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
More than half of Brits now non-religious, study finds
Posted: Mon, 4 Sep 2017 17:00
The National Secular Society has called for "a serious debate about religion's place in our society" after a study found the proportion of non-religious Britons had reached record levels.
New data from the latest British Social Attitudes survey, carried out last year by the National Centre of Social Research (NatCen), suggested 53% of British people now have 'no religion'. The figure, which confirmed an initial NSS analysis of the BSA's report, has risen from 48% since 2015 and 31% since 1983.
In a random, representative sample, almost 3,000 people were asked: 'Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?' If respondents said yes, they were asked which one, without being given a list of religions.
Their answers were fairly consistent with other surveys which have asked questions in a similar fashion. And the recent Scottish Social Attitudes survey found that an even higher proportion of Scots (58%) had no religion.
The BSA survey suggests affiliation to the Church of England is in particular decline. Just 15% of respondents called themselves Anglican – half the proportion who said the same thing in 2000.
The proportion of people who call themselves Catholic has remained relatively stable, at around one in 10, over the last 30 years. Around 6% of people say they belong to non-Christian religions.
Religiosity declined in every age group between 2015 and 2016, but particularly among the young: 71% of people aged 18-24 said they had no religion. That figure had risen 9% in one year. NSS president Terry Sanderson said this was not surprising: "The report says young people are 'losing their religion', but it is more likely that they never had any religion to lose."
Roger Harding, head of public attitudes at NatCen, said the differences by age were "stark". "With so many younger people not having a religion, it's hard to see this change abating any time soon," he added.
Just 3% of those aged 18-24 described themselves as Anglican, compared to 40% of those aged 75 and over. Stephen Evans, the NSS's campaigns director, said this provided a significant boost to the campaign against faith schools.
"One common – albeit flawed – argument from the pro-faith school lobby is that they meet parental demand. But these figures make clear that Anglican schools will not be an attractive proposition for the majority of tomorrow's parents."
In July the BSA report also suggested that non-religious people were more socially liberal than believers on a wide range of issues. Almost nine in ten people with no religion in 2016 said pre-marital sex, for example, was "not wrong at all". This was compared to 73% of Anglicans, 76% of Catholics, 62% of other Christians and 33% of non-Christian religious people.
And although religious people remain more conservative than the non-religious, their attitudes towards premarital sex, same-sex relationships and abortion are becoming more liberal. In some instances, the change is rapid. This suggests the influence of religious ideas on social attitudes is waning.
The findings add weight to the arguments made in the NSS's recent report, Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change. Mr Evans said they should prompt an "urgent rethink about religion's public role and the relationship between church and state".
"Again we have evidence that Britain is becoming increasingly irreligious and religiously diverse. The time has come to call time on the many vestiges of religious privilege – not least the seats given as of right to 26 Anglican clergy in the legislature, and religious groups' considerable influence over our publicly funded schools.
"Rather than cleaving to its mediaeval past, Britain's future surely lies in becoming a modern secular state where every citizen can be treated fairly and valued equally, irrespective of their religious outlook."
NSS criticises Archbishops over clerical hostility to LGBT+ rights
Posted: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 11:34
The National Secular Society's Executive Director, Keith Porteous Wood, has criticised Church of England leaders for their record on gay rights after they spoke out on the subject.
Writing in the online Pink News, he said the Archbishops of Canterbury and York should be "judged by their actions rather than their words".
He was responding to a piece by Justin Welby and John Sentamu, written last week in the same magazine to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. Under the unedifying title 'Gay people are not more sinful than anyone else', the Archbishops wrote that "Sin is not a characteristic of a particular group of people".
Mr Porteous Wood argued that neither this, nor the numerous religious references in the original piece, were likely to cut any ice with the vast majority of the intended audience. Pink News is largely read by young LGBT+ people.
He said the piece "has been greeted with well-deserved cynicism" by many of the magazine's readers. The height of the Church's ambition appeared to be denouncing "diminishing and criminalising homosexual people" as "wrong", and not all of the Church agree even on that. Crucially they failed to even mention equal civil rights or statutory protection from discrimination for LGBT+ people.
He said the Archbishops were "hardly setting the bar very high" in stating that "diminishing and criminalising homosexual people is wrong". He criticised the Archbishops for not mentioning the "gratuitous hurt and indeed persecution" that Christianity had caused to LGBT+ people over the centuries, and for not referring to equal civil rights or statutory protections from discrimination.
Nor had they come clean about Church doctrine which "still holds that same-sex intimacy, even within a committed relationship, is sinful and 'to be met by a call to repentance'". He added that at least one member of the Church's General Synod is working internationally to retain laws criminalising homosexuality.
He also argued that the Church had become more hostile to gay rights in the last 50 years. Clergy opposing these rights had become "much more entrenched and outspoken", while its parishoners have become more liberal. Gay clergy in lawful same sex civil marriages have even been barred from jobs.
The archbishops claimed "This anniversary of the 1967 Act is one when the Church in this land should be conscious of the need to turn away from condemnation of people as its first response." Mr Porteous Wood responded that none of the bishops in the House of Lords voted for the same-sex marriage bill in 2013. They "turned out in record numbers to support a 'wrecking amendment' to it". Their response to civil partnerships legislation was similar.
He drew attention to the "anachronism" of the Westminster parliament being the only one to give bishops a seat as of right. He also highlighted how much more conservative the bishops had become, relative to society as a whole and even Anglicans in the pews. He argued that this is incompatible with being a national church. The NSS believes the Church should be disestablished.
He concluded by predicting the Church would face a humiliating climb down on same-sex marriage.
The National Secular Society has long campaigned for LGBT+ rights not to be undermined by religious demands.
