation.

What Next From the Church of England?

What Next From the Church of England?

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