An aside on the Church of England

 Danny Kruger MP recently spoke in a House of Commons adjournment debate on the future of the Church of England. The record of his speech, two interventions from Andrew Rosindell MP and the response of Jim McMahon MP (Minister for Local Government and English Devolution) can be found in the Hansard Record: Future of the Church of England.

It is of interest to read the content of this debate alongside Pope Benedict XVI's speech in Westminster Hall during his visit to the United Kingdom in 2010, and to read Danny Kruger's own account of the position of the Church of England in the light of the more nuanced presentation of Jim McMahon in his reply to the debate.

In considering the place of the Church of England parish in the life of a local community, Danny Kruger suggests that everyone living within the territory of their local parish is a member of that parish even if they do not enter the church or believe its doctrine:

Even if you never set foot in your church from one year to the next, and even if you do not believe in its teachings, it is your church and you are its member.

The observations of Andrew Rosindell and Jim McMahon in considering the place of the parish in community life are more nuanced. 

It is not just about the church community, the members of the church; it has a wider responsibility to all people of all religions and no religion, not just Church of England members. The Church of England should cherish the importance of the parish as a part of all our communities in the constituencies we represent. 

Where Danny Kruger argues that:

Without the Christian God, in whose teaching these things [freedom, tolerance, individual dignity and human rights] have their source, these are inventions—mere non-existent aspirations.

Pope Benedict suggests that: 

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.

The Church of England undoubtedly has a particular place in both the national and local life of the nation, rooted not only in its being the established Church of the nation, but also because its make up gives it a particular genius for a presence in civic life. This can be seen in play at commemorations such as Remembrance Sunday, and the way in which they are marked both nationally and locally. Though it was not always so - think of the persecution of Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation - it has also developed that paradoxical protecting of other religious beliefs under the framework of the established religion.

 I cannot help but feel, however, that Danny Kruger's account of the place of the Church of England in the life of the nation combines what at one time would have been described as Erastianism with a presumption for ethical stances that really need a more reasoned defence. It has a tinge of ideology (in a technical sense) about it that will detract from its ability to influence.