As American living in the UK, one hear’s a lot about God, king, and country. As many of you know England has been abuzz with the coronation of Kings Charles III. Leading up to May 6 you heard anything from “God save the King!” to how distasteful the display was given the cost of living crisis Britain is currently experiencing. King Charles’ estimated worth of record is about $750 million, although because of laws that his late mother Queen Elizabeth II changed much of her and now his wealth is undisclosed to the public. Not to mention all the property in their care that is actually owned by the UK. It is estimated that he could be worth up to $2.3 billion. The coronation cost anywhere from $100 to $250 million. That doesn’t include the gold gilded coaches, crowns, swords, scepters, jewels etc. The crown he was endowed with is worth $57 million alone.
In a country where pensioners have to chose between eating and heating, a record number of households utilizing food banks, rail workers, teachers, doctors, and nurses all striking constantly because of their lack of pay and compensation while those at the top are continually raising their own salaries, and British Gas bringing in profits to the tune of £2.8 billion which is the biggest profit in the history of the energy giant, the coronation couldn’t have been more tone deaf.
I am not a royalist. But that doesn’t mean much coming from an American, even though I am a UK resident, tax payer, and married to a Brit. Even so, I am not the minority thought in Britain. What the Monarchy cost British tax payers, as well as the Commonwealth, is not of little consequence. Whether royals exist or not makes no difference to me, but when tax payers who are experiencing a cost of living crisis are paying for them, it feels sickening. Especially when they have more than enough to pay for themselves should they want to continue to exist as they do.
In any case, the coronation. More than anything it is a religious ceremony. You have the archbishop and his colleagues participating and leading in the crowning and anointing of a king that has been divinely ordained to lead and serve.
The short homily given by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, talked about Jesus as a model for kingship and service. Perfectly justifying the position of our new king to both rule and serve. However, in this day in age, how anyone, not least of which he who sits in one of the most important religious and state appointed seats in the United Kingdom, to have an intellect and hermeneutics defying interpretation of Jesus of Nazareth is absolutely mind boggling. Welby made sure to include words like unchangeable law and unity. He talks about privilege set up by God to be engaged in benevolent ways, yet he also says Jesus sets aside his privilege.
How he or anyone squares any of this is beyond me. Jesus gives us parameters for a kingdom that is unlike any kingdom we may have ever encountered. In fact, he says that those who will rule such a kingdom, those who will be first in this kingdom, will be determined by those who society deems worst and last (Matt 20:20-28). So how a billionaire royal born into unspeakable wealth and privilege is a model for what Jesus meant and was about doesn’t seem to be the most genuine depiction.
While none of us know who and how the royals are outside of their bland and boring public personas, I will say this. Despite the drama of Diana and Camilla, and Charles’ clear culpability in all that, I thought he was going to be a bit of a cooler King. By this I simply mean I thought he might wisely take the opportunity to try and buy back the United Kingdom’s not-so-united stance on the Monarchy. Sure, Charles, have your coronation. But instead of riding in your £2 million golden coach maybe walk down the route with the people edging the street, the ones who support you and keep you in your position. And have your coronation, but pay for it yourself, because it won’t make a dent in your wealth and then use that tax payer money to do something radical and subversive for the people. Show that you are actually the people’s King rather than the King clinging to yesteryear. There were a myriad of things he could have chosen to do, and still be crowned King, that would have stopped the country in their tracks and make them feel they have a king and church that actually care about them. Instead Charles chose to have his day in the sun, further expanding the divide between the Monarchy and those the Monarchy was established for. This is what ‘God, king, and country’ embodies , and the sort of power, and the disregard that power has for society, looks like.
And the icing on the cake was Jesus being a model for all of this.
At my book launch party earlier this year, Barry Taylor and I were asked a question by the vicar of the church the launch night was held at. He asked something to the effect of if we thought it was possible for the church to have a blank page with which to write the future on. Barry answered and said that it wasn’t possible for a blank page, but it is possible to write in pencil and not in ink on whatever page. This would make all the difference. And I agreed.
The future of all these institutions will only be possible if they are willing to write in pencil and not ink. But it is clear the Church of England and the Monarchy is only willing to write in ink. The most perfect missed opportunity. Completely squandered, doing further irreparable damage, ultimately contributing to their irrelevance and impotence in a society that could really use the sort of service these institutions seem to endlessly claim.
While I have written about the coronation of King Charles III and the toxic entwinement of the Church of England there is a lesson here for all institutions, not least of which the declining state of the church in America. What are we preserving and for whom? Are we relentless in our commitment to writing in ink? Do we want a future that looks like the past, if the church is lucky enough to have a future? Is Scripture being used in ways that its interpreters transgress it? What does it all exist for?
Leading questions on my part? Maybe. But a sobering living metaphor of what so many of us fall prey to: A lack of imagination and the expense of a commitment to the past in order that the status quo may endure.
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