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
Abolish Bishops’ Bench to reduce the size of the House of Lords
Posted: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 08:10
The National Secular Society has recommended the removal of the Bishops' Bench to a parliamentary inquiry into how to reduce the size of the bloated House of Lords.
In a written submission to the Lord Speaker's committee on the size of the House of Lords, Stephen Evans, the campaigns director of the National Secular Society, said: "There is no reasonable justification for allowing Church of England bishops to act as ex-officio legislators. The Bench of Bishops is an anomaly in a modern, liberal democracy and if a need to reduce the size of the chamber has been identified the Bishops' Bench is an obvious place to start."
To cut the number of peers to a more manageable size the NSS urged the committee to "consider entirely removing the Bishops' Bench and ending the arrangement whereby religious representatives are given seats as of right."
Not only would this make the upper house less crowded, but it would make a "more equitable and democratic chamber", the Society said.
The Society said that it was wrong for any religion to have a privileged position in the upper chamber, and that it was long since time for the anachronism of the Bishops' Bench to be removed.
Currently two archbishops and 24 bishops are given seats in the upper house and are able to vote on legislation.
Their position grants them other privileges, and they are given deferential treatment by other members. Other peers defer to a bishop wishing to intervene, and they are able to speak unconstrained by party quotes – both points the NSS raised with the Lord Speaker's committee.
The current settlement is "both divisive and unrepresentative", and on some issues the bishops do not even represent the views of their own laity, the Society said, citing marriage equality as an example.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has called the current Bench of Bishops the most "orthodox" since WWII.
It was "indefensible" to maintain the status quo, the Society's submission said, and polling from 2012 and 2010 found a majority of the public, including 70% of Christians, believe it is wrong for the bishops to be given seats automatically.
In its submission the Society again stressed its opposition to replacing or supplementing bishops with leaders from other faiths.
"Any proposals to extend religious representation in the Lords to other religions, such as made by the Woolf Commission in 2016, must be resisted. Such a move would be both unworkable and unpopular and run the risk of creating sectarian tensions.
"It would further erode the franchise of the increasing numbers of non-religious people, and indeed of the many liberal religious people," the Society argued.
The Electoral Reform Society has also criticised the current role of the Church of England in the House of Lords. They said that "The place of the Lords Spiritual is anachronistic.
"Iran is the only other legislature in the world which gives unelected clerics automatic representation in its legislature."
The ERS also rejected suggestions of adding more religious representatives from different faiths to represent minorities: "The automatic inclusion of representatives of other faiths is an unacceptable solution due to the difficulty of deciding which faiths and denominations within faiths to include, how to include non-religious organisations, and the constantly changing demographics of the UK."
The Lord Speaker's committee is charged with exploring "methods by which the size of the House of Lords can be reduced, commensurate with its current role and functions."
The House of Lords currently has over 850 members, making it the second-largest legislative body in the world.
Secular schools ‘more appropriate than faith schools’ in diverse Britain
Posted: Mon, 6 Feb 2017 11:43
The Times has reported that pupils from Muslim backgrounds outnumber those from Christian families in more than 30 Church of England faith schools, and that one Anglican school's population is from an entirely Muslim background.
One school even describes itself as "a church school serving a majority Muslim community".
Professor Alan Smithers of the centre for education at the University of Buckingham told the Times that secular schools were more appropriate than faith schools, and that some of the Anglican faith schools should be converted.
"The Church of England has traditionally provided education in this country but now that risks being an uncomfortable experience for the Muslim pupils that fill many of these schools.
"It must also be very confusing for the handful of Christian pupils in some of them. It would seem logical these schools become secular institutions."
Stephen Evans, the campaigns director of the National Secular Society, endorsed Professor Smither's comments, and said that the Times' report "exposed the anachronism in our education system."
"A 19th century system of education simply isn't appropriate for 21st century Britain. The time has come to consider ways in which we can move towards a truly inclusive secular education system in which religious organisations play no formal role.
"The Church claims that its schools, funded by taxpayers, are not faith schools but 'church schools serving the local community'. This reassurance means very little given the priority they put on evangelising children and young people to stop the Church's ongoing collapse.
"We have supported non-Sikh parents allocated to a Sikh faith school against their wishes, Muslim parents allocated to a Christian school when they wanted a community school, Muslim parents allocated to an Orthodox Jewish school, and all across the country non-religious parents are often left with no practical option but to send their child to a faith school. These absurdities are the obvious result of having such a heavily faith-based education system."
The Catholic Education Service told the Times that 90% of pupils at one Catholic school were Muslim.
Mr Evans added: "There is also an integration concern. In such a religiously diverse country it should be surprising indeed to find any school where all pupils share one religious background. But as we know from research and the recent Casey Review on integration, there are emerging religious ghettoes in the UK.
"The education system is one way of breaking down this separation. But regrettably successive governments have encouraged faith schools, worsening segregation or causing absurd situations where you have an Anglican school with an entirely Muslim student population, or as is more often the case, church schools full of pupils from families that have no interest in religion whatsoever."
