'What has she been doing to fight the decline? Evangelistic sketches in the church hall?'

Steve Tomkins is not happy with the Defender of the Faith postholder

In all the current discussions about whether the British monarch should continue to have the job title “Defender of the Faith”, one point that no one ever seems to mention is what an abysmal job the present holder of the title has done.

For 55 years, Elizabeth II has been supposedly defending the faith, and in that time church attendance has halved and halved again.

What has she been doing to fight the decline? Evangelistic sketches in the church hall? Not that I heard of. Going door to door with thought provoking tracts? Not to my house.

She has done a talk on TV every Christmas, but that’s more like a round robin than a sermon.

Difference

So when Prince Charles is reported as saying that he wants to be
“Defender of Faiths”, and Rowan Williams that he should stick to the
one, the first thing to say is that it really isn’t going to make a lot of difference.

He can be crowned Defender of the Galaxy if he likes, it doesn’t alter the fact that his role in life is to wave at people and ask them how long they’ve been doing what they do.

And which faith is his family supposed to be defending anyway? The
title was first given, as you know, to Henry VIII by the Pope, before
the split from Rome, for Henry’s attack on Martin Luther.

So it originally referred to Roman Catholicism.

But then his successors kept the title as they defended the Protestant Church of England by attacking Catholics and Dissenters.

So for them “the faith” was Anglicanism.

Versions

Then in the last century the different denominations have all made friends, few people know the difference between them anyway, and
we’re all going down together, so you’d assume our valiant defender
would be defending Christianity as a whole rather than defending one
version from another.

And then again, as HRH says, in this ever more pluralistic society, isn’t that “faith” something that Islam, Hinduism, and all that crowd
share with Christianity?

In other words it’s the worst kind of job description, one that you can’t pin down to meaning anything in particular. Defender of Catholicism/Anglicanism/Christianity/World religion-ish kind of thing.

So the whole thing is meaningless, and pointless, and thank God. Christianity does not need or deserve the protection of the monarchy.

Thanks, but let us try and demonstrate the truth and value of our faith for ourselves.

If we can do that, the advocacy of King Charles III is unlikely to add a great deal to our case.

If we can’t, then let the people listen to someone who can.