The Coronation of King Charles III

A Christian's Reflections and Misgivings

As a Christian, I have the most mixed of thoughts and feelings about the coronation service which took place on 6 May in Westminster Abbey.

The event was structured as a communion service, including the usual elements of prayers, Bible readings, a sermon, hymns and a final blessing. Woven into that matrix were the specific coronation elements, themselves all deeply Christian.

One of these Christian elements, which framed the whole service, was the theme of the reign of Jesus Christ as King of Kings, juxtaposed with his humble servanthood, culminating in his sacrificial death. This frame was introduced in the initial greeting, when the king was addressed by a child with these words, “Your Majesty, as children of the Kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings”, and the king responded, “In his name, and after his example, I come not to be served, but to serve”, echoing Jesus’ words in Mark 10:45. With these words the king declares his intent to imitate Christ.

Also biblical was the theme of anointing, which ran through the whole service like a golden thread. The word Christ, it must be remembered, means ‘anointed one’. This theme was reflected, not only in the actual anointing with oil of the king and queen, but also in the gospel reading, in which Jesus reads from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…” (Luke 4:18). In Biblical understanding, prophets, priests and kings were anointed with oil, and it was the act of anointing which appointed the person to their office, but it also signified an impartation of the Holy Spirit – the presence of God – endowing the office bearer with divine power and authority for the task at hand. As the liturgy declared, it is no human hand, but God himself who “consecrated” Charles to be king.

The acclamations in the service of “God save the King”, “May the King live forever”, are also Biblical echoes, as is the national anthem “God save our gracious King!” which is a prayer, and an act of Christian worship, affirming that, as powerful as a king may be, his success is dependent upon God’s favour.

The coronation was constructed as a public enactment of a Biblical covenant between God and the monarch, during which King Charles made a series of solemn commitments to God, including to uphold the Protestant reformed faith as established in England. When he was presented with his ring, the Archbishop of Canterbury said to him, “Receive this Ring, a symbol of royal dignity, and a sign of the covenant sworn this day between God and King, King and people”. Note the twofold covenants: between God and king, and between king and people. In effect, from a Biblical and Christian perspective, the service was not only a covenant between God and King, but also between God and nation, as on the one hand the king promised as a self-confessed follower of Jesus Christ to guide his nation on Christ’s behalf and in accordance with Christ’s agenda, and on the other hand the nation promised to support and honour the King as one set apart by God for his God-given task.

As I watched this celebration of power subordinated to service unfold, I was struck by how profoundly Biblical it all was, formed over centuries by Christian understandings of God’s holiness and sovereignty. None of it was uniquely Protestant: the English tradition of Christian coronations commenced centuries before the Reformation.

If you disbelieve in the Christian message, all this might leave you cold. It might seem ridiculous. It would surely seem but empty pageantry: an eccentric, if splendid, spectacle reflecting pride and pomp. No doubt many disbelievers who watched it all unfold were incited to the republican cause.

On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, then the ceremony is both very meaningful in a way that is true, and it must also be seen as spiritually binding for Charles, and indeed for his nation. If Christ is indeed King of Kings, and ruler of the universe, then to promise him service, in such an elaborate, public and explicit way, is to bind oneself irrevocably to Christ’s example, his cause and his authority. This was the whole point of the liturgy: to put the king in his place as a servant of Jesus. Generations past thought it good for the nation to dedicate sovereigns to this calling.

This is not an arrangement to enter into lightly. Based on these promises, a God who actually exists – far from being, as the atheist may believe, a figment of the imagination – would expect faithful obedience from a king. The Bible’s understanding of such covenantal agreements is that they come with blessings to those who keep faith, and curses for those who do not, so making such promises is a solemn and potentially dangerous act.

As I watched and pondered on all this, two dissonant misgivings preyed on my thoughts. One is that King Charles’ power is not actual, but symbolic and ceremonial. Well may he “reign over us” but he does not actually rule. That prerogative belongs to Parliament and its ministers.

The King has, on behalf of his nations, made most solemn promises to God to be a servant to all, but he does not hold in his own hands the power to fulfill these promises. The vows he made are inherited from an ancient ceremony and drawn from another era, when sovereigns did actually reign, and the nation was united in professing the Christian faith. Is it prudent to make promises to an almighty God which one does not have have power to keep? How, for example, is Charles in a position to defend the faith of the Church of England?

In reality, King Charles does not rule, even over the Church of England, despite being known as the head of that church and the “defender” of its faith. If the King of England ruled over the Church of England, he would appoint its bishops, but he does so in name only, without any power of choice.

English bishops are appointed in a complex process involving a series of church committees. At the end of this process, two names are forwarded to the prime minister, who chooses one. The convention is that the prime ministry will appoint the first nominee on the list of two given to him; the the last prime minister to opt for the second name was Margaret Thatcher.

If the nominee then indicates their acceptance, the prime minister informs the king, who formally nominates the prime minister’s choice.

In the search and selection process the hierarchy of the church plays an influential role, especially the Archbishops and bishops, and those clergy and lay people who are involved in General Synod. But in the end, the real power to appoint the bishops of the Church of England – and everyone involved in the process knows this – lies in the hands of the prime minister. At present, this Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Hindu.

This complex system has in recent times delivered to the Church of England a majority of theologically liberal and politically progressive bishops. English bishops are, are on the whole, more liberal than both the clergy and the laity. This was apparent in recent voting at Church of England General Synod earlier this year, in which 90% of Bishops supported blessing of same-sex unions, but only 57% of clergy and 53% of the laity. These figures beg the question of whether Church of England worshippers are getting the bishops they need, or the ones the hierarchy wants.

No matter how passionate the King may be in defending the “protestant reformed faith” of the Church of England, which he is required by English law to profess and defend, the key decisions shaping the future of the Church of England are in the hands of others.

It troubled me, as a far-off observer, that the King has made solemn oaths which it is not in his power to fulfill. It bothered me too that the nation as a whole, including the Church’s leaders, has stood by as witnesses to these promises. And what does it signify that a Hindu Prime Minister was declaiming the words from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which state that Jesus Christ stands over all political powers and authorities, since they were all created by him and for him?

My second misgiving concerned the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as the senior bishop of the Church of England has, from ancient times, presided over this service, anointing kings and queens, and administering their coronation vows.

As I watched the coronation I was reflecting that, just a few weeks past, a global gathering of church leaders representing an estimated 85% of the world’s Anglicans resolved to reject the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican Communion had previously accepted the unelected headship of the Archbishop of Canterbury as – who was himself appointed, it must be remembered, by the British Prime Minister of the day – but now it is in revolt against an ecclesiastical hierarchy which they claim no longer meet the needs of Anglicans.

There was something troubling about someone whose leadership has been rejected by the majority of global Anglicans administering solemn coronation vows which King Charles has no real power to fulfill.

I was of two minds watching the magnificent spectacle of the coronation. On the one hand I was attracted to the theological vision which informed the king’s oaths, of a nation and its sovereign under the lordship of Jesus Christ, pursuing justice and love in accordance with the guidance of holy scriptures, and of a king bound to serve his people. This is a truly splendid, and for me heart-warming vision, and it was made manifest in the midst of beautiful acts of worship.

Yet at the same time the whole enterprise seems spiritually perilous, for both king and country. As a believer, I wonder how God sees these human enactments, formally designed to honour him in holy covenant, but not backed by real power. Will God look with favour on the coronation ceremony as a heartfelt prayer, made on behalf of a nation by its spiritual leaders, to be faithful to a Biblical vision of a nation under God, and respond by bringing his blessings upon a grateful people? (I write as a believer.) Or did this ceremony represent a hollowed out remnant of past convictions, no longer widely held, and even ridiculed by people inhabiting a secular, post-covenantal society? Did it subject King Charles to impossible vows, which only others – elected and appointed representatives of the people – have the the real power to fulfill, whether for the nation of the church?

I believe King Charles is a person of prayer, as his mother, Queen Elizabeth, undoubtedly was. That is good, for he will need the supernatural anointing of the Holy Spirit, which his coronation called down upon him, to live out the grand vision this ancient service promised. I hope – indeed I pray – that God will honour and bless King Charles, as he seeks to be true to these profound vows. May God indeed save the King!