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Sorry, Pope, but this 'proper church' declaration is surreal nonsense

"I'm an atheist but still I resent this joker in Rome slighting my community," writes Simon Jenkins. "A residual theological chauvinism is aroused."

Later in the piece he writes:

Last week the prime minister announced he would no longer appoint bishops but leave it to the church authorities. Why stop there? Brown should have taken the opportunity of Wednesday's "Queen's speech" to bring forward the formal disestablishment of the Church of England. This need not affect the Queen as patron of the church, but a son of the manse and head of what should be a secular 21st-century government could surely sweep away the remaining statist nonsense.

That one religious denomination, with roughly the same number of weekly worshippers as the Roman Catholics and Muslims, should enjoy special legislative status under the British constitution is inexcusable. Whether Brown means to continue allowing church schools to prop up Anglican worship by offering it as a basis for de facto school selection remains to be seen. Anyone concerned for the cohesion of urban communities must deplore the revival of such religious segregation. Look what it has done for Northern Ireland.

Brown is an enthusiast for the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose "religionless Christianity" was intended to refashion belief for a new humanistic age. Bonhoeffer's British champion, Alec Vidler, argued for continued church establishment on the grounds that it might allow the church to find a new and wider social purpose. This would be lost if it were "cleaned up and tidied up so everyone would know what it stood for". This historical mischief might have been plausible when Vidler wrote in the 1960s but it is absurd today, with Anglicanism lost among house churches, evangelical ranters, Pentecostalists and "churchless churches" from alpha to omega. Brown should revert to Bonhoeffer, disestablish the Church of England and let Canterbury, Rome and the rest fight it out on a level field, worshipping as and where they chose.

Full story at The Guardian.