Church of England prepares for ‘serious’ war involving UK
The Church of England is readying for a major war by drawing up plans to support the nation during a “serious conflict” involving the UK, and to make it simpler to appoint military chaplains.
The Right Rev Hugh Nelson, the Bishop to the Armed Forces, said on Monday: “I’ve been hearing as I’ve travelled around military establishments and spoken to armed forces personnel over the past two years at least, of rising concern about the threat of a very, very serious conflict, including conflict that involves the UK.”
He said the church must “do everything we can to pray and work and advocate for peace”, but added that they must also “face the reality and put in place — or at least begin to have conversations about putting in place — plans about how the church might need to respond and to be if there were to be a serious conflict”.
Nelson said the church would take inspiration from the leadership provided by archbishops and bishops during the Second World War.
The Right Reverend Hugh Nelson
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He said that military chaplaincy, which dates back to 1796 as a formal body, had a “deep experience and very long tradition of serving both armed forces personnel and the church in times of war, so we’re clearly learning from them”.
AdvertisementNelson, who is also Bishop of St Germans in Cornwall, said that lessons must be learnt from the lack of preparation for a global pandemic before Covid-19 struck. He said the church would not be moving to a formal “war-footing”, but added: “We do not want to be in the situation that we were all in, in the church and wider society, where those that knew things said there will one day be a pandemic and none of us had done anything in preparation for that.”
Parishes will be given a suite of resources to help them understand how to operate as “a church in a time of conflict”, under proposals to be presented to the church’s General Synod in York next month.
Churches will need to think about the need for special “reflection and prayer spaces in church” if they face an influx of people anxious about war. They will also need to “work with schools on issues of peace, war and conflict” to prepare children for the prospect.
“While working for peace, the church as a whole is invited to consider what it means to be church in a time of heightened conflict,” according to a document to be presented to synod members. It said: “While a conflict directly involving the UK is not an immediate risk, given the very serious impact such a conflict would have on every person in the country, we must be prepared. The pandemic showed us the risks of being unprepared for a national crisis, and we must learn the lessons.”
The Archbishop of York speaking to British sailors in 1914
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There are almost 200 Church of England chaplains serving across the army, Royal Navy and RAF.
AdvertisementArchbishops of Canterbury have traditionally granted licences for priests to serve as military chaplains, but the church discovered that a law drawn up in 1868 — which was designed to give military chaplains special permission to serve outside the normal boundaries of dioceses — was never properly passed.
For the past 18 months, armed forces chaplains have therefore been required to request special “permission to officiate” from the local bishop every time they are posted to a new base or facility, Nelson said.
“That is an extra layer of administrative time and burden that adds a level of risk and hassle, particularly when chaplains need to be able to move very freely when they are deployed across different places and stations across the UK.”
There are now plans to pass a new piece of church legislation enabling archbishops of Canterbury to grant legally valid licences for chaplains to operate alongside their military units nationwide. They will still need local permission to serve in parish churches.
In a rare move, a serving member of the armed forces, Brigadier Jaish Mahan, has been specially invited to address synod members at their meeting in York.