It is not easy to watch pictures of an elderly protestant clergywoman, sporting her dog collar, being arrested for breaching the peace as she disrupts traffic, as the Rev’d Sue Parfitt did. Or a dignified clerical grandfather from Macclesfield, the Rev’d Bill White, being carted off by uniformed police. Two sets of uniforms, one representing the Church and one representing the state.
Our history is in fact punctuated by moments when the Church and state find themselves in the most intense opposition to each other. The Church’s integrity is dependent on being sure that the moral values it backs against the State’s opposing values are fully aligned and consistent with what it stands for.
