King Charles: defender of which faith?
One of the many differences between the US and England is that the latter has a state religion: the Church of England, originally founded when King Henry VIII wanted to jettison his first marriage and wed Anne Boleyn. We all know how that second marriage worked out, but the Church itself triumphed for many years although attendance has been declining for quite a while.
The monarch is supposed to be very much involved, although it’s somewhat complicated:
Although the monarch’s authority over the Church of England is largely ceremonial and is mostly observed in a symbolic capacity, the position is still relevant to the established church. As the supreme governor, the monarch formally appoints high-ranking members of the church on the advice of the prime minister of the United Kingdom, who in turn acts on the advice of the Crown Nominations Commission. Since the Act of Settlement of 1701, all Supreme Governors have been members of the Church of England.
In addition, the monarch is known as the “defender of the faith”:
In common with his predecessors for almost 500 years, The King is known as Defender of the Faith. This is part of his full formal legal title and appears in many official items such as proclamations and Parliamentary Writs of Summons. …
The Church of England is known as the “Established Church”, meaning that it is established by law and has a unique relationship with the state, forged in the settlement developed in the time of Elizabeth I and subsequent reigns intended to calm the upheavals of the Reformation period.
At the coronation King Charles III, like every monarch since George I, takes a special oath to maintain “the settlement of the Church of England and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established”. He also undertook a separate oath at his Accession to uphold the security of the Church of Scotland.
And yet neither England nor Britain is a theocracy, and all religions are allowed and protected. In fact, Elizabeth II emphasized this:
At her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II delivered a landmark speech explaining the concept of the Established Church in a multi-faith society.
She said: “The concept of our Established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.
But not all religions are equally tolerant of other religions, and many (not all, but many) Muslims would like Islam to become dominant. What’s a faith defender to do?
King Charles doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of defending of the Church of England or even of Christianity these days, and his failure to issue an Easter statement, combined with his issuance of a recent statement for Ramadan, has a lot of Christians worried:
Buckingham Palace previously confirmed that the king would not be giving an Easter message. The palace told GB News that an Easter message from the monarch is not an annual statement, like the Christmas message.
It is expected that Charles’s silence would upset some Christians as he wished Islamic practicing people a “blessed and happy Ramadan” on social media in February.
It’s actually not a royal tradition to always give an Easter message, although it often occurs. This year, I think the sharp contrast between the Ramadan message and the lack of an Easter message has caused the intensity of the problem, plus a widespread perception that King Charles isn’t a believing Christian and hasn’t been one for a long time (including rumors that he’s a secret Muslim).
This has prompted Anglican Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar to issue this open letter to King Charles. A few excerpts:
His Majesty, Charles III,
King of the United Kingdom and the Realms,
Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
Bearer of the ancient title Defender of the Faith. …
For more than a thousand years the Crown of this realm has stood in solemn covenant with the Christian faith.
The laws of this land were shaped by it.
The liberties of our people were nurtured by it.
The conscience of our civilisation was formed by it. …
Yet today that inheritance is being quietly but deliberately eroded. Across the institutions of this nation there is a growing hostility toward the faith that built them.
Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age.
Within the very Church that bears the name of England, voices have arisen that appear more eager to mirror the spirit of the age than to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. …
The Sovereign of this realm bears a title that is not merely historic but sacred in its origin and meaning: Defender of the Faith. Those words are not decorative. They are a charge.
They speak of a monarch whose duty is not merely to preside over the ceremonies of the Church, but to stand as a guardian of the Christian inheritance of the nation.
Yet many among your subjects now ask, with increasing anxiety: “Who will defend that inheritance today?” …
Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law.
Those words bind the conscience of the sovereign. They remind the Crown that its authority is not merely constitutional but moral. The monarch is not merely a symbol of national continuity, but a custodian of the spiritual inheritance that shaped this realm. …
The issue before us is not nostalgia. It is civilisation.
[NOTE: Please see also this post of mine on the decline of Christianity in Europe.]
Charles genuinely acknowledges no god other than his own desire to be king. The royal family, along with most of England and Europe, abandoned Christianity ages ago. The results are obvious.
(insert link to pedophile and grooming Labour MPs here)
I will admit to not following the royals closely but did a bit of Googling/Gemini yesterday while writing a comment on this topic on another site and as best I can tell Easter addresses have been quite uncommon recently (I didn’t look back farther than Elizabeth II). As best I could tell Queen Elizabeth II gave only one in her entire reign, during the COVID pandemic in 2020. I will note that I’m drawing a distinction between an oral message, live or recorded, and some written acknowledgement of any holiday which has occurred more often, and frequently happened for non-Christian holy days. Though King Charles has only been on throne about three years he had delivered a Maundy Thursday message in 2024, and one on Easter in 2025 which I think set the expectation he was going to make an address during Holy Week or on Easter a regular occurance. Abruptly skipping it this year while making an earlier address for Ramadan seemed particularly shocking, as you noted.
I don’t believe rumors he’s a secret Muslim but I do think he is quite a strong believer in the Church of Woke, and seems to take special pains to distance himself from the gauche “extremists” on either side of the pond who believe he should speak in defense of Western culture in general and English culture in particular given his position as head of state.
Note that Henry VIII was awarded the title “Defender of the Faith” by the Pope, for his authoring (or, at any rate, sponsoring) a tract blasting Martin Luther.
As with a lot of other things, once Henry got it, he didn’t give it back.
He sees the way the wind is blowing so has his sails up to go there.
And obviously knows nothing of English and world history of the Muslims.
My next-younger brother, my sister and I spent the summer of 1976 touring England, Scotland and Wales on the student-charter-flight ticket, youth hostel and BritRail pass program. That is to say, using public transportation, sleeping in hostel dorms, shopping for groceries to cook our meals in the youth hostel kitchens – basically, doing everything on the cheap. Every Sunday, we would go to whatever local church was nearest; mostly because everything else would be closed. So – in England, C-of-E services, mostly in small local churches, many of them quaint and historic places … and most always just about empty. Lovely services, rich vestments and ritual, unmemorable sermons. And it it seemed to us even then, that it was all enervated, not any passionate belief or engagement. Going to church on Sunday was just a habit, going through the motions. Now, in Scotland, it was very much different with the Presbyterian services. Very spare, undecorated sanctuaries, nothing much in the way of ritual or adornment … but the pews all filled and the attendees much more engaged, honest in belief. The most rip-roaring sermon we ever heard preached was at a crowded morning service in Oban. The congregation was passionate, involved, interested in the ethical standards being explored by the minister. And this was almost five decades ago. So I’m not really surprised to read that the C-of-E is all but hollowed out. I could see it happening, even then.
It’s not that I disagree with the quoted bishop; I don’t disagree. However, he is not a bishop in the Church of England. He’s from an offshoot Anglican group called the “Confessing Anglican Church,” whose largest membership is in India. Bishop Dewar is apparently serving as a missionary bishop in the UK.
Charles and his son William are both adherents of the faith of “climate change.” This is to the detriment of their country and their subjects.
Sgt. Mom:
Please see this post of mine on the subject, which discusses Philip Larkin’s poem about empty churches written back in 1954, when the problem was already apparent.
King Charlie is worthless indeed.
Dr Gavin Ashenden former Chaplain to the Queen astutely lays out the issue;
The King Rejects an Easter Message – and remains silent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3fB_pPEGn8
caveat emptor,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/9/king-charles-iii-what-are-his-views-on-the-middle-east
it does illustrate his sensitivities, all the wrong ones, in some ways,
Ohhhh, I dunno . . .
Maybe Charles is positioning himself to be The Ayatollah of the Mosque of England?
That’s where the present vector’s pointing over there, anyway.
Kate et al…of more significance in the world of Anglicans is GAFCON (Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans).
These folks have outright rejected Canterbury’s primacy and have a fairly strong global network of bishops, churches and finances…and their influence is growing.
PS…I’m not an Anglican of any stripe, but I have lots of respect for the GAFCON ones and their evangelical adherence.
King Charles III is a doofus. As a huge history buff I have noticed that all three Kings of England named Charles were awful. King Charles I was beheaded because he refused to compromise with Parliament and his word meant nothing all the while buying into the “Divine Right of Kings” bull spit, his son King Charles II was nothing more than a whore monger (fathering around 14 illegitimate children), and this current idiot is a jug eared Islamophile.