Gavin Ashenden’s recent post in respect of the King’s Christmas Message 2022 asks whether the King has sowed the destruction of the House of Windsor. Later in the post, Dr Ashenden states that the King is making a shift from being a Protestant Christian monarch to 21st-century relativism, that this represents an abandonment of his faith, and that “the shibboleths of multi-culturalism are not Christianity.”
To me, however, the speech came over rather differently. The one I heard began with the King making reference to his late mother’s belief in the power of the Light of God in Christ, before explaining that it is his own belief in the power of that Light that makes him have faith in people, because that Light gives people the “extraordinary ability” to touch the lives of other people with “goodness” and “compassion” and to “shine a light in the world around them”.
All of this, of course, represents the core belief of all the world’s great religious traditions that each person is made in the image and likeness of God, a bearer of a spark of the divine Logos. The King spoke of the sense of compassionate service that is inspired by mankind’s faith in the Light that dwells in the darkness of suffering. Such heartfelt expressions of solidarity are, the King said, expressions of loving one’s neighbour as oneself.
The King then went on to speak, in perfectly normal tones, of how he had visited the birthplace of Our Lord and stood in the place where the Light that had come into the world was born. He made the point that the power of the light to triumph over darkness is celebrated by faith traditions across the world. He then expressed his belief that it is in this life-giving light that we can find hope for the future.
So, in a nutshell, the speech I heard was about how every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, bears a spark of the divine Logos, and how in our response to suffering we show our ability to do as Christ commanded us, and love our neighbour. It was a speech that made a connection between the Christian teaching of the power of the light to triumph over darkness and the teaching of other sacred traditions.
In other words, it was the speech of a Christian King who believes that Christ is the Light of the world and that his subjects, irrespective of their particular religious confession – or none, as he emphasised – are all bearers of a divine spark. It was the speech of a man who believes in the hope of the ultimate, final triumph of the Light of Christ.
In other words, I find it hard to reconcile what the King actually said with Dr Ashenden’s version. Despite what he claims, this speech absolutely was not the speech of a humanist or an agnostic, or a secular religious relativist who treats religions equally because he does not believe in any of them, or someone who “has abandoned faith”.
It is highly significant that the King spoke from St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. As Shakespeare knew so well, the ideal King is one who seeks the guidance of his country’s patron saint when attending to affairs of state. Shakespeare’s historical plays depict rulers, often at moments of great crisis, playing the parts that have been allotted to them to fulfil the fate of their particular country.
One very clear part that has been allotted to the King is that of being the monarch of a multi-faith society, a role which is a consequence of the decision of successive post-World War II governments to increase levels of immigration into the UK. At his coronation the King will be crowned King of a multi-cultural society, whether we like it or not. Given this reality we are indeed fortunate to have a King who has thought long and hard about how best to unify such a society. Quite clearly, he believes religious faith has a major role to play, and it is worth noting that the societies with the best track records of managing multi-faith melting-pots tend to be religious monarchies, rather than secular democracies. An obvious example of good practice in this respect was the Catholic, Hapsburg-led, Austro-Hungarian Empire.
An inclusive approach to different religious traditions is not a relativist one, but rather it is in accord with Catholic teaching that Christ the Logos is the ontological principle of the mystery in which the divine is disclosed at every point of time and in every creature. Every human being is a theophany and in an immediate relationship to his divine archetype – Christ. There is no human being of whom the Logos is not the ultimate subject, however unactualized He may be in any particular case. Catholics, of course, have views about how the presence of Christ is most effectively actualised within the heart of every human being, but that is not the point here.
It is seriously difficult to believe that since the death of Ian Paisley there is anyone who expects King Charles to rule as a Protestant king guided by Church of England’s 39 Articles of Religion; it therefore seems unfair of Dr Ashenden to take that as the starting point for any concern about a shift in the monarch’s position. As for his suggestion that the King’s embrace of a multi-faith society is somehow symptomatic of the embracement of twenty-first-century relativism, I would suggest it is symptomatic of precisely the opposite – a desire to give royal protection to people of faith, people who believe that there is more in us than we think.
The King’s Christmas Message did not sow the seeds of the destruction of the House of Windsor. Rather, it showed a faithful Christian offering his support, as a soon-to-be-anointed King, to those of his subjects who have faith in the Divine Logos – made present for Catholics in Jesus Christ – but also to those who may not have faith, but still remain made in the image and likeness of God, whether they like it or not.
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