It was a Saturday morning in May. In the middle of a conversation in rainy Trafalgar Square I raised my finger to try to politely indicate to the person I was talking to that I was going to join the Lord's Prayer that I just realised was starting through the loud speakers. My conversation partner paused for a moment, and I closed my eyes and joined in with the congregation in Westminster Abbey in an act of Christian prayer, "Our Father, who art in heaven..."
It was the only time I felt some kind of connection to what was happening there at the coronation service a mile away, a nominally Christian service that I was protesting against, carrying a hand-written sign reading "Christians for a Republic."
The whole thing was rather incongruent. I could half hear the music and cadences of an Anglican cathedral service, while in a crowd almost continuously chanting "Not my king! Not my king!" and (my personal favourite) "He's just a normal man! He's just a normal man!". As a Christian, part of my gut instinct was to join in with the service, and I did enjoy parts of it (I rather like "Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven"). But equally as a Christian I felt it my duty to be at the republican protest. I wanted to to be there, and I very explicitly wanted to be there as a Christian, to witness Christian values, and to follow the Way of Christ.
My republicanism is inseparable from my Christianity. I am a republican because I am a Christian. I believe in the supreme value of all people equally as children of God. I believe the good news of Jesus is good news for the poor. And I believe that God alone can be worshipped. Monarchy to me amounts to worshipping and bowing down to a human being in an act of idolatry. And as I and others kept chanting, Charles Windsor is "just a normal man." When I got home and watched the service that I had only half-heard previously there was one phrase that stood out for me. At one point Justin Welby said the phrase "the true profession of the gospel". Well for me, the true profession of the gospel is equality. It is justice for the poor and the demand that the rich give up their wealth and privilege.
That service for me did not feel like the true profession of the gospel of love and justice. It felt like a celebration of inequality, privilege, power, and wealth - values totally contrary to the message of Jesus. And I knew that anyone watching would get the impression that Christianity was something aligned with royalty, establishment, wealth, and privilege. As would all those people at the republican protest. And as a minimum I wanted to give an alternative view, the view that some Christians believe very deeply in democracy and equality and that some form of elected head of state in the United Kingdom would reflect those values better. I was delighted to discover I wasn't the only Christian there protesting. I met up with some others in the crowd and we effectively founded Christians for a Republic. True, right now this is just a facebook page, but it could be more.
I freely admit that this cause is not the most important one. We have to deal with the climate crisis and poverty and lots of other things. The first thing on the list is not getting rid of the monarchy. But that doesn't mean that we should all passively support the monarchy. Many of us don't want this system and should be unafraid to say so. It is of course, partly symbolic. The monarchy is the symbol and inequality and privilege and helps give legitimacy to a whole bigger system of inequality. But what became clear that weekend is that it's also a symbol of authoritarianism and the violence of the increasingly fascist police state in the UK. The fact that the police arrested the organisers of the republican protest before it even started is a serious attack on human rights that should worry all of us. Charles Windsor has said nothing condemning those arrests so we must conclude from his silence that he approves of people being arrested for expressing an opinion. He sits at the apex of a rotten system giving legitimacy to all of it.
I do hope that Charles Windsor does learn the good news of Jesus that he is theoretically committed to. But that does require conversion. It requires listening to Jesus when he said to another rich person, lovingly, "Sell what you have, give it to the poor, and then come follow me."
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