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I was very pleased to discover last year that I had not previously known that Michael Howard (Tory leader 2003-5) was jewish, as it had been something of such little consideration to his position that it had never been mentioned.
On the other hand, the UK has a state church, as do all the Lutheran countries in Northern Europe (Church of England, Church of Denmark...) all the Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe with their autocephalous churches, and all Catholic countries with their single (i.e., "catholic") supranational church tied to the states through Concordates. Germany, of course, resolved the 30 years' war by having two state churches. But nobody gives a fig what religion you are, unlike in the US, and even the bishops of the state church get in trouble with public opinion if they get too political, whereas in the US every politician is supposed to get religious.
There has to be a name for that difference. I choose to call it "secular" vs. "separation fo church and state". The naming convention is debatable, of course. If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa
There's a twin movement in weakening the religious hold on society under an establishment church, in that the establishment church works to undermine the strength of rival churches, and being the establishment church tends to weaken the appeal of the establishment church over the long term. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Unless, of course, the church takes marching orders from a hostile transnational corporation, as the Church of Happyology and parts of the Catholic Church do.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
So by your criteria Sweden largely fill them all right now. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
When the priests get paid for being inoffensive rather than for getting bums in the pews, they tend to have less incentive to rile up the easily excitable and create social fault lines to use in mobilization.
I'd suggest that forcing such a church into a Darwinian struggle for survival on the free market is likely to see it achieve a net gain in influence. Partly because the easiest marketing strategy for a newly privatized church is to polarize society along some formerly dormant fault line. And partly because having to secure cash flow from the customers will trim away employees who are, from a cash flow perspective, dead wood. This creates an incentive structure which encourages a smaller but more ideologically coherent - and more extremist - organizational structure.
The Israeli case is different, because religion was never properly defanged in the first place.
So then the church would have to raise the tax rate for the faithful in order to break even. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
The church of wales flourished more after disestablishment then before.
But as far as I understand both churches are as centrist as the CoE.
The church's main claim to relevance outside or inside of the state is performing the rituals of life - baptism, confirmations, weddings and funerals. And if anything the God bit has been more and more toned down over the years from my limited observations.
On the national level, the (now internal) church policies has afaik been going in the right direction and one woman was a hot candidate for archbishop last time around, though a man won again. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
Anything particular in mind?
Here's a famous quote from a Swedish 1962 revue, considered somewhat scandalous at the time: "He's a good representative for the Church of Sweden - he has no strong opinion about anything."
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