Bangorian Controversy - Background

Background

Two competing visions of government were in play. On the one hand, there was a vision of God appointing the king and the bishops to be leaders, selecting them from all others and imbuing them with special characters, either through grace or in creation. This view held that the king, as the head of the Established Church, was not merely a secular leader of a state, but also a religious primate. Power and regulation flowed downward from God to the people. This was the aristocratic model that was favoured by the Tory party and which had been used to propose the divine right of kings.

The other view was that power flowed up from the people to the leaders, that leaders were no more intrinsically better than those led, and that God gives out revelation freely. This Whig view was also the view of the Puritans and the "Independents" (i.e., the various Congregational and Baptist churches, Quakers, etc.).

George I favoured the Whig party in Parliament and favoured a latitudinarian ecclesiastical policy in general. This was probably not due to any desire to give up royal prerogative, but rather to break the power of the aristocracy and the House of Lords. A significant obstacle to all kings of England had been the presence of bishops in the Lords. While a king could create peers, it was much more difficult for him to move bishops into and out of the Lords.