The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a pleasingly radical Thought for the Day, as the Queen handed out Maundy money, reminding us that monarchs used to wash the feet of the poor.
Sternly, he suggested the cabinet, top financiers and newspaper editors should once a year do similarly humble service not as volunteers, but compulsorily – "so they are not able to make any sort of capital out of it", because "power constantly needs to be reminded what it is for … to look after those who don't have the resources to look after themselves".
Strong stuff.
As current policies send poverty soaring, the church can shake a fist at power, pelf and privilege. Polls show the CofE is no longer the Tory party at prayer – the Catholic church never was.
The one attack that stung Margaret Thatcher as she more than doubled the number of poor children was the CofE's searing 1985 Faith in the City report. Today the church lit a fuse under the government's education policy when the Bishop of Oxford blew the whistle on faith schools' unfair social selectivity.
The British Humanist Association, of which I am president, has campaigned hard with the Accord Coalition to free up the third of state schools that are religious – with their covert selection, isolating Muslim, Jewish and Hindu children, and dividing Catholics from Protestants.
Tony Blair encouraged their growth: sincerely religious, he also thought secret selection would bind in the middle classes. As Westminster always does, he saw education through London eyes, with its acute social fractures, ignoring most families outside inner cities who were more satisfied with schools.
The alternative to paying is praying, so parents get on their knees at the birth of a child – rational behaviour in this system.
In fact, there was little sign of middle-class flight: the proportion of children in private schools barely rose in the last decades though many morefamilies could afford it.
This government is increasing faith education, with seven out of 10 applications for free schools coming from religious organisations. The education secretary, Michael Gove, urges faith schools to become academies. Writing in the Catholic Herald, he recommends avoiding secular critics' accusations of "selection on the sly", as "by becoming an academy, a Catholic school can place itself permanently out of range of any such unsympathetic meddling".
Academies and half of all faith schools set their own admissions, key to their league table success.
Humanists and secularists have been hammering away at this, but the churches denied unequivocal evidence that faith schools take fewer free school-meal pupils. The Commons education committee reported faith schools discriminating against poor and migrant children.
The chief schools adjudicator is leaving before his contract ends after criticising government plans to weaken the admissions code. He told parliament a third of his cases related to faith school admissions. Institute of Education research shows selection by faith schools leads to greater social segregation – with no improvement in an area's results.
So it is a great step forward that the Bishop of Oxford, new chair of the church's education board, accepts the facts and proposes only 10% of places be reserved for the faithful: "We may not get the startling results that some church schools do because of getting some very able children, but we will make a difference to people's lives."
He echoes a strong strand among liberal vicars uncomfortable at running schools excluding the most needy. But will it happen? Remember the almighty row from Catholics and the Daily Mail at a failed Labour plan to reserve just a quarter of places for non-churchgoers.
It may be far too late. The bishop admits he has no power, since governors run and often own faith schools, while parents in pews expect a place in reward for their prayers. Will the other 90% of children need to prove no CofE connections? That 10% selection will still be enough to make these desirable schools, so parents will still move into their catchments.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg are good at crocodile tears over social mobility while their policies increase social segregation. Mobility only comes with more financial equality: they pursue the opposite.
Everything about the mobility debate has been upside down. Oxbridge admissions are the inevitable end result of the nation's growing social rigidity, not the cause.
All research shows that the best education investment is in under-fives, but Sure Start is being stripped of the intensive treatments that works. Socially mixed school intakes are best done by lottery – as pioneered by Brighton's Tory council.
It works, with fewer disappointed parents. No one fears being allocated a sink school as every bright child finds enough others in each school. But that requires councils or a government with the nerve to impose it. However, if the CofE enters the fray to press for fair admissions, that brings muscle to the empty social mobility debate.
Unspoken is the fear that more Christian schools means more Muslim schools too, with no other children in the mix. Typical Cameron to increase faith school autonomy while calling for better cultural integration.
But if the CofE now gives up its special rights, a future Labour government could stop funding any unintegrated school: an Ipsos Mori polls shows that 80% think all schools should be open to all, regardless of faith. This week the door opened a crack: it will take a lot more vociferous campaigning to make it happen.
Meanwhile, other campaigns against the forces of faith gather momentum. For the right to die peacefully at a time of our choosing. For an automatic opt-in for organ donation. Against the government handing more services to religious groups: latest is the Poppy Project's vulnerable trafficked women given to the evangelical Salvation Army. Expect yet another
attempt soon to limit abortions.
Freedom of speech needs vigilant defence against faiths demanding protection from "offence".
The humanist census campaign was censored, alerting people that the religion question on the form was not a cultural question. In a YouGov test survey when asked "What is your religion?" 61% ticked a box for one religion or another, but when asked "Are you religious?" only 29% said yes.
But our poster – "If you're not religious, for God's sake say so!" – was prohibited from buses and stations for potential "serious offence".
How people answered the census will determine the influence of religion, especially in House of Lords reform as each faith demands reserved seats.
The battle has never been against the right to belief – we're with Voltaire – but against state privilege and law-making influence for religions.
So if you're not religious, for God's sake join us!
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