As far as "establishment" is concerned, if this means a desire by the people of this country to hear the Church's voice in the councils of state, there can be little objection to it, but this cannot be at the expense of compromising the essential message which the Church has been called to proclaim. This means that the Church should have control over what it believes and teaches, its worship and, however wide the consultation, the appointment of its leaders. If such is not the case, there is always the danger of capitulating to the culture and to power structures, whether through seduction or coercion. In turn, the Church has an obligation to remind the nation of the Judaeo-Christian basis of its life as set out, for example, in the Coronation Service and the Coronation Oath. 

Even if there is disestablishment, formal or de facto, two matters will still need to be borne in mind: the Church of England could remain the national church of the land to which people turn in national celebration or mourning and for the "hatching, matching and dispatching" rituals which any culture needs. Second, even if there is no established church, the moral and spiritual resources of the Judaeo-Christian tradition will still be needed in debate on policy and legislation over a whole range of issues such as the status of the embryo, the ethics of cloning, abortion, euthanasia and assisted dying, marriage and family, justification (or not) of armed conflict, the treatment of refugees, and many others. It would be very unwise to lose such a rich heritage which has provided our worldview just because of the disappearance of an established church and when there is no other viable worldview in sight.

It may be that establishment is gradually being eroded by atrophy and attrition. The Church of England will have to decide whether to struggle to maintain it or to lose it gracefully, thus lightening its load for the sake of a clearer witness to the nation. As I have pointed out in my new book (Triple Jeopardy for the West: Aggressive Secularism, Radical Islam and Multiculturalism, Bloomsbury, £10.99), a secularist and secularising paradigm is being set in place in terms of the assumptions of policy, legislation, charity laws and the like. In such conditions, all the churches need to prepare for exile. To begin to see themselves as gathered moral and spiritual communities which attract those in the surrounding darkness by their light and become centres for a Christian vision of society.  

A missionary church will be light in its structures. At the very least, it will have the capacity to gather people. Such a gathering must, first of all, be for the purposes of prayer and the giving of thanks (eucharistia). There should be the opportunity then to consult and to decide together. According to the pattern set by the very first Council of the Church at Jerusalem, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, bishops, clergy and the faithful will all have a presence and a say but in the decision-making they will have distinctive roles and duties. This is, in fact, the true meaning of "synod" or walking together in the same way. It is very far from mimicking parliamentary structures and procedures, not to speak of the considerable bureaucracy this requires.