Theological Reflections on the Place of the Sacred in Society

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (35) ◽  
pp. 380-404
Author(s):  
John Inge
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
English Society ◽  
Christian Influence ◽  
The Church ◽  
Theological Thinking

This paper attempts an overview of currents of theological thinking on the place of the sacred in society. It considers the long tradition of active engagement between Church and State, which derives its authority from the New Testament and can be traced through St Augustine and Anglican Divines to the present day. Having examined contemporary arguments of those who question the propriety of such an arrangement it concludes that it remains theologically justifiable. The paper then turns to the particular question of the Establishment of the Church of England and engages both with those who support it and those who are in favour of disestablishment. It observes that Establishment functions at various levels in English society and, whilst acknowledging and welcoming the fact that its form will continue to change, argues that it offers distinct advantages to both Church and State. In a country where seventy-one per cent of the population professes itself to be Christian it gives the state legitimacy by reminding the latter that all authority derives from God and ensures that Christian influence for the maintenance of a just and peaceful society remains strong. Establishment reminds the Church that it has a responsibility to the whole nation, not just those who regularly attend its churches, and protects the mission and ministry of the Church throughout the parishes of the land.

Grace and Nation: Coleridge's On the Constitution of Church and State

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Alan Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
National Life ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTUnderstanding Coleridge's classic work On the Constitution of Church and State requires paying close attention to the system of distinctions and relations he sets up between the state, the ‘national church’, and the ‘Christian church’. The intelligibility of these relations depends finally on Coleridge's Trinitarianism, his doctrine of ‘divine ideas’, and the subtle analogy he draws between the Church of England as both an ‘established’ church of the nation and as a Christian church and the distinction and union of divinity and humanity in Christ. Church and State opens up, in these ‘saving’ distinctions and connections, important considerations for the integrity and role of the Christian church within a religiously plural national life.

Crown, Mitre and People in the Nineteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
The People ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Throughout the nineteenth century the relationship between the State and the Established Church of England engaged Parliament, the Church, the courts and – to an increasing degree – the people. During this period, the spectre of Disestablishment periodically loomed over these debates, in the cause – as Trollope put it – of 'the renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists between the Crown and the Mitre'. As our own twenty-first century gathers pace, Disestablishment has still not materialised: though a very different kind of dynamic between Church and State has anyway come into being in England. Professor Evans here tells the stories of the controversies which have made such change possible – including the revival of Convocation, the Church's own parliament – as well as the many memorable characters involved. The author's lively narrative includes much valuable material about key areas of ecclesiastical law that is of relevance to the future Church of England.

Parliament and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Colin Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Enoch Powell ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church ◽  
Previous Paragraph

A title such as this hardly suggests one is breaking new ground. But I edge into print on the subject, stirred by the interesting Speaker's Lecture given by the outgoing Second Estates Commissioner, Sir Tony Baldry, in December 2014, and published in the May 2015 edition of this Journal. It reads as the enthusiastic, even romantic, expression of the State–Church relationship by an almost doctrinaire establishmentarian; and I use the word ‘doctrinaire’ deliberately, for I have spent a lifetime of bumping up against leaders of both Church and State, from Enoch Powell to George Carey (let alone Derek Pattinson and Philip Mawer), who exude a firm conviction that the establishment of the Church of England is entrenched somewhere in the Apostles' Creed. Sir Tony continues in this tradition as he serenely asserts ‘We come then to the reign of Henry VIII. I think the important point here is that the Church of England is the creation of Parliament.’ But would not Augustine, Anselm and the drafters of Magna Carta (who are cited in Baldry's previous paragraph) all be turning in their graves? And what apoplexy would have come upon Newman, Pusey and Keble to have learned that their Church was thus created? Or, more to the point, is the ecclesiastical action of Parliament in the days when church and nation were co-terminous of any relevance to whether and how an unbelieving Parliament should hold control of a Christian body today? However, it is his brief section on ‘Parliament and Anglican liturgy’ which prompted the present submission.

Church and State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

Chapter 3’s discussion of kingdoms and orders in the context of political life leads naturally into the topic of this chapter: the church, the state, and their relationship. The present chapter locates the state (or, better, political authority in general) in relationship to Chapter 3’s categories by presenting it as one of the orders by which God’s structures the world. It is an important actor in the temporal kingdom, where God has ordained it to preserve the world through law. The church in its essence is an agent of the spiritual kingdom, bearing God’s redemptive word to the world. The themes of preservation and redemption, the kingdoms, and the orders find many of their concrete expressions in themes of the church, the state, and their relationship.

‘This Romish business’ - Ritual Innovation and Parish Life in Later Nineteenth-Century Lincolnshire

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 384-395
Author(s):  
R. W. Ambler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The State ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Holy Communion ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Mixing Water

In February 1889 Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, appeared before the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury charged with illegal practices in worship. The immediate occasion for these proceedings was the manner in which he celebrated Holy Communion at the Lincoln parish church of St Peter at Gowts on Sunday 4 December 1887. He was cited on six specific charges: the use of lighted candles on the altar; mixing water with the communion wine; adopting an eastward-facing position with his back to the congregation during the consecration; permitting the Agnus Dei to be sung after the consecration; making the sign of the cross at the absolution and benediction, and taking part in ablution by pouring water and wine into the chalice and paten after communion. Two Sundays later King had repeated some of these acts during a service at Lincoln Cathedral. As well as its intrinsic importance in defining the legality of the acts with which he was charged, the Bishop’s trial raised issues of considerable importance relating to the nature and exercise of authority within the Church of England and its relationship with the state. The acts for which King was tried had a further significance since the ways in which these and other innovations in worship were perceived, as well as the spirit in which they were ventured, also reflected the fundamental shifts which were taking place in the role of the Church of England at parish level in the second half of the nineteenth century. Their study in a local context such as Lincolnshire, part of King’s diocese, provides the opportunity to examine the relationship between changes in worship and developments in parish life in the period.

scholarly journals SOCIO-CULTURAL INTERACTION FORMS OF CHURCH AND STATE ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 60-64
Author(s):  
Evguenia Alexandrovna Belyaeva ◽  
Elena Aleksandrovna Venidiktova ◽  
Dilbar Valievna Shamsutdinova
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Church

Purpose: the aim of the undertaken study is to consider the dynamics of the church-state relationship in the context of Russian new cultural tendencies at the turn of the century. Methodology: Thus, The methodological basis of the research was formed by philosophical analysis of the church-state relationship, historicism and comparison principles. The following tasks were being solved: defining the interaction ways between the religious organizations and the state on the modern stage of the Russian society development; pointing out the prospects of consolidation of both the сhurch and the state around the democratic civil society fostering program in XXI century; revealing the need to promote respectful attitude towards human values as an integral part of spiritual culture. Result: The authors achieved the following results within the study: A wider notions of church and state were introduced demonstrating the similarity of some of their functions: offering moral guidance for social well-being; historic doctrinal models “caesaropapism”, “papocaesarism” and “symphony(concordance) of powers” were identified and characterized alongside with their secular counterparts - separation and cooperation models of church-state relationship. In conclusion of the article the urgent need for the transition of church-state relationship from political to social and cultural spheres was justified. Applications: This research can be used for the universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of Socio-Cultural Interaction Forms of Church and State on the Example of the Russian Orthodox Church is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.

Edmund Burke, Dissent and Church and State

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Church State Relations ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Church ◽  
At Home

This chapter examines Edmund Burke’s attitude towards Protestant dissenters, particularly the more radical or rational ones who were prominent in the late eighteenth century, as a way of understanding his changing attitude towards the Church of England and state. The Dissenters who attracted Burke’s attention were those who were interested in extending the terms of toleration both for ministers and for their laity. Initially Burke supported their aspirations, but from about 1780 things began to change. The catalyst for Burke’s emergence as leader of those who feared that revolution abroad might become a distemper at home was Richard Price’s Discourse on Love of Our Country. The chapter analyses how Burke moved from advocating toleration for Dissenters to become a staunch defender of establishment as to have ‘un-Whigged’ himself. It also considers the debate on the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts as well as Burke’s attitude towards Church–state relations.

The view from the devil’s mountain: Clarendon, Cressy and Hobbes, and the past, present and future of the Church of England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Seaward
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The lives, and political thought, of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, were closely interwoven. In many ways opposed, their views on the relationship between Church and State have often been seen as less far apart, with Clarendon sharing Hobbes’s Erastianism and concerns about clerical assertiveness in the 1660s. But Clarendon’s writings on Church-State relations during the 1670s provide little evidence of concern about clerical involvement in politics, and demonstrate his vigorous adherence to a fairly conventional view among early seventeenth-century churchmen about the proper boundaries to royal interference in the Church; his worries about attempts to push further the implications of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs are evident in his writings against Hobbes, as are his even greater anxieties, exacerbated by the conversion of his daughter, the Duchess of York, about the dangers of Roman Catholic encroachment.

Music as Propaganda for the Church of England after the Toleration Act

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Joseph Arthur Mann
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Average Reader ◽  
English Society ◽  
First Time ◽  
Protestant Denominations ◽  
Fundamental Shift ◽  
The Church

The passage of the Toleration Act meant religious freedom for non-Anglican Protestants but signaled a fundamental shift in the position of the Church of England in English society. Prior, the Church of England benefited from a government-backed monopoly on legal religious practice in England. The loss of these legal inducements meant that the Church of England had to compete equally, for the first time, in a marketplace of religious ideas. Chapter four exposes how the Church of England responded to this change with pro-music pamphlets advertising the joyful nature of the Anglican service in contrast to the austere practices of other Protestant denominations. It argues that while nonconformists wrote massive treatises arguing fine theological points about music in divine worship, Anglicans produced pamphlets that were addressed to the average reader in terms they could understand. It also connects these pro-music pamphlets to other accessible works written by Anglican propagandists that promote the Church of England in this new marketplace of ideas. Overall, the chapter reveals the previously-unknown propaganda functions of these Anglican music pamphlets and reveals that they were part of a larger, equally unknown, pro-Anglican propaganda campaign that directly responded to the results of the Toleration Act.

Lauener, Michael, Schutz der Kirche und Stabilität des Staates durch Absenz von religiöser ,Seichtigkeit': die religionspolitischen Anschauungen von Jeremias Gotthelf und Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel aus dem Geist der Versöhnung

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 280-349
Author(s):  
Michael Lauener
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong State ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church ◽  
The French Revolution

Abstract Protection of the church and state stability through the absence of religious 'shallowness': views on religion-policy of Jeremias Gotthelf and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel out of a spirit of reconciliation. The article re-examines a thesis of Paul Baumgartner published in 1945: "Jeremias Gotthelf's, 'Zeitgeist and Bernergeist', A Study on Introduction and Interpretation", that if the Swiss writer and keen Hegel-opponent Jeremias Gotthelf had read any book of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, some of this would have received his recognition. Both Gotthelf and Hegel see the Reformation to be the cause of the emergence of a strong state. For Gotthelf, this marks the beginning of a process of strengthening the state at the expense of the church. Hegel, on the other hand, considers the modern state to be the reality of freedom, produced by the Christian 'religion of freedom' (Rph, §270 Z., p. 430). In contrast to Gotthelf, for whom only Christ can reconcile the state and religion, Hegel praises the French Revolution as "reconciliation of the divine with the world". For Gotthelf, the French Revolution was only a poor imitation of the process of spiritual and political liberation initiated by the Reformation, through which Christ reduced people to their original liberty. Nevertheless, both Gotthelf and Hegel want to protect the state and the church from falling apart, they reject organizational unity of state – religion – church in the sense of a theocracy, and demand the protection of church communities.

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