The C of E is losing its own history

The Church is increasingly out of touch with its background, argues Jonathan Clark
18 April, 2008

The most important changes are those that go unremarked, and here is one. Books no longer control events. Forget the histories of England you read as a child. Our society’s self-image is now set overwhelmingly by film and television; and here, things are changing. Especially are they changing for society’s implicit image of the Church of England and its origins.

Once, it was Anglican historians who sustained accounts of origins. One radically Protestant version argued for a fundamental but justified break at the Reformation. Another argued for the essential continuity of the Church, reformed but not re-founded in the 16th century, extending back before the mission of St Augustine in 597. the rest