Peter Johnson (London): While some note has been taken of the Prime Minister’s giving away his prerogative power to appoint Church of England Bishops, few eyebrows have been raised over his emphatic statement that it will remain Established. Does it deserve this support? In light of yesterday’s report by the BBC one might cheekily suggest that the Church of England has run customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups to tell it how to improve footfall in its churches. Yet the BBC report states, “The Church's own research suggests that people feel vows made in the sight of God carry more weight than those made elsewhere”, and even allowing for lazy reporting, market research seems to be exactly what the Church has done.
For people wanting to get married, the Church intends to open its doors to pretty much anyone with an Anglican in the family. This breaks one of the basic rules of brand management: don’t devalue your product by giving it away; make your customers earn it. In unlinking worship and ‘services’, the Church may see a rise in business that would otherwise go to registry offices and hotels, and may earn some extra fees. But the measure is unlikely to increase or even maintain its congregations.
Perhaps this is why the Church remains so keen to retain the patronage of that other great brand, the Monarchy represented by the Prime Minister. But the connection has become dysfunctional: on the one hand, the political class feels entitled routinely to deride any of the Church’s moral teaching that it doesn’t like; on the other, the State does not take adequate responsibility for the upkeep of the Church’s buildings. Now a depreciated Church takes the only course left to it by openly acknowledging itself to be a consumer organisation in full commercial competition with both private and public sector entities and adopts their language and methods. It certainly scarcely now says above a whisper that those who enter its places should have faith or hope, however much it needs their charity.
