Here is an excerpt from the best rationale I've read on why the Church of England should be disestablished.
Anglicanism used to mean Cranmer and Hooker and Tillotson and Warburton and Paley. Malthus and Sydney Smith were Anglican priests. These were men who combined distinction in theological and secular learning with a broadly tolerant outlook.
Nowadays, priests and bishops seem to be less interested in preaching the Gospel than in preaching an embarrassingly naïve socialism.
It may be arguable that the true message of Christ is socialist. It may also be argued that the laws of supply and demand are as much part of the Divine Order as the laws of motion – and that Christians cannot validly pronounce on either without some study of the secular sciences that have uncovered them. If this is true, it is not enough for an Anglican priest to read The Guardian, announce that “God is love” and then make other than embarrassing pronouncements on interest rates and distribution of property.
Now, the problem here is not that so many Anglican spokesmen appear to be of the Left, but that they seem wholly unaware of any other theological perspective on economics and politics.
With this, I regret, goes their almost casual rejection of the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in favour of new versions that are devoid of literary merit.
The Church should be disestablished because it has, in a sense, disestablished itself. It has made itself an object of derision where not of contempt. It should not be allowed to continue representing itself as England at prayer.
Read it all here.
Anglicanism used to mean Cranmer and Hooker and Tillotson and Warburton and Paley. Malthus and Sydney Smith were Anglican priests. These were men who combined distinction in theological and secular learning with a broadly tolerant outlook.
Nowadays, priests and bishops seem to be less interested in preaching the Gospel than in preaching an embarrassingly naïve socialism.
It may be arguable that the true message of Christ is socialist. It may also be argued that the laws of supply and demand are as much part of the Divine Order as the laws of motion – and that Christians cannot validly pronounce on either without some study of the secular sciences that have uncovered them. If this is true, it is not enough for an Anglican priest to read The Guardian, announce that “God is love” and then make other than embarrassing pronouncements on interest rates and distribution of property.
Now, the problem here is not that so many Anglican spokesmen appear to be of the Left, but that they seem wholly unaware of any other theological perspective on economics and politics.
With this, I regret, goes their almost casual rejection of the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in favour of new versions that are devoid of literary merit.
The Church should be disestablished because it has, in a sense, disestablished itself. It has made itself an object of derision where not of contempt. It should not be allowed to continue representing itself as England at prayer.
Read it all here.
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