Britain counts itself as a mature democracy. But what really guarantees freedom and fairness, asks Simon Barrow, and how does the church relate to the will of the people in wider society?

These days, it can so easily feel as if religion is an anti-democratic force in our polity, writes Giles Fraser. No one votes for Bishops in the House of Lords, for example. So it's worth remembering that in this country, as indeed in many others too, religion was the nursemaid of democracy.