I missed the King’s speech this Christmas – in any case, it was delivered at 2am in Australia! And then I read the reviews before I actually watched it on YouTube. Some commentators were ecstatic. Damian Thompson of the Spectator’s Holy Smoke podcast was one such: “The King’s speech was beyond reproach – an ideal balance between his Christian faith, emphasising the importance of meeting Pope Leo, and his warm relationship with other communities.”
Fraser Nelson called it “a vital and even daring contribution to an important debate”. In this text I need to interact with each the speech and Fraser’s article, which to my mind has been probably the most thoughtful and stimulating of all of the responses.
Having commented on the previous two Kings Christmas messages in 2023 and in 2024, I wondered if this was third time lucky. Maybe the King after a yr of facing illness had had time to reflect further on what Christ really taught?
So, I listened and sadly it was the old moralist, therapeutic deism which got here across. As regular as Wizzard’s “I wish it could possibly be Christmas each day”, the King’s speech repeats the identical narrative every yr.
Moralism
“Courage and repair are the values which have shaped our country and the Commonwealth.”
“It seems to me that we’d like to cherish the values of compassion and reconciliation; the way in which our Lord lived and died.”
All this was backed up by various photo ops of various members of the Royal Family doing good – serving meals, visiting hospitals etc.
Diversity
“In this, with the nice diversity of our communities, we are able to find the strength to be certain that right triumphs over mistaken.”
This was a repeat of his 2024 message where he stated that “diversity of culture, ethnicity and faith provides strength not weakness”.
Inter Faith
“To today, in times of uncertainty, these ways of living are treasured by all the nice faiths and supply us with deep wells of hope”
“As I meet people of various faiths, I find it enormously encouraging to listen to how much we’ve got in common; a shared eager for peace and a deep respect for all life. If we are able to find time in our journey through life to think on these virtues we are able to all make the longer term more hopeful.”
If only we’ve got these then we may have peace on earth.
“That prayer for peace and reconciliation – for ‘doing to others as we might have them do to us’ – which rang out over the fields near Bethlehem greater than two thousand years ago, still reverberates from there and around the globe today.”
The King’s ‘gospel’ is one which is shared by many – including Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London who in his Christmas message offered us this pearl of wisdom: “No matter our religion. Jesus’ story offers lessons to us all … to open our hearts and doors to those that are different from us.”
Fraser Nelson goes on to look at that “so many who wade into this territory are ignorant about all religion. The King isn’t.”
But is that this true? What is mistaken with what the King said? The trouble is that while it suits the doctrines of the brand new State religion, it’s way out of step with the faith of the One whose birth we were speculated to be celebrating. It isn’t that there’s nothing Christian in it, but quite that it’s a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ version of Christ’s teaching. But as a clever man (Augustine) once said: “If you think what you want within the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it isn’t the Gospel you think, but yourself.”
So, what does Christ say about this latest State religion?
Moralism
Jesus didn’t come to indicate us the right way to be good, compassionate and type – though he was. He taught that there is no such thing as a one which is sweet, no not one (Mark 10:18). A reliance on the innate inner goodness of individuals is the very opposite of what Jesus taught. He didn’t come to die for good people; he got here to die for sinners.
Simply stating that Jesus showed us and told us the right way to be courageous and serve others is 1,000,000 miles from the actual Gospel. Christ taught that we couldn’t even see the dominion of God – let alone serve in it – unless we were born again (John 3).
Fraser Nelson stated that the King defined faith as not being “about tribal identity. It is about how we live together.” That’s not faith. That’s moralism. Faith in Christ should indeed change our relationships but sometimes, it causes division: Jesus says, “Do you’re thinking that that I even have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I inform you, but division” (Luke 12:51). As I identified on this earlier CT article, Jesus is more divisive than Tommy Robinson.
I’m fascinated by how intelligent people just don’t appear to get the Gospel or the message of Jesus, while at the identical time proclaiming they agree with it. Moralistic therapeutic deism is the faith of the governing classes – because it at all times has been. It permits virtue signalling, moral superiority and a type of nice Pharisaism. This message is continually reinforced in schools, many churches and the media.
Diversity
Jesus reached out to every kind of individuals. He got here for all of the peoples and nations of the world. But the proven fact that the church is diverse and for the entire world could be very different from the variety preached by the King and the mayor. The peace that the angels sing about is for those ‘on whom God’s favour rests’.
Jesus taught that sooner or later he’ll separate the sheep from the goats – the previous heading to heaven and the latter heading towards everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus didn’t come to inform us all to be nice and he would accept us all irrespective of what we do, who we’re, or what religion we follow. He got here to vary and transform us, not only make us nicer.
As regards the buzzword of diversity, the King must do not forget that individuals who live in palaces shouldn’t throw stones at those that don’t have that privilege and are nervous about housing, education and healthcare – in addition to losing their country.
Diversity is wonderful however it only works if there’s a standard set of values. The UK had those from Christianity. In the past, on the entire, when people got here from other countries, they accepted the social contract based on those values. Then the woke left and the progressives destroyed that foundation and under the guise of ‘diversity’ imported large groups of individuals with different values. As a result, diversity has grow to be our weakness, not our strength. The King needs to be aware that his beloved doctrine of ‘diversity’ is now tearing his kingdom apart.
The real diversity that I even have seen displayed in lots of churches is where people come together on the premise of a standard faith in Christ – whatever their class, race, gender or societal status. It is Christ who breaks down the dividing wall of partition. Without him there will probably be no fundamental unity with diversity.
Interfaith
According to Fraser Nelson’s report “inter-faith tolerance, he says, is a fundamental a part of Christianity”. All of us are for ‘tolerance’, but what is supposed by “inter-faith tolerance”? If the King just implies that we should always have freedom of faith and other people needs to be free to worship as they see slot in a pluralistic society, then most of us should not going to disagree with that. But he’s moving beyond tolerance to a type of spiritual smorgasbord where each religion is actually the identical.
As the Catholic Herald identified in its 2023 response to the King’s speech: “multi-faith observance isn’t Christianity. The shibboleths of multi-culturalism should not Christianity.” Islam teaches that Jesus Christ isn’t the Son of God and that he didn’t die on the cross. It undermines the very heart of Christianity. In fact, if King Charles really believes that Jesus is the Son of God then Islam teaches that he has committed the intense sin of shirk and that he’ll due to this fact go to Hell unless he repents from this basic Anglican (and Christian) doctrine. The King appears to be profoundly ignorant each about Christian and Islamic theology.
Perhaps probably the most astounding response of Fraser’s column was his belief that, “Both King and Pope are showing a type of bravery that is definitely missed since it is so quiet. It could be simpler, in these heated times, to retreat into cliché or avoid the controversial stuff.”
Yet the King’s speech was so filled with cliché that it read as if it had been written by AI. Before I heard the speech, I wrote down my King’s speech bingo card. I got all the topics he would discuss – only his refraining from mentioning his own health kept me from having a full house! In that regard, whatever his views, all Christians should pray for the King, that he may fully get well and luxuriate in good health.
Nonetheless, there was no bravery in his speech. He repeated the values of his class and the clichés of his mentors. Speaking of sophistication, there’s a type of snobbery that comes across in Fraser’s report. Contrasting the King’s speech with the Tommy Robinson carol service, he noted that “Actual priests and vicars (versus the Speakers’ Corner nutters that Robinson rounded up) will tell the story of the Samaritans”.
But here is my problem: I don’t know enough to dismiss all of the speakers on the Robinson carol service as “nutters”, but I do know that many “actual priests and vicars” will probably be individuals who deny the Gospel at Christmas. If you contrast the message from the King with the message from Robinson’s carol service, I notice that the latter, while being a bit rough and unpolished, had a sincerity, reality and above all faithfulness to the Gospel that was missing from the King’s.
Whereas the King taught us that we’re all good and just have to get on with each other, Robinson admitted he was a sinner and needed to know Christ. Imagine if King Charles had publicly repented for his adultery and treatment of his former wife? That would have been revolutionary! Not for the primary time the poor appear to get the message of King Jesus an entire lot higher than the wealthy.
The Christmas special of the wonderful “All Creatures Great and Small” told us that “Christmas is about finding love wherever we are able to”.
But what’s love? The latest State religion tells us that ‘love is love’ – the last word in meaningless memes. The Christmas message tells us that God is love, but what does that mean? I can put it no higher than Jesus himself. If the King (or any certainly one of his subjects) desires to be saved then they should hearken to the Saviour. Perhaps all of us should reflect on this as we enter the New Year? Don’t pick ‘n’ mix. Take the Gospel, the entire Gospel, and nothing however the Gospel!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God didn’t send his Son into the world to sentence the world, but to avoid wasting the world through him. Whoever believes in him isn’t condemned, but whoever doesn’t imagine stands condemned already because they’ve not believed within the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the decision: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness as an alternative of sunshine because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the sunshine, and won’t come into the sunshine for fear that their deeds will probably be exposed. But whoever lives by the reality comes into the sunshine, in order that it might be seen plainly that what they’ve done has been done within the sight of God” (John 3:16-21).
