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
Most young people in UK have no religion, says survey
Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 16:49
The National Secular Society has called for "a rethink of religion's public role" after a report found that almost three-quarters of young people in the UK say they have no religion.
According to Europe's Young Adults and Religion, 70% of 16- to 29-year-olds in the UK say they have no religion and 59% say they never attend a religious service. Just seven per cent said they were Anglican; 10% described themselves as Catholic; and six per cent said they were Muslim.
Only seven per cent said they attended religious services on at least a weekly basis.
A majority of young people in 12 of the 22 European countries the report studied said they had no religion. Only in Poland, Portugal and Ireland did more than 10% of young people say they attend religious services at least once a week.
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans called the report "an important reminder of the need for a rethink of religion's public role, not least the public funding of faith schools".
"Separating religion from public life is the only way to protect everyone's right to freedom of and from religion fairly. That means it's the right thing to do no matter what surveys such as this find. But this is the latest in a series of reminders that the way the UK treats religion in public life is incongruous with the views of its people – particularly the next generation of citizens and parents.
"Those who defend the establishment of the Church of England, the presence of bishops in the House of Lords or the fact that faith groups run large numbers of publicly-funded schools are going to be left making increasingly tenuous arguments in the years ahead. Politicians should take note: the UK is ready to stop deferring to them and embrace a secular state."
The report's findings add weight to the arguments made in the NSS's recent report, Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change. They are also roughly in line with those from other sources. Last year's British Social Attitudes survey found that a majority of Britons had no religion, including over 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds and over 60% of 25- to 34-year-olds. Just three per cent of those aged 18-24 described themselves as Anglican.
In October a report by the polling firm Ipsos found that 62% of under-65s in Britain thought religion did more harm than good. In the same study fewer than a quarter of British people agreed that 'my religion defines me as a person'.
Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and sociology at St Mary's University in London and the author of the latest report, said religion was "moribund" in much of Europe.
"With some notable exceptions, young adults increasingly are not identifying with or practising religion. Cultural religious identities just aren't being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them."
The report was based on data from the European social survey of 2014-16.
CoE faced 3,300 safeguarding concerns or abuse allegations in 2016
Posted: Thu, 8 Feb 2018 14:21
The Church of England handled more than 3,000 safeguarding concerns or allegations of abuse in 2016, according to papers published for its general synod.
The vast majority of the allegations related to children, young people and vulnerable adults. The figure referred to both cases that were open and those newly reported that year. It is not known how many involved active claims for compensation against the church.
Peter Hancock, the church's lead bishop on safeguarding issues, released some of the details of the concerns and allegations. He said 338 risk assessments were carried out by the church's dioceses in 2016. Nineteen per cent of them were carried out on priests.
There were also 867 'safeguarding assessments' in place, 682 of which were related to known sex offenders. These are made when someone is believed to pose a risk to young or vulnerable people. The subject must agree to be monitored or to restrict their interaction with possible victims of abuse.
The revelations come as the C of E's general synod meets in Westminster. Christian Today has reported that survivors of abuse are "furious" that the presentation of the issue is being "stage-managed by bishops" and will not be "a full debate that would allow more probing issues to be raised".
Next month the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is due to spend three weeks of public hearings focusing on abuse within the Church of England. As a case study the inquiry will focus on the handling of multiple allegations in Chichester.
It will also consider whether there were "inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process" in the case of Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester. Ball was jailed in 2015 after admitting a string of historical sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men.
In a damning official report last year Dame Moira Gibb said the Church had failed to respond appropriately to Ball's conduct "over a period of many years". After the report's publication the archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby admitted that the Church had "concealed" evidence of Ball's abuse.
And in a statement last month Welby said this was part of a longer-term pattern: "Our history over the last 70 years has revealed that the Church covered up, ignored or denied the reality of abuse on major occasions."
The National Secular Society is campaigning for a mandatory reporting law, which would require abuse allegations to be reported to the external authorities.
An NSS spokesperson said the figures were "a reminder of the need to hold Church officials to the same standard as others".
