The sheer objectionable nature of a church whose doctrine was whatever
the Crown, and so eventually the Crown in Parliament, said it was at the
given time, has been an enormous force for the creation in this country of a
pluralistic society, and thus by necessity a representative democratic
political system.
Without it, there would have been neither the Nonconformist Conscience, because there would have been no Nonconformists, nor Catholic Emancipation, because Rome really was a long way away in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so some accommodation really would have been reached by those who still felt themselves Catholics, as if feelings mattered here, and who would consequently have had no need of Emancipation in 1829.
Without it, there would have been neither the Nonconformist Conscience, because there would have been no Nonconformists, nor Catholic Emancipation, because Rome really was a long way away in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so some accommodation really would have been reached by those who still felt themselves Catholics, as if feelings mattered here, and who would consequently have had no need of Emancipation in 1829.
Those agitating for disestablishment wish the State to repudiate its basis in Christianity. That must be resisted without any compromise whatever.
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