The Strange Death Of The Church of England
This Holy Season, Let Us Remember Net Zero
Lent used to be quite an important season for The Church of England. But times change. Yesterday, whilst its Supreme Governor, King Charles III, was distracted by various Ramadan engagements, its social media team took the opportunity to fill the gap in the calendar formerly occupied by Shrove Tuesday to exalt the Green God of Net Zero.
“We are people who care about Climate Justice!” they declared, eschewing the out dated language of Holy Scripture for that of postmodernist resistance.
The General Synod might have thought to post about the Christian tradition of ‘shriving’, that of attending confession ahead of Ash Wednesday. Or perhaps explained the British custom of Pancake Day, when Christians cook up their indulgent foods - eggs, butter and sugar - one last time before our 40 day fast. But why teach Christian virtue when you can virtue signal instead?
You might think the Church promoting Environmentalism, even on a holy day, is harmless. Is it not noble to preach the good word of going Net Zero by 2030?
If so, why does the Church resort to lying in the video to persuade its parishes? “100% renewable electricity plan” does not exist, “green solutions like solar panels” are made with Chinese coal, “climate change is having a devastating effect on communities all over the world” is, at best, debatable.
The idolatry runs deeper still. According to the 2021 Civitas report ‘Rotting From The Head: Radical progressive activism and the Church of England’, “71% of all Dioceses appoint clergy who promote climate activist warnings and/or calls for recognition of the ‘climate emergency’”. Civitas also found that The C of E were employing “Net Zero officers”. The Diocese of Chichester alone has two.
The Church of England are not hiding it. On their website they explain: “The majority of diocese have a Diocesan Environmental Officer (DEO)” Some of whom are volunteers, others are employed. They go on to confess “…Increasingly, dioceses also have Net Zero Carbon (NZC) Officers”. Elsewhere on their site they openly explain their “Echo Church Schemes” and “Eco Diocese Initiatives”.
In 2023 the Church committed serious cash to its Net Zero Carbon Programme—£30 million for grants and projects. The General Synod greenlit £190 million over 10 years for other net zero efforts. Leaving aside whether this money would be better spent on the poor, one can’t but resent, as a taxpayer, that the Church takes our money to restore its crumbling buildings, whilst squandering their coffers on environmental folly.
My suspicion is that they are unaware themselves of the false Gods they worship. It is not necessarily a deliberate scam on their part, but rather the slow trance of blind ideology.
That does assume some good faith on my part. The paganism has become increasingly explicit. Artist Luke Jerram has been touring his art installation ‘Gaia’ in different cathedrals across the UK. It was displayed in Southwark Cathedral in November.
But it is not just the pagan God Gaia which has snuck into their prayers, and buildings. A whole host of idols have done the same.
Chichester’s two Net Zero Officers have one “LGBTQI+ Officer” colleague. The CofE website makes statements promoting LGBT+ ideology . In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests the Church took great pains to prostate themselves before radical activists and their causes.
Commitments to unconscious bias training, platitudes about white supremacisy and systemic racism. They even committed £100 million to address their own alleged links to the transatlantic slave trade. In 2024, an independent oversight group recommended scaling this to £1 billion, arguing £100 million was too small given the scale of the harm and the Church’s wealth. This despite several esteemed historians debunking the church’s link to the trade, including Robert Tombs on The Winston Marshall Show.
Last year I debated the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, on the topic of Socialism. In 2020, the Bishop had uploaded to Youtube an 8 minute 46 second video of himself kneeling in homage to George Floyd and the Marxist organisation BLM. Would he retract his previous support for the explicitly anti-Western, anti-family group, I asked.
He shook his head to the contrary.
A deep political cancer has metastasised through the church body. It is killing the church. Normally on Ash Wednesday we remember Jesus’ time fasting in the desert, being prepared for ministry by His Father in heaven, and tempted by the devil below. But this Lent it is another passage that comes to mind. The story of Jesus cleansing the Temple. His Temple had been overrun by money-changers and merchants, ours today by idealogues peddling climate doom.
The best of them flaunt genuflections to progressive calfs,
The worst monger woke to a dwindling crowd.
As Lent begins and I walk the streets of London beneath the Ramadan Lights, I wonder:
Who can blame the nation for forgetting it was Christian, when even its Christian leaders long gave up on such a notion.
WM
Spot on Winston. Just so. Your comments shine a clear light on the folly that has corrupted the COE. Thank you.
Excellent commentary on the corrupted state of the CoE in what I believe are the End Days which the ancient prophets, Jesus our Lord and Savior, and St John spoke of in the Book of Revelation. For those of us who hold to our Christian roots whether we go to Church or not, must keep the faith and steer clear of the corruption.