Defender of [the] faith?

Many will remember the furore when Prince Charles stated, many years back, that he wanted to be not “defender of the [implied, Christian] faith”, but simply “defender of faith”.

Some of the problems of that should be obvious.

First, we are a Christian country by heritage, even if the present reality today is often different. The role of the monarch as defender of the Christian, protestant faith goes back to the Reformation. For a future king of this realm to want to merely defend “faith” of all sorts is to back-track on this entirely. The issue was not that we wanted to remain a religious country. Rather we wanted to remain a country that espoused, taught, licensed, legislated for – a paticular faith (the reformed, protestant one), as opposed to any others that people may push for.

Second, if we rephrase “faith” as “trust”, it is a ludicrous mission. To be a monarch who simply wants to defend “trust” makes no sense. I want us to be a more trusting nation. Great! Naive! We should only be trusting insofar as the proposed object of our trust is trustworthy. Otherwise to become more trusting is folly in the extreme.

But, I’m afraid, I’ve been digressing. I don’t want to discuss Prince Charles at all, but our own Archbishop of Canterbury.

Here is a paragraph from his address to the General Synod yesterday on the topic of sharia law.

“I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues around the perceived concerns of other religious communities and to try and bring them into better public focus.”

Now, by “a pastor of the Church of England”, he means himself. He is describing his own job description. And apparently that job includes making sure that other religious communities have their concerns actively reflected in the public realm. Given what he said last week about sharia law, this reflection isn’t merely stative, but supportive. He didn’t say, “By the way, we should realise that what many Muslims aspire to is X, but of course we can’t support that notion.” Neither did he say, “By the way, we should realise that what many Muslims aspire to is X, but no comment”. He supported, defended their concerns.

And there’s that “defence” word again. It seems that it is not just the Prince of Wales. It seems it is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s aspiration to be “defender of faith”, not specifically “defender of the faith”.

And in case anyone doubted it: I’m not saying I approve. Neither am I leaving it at “no comment.” That would make me a “defender of faith”. Rather, I’m saying that I disagree. I think his job is to “to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word.”