All Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors (BCP) …!
by John Stephenson
Citizens of the
United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms (of which Canada is the chief) have
to be some years older than myself (b 1953) in order to remember living under a
Sovereign other than Elizabeth II, who in September of this year looks set to
become the longest-reigning monarch ever to wield the sceptre over the British
Isles. Despite moments of irritation with the antics of certain royals, I’ve
never not been a monarchist. Old habits die hard, of course, and for millions
of inhabitants of the UK and the Commonwealth Realms, loyalty to the Crown is
just that, habitual, a routine orientation of the mind and heart that is only
rarely the topic of reflection. I often jokingly attribute my own royalist
sentiments to having sat through Her Majesty’s coronation on 2 June 1953 before
an aunt’s television set at the tender age of less than four months. Nor can I
forget that I am a twofold subject of my gracious Sovereign Lady, both by birth
and in virtue of having gladly sworn allegiance to her in her capacity as Queen
of Canada when, with the other non-Canadian born members of my family, I took
the oath of citizenship in the summer of 1997.
My own
monarchical sentiments could easily survive abrupt changes of location,
ethnicity, and culture, and, were I to live in Japan or Thailand, I would
happily bow my head to the hereditary sovereigns of those faraway lands. “King”
is an image that transcends cultures across time and space, being rooted not
only in the depths of the human psyche (think of C. G. Jung’s “archetypes”) but
also in the nature of God Himself. After all, Psalm 2 pictures our Lord as set
by YHWH on Zion as “my King,” not as, so to say, the president of the holy
Christian church, re-elected by consent for an indefinite series of three-year
terms.
Preference for
constitutional monarchy over other forms of government is poles removed from
engaging in the personality cult of any particular king or queen, though it
certainly helps that Elizabeth II has proved a model of personal and regnal
rectitude over more than six decades. The Queen appears to realise that the
symbol that she temporarily embodies is much, much greater than the diminutive,
well-spoken Englishwoman apart from whom it has no current subsistence in the
headship of State of her various realms. Alas, her heir apparent has long given
the impression of somehow running for office and needing to prove himself;
perhaps he has made the mistake of elevating himself, with all his personal
quirks and foibles, over the symbol to which no mere earthly monarch can ever
do full justice.
The British
sovereigns have as little right to be Supreme Governors of the Church of
England as the Lutheran rulers of Germany had to strut around as supreme
bishops of the churches within their domains, or as the King of Norway has to
be Protector of the state church of his realm. And the successors of Henry VIII
had no business institutionalising in their office the title Defender of the
Faith that Clement VII bestowed for his own lifetime on the king who followed
his attack on Luther by renouncing the authority of the pope who stood in the
way of the dissolution of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon.
But the British
sovereigns have always been officially and often personally Christian, in which
context I think of another monarch whose rule spanned six decades. For some
reason, certain new relatives of mine grimace at mention of “good King George,”
and yet it is well to remember how, when tormented by physicians during his
first spell of madness, George called on the name of the Lord by reciting
collects from Common Prayer, refraining from coarse speech. And at a time when
the Church of England was an episcopally ordered part of Reformed Christendom
with a modest liturgy and no one would have thought of bowing to what was
mostly called the Lord’s table, George would make three profound bows to the
altar of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, when he took up the offering to the officiant;
he got the point that the reality symbolised infinitely transcended himself,
the symbol, ceremonially acknowledging the superior sovereignty of the one true
God in general and of his Lord Jesus Christ in particular.
Despite the
personal Christian faith that has manifested itself on occasion in her public
utterances and gestures, Elizabeth II has placed constitutional propriety over
the demands of biblical monotheism as, in 1967, she gave the Royal Assent to
the legalisation of abortion and as, in 2014, she did the same for the hellish
redefinition of marriage; in both cases, she broke her coronation oath and, if
she would reign with Christ in paradise once her earthly reign is over, she
needs to repent these grave misdeeds.
Prince Charles’
preference for classical over modern architecture may well reflect good
personal taste, and certainly does not infringe on the Christian confession to
which he is ostensibly committed. His lunatic ravings on the topic of so-called
climate change have an eerily pantheistic, pagan ring about them, and, if he
feels so strongly on this subject, perhaps he should renounce his inherited
office and run for public office in the pursuit of his eccentric goals. In the
interests of the 8th commandment, we should concede that in recent
months the Prince of Wales has spoken out with clarity for the slaughtered
Christians of the Middle East, lamenting the sufferings of his “brothers in
Christ.” With these utterances he has struck a different note from the many
paeans of praise he has directed to Islam over the decades during which he has
waited to ascend the throne, a privilege that the Queen’s great longevity may
yet deny him.
But what are we
to say of his decision, at the end of this week of prayer for Christian unity,
to fly to Saudi Arabia in order to express his condolences on the death of the
nonagenarian King Abdullah, whose demise leaves Elizabeth II as the oldest
reigning monarch on earth? In company with his fellow royals, Charles has paid
many visits over the years to Arabia and other parts of the Islamic world, and
the British royals have many bonds of friendship with their Muslim
counterparts, even as those authoritarian monarchs preside over systems that
dish out death to Christian converts, forbid the public confession of the holy
Name, and mete out barbarous punishments to a whole range of offenders, real or
imagined. Today’s news informs us that Westminster Abbey, a royal chapel after
all, is flying its flag at half-mast in honour of the departed King Abdullah,
the wealth of whose family has been throwing up mosques across the globe at the
same time as this ruling family has seen to it that not a single church may
arise within the bounds of its kingdom. And amid their many social
get-togethers with the tyrants of Arabia, the British royals have hardly ever
set foot in Israel, which, despite its understandable Jewish loyalties, permits
Christian worship and upholds constitutional liberty. You would think that
those who would sport the titles of Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor
of the Church of England might find spiritual benefit in stopping by the
churches of the Nativity and the Holy Sepulchre now and then.
Canada’s Prime
Minister, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, is himself a good monarchist, a
courageous supporter of the State of Israel, and one of the few Western leaders
not to allow political correctness to blind him utterly to the Islamic danger.
I devoutly hope that, when next he hosts a British royal or stops by one of the
London palaces to pay his respects to what is also Canada’s Royal Family, he
delivers a word in season in rebuke of the hideous, indeed despicable fawning
of a professedly Christian dynasty before barbarous, anti-Christian tyrannies with which they should be ashamed to associate
themselves.
God Save the
Queen, and may He grant Elizabeth and her heirs and successors to bend the knee
in true piety to Christ the King, whose reign will outlive theirs and beside
whom they, like all mortal flesh, fade into mere insignificance.
Rev. Dr. John Stephenson is Professor at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catherines, Ontario.