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.
Latest updates
C of E’s “industrial-scale whitewash” of sexual abuse exposed
Posted: Fri, 22 Jun 2018 10:53
The Church of England engaged in a huge cover-up of sexual abuse by vastly reducing the number of cases it deemed to require formal action, a BBC report has shown.
The report says the church looked in to 40,000 case files during a past cases review (PCR) in 2010. The church found a range of ways of whittling down the numbers and concluded that just 13 cases of alleged child sexual abuse needed formal action.
The church excluded cases of sexual offences which had been decriminalised, meaning those involving abuse of boys aged 16 and 17 may have been unrecorded. It left out cases involving those who had died, retired or were deemed no longer to pose a risk.
It left out those related to a cleric who was allegedly addicted to pornography and another said to have had an "obsessional interest in satanic ritual abuse". It left out allegations of grooming behaviour.
One diocesan bishop did not engage with the review at all and the church left many files containing allegations unopened.
It is not clear whether all 40,000 cases related to abuse claims.
Email exchanges suggest the C of E's leaders prioritised the defence of its reputation and that of Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury at the time. In an email a press adviser to Williams said "the real danger here is that these stories are used to suggest that the CofE is as bad as Rome, both in abuse and cover-up" and "the aim must be to distance the current ABC (archbishop of Canterbury) from it as much as poss".
The email was sent during the Chichester sexual abuse scandal in October 2010.
Richard Scorer, a National Secular Society vice-president and head of abuse at the law firm Slater and Gordon, said the report was a reminder of the need for a law requiring the reporting of known or suspected abuse to the police.
"The BBC report confirms not only that the church's past cases review was grossly inadequate, but that senior leaders in the church deliberately excluded relevant cases in order to minimise the numbers and embarrassment to the church.
"This report confirms that until we have a mandatory reporting law, requiring the reporting of known or suspected abuse to the statutory authorities on pain of criminal sanctions, the churches will continue to hide embarrassing cases when it suits them. It is high time that the law stepped in to stop these constant cover ups of clerical sex abuse."
In most cases survivors were not asked to give evidence to the PCR. Survivors have criticised the church's response.
One campaigner, Gilo, told the NSS: "It looks like they shoehorned this into an eggcup to make it disappear. This was industrial scale whitewash. I wonder how all those who took part in this process felt as they watched their numbers whittled down.
"It's disturbing the way that individuals across the church - across dioceses - were in effect pressurised into complicity into this process."
Phil Johnson, a campaigner and joint winner of the NSS's 2018 Secularist of the Year prize, told the BBC the church's response had been "wholly inadequate". He described "a sense of paralysis almost" and said the church saw survivors "as the problem".
Earlier this year the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse heard evidence of serious safeguarding failures and cover-ups during three weeks' worth of hearings into the Church of England's handling of abuse in Chichester.
The C of E says it is taking the criticism seriously. It says it will support the recommendations in a report on the subject from Sir Roger Singleton and it has commissioned a survey to ask for the views of survivors.
Following the BBC's revelations the church published the Singleton report this morning. The report was due to be published next month.
Spanish PM’s secularist outlook prompts Catholic fears over privileges
Posted: Thu, 14 Jun 2018 14:05
The inauguration of Spain's new prime minister has prompted concern from religious groups due to his support for secularism.
Pedro Sánchez, secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE), took office on 2 June without the presence of a crucifix or bible, making him the first Prime Minister in modern Spanish history to perform the inauguration without religious symbols.
An open atheist, Sánchez took his oath without mentioning God and using the Spanish word for "promise" instead of "swear."
Sánchez has repeatedly expressed support for strengthening secularist policies. The Spanish constitution says that "no religious faith shall have a state character", but the Catholic Church receives public funding and Catholicism is taught in state schools.
In an interview with El Plural in 2014, Sánchez said: "I am an atheist and I believe that religion should not be in the classrooms, it has to be in the churches, in the classrooms you have to form citizenship, not people with religious beliefs, that corresponds to the private sphere."
In other statements he has said that he does not want "any religious denomination having preferential treatment."
When running for General Secretary of PSOE in 2014 Sánchez produced a manifesto including a section entitled 'A secular society', outlining his secularist outlook. The manifesto expresses the need for Spain to guarantee civil rights and liberties as a secular and pluralist society in which ideological, religious and cultural convictions and expressions are respected. It says that schools must teach citizenship and reinforce the value of democracy, while no denominational religion should be part of the curriculum or school time table.
The manifesto also states the necessity of repealing Spanish national agreements with the Holy See that privilege the Catholic Church, ending public funding of the Church, secularising national ceremonies, and ensuring religious neutrality of all public institutions and services.
Sánchez's secularist policies are supported by others in PSOE In his first interview, the new foreign minister, Josep Borrell, reiterated the party's plans to re-examine Spain's 1979 Concordat with the Holy See, declaring that the government must "take the state's secularity seriously".
Additionally, the PSOE is committed to legalising euthanasia and strengthening LGBT rights. When it was in power under premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2004-2011, the party clashed repeatedly with the Church over its secularising reforms, including relaxing divorce and abortion laws and legalising same-sex marriage.
Sánchez's inauguration has prompted concern from Catholic groups. The Catholic Herald reported that Catholic family and education groups have sent open letters urging him to place national interests above ideological preferences.
Catholic publication The Tablet echoed the concerns, accusing PSOE of being "anti-Catholic but pro-Islam."
The Acton Institute, a right-wing religious think-tank, has also warned against Sánchez's policies. "We must stand steadfast against such encroachments and, as a society, proudly reaffirm our religious values," said Ángel Manuel García Carmona, writing on PSOE's plan to 'crack down on Catholic education.'
"Only then will politicians respect the place of the Roman Catholic Church in our nation's history, tradition, and present culture."
According to El País, Catholics in Spain are in decline while the number of atheists is growing. A CIS poll revealed that one in four Spaniards have no religion, and although 70% of respondents said they felt Catholic, 60% of this group "almost never" goes to church except for weddings, first communions or funerals.
