Your appraisal be for how well Queen Elizabeth II defended the faith?

[Inspecto]

The upcoming coronation is reminding everyone that the monarchy is tasked with defending the faith. New book released ahead of the coronation too: Defenders of the Faith

What would your appraisal be for how well Queen Elizabeth II defended the faith?

Apparently, she had a great personal faith.
But her ‘never complain and never explain’ line was a poor strategy for defending the faith. The faith numbers demonstrably dropped during her 70-year reign. And I don’t yet see any evidence of her doing anything meaningful to defend the faith from the fall in numbers.

It matters because the Crown is the symbol of justice. People need faith in justice. That means a monarch must be able to complain about injustice and explain the complexity of justice. Fair?

*it has been neglected not defended

I'm not able to quote a quote so tie the comments back yourself.

When the crown was removed from the Queen's coffin it was to symbolise that she was no longer the monarch, it was not reflective of an entropic religious state. The titles and duties had already been passed to Charles.

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good people do nothing." Yes this is a good saying and very true, though it has nothing to do with your argument. People of all religions, and of none, can be good or evil.

In the analogy you give about the gardener and tulips, and in other comments, it demonstrates that you are confusing the definition of "defender" with "preserver" and "promotor" or even "recruiter".

Needs saying again.....🙄

Maybe a football analogy of defender would work better. Gardeners, as you say, don’t really do much defending (unless the tulips needed protecting from something).

A football defender’s primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.

Is the opposite of faith atheism? If so, then I think we can safely conclude that atheism won over the late Queen’s 70-year reign’s faith football game.

Commentary of that game should rightly question the defence side.

By repeating that you’re not engaging with the nuances of the points you’re making.

Why can’t you see the whole project has become a joke? It could be a quirk of history but that only means it all needs overhaul and a rethink.

God is not supposed to be treated as fictitious by the defender of the faith.

You talk about missing nuance and the whole picture when you say nonsense like "God is not supposed to be treated as fictitious by the defender of the faith."

The Monarch has their own personal belief in God which is their right to hold. Ergo, they're not treating God as fictitious.

The point you deliberately miss is the Monarch hasn't been Absolute since the Restoration. As such, what exactly do you expect a CONSTITUTIONAL Monarchy to actually do on this score?

Parliament is Supreme and still the overall Authority. Not the Monarch who sits on the throne at the permission of the UK Parliament.

"Defender of the faith" is now a historical title like several things in the UK are also historical. Nothing you've rambled on rather aimlessly actually changes this CONSTITUTIONAL reality. 🤷‍♂️

Nothing you've rambled on rather aimlessly actually changes this CONSTITUTIONAL reality. 🤷‍♂️

I'm beginning to wonder if this is a name change for another poster who comes on here and rambles aimlessly on topics. That one goes round and round in circles, as well.

By repeating that you’re not engaging with the nuances of the points you’re making

It's social media, OP. Not a third year philosophy or politics seminar.

As such, what exactly do you expect a CONSTITUTIONAL Monarchy to actually do on this score?

Defend the faith. Constitution should not have a problem with defender of the faith defending the faith. If they do then that is a stupid constitution.

As such, what exactly do you expect a CONSTITUTIONAL Monarchy to actually do on this score?

Using the analogy of football defenders the primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Are you saying that a constitutional monarchy has no power whatsoever to resist attacks on the faith?

The faith was attacked throughout the late Queen’s reign. She did nothing to defend the faith from those attacks. With her team of talented people I find it hard to believe they couldn’t have found a way to defend in many creative and soft power ways in, yes, a constitutional monarchy.

What on earth should/could the monarch 'defend the faith' from, exactly? No one is persecuting the Anglican (or any other) church in the U.K.

Football defenders do not perform the same role as the defender of the faith. The roles are entirely separate and unconnected.

You seem very keen to repeat the same points over and over giving unrelated examples, to what gain? What are you trying to get to here? Do you want the now deceased monarch to be posthumously stripped of her defender of the faith title for failing to meet your standards?

I'm too busy getting ready for the weekend to follow up any further on the thread so I'm dropping off. I wish you a merry Christmas OP. No doubt you will be celebrating it religiously to ensure the faith is defended.

What on earth should/could the monarch 'defend the faith' from, exactly?

“The following statistics from Pew Research Center shows that Christianity is the world's most persecuted religion across all nations and that it continues to grow in number.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution

Some people seem to think it’s ok to make fun of Christianity but not other religions.

*this was in response to @ErrolTheDragon

What on earth should/could the monarch 'defend the faith' from, exactly?

“The following statistics from Pew Research Center shows that Christianity is the world's most persecuted religion across all nations and that it continues to grow in number.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution

Some people seem to think it’s ok to make fun of Christianity but not other religions.

And what exactly did you expect the late queen to do about world wide persecution of Christianity? call a crusade, or something?

Why do you jump to the most extreme examples? It shows real lack of ingenuity.

Why not look to how other religions have defended their faith and faithful from mockery and persecution? Assess the reasonableness of those ideas and tactics, of course.

Many call it out as what it is: anti-[insert name of faith].
Then other people get the message loud and clear that it is not acceptable to make fun of the faith or persecute the faithful.

Bottom line. The late Queen did not defend the faith. It is disingenuous to claim she was some sort of great defender of the faith because she wasn’t even trying to defend when Christianity became the world's most persecuted religion across all nations with growing numbers. Maybe she didn’t care enough because the title had been given to her and taken for granted, not hard earned at all.

Ah, you omitted that I'd specified 'in the U.K.'.
I don't think anyone can seriously pretend Christianity or Christians are persecuted here. So, this suggests that here, unlike elsewhere, the faith is adequately defended?

OP not one person has come on this thread to agree with you. In summary, most people see your argument as highly esoteric and anachronistic. Even Christians.

The point is perhaps of interest to King Charles as he is probably in the process of deciding what his approach will be. At first I wondered if you were involved in advising him in some way. If you are, you will have realised from this thread that most people really don’t care and will be very happy if the King declares himself to be defender of all faiths (if they notice at all).

Your most recent posts seem to indicate that this might be a personal obsession. It is an obsession ie. you seem compelled to keep repeating the same points instead of really engaging with the responses. What I find particularly odd and worrying is your latest point that Christians are persecuted. This might be so in some parts of the world, but not in the U.K. in fact, given how few practising Christians there are, the church maintains a very privileged position.

OP, most people really don’t care about this. They care about wars, the cost of living, the health service … not about an esoteric, arcane and anachronistic aspect of the monarchy.

The research states “across all nations”, and I think you’ll find that the UK is a nation.

As head of the commonwealth the late Queen was defender of faith in other nations too, such as Canada, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda and many more. Looking at the list of her titles in the many commonwealth nations, it looks like she was ‘defender of the faith’ for almost all at some point during her 70-year reign.

There was one pp who said “I've been wondering same for a while.”

It does not take a genius to wonder why the defender of the faith does not do any defending.

But I think this thread proves that the defender of the faith title is like the Emperor’s new clothes (as an idiom, use of the story's title refers to something widely accepted as true or professed as being praiseworthy, due to an unwillingness of the general population to criticize it or be seen as going against popular opinion. The phrase "emperor's new clothes" has become an idiom about logical fallacies.)

you will have realised from this thread that most people really don’t care and will be very happy if the King declares himself to be defender of all faiths (if they notice at all).

But you don’t realise why people not caring is at the heart of the problem. That problem has been caused by negligence over too many years. Now we are at a point where people are apathetic.

“Apathy, the lack of interest and the inaction it generates, may seem harmless on the outside, but it’s this disregard for others and things happening around us that makes it an insidious threat.”

No, I am not apathetic at all. I vehemently don’t think it is relevant. There are so many things to care about that are happening in this country. The point you are making is not important.

It is high time we moved on from both religion and a monarchy. Both are a totally irrelevant nonsense.

More rambling nonsense.

Short of being an Absolute Monarch, how exactly do YOU expect a CONSTITUTIONAL Monarch to defend the faith?

A Constitutional Monarch's powers was long-ago severely restricted by Parliament.

You have so far failed to state what any Constitutional Monarch can actually do to arrest the decline of religious believers in the UK. They cannot force people to attend church or identify as Christians if they choose not to.

All a Constitutional Monarch can do is practise their own religious faith themselves and hope it inspires enough of their subjects at the same time.

People no longer identifying as a religious believer isn't really an attack as such. Everyone is free to believe or not.

Are you suggesting that Christianity should take a leaf out of Islam's book?

That's no model to follow and I think you'll find that Islam is also quite widely mocked. Of course, Islamic fundamentalists will have a problem with that to the point of committing murder.

In Canada and other Commonwealth nations, "there have been no established churches in Canada since before its confederation in 1867. Defender of the Faith thus has a more vague meaning in the Canadian title, alluding only to the monarch's belief in a higher power."

This is true also of other Commonwealth nations.

By your line of reasoning, you'd argue that "Head of the Commonwealth" implies the Monarch has political power over the leaders of the sovereign nations who are part of the Commonwealth! They don't. 🤦‍♂️

Same with Defender of the faith title. Its not really important.

Why do you jump to the most extreme examples? It shows real lack of ingenuity

You are ridiculous.

You have so far failed to state what any Constitutional Monarch can actually do to arrest the decline of religious believers in the UK. They cannot force people to attend church or identify as Christians if they choose not to

If this is the poster I think it is name-changing then you won't get an answer. That one just posts streams of consciousness that go round and round and round until everyone but the OP is comatose with either boredom or frustration.