The power the Church of England has in the UK

Calls for an end to the Church of England’s role in parliament and schools have increased after census results revealed that England is no longer a majority Christian country.

Less than half the population of England and Wales – 27.5 million people – described themselves as Christian, 5.5 million fewer than the last census, in 2011, found the Office for National Statistics, adding to calls to “disestablish” the church.

“Secularists and others” now want disestablishment – an end to the Church of England’s position as an established church, said The Guardian.

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But just how powerful is the Church of England in British society?

How many church schools are there?

There are 4,632 Church of England schools and 200 church schools in Wales, explained the Church of England’s website. This means that approximately one million children attend Church of England schools and around 15 million people alive today went to a Church of England school.

Many church schools are state-funded and this has caused tension because exemptions to the Equality Act allow state faith schools to “use religion to discriminate over which pupils they admit, who they employ and what they teach”, wrote Andrew Penman in the Mirror.

He added that he “had to pretend to be Anglican for several years” so his children could get into the local primary school, “where the Church of England monopolised half the places”.

Some have pointed to a wider influence the church has on education. The Observer’s Harriet Sherwood noted the legal requirement for every state school to hold an act of daily worship that is “broadly Christian in character”.

How does the Church influence politics?

Under current rules, 26 bishops are guaranteed seats in the House of Lords. The archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester and 21 other bishops in order of seniority together form the “Lords Spiritual”, explained the UK Parliament website.

This clerical influence on law-making has provoked criticism. There are “only two countries in the world that automatically give places in their parliaments to clerics”, wrote Penman: “Iran, that bastion of religious brutality”, and the United Kingdom. Writing for Open Democracy, Scot Peterson claimed that the appointment procedure is “secretive and flawed”.

However, defending their presence in the Lords in an article for PoliticsHome, the bishop of Durham said that for “those who argue that religion should keep out of politics, as Christians we look to the example of Jesus Christ, who did not fail to challenge those in authority when the needs of those on the margins were ignored”.

The Church has other influences in Parliament. For instance, Anglican prayers are held at the start of parliamentary business each day and places in the chamber are reserved by putting down prayer cards.

What is the monarchy’s relationship with the Church?

The Church of England has friends in high places. For instance, the British monarch is considered the supreme governor of the Church and has the authority to approve the appointment of archbishops and other church leaders, said History.com.

King Charles took on the titles Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the Church of England following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. However, he has said he will serve people “whatever may be your background and beliefs”.

Will the Church lose its powers?

The news that less than half of the population of England and Wales is Christian has led to renewed calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England. The census result “should be a wake-up call which prompts fresh reconsiderations of the role of religion in society”, Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, told the Mirror.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a long-standing supporter of disestablishment. In 1999, he said “many people in this country think that it is wrong to have an established Church” because “we are a multicultural, multi-faith society” and therefore “no religion or Church should be given pre-eminence over others”.

Some within the Church have even called for change. Giles Fraser, an Anglican priest and media commentator, told The Observer he believes in disestablishment “not because it’s the right thing for the country, but because it’s the right thing for the church”.

He added that “we’ve been turned into flunkies of the establishment, seduced by pomp and circumstance. Disestablishment would require the C of E to reinvent itself.”