King Charles is now not Defender of faith

[Smokeywater]

King Charles is now not Defender of the Faith for Church of England Christian -
in the Sovereign Grant Report 2025-26
Where last year’s report described the King as “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith,” this year’s version reads: “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”

Doesnt seem a great move to me - he has a historical role as King and messing about with that role diminishes it imv - if you can just change things overnight why not change other things like being crowned in a big carry on by the Archbishop of Canterbury - William can just give that a miss and have a chinwag with a few other religious leaders.

So the thread was started to have a bash at Muslims.

You do know that the department of defence had a similar leaflet for recruits?

I wondered how long it would be before the OP acknowledged that she just wanted to have a dig at Muslims. And as PP has said, there’s an area in London for Orthodox Jews who follow their own laws within it. That doesn’t suit your narrative though does it?

Isn’t the King a Muslim convert? I heard it on a podcast….

I agree with you OP. No wonder the CoE is in such terminal decline when it is so embarrassed and unsure of its own beliefs that its own head can’t even unashamedly represent itself. No other faith is like this.

Religions do make exclusively truth claims. Christianity and Islam certainly make exclusive claims to be the one truth faith, that each person’s eternal life depends on accepting this one true faith and both believe in converting others to their faith.

There are many aspects of other faiths that I don’t want defending thanks. Islam in particular is extremly homophobic, and there are some gay men starting to be vocal about their concerns about immigration from Muslim countries because of this. There are certainly some strands of some religions I don’t want defending, Islamism being one of them.

All religions are not the same, strands within all religions are not the same. We should be being clear that we do expect an acceptance of base values in our society that everyone living here needs to accept regardless of religion.

This vague, well meaning but highly naive language from KC just gives strength to those, yes particularly in Islam, who are imposing their religious values and practices on the rest of British citizens, such as demanding we respect their prophet and Holy Book and literally terrorizing and threatening death on everyone who disagrees. The Batley teacher is STILL in hiding. No, the KC should not be defending that.

@SmokeywaterWhat does 'imv' mean? You use it quite a lot and I have spent ages trying to work it out.

I think the CofE is in terminal decline because of the outdated views of many within it. You speak of homophobia within Islam - the CofE isn't exactly a shining beacon of inclusivity on that score. Were you around to see the ruckus within the so called Christian community when a woman was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury?

The way 'Christianity' in this country will grow, if we're not very careful, is via the Christian nationalist route, supported financially by murky US sources. And they ain't no Christians as far as I'm aware.

I think imv is 'in my view'.

Ed spelling

Have you seen the rules in the Bible for women ?

Eg :

Deu 22:28 - 29 When a man finds a girl, a virgin who is not betrothed, and has caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found, then the man who is lying with her has given fifty pieces of silver to the father of the girl, and she is to him for a wife; because that he has humbled her, he is not able to send her away [for] all his days. (LSV)

Ah but that is old testament you might say. Ok, here is what the NT says :

1Ti 2:9-15 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (KJV)

It would be quite a thing if the King were to turn around and say he wanted the country to follow the Bible.

He didn’t, he founded the Church IN England. Essentially the existing Church (pretty much Catholic still) but with him as the head instead of the pope. So he was still Defender of the Faith.

This is the sort of well meaning, naive, 'all religions are the same really' attitude I was referring to above. The modern CoE, or even Christian more broadly attitude, to homosexuality is nothing like that of mainstream Islam either in scale or depth. Christianity has made a massive shift of acceptance of homosexuality. even if it is not at the same place as secular society on this. This is very different from the attitude in most of Islam, where there are still Muslim countries who have the death penalty for homosexuality. And in the West, the attitudes to homosexuality amongst Muslims are still far less tolerant and accepting than those of mainstream Christians and society. There are also more likely to hold anti-Semitic views than other faiths.

Just anecdoctally, the only violently homophobic comment I have personally since the 90s, was one I heard recently from a group of young muslim men who were openly laughing and joking in the city centre about how they would burn gay men to death.

This is the sort of weak argument you have to fall back on to pretend all religions are the same and equal.

It makes sense for people of faith to argue internally about the who follows the ' 'correct' faith. It makes absolutely no sense for anyone else to argue about who is and is not a real christian or muslim or whatever.

For the rest of us, Christianity is what Christians do, Islam is what muslims do.

In actual practice, there are few with any real doubt that women have a better deal in Christian heritage countries that Muslim ones.

Why not ditch the whole religion thing and just have him as a defender of the constitution and the rule of law?

As others have pointed out it makes no sense for him to defend one religion when there are so many; and that some of these faiths are incompatible with our constitution and offend our moral senses.

He realises that we are a multi faith nation, and is showing his tolerance and respect for all of his ‘subjects’.

This can only be a good thing, can’t it?

This. I never understand why it is only Islam that is repeatedly criticised. They do not live outside of the law of the land.

It seems reasonable for me (agnostic) - he's setting himself up as a protector of all faiths; i.e. people's right to practise their different faiths unmolested, but he is still Supreme Governor of the CofE.

He can't be expected to solve religious intolerance - that's a bigger problem than one person can solve - but he's setting out his position, that he has no appetite for measures or behaviours intended to stop people practising their faith of choice/birth.

“…old trout”

Ageism and sexism. 🙄 Not sure you know what being ‘lovely’ means.

@BaldrapunzelThank you. I've only ever seen 'imho' or 'imvho'. I'm probably just old.

I'm a Christian but King Charles is not the head (or Supreme Leader, which sounds like it's from Star Wars) of my church.

Faith is a complex matter, and imv should not be linked to politics. Many countries (Iran notwithstanding), particularly in the West, do not overlap faith leaders and political leaders. The Pope is not a leader of Italy and does not represent Italy in any way, he's the head of the Catholic Church.

It’s a good thing imo. It sounds less pompous, less triumphalist, and more inclusive.

Religion and state should be separate in my opinion. Hopefully this is one small step in that direction. A next good step would be for 26 Archbishops and Bishops to no longer be entitled to seats in the House of Lords. All so ridiculous and outdated in a largely secular country.

he's setting himself up as a protector of all faiths; i.e. people's right to practise their different faiths unmolested - the problem arises when the practice of some of those faiths is in conflict with the standards of morality that most people here would wish to uphold. The king cannot set himself up to defend those practices. That would be silly.

If you see the king as essentially a political construct then I would wish to see him not mentioning religion at all. The separation of religion and the state is long overdue in our country and the presence of bishops in the house of lords and state supported faith schools are an abomination.

I agree with this. I think it's enough for the freedom to believe in whatever you want and practise whatever faith or none to be protected in law.
I do though think it's at least showing that the Firm are aware of the in creasing secularisation of the UK and the multiplicity of faiths that exist here, which is no bad thing.

Well, the king is not a political leader either, so there’s no inconsistency there.

Perhaps because (a) Jews are only 0.2%, or 292,000 of the population of the UK compared to 6.5% muslim, about 4 million people (with obviously much higher concentrations in some part of the UK than others). And obviously of the 0.2% of the population who are Jewish, a much, much smaller number will be orthodox Jews.

Also, and this is important, Jews have no interest whatsoever in trying to coerce anyone else to follow their religion or rules. Muslims, on the other hand, have, in this country and other non-Muslim countries, and for decades, sought to impose their religious obligations on non-Muslims, namely respecting the Qu-ran and the prophet, and have done so with literal murderous violence and with threats of murderous violence and have done this to both children and adults in the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jsr2 Here is an anti-Social episode about a boy who dropped a Qu'ran at school and was threatened by local muslims. His mum had to go and beg at the local mosque for the mob to be called off, whilst the police sat and watched this without reminding both her and the muslim community that actually, her son was the victim here. Her son was autistic and had not eaten for days as he was so extremely distressed and frightened by the death threats. Listen to the Muslim rep defending this, explaining how respected the Qu'ran is whilst laughingly dismissingly at the death threats against this child as ' boys will be boys.' As the ex-Muslim on this episode said, this was like watching a non-Muslim being subject to a Sharia court in the UK.

It's not a weak argument at all. Because I am not making an argument.

I am asking a poster if they are aware of what the Bible says about women.

That some followers of that faith choose not to follow those rules does not mean the rules are not in their book.

Agree. "The space for faith" sounds like tacky management-speak. Not very inspiring.

Other than that, it seems like a completely sensible move. Those that say "you can't tinker with kingship" forget that the monarchy has always invented itself as it goes along, making expedient tweaks as needed. It just cloaks all of these in the fictions and fabrics of eternity. It's in the nature of the institution.

Well, we'll never know that will we?