Britain’s state church is again demonstrating the lack of principal that is at its heart by converting American Meghan Markle to Anglicanism, the UK’s state religion.
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Markle and her husband-to-be
The conversion is to take place because Ms Markle wants to marry a member of the Windsor clan. She need not be an Anglican to do so. But according to news media reports she has chosen to do so as a mark of respect of her mother-in-law to be who is head of the Church of England.
Markle will become some kind of princess or duchess, putting a newly arrived American above most native-born Britons in the official class system. She may also benefit from the legalised looting of public assets that have given her new family its great wealth.
Markle has an interesting religious history. She was brought up as a Protestant, attended a Catholic school, and married a Jewish man. Her original protestantism was American, so not of the Anglican variety.
Now no less a person than Justin Welby, the head of the state church, will preside at the conversion ceremony. It will be held in a Windsor palace, not in a Anglican church. These are privilege that are hardly likely to be offered to any ordinary convert, no matter how deeply rooted their acceptance of Anglican beliefs might be.
But the Church of England will do its duty to the feudal system and to those who benefit from it.
Privilege as well as obeisance come naturally to this church. It came into being in its present form at the behest of a king and its clerics swear their loyalty in religious matters to the monarch of the day.
It does not hesitate to take the seats in the legislature to which the feudal constitution entitles it no matter how deeply offensive that is to democratic principles. And Welby has happily used his position as a legislator to insult secular citizens and secular schools.
Whether Markle shares the beliefs of this religion of convenience will not matter because the Church of England is a church of convenience. A church that upholds the unwarranted privileges of the Windsor family because it relies on unwarranted privilege for its very existence. Only a minority of Britons are Anglicans, yet it is the official religion of the country.
We may doubt how deep a belief Markle has in Anglican teachings. But we can be certain that the Church of England does not give a damn. The church of convenience will conveniently convert.