O clouds unfold! The great Jerusalem controversy is rattling the pews of the Church of England again.

Perhaps it is decreed in some ancient scroll that, every five or six years, an Anglican clergyman will make a complete hassock of himself by banning the singing of England’s most inspiring hymn, William Blake’s Jerusalem, from a service in an English church. This time there is an added ecclesiastical frisson. The latest cleric to issue a red card to “And did those feet in ancient times” is one of the Church’s most senior priests.

Last week the Very Rev Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, banned Jerusalem from a private memorial service in Southwark Cathedral. He has subsequently taken himself off to Brazil (presumably not in a chariot of fire) and is unavailable for comment. But a spokesman for the Diocese of Southwark confirmed that the dean “does not believe that Jerusalem is to the glory of God”. And this is apparently not the first time that he has forbidden its lusty rendition — to Hubert Parry’s Heaven-storming tune — within his small but perfectly formed South London cathedral.

That may seem an oddly censorious attitude to take to two awesomely sonorous stanzas (the start of Blake’s long 1804 eulogy to John Milton) that call for the building of Jerusalem — a metaphor for God’s celestial city — in grimy, industrial England. This is especially so coming from a senior member of a Church famously relaxed about other minor theological matters, such as belief in the Resurrection.

But the dean is far from being the only Anglican priest to voice qualms about Jerusalem. Couples getting married in church are often quietly discouraged from including it in their weddings, which is a pity as it is one of thefew traditional hymns that non-churchgoers still know and enjoy singing.

Why this fastidious anguish over the use of such majestic poetry? Blake’s vision may be based on the legend that, as a boy, Jesus Christ was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea on one of his trading trips. But it does conjure a wonderful image of the Lamb of God hiking across 1st-century England — perhaps gazing in awe at Stonehenge. Two things, however, cause misgivings among some purist clerics. The first is that Blake seems to be calling for mankind, rather than God, to create a “Heaven on Earth”. In other words, Jerusalem is closer to being a humanist cry for social justice than a religious prayer for divine intervention. But doesn’t the Church promote social justice? Don’t congregations pour thousands of pounds on to collection plates to help to alleviate Third World poverty?

Perhaps, then, the second objection is more pertinent: that Jerusalem stirs up undesirable nationalist sentiments. It is true that Blake includes the word England four times in two verses. But the references to “dark satanic mills” and “clouded hills” are hardly flattering. And England in this context surely represents earthly existence, just as Jerusalem represents paradise. Besides, it is odd for a priest in the Church of England to object to the use of the word England in a religious context.

My hunch? Blake made no secret of his contempt for organised religion in general, and clerics in particular. It is said that he attended church only three times: for his baptism, his wedding and his funeral. Perhaps, belatedly, some clerics are determined to exact a revenge.