The Church of England is sometimes regarded as not being as doctrinaire as other Christian denominations. Its members have a wide range of beliefs because it broke away from the Catholic Church primarily over Henry VIII's desire for a divorce rather than because of actual popular demand. As a result, the Church has always had a uniquely wide spectrum of beliefs from people who want to retain a lot of Catholic beliefs and practices to those who are closer to Lutheranism. It's also borne out of a desire to avoid the violent results of previous attempts by one wing or another to take control, such as the tit-for-tat persecutions of Catholics under Edward VI and Elizabeth I and of Protestants under Mary I, and the English Civil War, which was heavily influenced by religious conflict, with the Anglo-Catholics supporting the King and the Protestants supporting Parliament.
English culture has also historically placed a high value on emotional restraint, so intense personal religiosity hasn't typically been regarded as the done thing. In the Idyllic English Village, the role that the church plays in facilitating village life can often prove to be more social than spiritual. So, if you happen to be a Culturally Religious Anglican with doubts about or even just disinterest in major tenets of the Christian faith such as the virgin birth or even the existence of God, this may not prove to be as much of a hindrance to participation in Church life as it might be in other denominations.
Most of the jokes you hear in British media about "vicars who don't believe in God" can be traced back to a minor scandal in The '80s when David Jenkins
, the then Bishop of Durham, said on the ITV programme Credo that he believed the virgin birth was a Retcon by early Christians used to express their belief in the innate divinity of Jesus. He was also widely misquoted as saying that the resurrection was "just a conjuring trick with bones," when in fact he had said the exact opposite in order to illustrate a point about his belief that the resurrection was more a series of events than a discrete one. Misquoted or not, the fact that the idea that one of the church's most senior clerics could be widely believed to have seemingly rejected major points of doctrine is a reflection of the Church's lack of intense, singular dogmatism.
It's worth noting that the Episcopal Church is the American wing of Anglicanism, and it has much the same stereotype. However, this hasn't had as noticeable an effect on American culture as it has no single state religion like the Church of England is for England (though not the UK as a whole). Plus, it could be argued that evangelical Christianity has left a much larger footprint on the US since at least The '70s (or throughout American history). Then again, quite a few White Anglo-Saxon Protestant families are Episcopalian and fit this type to the letter.
Contrast the New England Puritan, who is typically stoic and fundamentalist. Also contrast the Hollywood Atheist, who's often shown to have a grievance with the idea of God or his representatives.
Examples:
- Suzy Eddie Izzard Parodies this in "Dress to Kill", describing the Church of England as "more of a hobby type":
Izzard: [as an Anglican priest] Do come in, you're the only one today! Now, the sermon today is from a magazine that I found in a hedge...
- Brideshead Revisited: Charles is a nominal Anglican in the way that most of the English upper-middle and upper classes were at the time, but in an earlier part of the book he speculates that actual belief in God has waned significantly since the First World War.
- Father Brown: In "The Vampire of the Village", one retired village priest seems to be all over the place with regard to his beliefs. Father Brown (a Catholic priest) soon realizes that's because the man isn't actually a priest but an actor playing different stereotypes of priests as they'd appear on stage (The Vicar, the "Stop Having Fun" Guy, the Holier Than Thou type, etc.). Father Brown realises that the alleged vicar is an imposter because he shows elements of entirely incompatible factions of the Church of England, such as having an ornate crucifix in his study (Anglo-Catholic) while describing himself as a capital-P Puritan (very Low Church, to the point of possibly being too protestant to be in the C of E at all). Brown comments that "the English know nothing about the Church of England". Not coincidentally, author G. K. Chesterton was a Roman Catholic who had his own reasons for mocking the C of E.
- Good Omens: An early comment about Mr. Young says something about the expected level of attendance of an average Anglican.
[Mr. Young] quite liked nuns. Not that he was a, you know, left-footer or anything like that. No, when it came to avoiding going to church, the church he stolidly avoided going to was St. Cecil and All Angels, no-nonsense C. of E., and he wouldn't have dreamed of avoiding going to any other.
- The Great Divorce: One of the lost souls encountered on the outskirts of Heaven is of an apostate bishop whose broad-mindedness led him to reject all the doctrines of Christianity, to the point that he doesn't believe in a literal Heaven and Hell even though he's currently in Heaven. His former colleague calls him out on this, saying the bishop in life was not taking a bold stance on honest opinions but riding trends that ultimately made him more popular. In the end, the bishop turns down the invitation to see the face of God, saying "Ah, but we must all interpret those beautiful words in our own way!". He has a prior commitment to present a paper at a theological society in the other place, presenting on how the significance of the Crucifixion is the tragedy that we never got to hear Jesus develop more mature views as an older man.
- In The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch, when the wizards are surprised the great naturalist was also a rector, Hex explains that the entire role of such a priest was to putter around making interesting little discoveries, as the God of the English required little of his followers as long as they kept the noise down.note
- Blacky the narrator of Deadly, Unna? is not religious but identifies his family as Anglican, which he likes because the word reminds him of angling i.e. fishing.
- Played With on Call the Midwife. The nuns are explicitly Anglican and are far more religious than the district midwives who work at Nonnatus House, but the show often goes the God Before Dogma route and they are pretty much always portrayed as more realistic and open-minded than other religious figures, particularly when those religious figures are Catholic.
- The Crown: Prince William has to "sign the book" on his first day at Eton. He doesn't know what to put down when he has to fill in the field marked "Religion". Irritated, Prince Charles tells him to put down "Church of England", and reminds William that when he becomes King, he'll be the Supreme Governor of said church.
- Inspector Morse: In the episode "Ghost in the Machine", there is a brief mention that the College Visitor is the Bishop of Banbury — "the one who doesn't believe in God."
- The various portrayals of the Church of England in Not the Nine O'Clock News, where the cleric is almost always played by Rowan Atkinson (a man who has long regarded organised religion as fair game. Examples include:
- The Form of Solemnisation of Divorce, in which the Church of England officially blesses and solemnises the break-up of a marriage, even creating a formal ritual for this. The Reverend Atkinson presides.
- Are you A Gay Christian?. in which the Reverend Atkinson plays a seemingly liberal vicar, trying to talk about homosexuality and to welcome gay people into the Church;
- Songs of Praise, in which the Reverend Atkinson notes he only has a full church because the BBC are there to film the weekly religious service (presumably for Songs of Praise, that network's long-standing religious programme, although it's not explicitly stated).
- The Devil: Is He all Bad?, in which Mel Smith plays a trendy vicar arguing that Satanism is compatible with Christianity.
- The Form of Solemnisation of Divorce
- TLC: The reverend who shows up in the first episode is actually a former surgeon who had a breakdown and was only allowed back in the hospital as a chaplain. Sister Hope scoffs at the idea of him being a chaplain who "doesn't even believe in God." Dr Noble shrugs this off and says it's alright since he's C of E.
- Yes, Prime Minister has Sir Humphrey state that "the Church of England is primarily a social organization, not a religious one", and that it's more important for bishops to be properly refined Upper Class Twits than to actually believe in God (who Humphrey calls "an optional extra" as opposed to the Crown which is "inseparable to the Church of England"). It's also mentioned that the Diocese of Truro (ie. Cornwall) is a dumping ground for senior clerics who hold problematic dogmatic positions, like insisting on the existence of God, presumably due to the fact that it's a long way from London.
- Spitting Image:
- The song "The Atheist Tabernacle Choir", a Gospel Revival Number about the tenets of atheism, is in fact a drawn-out setup for a joke that if you don't believe in God, you can join the Church of England.
- When the royal family receives their bill for the Poll Tax, the form says that members of a religious community can claim an exemption. The Queen thinks this should get them out of it since she's the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but Prince Philip doesn't think that counts.
- I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: One episode had a round where the panellists suggested Funny Answering Machine messages for public figures. One idea for an Anglican bishop was "I don't believe I'm in."
- Zero Punctuation: Yahtzee had this to say when the Church of England came out with a blistering denounciation of Acclaim when Acclaim offered to pay the funeral costs of anyone willing to put a Shadow Man 2 advert on the headstone of a recently deceased family member.
Yes, Church-of-Tea-and-Crumpets-with-the-Vicar-England. It takes a lot to upset those lads; they don't even hate gays that much!
