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Rendering unto Caesar?: The Politics of Church of England Clergy since 1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Clive D. Field
Clive D. Field
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Abstract

This is the first systematic attempt to chart the evolving political views of contemporary Church of England clergy. The article is based upon a comparative quantitative analysis and synthesis of eighteen national and four local surveys conducted between 1979 and 2004. Ministerial opinions on the state's influence on the Church and the Church's influence on the state are both considered. Ten specific conclusions are drawn. While the clergy generally cling to the concept of an Established Church, they are very critical of some of the traditional manifestations of that establishment. They also mostly think it highly appropriate for the Church to intervene in the world of party politics, and not simply on moral issues. In this they are positioned ahead of the thinking of many of the committed Anglican laity, for whom a degree of separation of religion and politics remains the ideal. The academic, ecclesiastical and political implications of these findings are briefly explored.

Keywords

AnglicanismChurch and stateChurch of EnglandclergydisestablishmentEnglandEstablished Churchestablishmentlaityministry studiesopinion pollspoliticsreligion and politicssocial surveysstate
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 2007 , pp. 89 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2007

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References

1. See, in particular, Machin, G.I.T., Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 1832 to 1868 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)Google Scholar and Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 1869 to 1921 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).Google Scholar

2. Filby, Liza, ‘The Holy War on Thatcher’, The Independent, 15 12 2005Google Scholar. Ms Filby is currently undertaking doctoral research at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, into the Church of England's response to Thatcherism.

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5. A number of surveys of the membership of General Synod have been undertaken which, inter alia, illuminate its political views. For the 1975–80 and 1980–85 synods, see Moyser, George and Medhurst, Kenneth, ‘Political Participation and Attitudes in the Church of England’, Government and Opposition 13.1 (1978), pp. 81–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moyser, George, ‘The Political Organisation of the Middle Class: The Case of the Church of England’, in Garrard, John, Jary, David, Goldsmith, Michael and Oldfield, Adrian (eds.), The Middle Class in Politics (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1978), pp. 262–93Google Scholar; Moyser, George, ‘Patterns of Representation in the Elections to the General Synod in 1975’, Crucible (1979), pp. 73–79Google Scholar; Medhurst, Kenneth and Moyser, George, ‘The Open Synod Group’, in Jones, Kathleen (ed.), Living the Faith: A Call to the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 132–49Google Scholar; Moyser, George, ‘The 1980 General Synod: Patterns and Trends’, Crucible (1982), pp. 75–86Google Scholar; and Medhurst, and Moyser, , Church and Politics in a Secular Age, especially chs. 7–11Google Scholar. For the 1985–90 synod see Sunday Telegraph, 1 04 1990Google Scholar and Church Times, 6 04 1990Google Scholar; and for the 1990–95 synod Davie, Grace and Short, Christopher, Church of England General Synod, 1990–95: Analysis of Membership (London: General Synod of the Church of England, 1996).Google Scholar

6. Recent monographs include: Jelen, Ted G., The Political World of the Clergy (Westport: Praeger, 1993)Google Scholar; Guth, James L., Green, John C., Smidt, Corwin, Kellstedt, Lyman A. and Poloma, Margaret M., The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997)Google Scholar; Crawford, Sue E.S. and Olson, Laura R. (eds.), Christian Clergy in American Politics (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Djupe, Paul A. and Gilbert, Christopher P., The Prophetic Pulpit: Clergy, Churches and Communities in American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)Google Scholar; Smidt, Corwin (ed.), Pulpit and Politics: Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millennium (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Olson, Laura R., Crawford, Sue E.S. and Deckman, Melissa M., Women with a Mission: Religion, Gender and the Politics of Women Clergy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Cf. Penning, James M. and Smidt, Corwin, ‘The Political Activities of Reformed Clergy in the United States and Scotland’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39.2 (2000), pp. 204–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which includes a comparative analysis of American and Church of Scotland ministers.

7. Details of methodology and sources of the surveys are given in the appendix. For ease of reference, each survey has been assigned a unique identifier, comprising a calendar year and a letter, the latter denoting the number of the poll within the year.

8. Research and Statistics Department of the Archbishops' Council, Church Statistics, 2003/4 (London: Church House Publishing, 2005), p. 27.Google Scholar

9. King, Anthony (ed.), British Political Opinion, 1937–2000: The Gallup Polls (London: Politico's, 2001), pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

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11. For trend data on the voting behaviour of professing Anglicans, see Crewe, Ivor, Fox, Anthony and Day, Neil, The British Electorate, 1963–1992: A Compendium of Data from the British Election Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 41, 105–106, 119.Google Scholar

12. For example, there has been a prodigious research output on ministry studies by Professor Leslie Francis and colleagues in the Practical Theology Unit at the University of Wales, Bangor of recent years, but virtually none of it has touched upon the clergy and politics—see the list of publications at http://www.bangor.ac.uk/rs/pt/research/home.php. Similarly, an excellent recent monograph on the churchmanship of the clergy has avoided any discussion of political attitudes, concentrating instead on psychological attributes (extra version/introversion, stability/neuroticism, tough-/tender-mindedness, propensity to burnout, happiness/unhappiness, masculinity/femininity) and on ministerial priorities, training and support, and beliefs and behaviour; Randall, Kelvin, Evangelicals Etcetera: Conflict and Conviction in the Church of England's Parties (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005).Google Scholar

13. Sunday Times, 19 02 2006.Google Scholar