The established church made English national community possible rather than merely influencing it

Evidence

By way of contrast: in later eighteenth-century England, supporters of the established church regarded it as a representative institution reflecting popular sentiment and public opinion. It would not be right to say that religion was then being used for political purposes or influencing state policy. The established church, which was an integral part of the state, made the coherence and continuity of the English national community possible. We should not say that the English nation was shaped or influenced by religion: we should see the established church (called “Anglican” only in the nineteenth century) as its necessary condition. Nor, given that it was a necessary condition of the nation-state, should we speak of the social location of religion in the eighteenth century being different from the one it came to occupy in the late nineteenth and beyond. Rather, the very essence of religion was differently defined, that’s to say, in each of the two historical moments different conditions of “religion’s” existence were in play. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 927

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Asad’s broader genealogical method critique of Schmitt’s structural analogies between theological and secular concepts — this is Asad resisting treating secularism as a displaced theology. — connects to: The Protestant Reformation enabled England’s centralized imperial rise