I
adore much about the Church of England, profound atheist though I am. I
raise funds for its cathedrals and parish churches, which I regard as
absolutely intrinsic to the fabric of England. But because of what is
happening with Islam, the sweet, confused C of E has, alas, to be
disestablished. Britain must become a secular state.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, without even pondering
the consequences, we have imported a significant community amounting to
about one in 25 of the population who are at a different stage of
religious development.
Founded
in the 7th century, Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. In
Islamic time, it is still AD 1400. They haven’t had a Reformation, let
alone an Enlightenment. And they treat their religion with the same
kind of passion that we did when we burnt heretics.
The point is this. Because certain privileges were retained
for the established Christian churches, there is the argument from
equity. This says that because the right to have faith schools has been
accorded to the Church of England, Judaism and Catholicism, therefore
we must give it to Islam.
Similarly, in the House of Lords we have the extraordinary
situation where religious leaders sit ex officio in the legislature.
Only one other country entertains the practice — the Islamic Republic
of Iran. Now it is being suggested that because bishops are represented
in the Lords, therefore rabbis, Catholic archbishops and imams should
also sit there. This, in the early 21st century, is grotesque.
What is the solution? Last weekend the Bishop of Rochester,
Michael Nazir-Ali, warned that Britain may be too weak to resist
Islamic fundamentalism “unless there is some reclaiming of the moral
and spiritual tradition which created this country”. I think his
history is simply wrong.
For it wasn’t a Christian tradition that created modern
Britain but the reaction against it. This means that, rather than
reprivileging Christianity, we should deny privilege to all religions.
Instead we must regain the Enlightened confidence to put religion back
in its box and assert once more that the separation of church and state
is the foundation of modernity.
And nowhere is this lesson better taught than in our own
history. From the time of Christ to the Middle Ages, Christianity made
a clear distinction between the sacred and the secular. That position
was completely reversed in England when Henry VIII made himself the
supreme head of the church. He had started as the most passionate
defender of the papal monarchy. But he wanted a son — and he wanted to
marry Anne Boleyn more.
Eventually, Henry came to think he was actually Christ on
Earth. And he and subsequent kings of England believed they had the
absolute right, as God’s anointed, to change the religion of their
people according to their own lights.
The Church of England now became a mere means to that end, by
turning itself into a body that saw its prime function as preaching
obedience to the monarch. The whole Christian doctrine of the
separation of church and state was stood on its head.
In short, Henry introduced genuine totalitarianism for the
first and last time in English history. The resources at the disposal
of a 16th century king were, happily, not those of a 20th century
dictator. But the aspiration was identical. Henry was the English
Hitler-cum-Stalin, ordering the confiscation of the monasteries and
instituting a reign of terror.
However, the fact that Henry assumed supreme religious power
at the Reformation, when there was acute religious tension, meant that
the monarch became a disputed figure in a way kings had not been in the
Middle Ages.
The result was that the English, the first to experience this
totalitarian fusion of church and state, were the first to get out of
it. They were even the first to develop the doctrine of tyrannicide,
which endorsed the deposition or murder of a monarch of the “wrong”
religion.
Henry, once again, had set this in train by establishing an
extraordinary rule of succession by which each one of his children was
to succeed to the throne in turn, despite the fact that two were
daughters — and bastards. He could never have realised that each would
change England’s religion.
Edward took us towards extreme Protestantism,
Mary to extreme Catholicism and Elizabeth
to a strange middle ground. Her successor,
James VI of Scotland and I of England,
was the only monarch in the 16th and 17th
centuries not to try to change religion
in England — although he started
to do so in Scotland.
His son Charles I went too far, flirting
with rituals that seemed too Catholic.
As a result there was civil war: the king
lost his head, the monarchy was abolished
and Oliver Cromwell became lord protector.
But we soon discovered we couldn’t
do without a king, and the monarchy was
restored.
But restoration solved nothing and the
whole process started again. Charles II
sponsored an aggressive Anglicanism that
tried to suppress dissent and excluded
both Protestant dissenters and Catholics
from civil rights. It also left England
weak, divided and profoundly old- fashioned.
*
Thus, by the late 17th century, the failing
English monarchy had two alternative pathways
to modernity — those of the Netherlands
and Louis XIV’s France. The solution
came when England was conquered by Holland
in 1688.
The Dutch conquest showed how far we
had sunk — but also how far we could
rise. For England now got a king, William
III, who was so contemptuous of the idea
of sacred monarchy that he scoffed at
his own coronation, whose rituals struck
him as preposterous and papist.
This was the real origin of modernity
in England. Naturally, being England,
we didn’t do it properly. But we
did begin the process of shifting the
relationship between the church and the
state.
The royal supremacy became much weaker.
The monopolistic claims of the Anglican
church were progressively chipped away.
And forms of toleration and civil rights
were introduced. They were imperfect.
But they were sufficient to bring about
a watershed in English history.
Within 30 years of our defeat by the
Dutch, England was the leading European
power and 80 years later it emerged as
the first world power.
But now we need to learn the lessons
once more. For religion is on the march
again. Tony Blair and George Bush pray
together and make war together. Messianism
— the fusion of political power and
pseudo-religion — was the basis of
all the great 20th century tyrannies.
And even in Britain the monarchy has resacralised,
with the coronation of Elizabeth II in
1953 being a throwback to the full medieval
rites of sacred monarchy. And the Queen
believed it.
I think Prince Charles sort of believes
it. But differently. In many ways, with
his pioneering commitment to the environment,
he is marking out an effective new role
for the monarchy. But on the issue of
religion I think he is in deep and dangerous
waters with his avowed determination to
be Defender of Faiths.
For modern Britain needs neither a new
Henry VIII, the first Defender of the
Faith, or heaven forbid an Islamic caliph
who also called himself Commander of the
Faithful. Instead we need a tolerant secular
state in which there is a level playing
field for people of every faith —
and none.
Otherwise, it will be back to the dark
days before 1688 with a vengeance.
A new series of Monarchy by David Starkey
begins on Channel 4 at 9pm tomorrow. His
book, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to
Modernity, is published by HarperPress,
£20
