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
Government is irresponsible to lavish more funds on Cathedrals when the Church can afford to pay
Posted: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 10:38
The National Secular Society has criticised the latest wave of taxpayer funding for cathedrals, after the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced £14.5 million for repairs.
The money comes from the First World War Centenary Cathedral Repairs Fund and will see taxpayers' money go to 39 cathedrals.
£20 million of funding was announced in 2014, which was followed by a further sum of £20 million in March 2016.
Sir Paul Ruddock, who chairs the panel which assesses applications for funding, said that giving the Church more money for repair work "will stand as a very fitting memorial to the First World War a century earlier".
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, commented:
"A centenary of the First World War is clearly a meaningless pretext to spend public money on cathedrals, many of which are extremely well funded. The Department for Culture Media and Sport has pointedly not demonstrated that they have even considered whether this work is essential and whether there are church funds available for it. In a period of such strain on the public purse this is irresponsible."
Dame Fiona Reynolds, the Chair of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England said the allocation of more government funding allowed cathedral staff and volunteers to have more "time and resources" and "renewed energy" for serving their cities and regions.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Karen Bradley said:
"Cathedrals are powerful symbols of Britain's shared history. They are important not only for their architecture and heritage, but also for the vital role they play in local communities.
"I am delighted that the First World War Centenary Cathedral Repairs Fund will ensure that these wonderful cathedrals remain in a good state of repair and are preserved for future generations."
See also: For richer or poorer – where is the Church of England?
Cruelty was normalised at Church of England children’s home, says report
Posted: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 10:57
An independent review into Kendall house, a children's home run by the Church of England, has reported "harrowing" findings where girls were sedated and abused.
Children as young as 11 were given powerful drugs, without any medical need and the report found "disclosures of unlawful sexual intercourse, to sexual assault and in a small number of cases, rape."
David Greenwood, the solicitor who represented 15 survivors of abuse at Kendall House, said: "I have been truly shocked at the way in which staff at Kendall House handed our heavy doses of drugs designed to treat schizophrenia to young teenaged girls. Many of the ladies I have represented have suffered poor quality lives as a result of this treatment. Many have been sexually assaulted and most were physically abused. It was only when the Home Office inspectors advised the church to alter the way they deal with drugs that this treatment was brought to an end."
In 2015 Teresa Cooper, an abuse survivor who pushed for the Church of England to launch an investigation, said that the health problems her own children have suffered can all be traced back to the drugs forcibly administered to her at Kendall house.
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "The report catalogues abuse on a monumental scale over many decades first documented in a television expose in 1980.
"Once more, references of complaints to the police over decades failed to result in action against any of the perpetrators. It is difficult to overstate the Church's incompetence in relation to this establishment. The management committee completely failed to protect the children in its care. They failed completely to hold professionals to account and the Church colluded in dismissing legitimate concerns raised by the press, parents and members public. The former Bishop of Rochester Nazir Ali did not even consider the issue to be sufficiently important to mention in his hand over to the new bishop. Had he done so, as the report of this inquiry acknowledges, it would have been addressed many years earlier.
"The Church, despite for many years being cognisant of its culpability for the abuse has failed to offer compensation to victims as would be their human right – including under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This has necessitated victims seeking redress through lawyers. We call on the Church to offer a compensation scheme to all victims without the necessity to involve lawyers. We further regret the timing of the announcement of this report, so conveniently made on perhaps the biggest news day of the year. Only the most naive would see this as a coincidence.
"The Church continues to give greater priority to maintaining its reputation and resources regardless of the adverse effect on victims of its mismanagement."
The report said that victims' accounts were highly consistent, "individually credible" and "corroborative".
The chair of the panel, which was commissioned by the Bishop of Rochester, said the home was "a frightening, violent and unpredictable place to live."
The report found that the home took girls' "individuality", "hope" and "liberty".
The Church of England's lead bishop responsible for safeguarding said, "The appalling standards of care and treatment should never have been allowed.
"On behalf of the national church I apologise unreservedly to all the former residents whose lives were and continue to be affected by their damaging experiences at Kendall House."
Unsurprisingly, being church-led, the report failed to recommend compensation to the victims.
Meanwhile, it also emerged this week that senior church leaders failed to share documents about abusive Bishop Peter Ball with the police. The BBC reported that "the Diocese of Chichester did not share documents which could have jailed Ball earlier." The BBC obtained files that showed Lambeth Palace "received six letters detailing indecency allegations shortly after an arrest in 1992." At the time Ball only received a caution. It was only in 2015 that Ball was finally sentenced to 32 months in prison after he pled guilty to two charges of indecent assault and misconduct in public office.
One of Ball's victims, the Revd Graham Sawyer, has criticised the Church's inquiry into the case, and called for the Terms of Reference to specifically include "bullying, intimidation and threats" made to victims. The Review declined to do so and said its Terms of Reference were already "sufficient".
