The Rev GF is always one of the best reads in UnHerd, but here he seems to have tripped up. Mrs T was a conservative, and what she wanted was to return the UK to a freer, more liberal society. That may seem like radicalism but most conservatives do have a vision of an “ideal” society (albeit that in their hearts they think it unachievable). But a conservative should try to get there – the “conservatives” who just want in effect to slow things down are not conservatives at all, they are just surrendering to the prevailing philosophy slowly.

Should the Bishops be thrown out of the House of Lords? No, they are not quite as pointless as many sitting there. Should the Lords be replaced by an independent and more democratic assembly? Yes. Should the Bishops be elected by the congregations of their churches? Yes indeed, now that really might do wonders for the despairing faithful!

‘the way Brexit is being pursued places peace in Northern Ireland at risk is hardly something on which they should be expected to remain silent.’ Giles Fraser is surely having a laugh. It’s religion which is entirely the cause of the conflict in Ireland, as in many other places. It’s religion which promotes division, and then cements division in place with its dogmas and determination to protect and expand its powerbases and fiefdoms. The less influence religion has on anything the healthier it is.

Remarkable achievement by William the Conqueror (died 1087) to have deposed northern bishops and harried the north in 1096. Interesting that though the piece has been up for at least 14 hours none of UnHerd’s learned and passionate commenters have spotted that…

Rev. Fraser’s summary of Margaret Thatcher’s reaction to the Church of England’s Faith in the City report of 1985 is a thoughtful and probably accurate insight into her thinking. However, some criticisms that could be made of that report are glossed over, even though they are highly relevant to the interventionist argument he makes here.

The problem with Faith in the City was that it reflected a view of the relationship between the individual and the state that, from a Christian perspective, is not nearly as morally incontestable as the bishops seemed to think then, or seem to think now. The Chief Rabbi of the time, Immanuel Jacobovits nailed the core issue. A Jewish report, he said, would probably have placed more emphasis on building individual self-respect, on ambition and enterprise, on a strong work-ethic, and on various kinds of self-help. But none of that was at the expense of helping those who, for one reason or another, are unable to help themselves.

Equivalent arguments have been made by several contemporary Christian thinkers and politicians. A particularly distinguished example of the latter has been the former Labour MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field, whose proposals for reform of the UK’s welfare system were almost entirely congruent with Immanuel Jacobovits’s priorities. What happened to them? His fellow Labour politicians were unable to understand them ” which caused me to ponder on the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:14,

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So the problem with the bishops getting involved with politics has not been the involvement in principle. It has been with what they say and how they say it. As Giles Fraser says, it is entirely right that they express concerns about the Internal Market Bill; but given their long record of reflecting one particular end of the UK’s political spectrum, it is almost inevitable that most listeners will interpret their pronouncements in that light ” even though such concerns can and have been expressed across the spectrum.

It can be argued that, much earlier than Faith in the City, the bishops’s public pronouncements have reflected the fashions of left-ish morality. But much more fundamental than that is the presupposition, seen everywhere in the bishops’s public pronouncements, that the state not only can be a benevolent parent, but that one of its main roles should be that of a primary carer, carrying responsibility for successes and failures at personal and group levels. It is unfortunate that the corrosive effect of these presuppositions is not identified in Rev. Fraser’s article. I suspect that this might be because he shares some of those presuppositions.

If the bishops had been willing fearlessly to speak in the name of Christian and biblical principles, rather than of generalised, quasi-liberal ethics, people might be willing to take them more seriously, within the House of Lords, in public forums, and in pronouncements from the House of Bishops. With a handful of honourable exceptions by individual bishops, when did we last hear serious Church of England opposition to the tide of “progressive” legislation that, over the last 30 years and more, has been passed by governments of all parties? If the public pronouncements emanating from Lambeth Palace were designed openly to express specifically Christian practices, unconcerned with worldly compromise and with what the general public thinks, that same general public might take them a bit more seriously, even if only via fury.

This is an entertaining but also confusing read. My issue with Giles’ blind allegiance to the nationalist Brexit is that he overlooks/doesn’t see that the catholicity/universalism of the Church embraces and values human cooperation that transcends national borders. You can be proud of your heritage, conservative, bold and progressive in enacting the open society (vs closed society) and happily remain in the European family of states, nations, regions and communities

Since the C of E has become ever more secular in its pronouncements, increasingly unwilling to uphold the the truth of the Bible, and now only represents a very small number of the populace, it is no longer a National Church and has no right to question government policy. Disestablishment must follow, and soon. The sooner the better.