GP Taylor: As God moves out of Britons' lives, is it time for a divorce between Church and State?

HAVING just spent the last hour searching my garage for a length of rope, I am an excited man. Soon, very soon, thousands of people will descend on the sea front at Scarborough on a Tuesday afternoon.

They shall cast their ropes across the road and then for hour after hour shall skip, laugh and wobble the fat. For that is the traditional start of Lent. All the lard and butter is consumed along with the eggs and treacle at the start of a fast which was in place long before Ramadan was conceived.

Yet, for most of us, there will only be a passing reference to this ancient spiritual time. Jokes will be made about giving up chocolate and few will enter into it wholeheartedly. On the whole, in the modern consciousness, it will go relatively unnoticed. Vending machines will not be removed from canteens so as not to offend Christians and chocolate will be on sale as usual.

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Yet in all of this, the Church seems to be ignoring the greatest crisis ever to have come upon established religion. The trouble is, the average man or woman in the street isn't all that bothered about the Church of England any more. Perhaps 50 years ago, the local parish priest had a place in society. He was seen as a pillar of the community, someone to go to in time of trouble. Now the Church is often regarded as a handy place for a baptism of a new baby or a way of

tidying up the end of someone's life.

Sad as it is, the majority of people in this country do not have a regular use for the Church. More than two million people went to church on Sunday in the 1950s. That number dropped below one million for the first time a decade ago and now it is said to be still falling.

Sunday is no longer a day of rest and as one young man recently told me, Moses was the founder of McDonald's and that Jesus was born by an immaculate contraption.

The State is desperate to sideline religion. It would like Christianity to become an activity conducted in private by consenting individuals. New Labour appears to find faith an embarrassment, unless you are an atheist Foreign Secretary wanting a place for your child in a Christian school.

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Perhaps, now is the time for that ancient link between Church and

State to be completely severed. It would free the BBC from wheeling out spiritual pundits on the Chris Evans breakfast show. It would save the broadcaster millions in having to produce "spiritual" content that is often so vague in its remit that everyone is offended and Terry Wogan could replace Aled Jones on Sunday morning. That would be heaven...

More than this, the Church of England could finally admit it had failed as the national Church and concentrate on what it does best – spiritual mission to those who are seeking God and practical help to those in need.

When I was a full-time priest, one of the fastest and hardest lessons I learnt was that not everyone wanted God in their lives.

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This didn't make them bad people – far from it. I was glad of their honesty. The majority of people I met believed in something that wasn't necessarily orthodox.

It seems as if the average person today has an amalgam of belief that includes a higher being, reincarnation, angels, karma and a myriad of other things. People refer to themselves as spiritual rather than Christian with 76 per cent of the population still believing in a god.

If the Church did have the courage to disestablish itself from the

political state, it could then focus on helping those on the edge of society. It could return to its ancient and honourable roots as a voluntary organisation.

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Full-time priests and bishops could be done away with. Those feeling

called to ministry could do it for free and work in secular jobs during

the week.

Every parish church could then have its own priest and then perhaps people may feel inclined to return. In some Diocese, more people now

are coming forward to be priests than ever before.

The Lay Readers – the stalwarts of the church – could all be

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automatically ordained. Clergy could all be locally appointed, just like in the New Testament. It would be a true calling of faith and not a handy mid-life change of career for burnt out professionals.

I know this would enrage Bishops who would no longer be able to suspend patronage so as to parachute their candidates into unwilling churches, but at least it would be scriptural. Those still in full-time

employment with the Church could then engage in supervising the ethical investment of its 4.5bn and not allowing it to be bet on hedge funds.

Working in a country parish, I found it heartbreaking to see people working so hard to raise 200 at a jumble sale for church funds when I knew 21m was being spent on funding Bishops in lavish palaces.

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If the great divorce were to happen, the Church could then distance itself from all things tawdry in politics. Free from state

interference, it could speak out with no fear of political reprisal. Prime Ministers would no longer be able to appoint their lackeys to positions of power within the faith.

Archbishops could then pursue their prophetic ministry without fear or favour – every parish could have a priest – and redundant churches could be a thing of the past.

Wouldn't that make a refreshing change?

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster, and was previously a vicar in Cloughton, North Yorkshire.