The National Secular Society (NSS) has announced a campaign to try to block Prince Charles from having a Christian coronation.
The group of radical secularists will be working with the Leigh Day law firm to mount a challenge to the coronation oath, which declares that “the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer…”
They will also be seeking to remove the monarch’s historic position as head of the Church of England
The coronation service, which goes back at least to the time of King Egbert in the ninth-century, allegedly violates human rights, the NSS claims.
Their case rests on article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which grants citizens the freedom of religion, and article 14 which prohibits religious discrimination.
Up until now, the Secular Society has shown extreme ambivalence towards protecting religious freedom, having opposed British claimants at the European Court of Human Rights who believed their religious freedoms were undermined by equality laws. But now, in a bizarre twist, the NSS has decided to come to the ostensible defense of religious freedom, arguing that the coronation oath violates the monarch’s religious freedom as well as the freedom of the populace who have the ‘right’ to live in a society governed on stringently secularist grounds.
Keith Porteous Wood, the NSS executive director, commented, “The country has changed out of all recognition since the last coronation and we should now be devising an investiture ceremony for the next head of state everyone can feel part of.”
He continued: “A non-religious ceremony allows everybody to feel equally valued… It is no longer appropriate to install the head of state in a religious service of one Christian denomination which – on a normal Sunday – less than 2% of the population attend.”
“…modern-day Britain” the group dramatically added, “is no longer one nation under God. It is one nation under many gods…”
Referring to the monarch’s position as head of the church of England, the NSS announced, “But if we are to retain a monarchy in this country (and many think we should not, although that is not part of the NSS’s agenda) and the monarch is to be head of state, then he or she should not also be ex officio head of the Church of England, or any other particular religion or denomination.”
The fact that the Prince of Wales has expressed a desire to have a multi-faith coronation, in which he would dispense with the historic title of “Defender of the Faith” for the more watered-down “Defender of Faith”, has not even been sufficient to pacify the angry activists at the NSS. “We object almost as much to Prince Charles’s intention to be ‘defender of faith’” Keith Wood said.
This group of radical secularists has made clear that they will not be satisfied until they have turned Britain into a European-style secular state.
It is evident from the NSS website that their campaign hinges on the myth of religious neutrality and the spurious notion that secularism is a better guarantee of freedom than Christianity. The group’s website quotes the Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld who declared that “The promotion of a secular democracy, based on individual citizens’ rights, is the best guarantee for freedom of religion.” Those who have studied the history of the twentieth-century may well doubt the veracity of these statements, given that the rise of toleration has been largely pioneered by Christian, not secularists, statesmen.
At the Queen’s coronation in Westminster Abbey in 1953, she was anointed and crowned. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was asked by Archbishop Fisher, inter alia:
‘Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?’
And the Queen replied: ‘All this I solemnly promise to do.’
Next the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland presented the Bible to the Queen. Between them, the Archbishop and Moderator said to her:
‘The whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer’
‘Our gracious Queen: to keep your majesty ever mindful of the Law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; these are the lively oracles of God.’
The Archbishop told Her Majesty when she was given the Orb from the Crown Jewels:
‘Receive this Orb set under the Cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer.’
Further Reading
- Honoring the King
- We Should Defend Our Christian Heritage, says Farage
- Secularists behind ‘end oath’ campaign
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I love this from the NSS:
‘A secular coronation would take into account not only the fact that some 7% of the population are of faiths other than Christian, but also that a third (more by some measures) of Britain now regards itself as non-religious.’
http://www.secularism.org.uk/blog/2013/11/change-is-overdue-to-our-sectarian-coronation–even-the-heir-to-the-throne-seems-to-think-so
Let’s do the maths. So even according to the NSS, 60% of the UK population identify as Christian. Take that ‘into account’, NSS!
This rather assumes that Charles will be our next monarch which may not be the case.
Are we as a nation really going to be a bullied by a tiny group on the fringes such as the NSS? We are getting into a real mess with these equality, diversity and politically correct laws and its time for the silent majority to be heard.
I agree liberal / humanism is destroying this once great land of ours!
I seem to remember that the Queen went on, at the Coronation, to promise to uphold the various religions and customs of her various peoples.
The title is actually a Latin one, Fidei Defensor (FD on our coins). This could equally mean “defender of faith, or defender of the faith”, as there is no article in Latin. As the title was awarded by a pope, it was understood at the time that the faith in question was Roman Catholicism. There seems to be no good reason why the meaning understood for it should not be adapted again, as it has been adapted for most of its history.
Looking now at practicalities, the situation is very different from 1953. In 1953 the Moderator of the Church of Scotland was brought in for the first time. There seems no doubt that when his time comes, Charles will want to bring in an assortment of tame rabbis, imams, buddists, zoroastrians, and who else he can find, to endorse what will still be essentially a Church of England occasion in Westminster Abbey. I don’t see any harm in this.
Not quite.
In answer to a question from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Her Majesty gave a solemn promise to God and to the people of the United Kingdom to “Maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel.” Her Majesty undertook also “to maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law,” and “to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland according to their respective laws and customs.”
So it’s religion singular and laws and customs plural.
It’s interesting that the NSS speak as though they are the authority over the land! God will not be mocked anyway. However, this article says that Prince Charles has ‘expressed a desire to have a multi-faith coronation’, using the link to the Daily Telegraph article, but the paragraph in the article actually says “One day, his coronation will reflect this stance. It will not be a “multi-faith service” and the Prince will still be anointed by the Archbishop, but the ceremony will include a role for other faiths for the first time, breaking with a thousand years of history. ” I do not see Prince Charles as a practising Christian though, he comes across as being ‘religious’ in a broad sense and happy to embrace various religious philosophies. May God show him truth.