“I will maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel”
By Tony Pearce
The coronation of King Charles III was outwardly very impressive and contained much that should have warmed the heart of a Christian, as prayers were made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and two wonderful Bible readings from Colossians 1 and Luke 4 were broadcast to millions.
And of course the King responded with “I will” to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Declaration of the Protestant Oath: “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?
Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?”
However, God is not impressed with outward form but with inward reality. Does King Charles really believe the oath he made on 6 May? There are three major issues which need to be addressed.
Charles has adopted a very radical environmental agenda that … uses … sustainable development as the reason for the change in governance and freedoms
Firstly, what is the Protestant Reformed Religion that Charles has committed himself to? The Reformation was based on a move to reform Christianity, after centuries of Roman Catholic dominance in Europe which brought in multiple errors as far as biblical Christianity was concerned.
It was an attempt to return to the Gospel of salvation through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as given in the Bible. Its view of God and salvation was based on the famous three ‘solae’ – Latin for alone – ‘Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fides’ (“only Scripture, only grace, only faith”). Faith in Christ alone as the sole mediator between God and man was the basis of Reformed theology.
Sadly, much of the visible ‘Protestant’ Church worldwide – the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Lutheran Church, Methodist Church and Episcopal Church – has moved away from this theology. Even as Archbishop Welby asked this question, he would have been all too aware that the Church of England is now facing a split between those who want a biblical Church, based on Reformed Protestant theology (represented by GAFCON – Global Anglican Future Conference), and those who accept the authority of Canterbury and the Anglican Synod, which are becoming increasingly liberal.
So where does King Charles stand on this issue? His mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, clearly expressed a personal faith in the Lord Jesus. Indeed, after her death Charles told the world that his own faith is “so deeply rooted” in the Church.
Have his views, then, changed over the decades? According to the book ‘The Prince and the Paranormal’ by John Dale, written in 1986: “There is evidence that deep inside himself the Prince is a super-ecumenist – someone who believes that each of the world’s religions including Christianity contains a relative truth rather than an absolute one.”
In 1985 Charles said in an interview: “I think Jung makes a great deal of sense in many, many areas and particularly in what is written in the Bible and Indian religions, and in Islam, and many others … Definitely a pattern develops, where we are all ultimately trying to explore, to go along the same path, to answer the same questions. We all approach from different paths but ultimately the paths meet somewhere in infinity, and that’s the important thing” (Sunday Times, 18 August 1985).
This is basically the multi-faith idea that every faith alongside Christianity contains a path to God (in other words, all gods are equal). How far does King Charles still hold this view? It appears that he wanted to include prayers from religious leaders of other faiths in the actual coronation service. He was not able to do this, because of the legal aspects of the coronation as a specifically Christian ceremony, but he did manage to include them in giving a blessing as he left Westminster Abbey.
An article on fortune.com on 2 May says: “As far back as the 1990s, Charles suggested that he would like to be known as ‘the defender of faith’, a small but hugely symbolic change from the monarch’s traditional title of ‘defender of the faith’, meaning Christianity.
On the day of the coronation an article appeared in The Spectator by Quanta Ahmed called ‘God save our Islamophilic King’
It’s an important distinction for a man who believes in the healing power of yoga and once called Islam ‘one of the greatest treasuries of accumulated wisdom and spiritual knowledge available to humanity.’
This way of thinking is the greatest challenge to evangelical Christianity today in countries like Britain as it denies the central message of the Gospel, that there is one way to God through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6, Acts 4:12).
So how can King Charles defend the truth of the Gospel which teaches the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the one way to God through repentance and faith in him (John 14:6)?
On the day of the coronation an article appeared in The Spectator by Quanta Ahmed called ‘God save our Islamophilic King’. She wrote: “Muslims in Britain and the world over will recognise, in King Charles, a monarch who is deeply Islamophilic.
“He has spoken about his attempts to learn Arabic in order to understand the Quran in its original script. He served as vice-patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and has spoken eloquently about Islam and the West, saying the links ‘matter more today than ever before’.
“My mother, who grew up in British India, loves to say that Charles III is essentially Muslim – her logic being one must first be a good Christian before one can be a good Muslim. It’s an axiom she remembers from the days of empire before we were being told that we are all engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’. As Charles himself put it: ‘that which binds our two worlds together is so much more powerful than that which divides us’.”
In fact, the teaching of the Quran denies the central Gospel message, that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, our unique Saviour, who died for our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life. As a result, Islam is the main persecutor of believing Christians in the world today.
Secondly, we have Charles’s decision to give Camilla the title of Queen and include her in the coronation service.
According to Jesus’s teaching on divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19:3-9, Charles’s present marriage to Camilla is illegitimate on the grounds of his previous adultery. Therefore, she has no right to the title of Queen.
We note that once before Charles made a solemn vow before God and millions of people, at his wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. On that occasion he promised to be faithful to one wife, Diana, “till death us do part”.
He promised to be faithful to one wife, Diana, “till death us do part”
Even at the time of his wedding to Diana, he was seeing Camilla and wanting to be with her. This led to the subsequent marriage breakdown, because there were “three people in that marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” as Diana put it in her famous TV interview.
Thirdly, we have to ask about the new King’s climate change agenda that has got him involved with WEF (World Economic Forum) and UN plans to work for world government. In her book ‘Prince Charles – the sustainable Prince’, Joan Veon writes: “Prince Charles has adopted a very radical environmental agenda that calls for a planned society, using the environment and sustainable development as the reason for the change in governance and freedoms.”
In 2020 as Prince Charles, he endorsed the pivotal WEF conference where its Chairman Klaus Schwab, whom Charles has known for years, launched the ‘Great Reset’ agenda, calling for a total reorganisation of our society in order to resolve global crises, in particular the Covid pandemic and the threat of climate change.
Then at the COP 26 UN summit in Glasgow in November 2021, Charles urged world leaders to take urgent action to combat climate change, saying that time is running out. He called for “a vast military style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector, with trillions at his (or its) disposal far beyond global GDP, and with the greatest respect, beyond even the governments of the world’s leaders. It offers the only real prospect of achieving fundamental economic transition.”
Some have interpreted this as Charles making a reference to the coming Antichrist as the one who will bring this to pass. Whether this was what he meant is debatable, but it is clear from this statement that he favours the investment of trillions of dollars in a programme to effect the fundamental economic change of the present world system, as advocated by the WEF and the UN.
Critics of this programme say it will result in the impoverishment of millions of people, the end of freedom and democracy and lead to a world government along the lines of Revelation 13 (and will do nothing to change the weather). Now that Charles is King, the constraints of his position as constitutional monarch may make it difficult for him to continue to campaign publicly on such matters. But it is unlikely that he will give up his involvement in the programme and he has said that, now he is King, he has a short time in which to achieve much.
In an article for The British Church Newspaper, Tony Bennet wrote: “Charles admires Klaus Schwab and the WEF, [and supports] its one world government agenda. But an increasing number of his subjects wholeheartedly reject that agenda. The Bill of Rights is clear; our sovereigns must ensure that ‘no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm’.
“Will King Charles use his position of influence to defend our nation from foreign powers that seek to destroy us, or collaborate with them? Your Majesty! Where are your loyalties? To us? – or to Klaus Schwab and his WEF friends?”
Good question. I gave a full length talk on this subject the day after the coronation. Perhaps the words, “God save the King”, have never been uttered so fervently by Christians in these days.
Tony Pearce’s full length talk on this subject (7 May 2023) is available on the Light for the Last Days website and The Bridge Christian Fellowship website at www.bridgelane.org.uk
“Weird things” in the coronation
Historian Dr Naomi Wolf has written of “weird things” and “twisted symbols” in the new King’s coronation that led her to wonder if it was, surreptitiously, a de-consecration.
She writes: “Entirely tempering or countering his role as head of the Church of England, at the climax of the Coronation, a half dozen representatives of other faiths surround him. The Greek Orthodox priest, the Roman Catholic priest — the rabbi and others all stand, while King Charles is seated.
“They do not appear as subjects, in a tableau of inclusion, which would be less odd. Rather they surround King Charles from positions of dominance — in a faintly intimidating display of participation in this ritual, or even of religious assertiveness.
“I like inclusion as much as the next person, but this is not the Church of England officiating to consecrate the new Governor of the Church of England in one of the holiest sites for the Church of England.
“This is something — else”.
Dr Wolf also points out that the words spoken during the anointing of the King were inaudible, drowned by music, whereas his mother’s, while also not visible to the cameras, could be heard. And the cherubs adorning the screens faced the tree of life, whereas in the Bible they were posted to guard its sacredness.