The UK is one of the last western democracies with a state religion: the Church of England.
The Church's entanglement with the state is bad for both.
Join our campaign to disestablish the Church.
CAMPAIGN ALERT: Support the disestablishment bill
In November 2023, a private member's bill to disestablish the Church of England was selected in the ballot.
Please write to your MP and urge them to support this bill, to make the UK are more equitable and democratic country for people of all religions and beliefs.
Since our founding in 1866, one of our primary objectives has been disestablishment of the Church of England: its formal separation from the state.
More than 150 years later, census figures show most people in England and Wales are not Christian. Surveys consistently reveal a similar picture in Scotland. The case for disestablishment has never been stronger.
Disestablishment means the Church would no longer have privileged input into government - but also that government could not involve itself in the running of the Church. Both sides would gain autonomy. This is why support for Church-state separation can be found within the CofE itself.
There have been many proponents, religious and non-religious, for church-state separation, and there are a wide variety of motivations for supporting this reform.
The existence of a legally-enshrined national religion privileges one part of the population, one institution and one set of beliefs. Removing all symbolic and institutional ties between government and religion is the only way to ensure equal treatment to citizens of all religions and none.
The Church of England has enjoyed significant privileges relating its established status for many centuries. These privileges have remained largely unchanged despite the massive and continuing reduction in support for the Church in the UK. It is highly likely that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future, making the Church of England's continuation as the established church unsustainable.
- Christians are a minority in Britain. In Wales and Scotland the majority have no religion.
- Just 1% of 18-24 year olds say they belong to the Church of England.
- Less than 1% of the population regularly attend Church of England church services.
The Church of England is also out of step with the UK public on several key issues: it remains opposed to same-sex relationships and allows parishes to reject women as bishops and priests. These discriminatory positions cannot be reconciled with the Church's status as part of the UK state.
And no institution with the shameful historical record of the Church of England safeguarding and abuse should retain its privileged role in the British establishment.
The existence of a legally enshrined national religion privileges one part of the population, one institution and one set of beliefs. Removing all symbolic and institutional ties between government and religion is the only way to ensure equal treatment of citizens of all religions and none.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support the separation of church and state
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
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“Establishment” helped abusive bishop evade justice, inquiry hears
Posted: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:09
Powerful figures including an archbishop of Canterbury, senior politicians and judges helped a bishop evade justice and continue to officiate after he committed sexual abuse, an inquiry has heard.
Evidence heard at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) this week has revealed that a series of high-profile public individuals lobbied police and prosecutors on behalf of Peter Ball. Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, was jailed for 32 months in 2015 for sexual offences against 18 teenagers and men.
Senior clergy, MPs, an appeal court judge and public school headmasters were among those who sent letters in support of Ball when police first investigated his conduct in 1992-93.
The police cautioned Ball on one count of gross indecency in 1993, after which he returned to church duties. He was given permission to officiate at services and preached at 25 schools between 1996 and 2002. One of Ball's victims, Neil Todd, killed himself in 2012.
A lawyer for some of the victims, William Chapman, said members of "the establishment" had provided Ball with money and accommodation, legal advice, a private detective and references, along with approaches to the police and the prosecuting authorities.
Chapman said he used the phrase "the establishment" advisedly, pointing out the established nature of the Church of England. He described the church as "directly plugged in at the heart of our constitution" and "innately powerful by design".
He added that Ball's friends had been willing to "add their weight" against the due criminal process and went "far beyond the normal obligations of friendship".
Fiona Scolding, the senior counsel to the inquiry, said "influential friends both within and outside the church" had helped to buttress Ball's power.
She said Ball had told people after his arrest that four cabinet ministers had offered him a "bolthole from the press".
On Tuesday George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said he had sent one of the letters because "at that time" Ball was "a deeply respected man of the church".
In his testimony Carey admitted making "mistakes" but denied the church had made "immoral mistakes".
He told the inquiry the church's efforts to discipline Ball had "fizzled out" because officials thought he was a "sick man" who was going to retire.
At one point during his evidence Carey also said: "All of us at the time were saying, well, he wasn't raping anybody. There was no penetrative sex. And I think our weakness was actually to put it as the lowest of the low instead of seeing that whatever it is, it's unbecoming of a bishop."
Scolding said Carey had offered Ball "uncritical support". And on Thursday a former Lambeth Palace employee, Andrew Nunn, said Peter Ball "clearly was guilty" but "the problem was the archbishop at the time didn't want to believe that he was".
Last year an independent review into the C of E's handling of child sexual abuse revealed that Carey had dissuaded the police and Crown Prosecution Service from charging Ball, despite knowing concerns had been raised about him.
Carey also provided a lengthy witness statement on Ball's behalf in 2014. Chapman said this was an attempt to stop further charges being brought as an "abuse of process".
The inquiry has also heard that the prince of Wales remained in friendly contact with Ball after the caution and gave him "small gifts of money".
On Friday the inquiry will hear a written statement from Prince Charles. In a draft copy of this reported by The Times the prince said he was "certainly not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution".
"Whilst I note that Peter Ball mentioned the word in a letter to me in October 2009, I was not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt."
Scolding said the inquiry had made an agreement with the prince's lawyers that he would submit a written statement after they challenged its capacity to compel him to give a formal witness statement.
Richard Scorer, a lawyer representing some of the victims and a National Secular Society vice-president, said Charles's claim that he did not understand the significance of a caution was "frankly astonishing".
"To my clients, this extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness."
He expressed "surprise and concern" that the prince did not have to provide a formal witness statement.
He added that Ball had found other bishops to be "perfect accomplices". He said they had been prepared to "turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades", "cast doubt on his guilt", "smear his victims" and "rehabilitate him".
Graham Sawyer, a Church of England priest who was abused by Ball as a young man and named the joint winner of the NSS's Secularist of the Year award for 2018, strongly criticised the C of E's handling of complaints of abuse.
He said the church was running an "ecclesiastical protection racket" which prioritises its reputation above the interests of the individual. The abuse he suffered, he added, "pales into insignificance when compared to the enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment that has been meted out to me by officials, both lay and ordained, in the Church of England".
"I know from the testimony of other people who have got in touch with me over the last five or ten years that what I have experienced is not dissimilar to the experience of so many others."
On Wednesday the detective who ran Gloucestershire Police's investigation into Ball in the 1990s, Wayne Murdock, told the inquiry that Lambeth Palace "knew an awful lot that was going on" but withheld information.
Stephen Evans, the NSS's chief executive, said the evidence provided a "damning reminder of the need for independent oversight of the Church of England's approach to safeguarding, mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse and the disestablishment of the Church of England".
"We've seen again that the C of E cannot be trusted to get its own house in order over child sexual abuse. IICSA needs to make a strong recommendation for legal change to make it obligatory to report reasonable concerns of child sexual abuse to the statutory authorities.
"It's particularly shocking to see the network of powerful people who went to bat for a child abuser rather than his victims. Deference to Church of England bishops meant horrendous abuses were shrugged off. The assumption that its clerics were moral exemplars who behaved ethically betrayed vulnerable people who suffered at their hands.
"The Peter Ball case study provides yet another good reason to bring about an end to the privileged status of the Church of England and begin the process of disestablishment."
This article was originally published on Tuesday 24 July and then updated on Thursday 26 July to include new evidence from the inquiry.
Church lobbies to make closing rural schools easier
Posted: Tue, 10 Jul 2018 12:05
Secular school campaigners have called for the Church of England to "give up some control" where flexibility may save some small rural schools.
Lobbying by the Church to make rural school closures easier was revealed by TES in a section of the Church's report Embracing Change: Rural and Small Schools.
The TES reported that the Church is confident that Department for Education is "very open" to the change, but that the proposal is opposed by National Association of Small Schools.
The opening and closing of maintained schools statutory guidance currently requires that the case for any rural school closure "should be strong and a proposal must be clearly in the best interests of educational provision in the area". Related guidance says that decision makers "should not normally approve the closure of a school with a religious character where the proposal would result in a reduction in the proportion of relevant denominational places in the area."
No More Faith Schools campaigner Alastair Lichten said that rural faith schools "present unique and varied challenges to secular education" as in many rural areas Church of England faith schools are the only option. More than 70% of small rural schools are C of E faith schools.
"This is becoming more of a problem for freedom of belief, as the Church pressures these schools to promote a more rigorous religious ethos."
In May the NSS reported on a C of E faith school in the village of Ripley facing closure because of the diocese's refusal to let it join a secular academy trust – something the NSS called "academisation entirely on the Church of England's terms".
With changing demographics and academisation causing pressure, the report acknowledges that many "small rural schools could not continue to operate as stand-alone units" – leading to a need for them to "come together in formal groupings". But the NSS has warned that the Church's insistence that C of E schools join Church-backed multi academy trusts (MATs) – where the Church appoints a majority of trustees – or that the Church be able to appoint its own trustees to mixed faith/nonfaith MATs is reducing flexibility.
Mr Lichten said: "The guidance states that decision makers should carefully consider 'alternatives to the closure of a school'. But the C of E seems to effectively have a veto over any alternative arrangements it feels may loosen its control.
"Providing a simpler route for Voluntary Controlled schools that are entirely funded by local authorities to lose their religious designation, or join secular academy trusts without the Church gaining decision-making power in the trust, would give rural schools more flexibility. In some cases, like Ripley's, this flexibility could make the difference between a rural community keeping or losing its school. Sadly the Church are prioritising control over provision.
"Rural school closures are always complicated decisions which evoke strong feelings. Communities can't always be get what they want, but for fairness' sake they should at least be sure decisions aren't distorted by a religious agenda."
