The death of Queen Elizabeth II will be more significant for our culture than most people realise.
The Queen has been a pillar of godly virtue during a period of history in which western society has been brazenly eroding the moral foundations on which it was built on an unprecedented scale. Many people will not realise the sheer difference she made simply by being there, simply by standing where she stood, simply by all that she did or did not say.
Otherworldly Values
Her 70-year reign saw a relentless volume of ideological shifts. This makes it all the more incredible that she has been able to hold the line in the public eye for so many years on a very different way of life. As one insightful article put it:
The monarchy has survived in a world that came to reject social hierarchy, deference, aristocracy, tradition and religion. With every force and sensibility turning away from it, the Queen still found ways to connect with ordinary people, to articulate a shared life, and mutely embodied in her conduct what our newly progressive nation no longer wished to hear explicitly articulated.
Far more than an empty signifier, or a maudlin symbol of unity…the Queen fully embraced a mode of life and a set of values utterly alien to modern Britons. Duty, religious piety, humility and service to her fellow man and woman. Like the Israelites bearing the Ark of the Covenant across the desert, our Queen has carried the hidden heart of British life within her through a secular and disenchanted age.
Indeed, the sense of honour that a god-fearing monarch still imbues in the average westerner is striking. It doesn’t make all that much sense. Based on the individualism, consumerism, relativism, and radicalism that dominates our society, we simply ought not to care. It’s just another dead celebrity. A tourist attraction. And yet, inexplicably, we find that we do care.
Why We Care the Queen is Dead
It seems to matter that the Queen is dead. It seems to have significance beyond the norm. They have even cancelled football matches because of it. It has been rightly called the moment when history stops. This moment ought not matter this much; but it does. It matters not only because of who she was, and how she was, but also what she was; the office she held, and all that it stood for, all that it calls us to contemplate.
A Cultural Wake-up Call
Cultural moments like this act as strange reminders within our culture, lifting the lid on all the pretending we’ve been doing as societies and individuals. For decades we have been revelling in self-serving “freedom”. We have been brazenly unmooring ourselves from all that went before us, from all that was built, from all that was inherited. We have done so assuming there are no consequences, as if the party of perpetual change could go on forever.
A Different Kingdom
The unexpected mourning of a godly Queen reminds us we were made not for consumeristic self-worship but to be part of something which stands for a great and grand purpose, stretching beyond the accumulated individuals within any single generation. Even the imperfect monarchies of this world reflect such purpose. They do so in the very essence of what they are supposed to stand for, even where they fail. They are all shadows of the true kingdom beyond this world (John 18:36). This is ultimately the true kingdom which our late great Queen served.
Why God Cares the Queen is Dead
I do not believe that God is apathetic to the passing of a godly monarch. Nor should the Church be. Even constitutional monarchs act as vital figureheads for the vision and moral character of a nation or society. A good or bad monarch can drastically affect the life of the culture, and the Church. Most of us today have not needed to think about this for most of our lifetimes. That’s why we’re called to pray for them.
– 1Tim. 1:1-3
I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour.
There may well be valid worries that our new king may not exemplify the same God-fearing humility as his predecessor. All the more reason, then, to pray for help from the King above his head.
“Amen”