The best defence? Howard Grace on monarchy and faith

‘“Faith” can be thought of from two perspectives.’

t the moment of his official accession as king, Charles stated his constitutional responsibility as ‘defender of the faith’. As a younger man he suggested he would prefer to be seen as a more-inclusive ‘defender of faith’.

‘Faith’ can be thought of from two perspectives. I was struck some years ago listening to Jonathan Sacks (the former chief rabbi), quoting Timothy Ferris in The Whole Shebang: ‘All who genuinely seek to learn, whether atheist or believer, scientist or mystic, are united in having not a faith, but faith itself.’ That puts an emphasis on ‘trust’ rather than ‘belief’. With this understanding, faith is something that transcends religions and other belief allegiances.

The religious profile of the population of Britain has changed substantially in the past few decades. In 2017, the British Social Attitudes Survey for England and Wales found that: ‘Among 18–24-year-olds, the answer “none” (no religion) was given by 71%, compared with 27% of those of 75 years or over’ – an almost complete reversal.

Yet many from all generations share values like integrity, compassion, environmental sustainability, and a desire to treat each other well. So what is it that is being rejected by the younger people identified in the survey? It helps to think beyond our personal bubbles. I suspect that a major problem is an unconscious bias, which all of us have picked up along the way, that equates ‘faith’ to Christian or religious belief. This then recalls doctrinal religion, and associated concepts.

I asked one of my younger friends how she sees ‘faith’. She replied, ‘As a non-believer I am uneasy with the word, as it is so closely tied to the connotations of organised religion. To me, spirituality is about connecting to something greater than the self. There is a sense of driving purpose and a concept of shared humanity – that we are all connected in a global ecosystem and we each bring something beautiful and valuable to that rich tapestry. This spiritual sense, alongside my driving value of servant leadership, allows me to make morally-conscious choices that I believe would reflect the same teachings as a great many religious texts.’

Over the last few decades, a lot of interfaith work has been done in this increasingly-secular world. Might the next move forward be to see ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ as a false dividing line, and explore what could be the bridge between the two? Such an exploration would look at the heart rather than the head. My hope is that the new monarch and his successors can foster an encompassing worldview of faith, one that transcends ‘beliefs’ just as well as it does generations.

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