I watched Liz Truss read from the New Testament at the Queen’s funeral. I’m going to assume that she is, at the very least, culturally Christian.
Had the PM been a Hindu or Muslim or atheist or what have you, would she still have spoken at the funeral (although I’m assuming not read Christian scipture)?
I can’t find a factual answer, probably because such decisions are made in private.
My guess is that, since it is primarily a Christian funeral, it would have been for her to decide.
There’s no rules against non-Christians reading from the Bible in the Church of England, if they want to. Of course, the Queen would have decided long ago what verses she wanted read, and as she’s the Head of the Church of England, they were always going to be religious, so PM Sunak would have had to be happy to read, or sit this one out.
There’s nothing that says the PM has to read at State funerals. No one would have cared. It could have been Princess Anne, or William, or someone we’ve never heard of instead.
Like the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth - The Right Honourable Patricia Scotland KC, who read the first lesson.
To be fair to Baroness Scotland, I had at least heard of her! Of course, it made perfect sense, as the Commonwealth was so important to The Queen.
This of course nearly happened (as the other contender for PM in the recent leadership race was Rishi Sunak, a practicing Hindu, who took his MP’s oath on the Bhagavad Gita)
The general consensus (actually what my mum thinks, who’s the only person who’ve I’ve heard express an opinion 
) is he would not have read the bible passage that Liz Truss read. There are plenty of appropriate non-biblical readings he could have done, of course.
Except no doubt that Queen chose her own readings, and there wasn’t exactly much time for a rethink.
Of course knowing the history of the British monarchy and/or Anglican church, if there are formal rules regarding the beliefs of the people who can read scripture in church at royal funerals, they probably say nothing at all about Hindus, Muslims or Satanists, but are very explicit about banning Catholics
Since this requires a lot of speculation, let’s move this to IMHO (from FQ).
If anyone can find any relevant factual information (rules of the church, etc), this is of course still welcome.
Indeed my Anglican church school allowed, nay required, avowedly atheist me to perform readings from the Bible in morning chapel. They never required it of my Muslim classmates, which seems unfair in retrospect.
As it happens, Cardinal Vincent Nichols (Archbishop of Westminster and the senior Roman Catholic clergyman in England and Wales) offered a prayer at the service (right after the Moderator of the Free Churches Group and before the [Anglican] Archbishop of York).
The Procession of Religious Representatives is listed on pages three through five of the order of service (pdf!); they entered after the foreign royals and other heads of state but before the British royals, and included Jewish, Jain, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Hindu, and other non-Christian representatives.
The CofE tends to reflect something Elizabeth I said:“I would not make a window into men’s souls”.
Observance/attendance is one thing, what you’re really thinking inside is up to you.
Exactly - it’s kind of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. Though of course with public figures, their religious affiliation may be public knowledge. Even then, I don’t think the church would mind about them reading from the bible, if they were happy to do so.
I am an atheist but have read from the bible at a friend’s Catholic wedding - they knew my views and kindly chose a passage that was not overly religious. For my part, I was happy to do it to the best of my ability. I was supporting the marriage, I didn’t have to believe the “this is the word of the Lord” part.