King Charles Discards Role as Defender of the Faith

ALBERT MOHLER I The Briefing I June 30, 2026

I want to get to an issue which is really big. It has a huge history behind it, but it also has huge, well, diagnostic dimensions about the present. I’m talking about the decision and now being announced in Great Britain about King Charles III recalibrating and redefining his role, which had been for centuries as Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Church of England, his constitutional role. Now, this can be renegotiated in Britain in various ways. The most important way would be the coronation language. And in taking the coronation language, King Charles III actually used the historic language. Okay. Where did that language come from? Defender of the Faith, Supreme Head of the Church of England. Where did that come from? It goes back to the 16th century. It goes back to the Reformation. It goes back to a fascinating story.

That story has to do with the fact that King Henry III was a staunch defender of the papacy and of the Catholic cause until all of a sudden he wasn’t. And that was over, of course, the question of whether or not he could be granted an annulment in terms of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn and this was a crisis that led to a constitutional crisis, an ecclesial crisis between England and Rome because the papacy did not cooperate with Henry’s plan in terms of the marriage. So Henry decided to break with the long tradition of the Church of Rome being present in the Church of Rome as the Catholic churches there in England. It was a Catholic state.

Prince Henry, King Henry VIII, as he later became, was himself known as a Catholic prince and as a Catholic king. And as a matter of fact, he had written the defense of the papacy that so impressed the papacy as defense of the Catholic church that he was granted the title by the Pope of Defender of the Faith. Those words are all important, Defender of the Faith, those four words. And by the way, he kept that after he made the break with Rome and actually more or less joined the Reformation, creating a third tradition in terms of the Anglican tradition, establishing the Church of England and the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

So this was a break with Rome. This became a part of the Reformation. This is very, very central to the Reformation that took place in the English-speaking world, and it had a great deal to do with the redefinition of the entire British society and in particular the British throne now as something separate from the Vatican, separate from the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, King Henry in establishing a new system in which you had a Church of England rather than the Church of Rome and in which case he’s now the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, he kept the Catholic title given to him by the Pope as Defender of the Faith. And that has gone through successive generations such that Queen Elizabeth II, the mother of King Charles III, when she took the coronation oath, just absolutely embraced the role of Defender of the Faith and as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. And she gave evidence to the fact that she did identify very clearly as a Christian.

All right, King Charles is a different individual. Let’s just put it that way. And from the beginning, even when he was the Prince of Wales, when he was not yet king, when he was just a prince, he was giving interviews indicating that he was very committed to what we can only call some kind of form of postmodern mysticism. And in that postmodern mysticism well, let’s just say it became evident in interviews he did such as a very, I’ll say, famous or infamous interview he did with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby. And he actually made the statement that he really didn’t want to be the Defender of the Faith because that means a specific faith. And that means, by the way, the faith confessed by the Church of England, which is the Protestant faith, which means Christianity, Protestant Christianity, and as particularly represented in the Church of England.

Instead, he said he wanted to be the defender of faith, he said for the divine and everyone that he was just talking to this journalist, but this is loose talk. This is dangerous talk for someone who would later become the king of England, and now he’s following through with it. So for instance, you have headlines coming from England, “King’s role Redefined to Protect Multi-Faith Nation.” That’s the news network known as MSN. Okay. So there is something big going on here at least in terms of what we’re able to read, it does not appear that he is officially surrendering the coronation title Defender of the Faith, deciding instead to take the word “the” out as a definite article. Let’s just say that would be a complete surrender. He is nonetheless adopting new language. Buckingham Palace has announced that he will now define his role as being a defender of all faiths and he defines his role as that within an evolving nation, a multi-faith Britain.

And at least a part of how this is being reframed by Buckingham Palace is that the King’s role will be specified as, “protecting the space for faith within the multi-faith nation.” Okay. So very quickly, this is an absolute disaster. It is just an absolute disaster. We are talking about the abdication of responsibility. We’re talking about the fact that Henry VIII created the Church of England and separated from the Church of Rome, particularly to make a theological statement as well as of course dealing with his marital challenges. But the fact is that Defender of the Faith is something that’s been a part of the coronation titles. Prince Charles as a postmodern thinker, and by the way he is. I had the opportunity to meet with him and even to discuss these issues in a group some years ago when he was still the Prince of Wales. And I can tell you he is absolutely committed to a kind of new age spiritual confusion. I’ll just say in making that statement, I think I’m making it kindly.

I wrote an article about this back in November of 2008. So in other words, I’ve been watching this a long time. And in the meantime, I’ve been collecting materials and then what was in that meeting with the prince. And I can simply tell you, I think he absolutely means what he’s saying. I think he absolutely believes in kind of a postmodern absolute mush. You can use the term new age. I think that’s very clear. It’s kind of an ecotheology behind his spirituality, but I think he’s also, as someone who’s very much in the cultural elites in Europe, they have an absolutely unrealistic understanding of anything that is truly theological. They just see it all as part of this giant kind of postmodern mush.

But there is also something else going on here and that is that what you see in the case of many of these and Prince Charles is at the top of this list, is that they have an absolute fascination with Islam. But it’s an intellectual version of Islam that has very little to do with Islam on the ground. And just think of the headlines coming, the rape gang issues and the giant question about the ultimate allegiance of so many people by the millions who are now in the United Kingdom and with an Islamic identity. Just understand that I think King Charles is absolutely disconnected from reality in all of this.

Now, back when a lot of this came up, and I’ll go back to the early years of the 21st century, Prince Charles was talking about the coronation oath out loud in some of these interviews. That didn’t happen, but we are talking about a significant official document in Britain. It’s known as the sovereign grant and this is the report coming out 2025/2026 and it is explicitly leaving behind the Defender of the Faith title. And as at least MSN’s report says, acknowledging the United Kingdom’s religious diversity. Listen to this, “The change reflects the king’s decades-long commitment to interfaith engagement with communities across Britain, the commonwealth and internationally, including Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Orthodox Christian, and other traditions.”

He went on to say, “I’ve always thought of Britain as a community of communities that has led me to understand that the sovereign has an additional duty less formally recognized. But to be no less diligently discharged, it is the duty to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for faith itself and its practice through the religions, cultures, traditions, and beliefs to which our hearts and minds direct us as individuals.” You’ll notice there, that is a studious effort to declare absolutely no personal religious identity whatsoever.

Let me just say as an American, what this means is the Defender of the Faith title in terms of any substance is out the window.

Albert Mohler is an American evangelical theologian and the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is known for hosting the podcast The Briefing, where he analyzes news and events from a Christian perspective. Mohler has also served as a pastor and has written several books on theology and culture.