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
NSS accuses Welby of ‘cynical abuse of religious privilege’ over Lords education debate
Posted: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 13:47
The National Secular Society has criticised the "cynical abuse of religious privilege" on display at a House of Lords debate initiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby used his opening speech for the debate on "Role of education in building a flourishing and skilled society" to promote the Church of England's educational agenda, while attacking secularism and non-religious schools.
He started by expressing gratitude to the "usual channels" for arranging for him to lead a debate in the House of Lords, commenting that it has become "something of a tradition" for an Archbishop to do so in early December.
The Archbishop went on to congratulate his own institution on its role in British education: "As in so many areas of our public life, if you'll excuse me a little bit of trumpet-blowing, it was the churches that pioneered the idea of a universal system of education free for all."
But later in his speech, despite being keen to remind the Lords that his five children went to "both church and non-church" schools, the Archbishop held religiously-neutral schools in contempt.
"We have a world of unguided and competing narratives, where the only common factor is the inviolability of personal choice," he said.
"This means that, for schools that are not of a religious character, confidence in any personal sense of ultimate values has diminished. Utilitarianism rules."
Approximately two thirds of all schools in the UK have no religious character.
Archbishop Welby also attacked secularism's challenge to the privileged position of the Church of England.
"The challenge is the weak, secular and functional narrative that successive governments have sought to insert in the place of our historic Christian-based understanding, whether explicitly or implicitly," he stated.
The Archbishop's speech also referred to the "wide and widening schools network" of the Church, saying that "The Church of England's educational offer to our nation is church schools that are in its own words 'deeply Christian'".
The debate gave the opportunity for members of the House of Lords, including three bishops and Rabbi Lord Sacks, to express their support for religion in schools.
The NSS has condemned Archbishop Welby for using the House of Lords as a platform to promote the Church of England's agenda of expansion within the UK education system.
"Today's debate in the Lords was an appalling and cynical abuse of religious privilege from Justin Welby and the established Church," said Stephen Evans, CEO of the NSS. "The Archbishop of Canterbury's self-serving debate was used to promote the Church's own brand of faith schools at the expense of community schooling.
"Welby is absolutely wrong to attack community schools over their lack of transmission of values. Non-faith-based schools actively promote the same universal values as church schools. By promoting these values as uniquely "Christian", it's church schools that give their pupils a skewed and very poor understanding of ethics. The way in which the Church is increasingly using the state funded schools it runs to intensively promote its faith also undermines young people's religious and intellectual freedom.
"With the Church of England in seemingly terminal decline, it's not hard to see why it puts schools at the very centre of its mission. The whole debate smacked of self-interest and is another reminder of why the time has come to remove the automatic privileged right of Church of England bishops to sit in the House of Lords."
Survivors say Church hierarchy failing to lead on child abuse
Posted: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 15:05
Survivors and campaigners have accused the Archbishop of Canterbury of being "evasive" and failing to offer "clear leadership" over child abuse.
In an exchange of letters with Gilo, who was sexually assaulted by a reverend in the 1970s and now campaigns for a change in Church culture, Justin Welby declined to commit to accepting mandatory reporting requirements. These would mean Church officials who had reasonable grounds for suspecting child abuse and failed to inform the authorities would be breaking the law.
"As you know, we are now in the middle of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse," he wrote. "I am keen to hear its views and wisdom on the subject of mandatory reporting — which is not as straightforward an issue as is sometimes suggested."
He also said the Bishop at Lambeth would take up the "complex issue" of reopening past settlements from the C of E's insurer, Ecclesiastical.
Gilo said Mr Welby's latest letter was "evasive" and inadequate.
"Stating in vaguest of terms the complexity of an issue does not address complexities," he said. "There doesn't seem any ownership of the crisis, nor recognition that questions such as these need facing at archbishop level, and the clear call of leadership required to shift the Church into structural and cultural change and towards authentic justice."
Mr Welby and Gilo have exchanged letters since October, when the Archbishop publicly apologised for failing to respond to 17 previous letters.
And in a series of responses Gilo has gathered and made public this week, other campaigners including NSS vice-president Richard Scorer supported the call for mandatory reporting.
Mr Scorer, who also belongs to the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, said: "The Archbishop could do much better than this. He should use his position and wider influence to insist on real change in two key respects.
"First, mandatory reporting, so that those who might otherwise be tempted to collude in the cover-up of abuse know that they have no option but to report it. Second, fair and just reparation for survivors, as part of a wider restorative process, so that the true extent of the harm caused by abuse is properly acknowledged.
"Given the extent of the abuse scandal now revealed in the C of E, the Archbishop owes survivors nothing less."
Baroness Walmsley, who in 2014 tabled the ongoing Government inquiry Reporting and Acting on Child Abuse, said it was a "very simple matter". "If you know or suspect that a child is being abused, or has been abused, you must report the matter to the correct authorities. To fail to do so is to collude with the perpetrator."
Simon Barrow, the Director of the think tank Ekklesia, said the Archbishop's "emollient" response had highlighted "a profound danger: a Church previously in active denial over abuse has now learned to mask institutional damage limitation with polite concern".
Dr Julie Macfarlane, a law professor in Canada and an abuse survivor, said there was "no excuse" for the Anglican Church to refuse to adopt mandatory reporting before the inquiry "almost certainly" required it.
The National Secular Society has called for mandatory reporting of child abuse and criticised the Church's links with Ecclesiastical.
This week the C of E also faced pressure from within to change its approach to the issue. The Dean of St Paul's, Very Rev Dr David Ison, said the Church should set up structures for safeguarding and discipline independent of the bishops. Writing in Christian Today, he said the bishops' ministry was "compromised" because they had to administer both pastoral care and discipline.
