Church and State in Britain Since 1820

First published in 1967, Church and State in Britain Since 1820 is a selection of documents on the problems of church-state relations in Britain since the time of Coleridge. There is a full introduction in which the editor discusses a few of the problems raised by the pluralist solution of a ‘free church in a free state’. He shows, for example, how the American pattern of a state studiously indifferent to the claims of religious bodies within it poses problems of a theoretical nature in addition to the well-known practical ones.

The documents themselves include passages from theoretical works on church and state, by writers such as Coleridge, Thomas Arnold, W.E. Gladstone, and T.S. Elliot. The concrete problems of the period are represented by extracts from speeches and pamphlets: speeches by Gladstone on Scottish disestablishment, by Llyod George and Asquith on Welsh disestablishment, and pamphlets of the Liberation Society, give something of the flavour of the church-state debate as it proceeded on the popular level. There are two appendices, one dealing with ‘crime and sin’, the other including extracts from papal encyclicals on the subject of church-state relations.