Ekklesia reports on the National Secular Society's recent call for hospital chaplains to be funded by churches, not the taxpayer. See http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/9181/
They have an interesting point. The Scottish Roman Catholic spokesman seems to suggest that their church wouldn't want their priests to be state employees - (because it might compromise them somehow?) Free Churches, especially 'gathered churches' such as those of my tradition, have tended to stress the importance of practical commitment to, and engagement with, a church congregation as a mark of a Christian, as opposed to a general faith stance that's independent of church membership. "You can't be a Christian in isolation", it is sometimes said. Certainly I would expect to provide 'chaplaincy support' to my own members.
So should baptised non-church attenders who claim Christian faith receive an equivalent support at the taxpayers' expense? Hmm. That's not to say that hospital chaplains don't do an excellent job.
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Discussing this with various church members : it can be looked at from 2 perspectives. (1) "top-down" i.e. should the Church expect the hospital trusts to fund chaplaincy? (2) "bottom-up" - is this a service clearly in demand by the hospital-bound public?
If it's meeting the 'needs' of the institutional Church (which I suppose would be the National Secular Society's objection) then it's dubious whether the taxpayer should fund it. If it's meeting the expressed needs of non-churchgoing patients, that's a rather different matter.
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