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Moral Maze · BBC Radio 4

Is an Established Church Morally Defensible?

March 27, 2026·58 min·4 clips
A humanist leader calls Britain's established church 'fraudulent' because most citizens aren't even Christian.
The question is institutional, not devotional. Dame Sarah Mullally's historic installation frames the argument, because progress inside the Church of England sits beside exclusions that have not gone away. The state is part of the story. Parliament can regulate church liturgies, and the excerpt says same-sex marriage is banned there by Parliament, not just by custom. That makes every exemption feel less abstract. When hundreds of churches refuse to recognise ordained women, the programme sets theological integrity against equality law and public authority. Symbols start doing real work. The questioner notices sandals and a badge that joins the Union Jack with what he takes to be the papal flag, then asks why that imagery fits. The reply is civic rather than decorative. The witness says Greater Manchester faith leaders went to Rome with Andy Burnham, the lord mayor, and environmental officers to think about climate change and net zero. Anglican identity comes across as mixed. The exchange does not make it simple nationalism, or simple separation. It sounds more like a public role worked out through institutions. The questioner keeps pushing for consistency. If the church is understood as having broken from Rome, a Catholic-inflected symbol becomes a useful stress test: is establishment about principle, or about convenience? Climate then becomes common ground. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Sikh leaders are described as partners in a public problem, not rivals for state favour. Then the argument becomes direct. Dr. Jonathan Chaplin, introduced as an Anglican political theologian, is asked how church-state relations should change. His answer starts with disestablishment. The moral pressure in the excerpt is whether a national church can claim religious freedom, constitutional privilege, national representation, and legal exception all at the same time.

As heard by us

A brisk, serious argument over whether England's established church can still justify its constitutional privileges.

The Church of England's constitutional status gets a serious moral airing, framed by the installation of Dame Sarah Mullally as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury.

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Why you'd press play

Hear the case for and against an established church that still shapes public life, from the first female Archbishop of Canterbury to the older arguments that still resist change.

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