The Future of the Monarchy and the Church of England
This article in the European Conservative caught my eye.
The British monarch has been head of the Church of England since the 1534 Break with Rome. But Prince William could, as king, do away with this tradition of almost half a millennium and split official ties with the Church.
That is according
to a report last week in The
Times. Traditionalists should be concerned by the suggestion, even
if for no other reason than that their liberal opponents are so excited by it.
“Hereditary
monarchy is a dubious enough concept as it is without religious mumbo-jumbo," writes Guardian columnist
Simon Jenkins in an article which urges the future king to “sever the
ridiculous ties of church and state.”
‘Small-c’
conservative writer and columnist at The Mail on Sunday Peter
Hitchens unsurprisingly took the complete opposite line, writing that if we don’t
believe in the idea the King is chosen by God and rules in God’s name, “there
is no purpose in having a king, or a prince of Wales. We might as well have a
president in a nice suit.” He added:
If William cannot be bothered with the Church, then he cannot
really be bothered with monarchy either. And if he does not believe in it, why
should anyone else?
The Times article uses as its source an
upcoming book by journalist and esteemed royal biographer Robert Hardman. He
writes: “In royal circles, it is no secret that [the Prince of Wales] does not
share the King’s sense of the spiritual, let alone the late Queen’s unshakeable
devotion to the Anglican church.” Hardman also quotes a “senior” figure from
Buckingham Palace:
His father is very spiritual and happy to talk about faith but the
Prince is not. He doesn’t go to church every Sunday, but then nor do the large
majority of the country. He might go at Christmas and Easter but that’s it. He
very much respects the institutions but he is not instinctively comfortable in
a faith environment.
Church Times writer Madeleine Davies said she was “unsurprised”
by this insider image.
The
real question is whether his dissociation from the Church of England is so
strong as to encourage William to break official ties with it.
Royal historian
Marlene Koenig told The European Conservative that
this is mere “speculation,” however, she added that Britain is “a country where
religion is in decline, and this includes the Church of England, which is in
serious decline, with far fewer people going to church regularly.” With this in
mind,
It is a moot point what role William will choose when he succeeds
to the throne. People saying they are Christians has fallen to about 46% in the UK. The real
question should be, what is the Anglican church doing to fill its pews,
reaching out to young people? If this decline continues there may not be a serious
Church of England when William becomes king.
What we can now
say is quite likely is that William’s coronation will, as Hardman writes, be "less spiritual" And this really is only a step forward from the current King’s
decision to mark himself not merely as the Defender of the Faith
but as defender of the faiths.
It is just as certain that the likes of Simon Jenkins will be very pleased by this development. The fact William doesn’t worship much “is hardly worth a shrug,” he writes: “Perhaps the Prince is just a normal human being.”
I'm very out of touch with Anglican affairs, even more so since that grim day when Archbishop Cranmer suddenly cut us loose without a word of warning, but from the occasional snippets of news that have come my way from time to time, I'm pretty sure that, for a good many years now, the upper hierarchy of the C of E has been deliberately moving, one step at a time, towards disestablishment. Conceivably the next Archbishop of Canterbury, whoever "they" may be, might be only too glad to sever the last vestiges of the bonds that once held Church and State together in an apparently inseparable partnership.
ReplyDeleteIf and when those last ties are severed, it will be interesting to observe whether the bishops are prepared to go the whole way and renounce their right to sit in the House of Lords.
Yes 1, I wanted to suggest observing the one-year anniversary, but forgot ...
DeleteYes 2, I would also like to see if the bishops will give up their seats in the House of Lords. They seem to be competing with the Conservative Party to see who can betray their core constituency more. Except that bishops not adhering to Scripture is a far more serious matter than politicians not following the expected beliefs and principles of their party.
There seems to me to be little point in the Lords Spiritual, seeing as they appear to have largely forgotten the second half of their title.
DeleteThe government of the day may have something to say about it. They may feel that the amount of time that would need to be spent, could be better spent on critical issues of the day
ReplyDeletehttps://thecritic.co.uk/harry-potter-and-the-bourgeois-bohemian-dream/
ReplyDeleteThis article is not directly on point, but in a more general sense it sums up the end of a cycle which began sixty years or so ago in the bright, "we're going to build a whole new, better world" excitement of the 1960s. William's disinterest in religion is just one facet of it. Right now, the west is spiritually, culturally, artistically and every other way exhausted. We don't reproduce. Our art is garbage. Our music isn't worth listening to and our politics hasn't created anything worth fighting for in a generation. Our people are atomised and our societies dying. Why?
As a Catholic, I suggest it's because of the Reformation. I know, that's hugely general. How can something so long ago affect today? Bear with me. You start by acknowledging the Catholic Church was right about everything. I don't mean the pope -- and certainly not this pope -- or the hierarchy or the Vatican. I mean specifically the magisterium. Then you recognize the social and cultural conditions which gave rise to the Reformation in England. Let's be honest here -- it was a looting operation and nothing more. Henry VIII wanted Church land and money, so he took it. He kicked a lot of it onwards to the aristocracy to keep them sweet, but what he was really doing was laying the foundation for the British Empire, and a big part of that was the creation of the Church of England. It was, in essence, God's seat on England's board of directors, there to keep His followers in line with the project, but not a spiritual entity in itself. His daughter, Elizabeth, privately acknowledged this by keeping the C of E shadowing Rome closely.
Closely, but not close enough. Once you deviate from the magisterium, even by a fraction of a degree, you will steadily pull away from it over the course of generations, and it's been a good 15 generations now. For a long while, this was cloaked under the Union Jack and the British Empire, but with that gone, the C of E now finds itself out on the ocean without a rudder, and as far as I can see, no maps or charts, either. It's holed below the waterline and has no function.
The only hope I can see for England -- and, indeed, the west in general, because this is not a specifically English problem -- is to return to the Church which formed Englishmen for 900 years before Henry's time. This is going to be extraordinarily difficult, partly because of the superficiality of the west, which is respectful of "ethnic" religions like Islam and Hinduism, but ranges from slightly embarrassed to downright contemptuous of a religion traditionally practiced by Europeans; "sophisticated" people are supposed to be above that sort of thing. But also because, at present, the Catholic Church is engaged in a weird "screening" exercise in which the hierarchy are attempting to obscure the actual magisterium of the Church with documents like Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans. Converts are going to have a hard time spotting any difference between Anglicanism and Catholicism, at least on an initial looksee. Nevertheless, Catholicism remains the only viable option. Nature abhors a vacuum. If Christianity doesn't revive -- and the only form capable of doing that is Catholicism -- then another religion will sweep in and take over. Liberal humanism is not an option. It's the textbook definition of a vacuum. I'm not a prophet, but right now the religion in pole position is Islam. Anybody fancy paying the dhimmi tax?
The Reformation weaponised and politicised religion across Europe. While preaching 'love your enemy', Catholics and Protestants took turns torturing and burning each other. When you have to choose your religion based on who is less likely to kill you, and whether you can afford the fines for not going to church, it's unsurprising that decades of violent religious authoritarianism made religion unpalatable for many. It also created a suspicion of the Catholic Church and 'foreign religion' that persists in the British psyche to this day. That was the first nail in the coffin of British Christianity.
DeleteThe second nail was the Reformation principle of choosing one's religion - and, effectively, rewriting one's metaphysical cosmos - on the basis of one's feelings. The Church and received Tradition were irrelevant, as one could simply trust one's own feelings and one's own readings of Scripture (hence the indefatigable fragmentation of the Protestant faith). Today, people disdain any kind of authority and demand the ability to remake their reality at will, rejecting any fixed notions such as gender or objective morality. I don't think it's a stretch to draw a line between the Reformation and today's identity and gender politics.
The last nail in the coffin were the two World Wars. Where was the Almighty King of Kings in the face of soldiers being mechanically mown down in the trenches (many of whom were there following the exhortations of Anglican clergy) in quantities never seen before? The Protestant faith, having jettisoned prayers for the dead and the idea that we can do anything for the departed, had nothing to offer those whose loved ones lay in foreign soil, and many turned to Spiritualism etc. for comfort. The CofE, long associated with the squire and landowner, urged a generation of the working class to war and had nothing to give them in return. People began looking outside of the Church for succour, a tendency that only snowballed as the years went by with the rise of new age and eastern philosophies, offering people what the CofE had either forgotten, or never knew how to.
With the arrival of Islam, which retains both its strong community ties and fervent devotion of its adherents, the anaemic and abandoned remnants of Christianity in this country stood no chance, because nobody cared enough to stand up for it. The CofE, which for too long coasted along on the remains of cultural Christianity, is a zombie, lurching on without realising it's already dead. The Catholic Church, having only been restored in the UK in the 19th Century, is still far too apologetic for its own existence, caught up in its own scandals and unwilling to rock the boat (Nichols is little better than Welby). It has been to reliant on first Irish and the Polish immigrants to keep it afloat, but second generation church attendance is already in decline in these communities.
Yes, I touched on some on these themes in two recent posts on here:
DeleteThe End is Nigh, and Politics -The Church and the World
The End is Nigh leads to 'this page does not exist'. Is this an error, or a deep philosophical statement?
DeleteHmm ... that may be why so few people read it. Try this in your browser:
Deletehttps://dodothedude.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-end-is-nigh-or-not.html
That works 👍
DeleteIf this decline continues there may not be a serious Church of England when William becomes king
ReplyDeleteSome might argue that we have passed that point already. The CofE blunders on from incompetence to irrelevance with every passing day. It's happily replaced preaching the Gospel with constantly harping on about Brexit and whatever the leftist talking point du jour is, and its latest embroilment in the 'pray to stay' scandal won't win it any fans.
The monarch being the Supreme Governor of the CofE has never made sense to me. Christianity is an elective religion: one isn't born with faith, particularly with the faith of a specific denomination. If William decides to be an atheist, it's nonsensical to make him the head of the CofE.
Since this is a thread about the monarchy ...
ReplyDeleteThe new broke a few minutes ago that the King has been diagnosed with (quote) "a form of cancer".
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68205659
*news
DeleteYes, that's being widely reported on the British news channels. He's fortunate it was diagnosed during his recent hospital stay. Let's pray he makes a recovery.
ReplyDeleteIt's disconcerting how little we've been told. Some people have been speculating that it may be more serious than they're letting on.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt we'll learn soon enough. From personal experience, I know it takes some time to come to terms with such news and Charles will probably just need some private time with his family and loved ones.
Delete