Theresa May has come a long way from her advanced Anglo-Catholic roots, although there was a nod to them in one of her recent Desert Island Discs.
What will the clergy who refuse to be party to her ridiculous register call themselves? Recusants? Covenanters? Dissenters? Nonjurors? Seceders?
In any event, from the first point at which anyone bothered to check, in the middle of the 1850s, it was already the case that only half of the churchgoers in England were attending the Church of England, with Nonconformity massively predominant in great swaths of the country.
Then came the Catholic Revival.
The reality is that attempts by the State to control English religion have never been particularly successful. This one will be no exception.
Round-heads, please:-
ReplyDelete"Babylon is fallen, is fallen, is fallen,
Babylon is fallen to rise no more".
That one always reminds me of England, arise!
DeleteAnd vice versa.
What register is this?
ReplyDeleteShe wants all religious figures who work in universities, hospitals, schools, or whatever, even if they were only going in so as to visit a sick parishioner, to sign some declaration of British values, having first been on some course or other.
DeleteThere are many reasons why I shall never be the Editor of a national newspaper. But if I were, then I'd revive those God slots that used to appear in local papers, and which occasionally still do. Over a week, readers would be treated to the thoughts of a range of clerics who had refused to participate in this outrage.
Thank you, I wasn't aware of this. I imagine it comes under the anti-extremism legislation they're pushing through at the moment.
DeleteThis really does feel like history repeating itself.