Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform

by S. A. Barnett; Mrs. S. A. Barnett

The place of the Church in the Constitution is forgotten; so when there is a complaint that impurity is sapping the strength of the nation, or that cheating is ruining trade, or that selfishness is making men scamp work, it is not the clergy who are called on to do their duty and make a cure, but a new society is formed or a new law is demanded, and the clergy are not even rebuked for neglect. No one seems to expect that a Church, nominally co-extensive with the nation, which is established to spiritualise life, should do its work. The position is indefensible. Those politicians who are moved only by agitation may say, ‘The condition of the Church is not one of practical politics,’ and pass on. The greater number realising that the ultimate conflict is between those who would govern with God and those who would govern without God, and anxious that the Church should be effective for its purpose, are quietly making up their minds to one of two solutions—Disestablishment or Reform.

The present means for making the people virtuous or honest fail. ‘Disestablish,’ urge the Liberationists. ‘Let the clergy of the Church be stirred by competition and roused by interest, and we shall have better results.’ ‘Let the connection with the State continue,’ say the Reformers; ‘let the abuses be eradicated, but leave the teachers of the nation to be moved by duty and not by bigotry or sectarian rivalry.’ These two solutions for making effective the means of developing honesty offer themselves for examination. It is worthy of remark that the common arguments for Disestablishment, except those urged by the opponents of all religion, hardly touch the principle of Establishment. Secularists urge that religion being useless and spirituality a fancy, it is no business of the State to do anything to spiritualise the life of its members as a means to increase virtue. Their position is unassailable, and the day on which the nation decides that God has no relation to life, the Church as a spiritualising agency must be disestablished, its buildings turned into lecture-halls, and its endowments devoted to the reduction of the national debt or to the teaching of art and science.

The position of the Secularists is occupied by few. The ordinary advocate of Disestablishment is anxious that the life of the nation may be spiritualised, but he sees that the Church is ineffective, he marks its abuses, its rivalry with the sects, and its assumption of superiority. He argues that its ineffectiveness and its assumption are due to its connection with the State, and urges that Disestablishment alone will sweep out the abuses. He condemns abuses but he cannot condemn a principle which affirms the duty of the State to teach the higher life, because he himself has probably approved the principle as a supporter of Education Acts, liquor laws, and other legislation of a like aim.

It is allowed by the majority of the people that the State should teach the life of prudence, and schools are established under local School Boards to teach every child, so that he may earn his living. Further, it is allowed that the State should control the forces which, for good or evil, may rouse the people, and thus licensing boards are established to limit the sale of strong drink.

The same principle is involved in an Established Church. If the State educates the citizens, and admits its responsibility for the formation of their characters, a line can hardly be drawn at a point which would exclude it from giving the people the means which are the best security for happiness and for morality.

The principle of Establishment does not—as its opponents often think—assert that a sect has truth; it asserts that the nation has truth, or is seeking it. The truth abides in the best thought of the whole nation, and the Church is established to express that truth. The clergy have no special rights, they are servants appointed to do the will of the nation. Truth abides not in ‘the Church’ of the bishops and clergy nor in a book, it abides in the people. Once when it was proposed in the House of Commons to refer a matter of doctrine to the bishops, ‘No, by the faith I bear to God,’ said Mr. Wentworth, with the approval of the House, ‘we will pass nothing before we understand what it is, for that were to make you Popes.’ It is the people, therefore, which by its Parliament has settled, and may again settle, the limits of teaching and ritual. The clergy are its servants paid out of funds set apart for this special purpose. Lord Palmerston put it shortly when he said, ‘The property of the Church belongs to the State.’

The nation, in old language, is holy. The body of people called English is set apart for a special service, its laws are laws of God, its work is worship, and every one of its members owes a duty to God. The memory of such a fact was kept alive in Israel where every town’s meeting was a congregation, every parliament a solemn assembly, every law the Word of God, and every workman was inspired by the Spirit of God. The Jewish nation has been preserved in the Jewish Church. That the English nation is holy must also be kept alive. The nation, that is, must be a Church and its citizens organised for worship. ‘The spirit of nationality,’ says Burke, ‘is at once the bond and the safeguard of nations; it is something above laws and beyond thrones, the impalpable element, the inner life of states.’ In his own language Burke asserts the holiness of nations, and it is to protect this impalpable element that it becomes so important for nations to identify their secular and religious aspects, to be at once nations and churches with duties to men and to God.

Disestablishment denies this holiness, and so lets escape the strongest element in nationality. Disestablishment is, moreover, a short-sighted policy, because, however great be the measure of Disendowment, it would make the Church of England the strongest of the sects. In a short time one of the parties now held in union within the Establishment would obtain the supremacy, and that party would inherit all the power and prestige of the position. This party—being only a section of the religious body—would pose as the representative of religion, and its clergy would identify their interests with the interest of God. Again, there would be some Becket to oppose the will of Parliament, and to call some law affecting his order ‘irreligious,’ and a clericalism would be let loose to assume, and perhaps make hateful, the name of religion. ‘Clericalism is the enemy of men,’ is a saying which has much truth in it. The pity is if clericalism and religion are enabled to seem to be the same thing.

Disestablishment, finally, would intensify the competition of sects. To make one proselyte, the supporters of various forms would compass sea and land. The standard of morality would be lowered and the flags of doctrine, invented out of will-worship, would be waved to bring in rich adherents, and get the use of their money. Even, as it is, there is no need to go far to find work, which would fall to pieces if the preacher spoke the truth to the subscribers about their private life or their tempers. It is urged that the congregations in American non-established Churches are large; it is not urged that the people in America are above bribery in politics or above cheating in trade. It is not urged that American social life is spiritualised, and that is the only fact which would be evidence of the good of the system.

To sum up the case against those who offer Disestablishment of the Church as an answer to the question, ‘How is the nation to be brought into union with the spirit of goodness?’ it may be urged that—