Charles III: Protector of all faiths

By Canon Guy Hewitt King Charles III will “protect the space for Faith” in Britain’s “multi-faith nation”. That is how

Buckingham Palace now describes the monarch’s role in newly published wording in the Royal Family’s yearly accounts, the Sovereign Grant Report 2025-2026.

It is a small change with a clear message. The last report called the King the “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith”. The new one says he “is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation” The shift fits the King. For decades, as Prince of Wales, he has built bridges between religions and argued for a country where everyone’s faith has room to breathe. In his 2025 Christmas message, the King spoke of unity in diversity. It is a theme he returns to often. Over the years he has met Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Christian leaders, urging them to work together.

That record matters to the Barbadian and wider CARICOM community, for many of whom he is sovereign. On Windrush Day in 2020, the then Prince of Wales called diversity the United Kingdom’s “greatest strength” and said the country owed a “debt of gratitude” to the Windrush generation.

Speaking by video, because of the COVID-19 restrictions in force at the time, he paid tribute to those who came from the Caribbean after the Second World War: “Today, as we honour the legacy of the Windrush generation, and the invaluable contribution of black people in Britain, I dearly hope that we can continue to listen to each other’s stories and to learn from one another.”

The King’s message lands at a hard moment. Society is more divided. Extreme views are creeping into the mainstream. And some are trying to turn Christianity into a weapon for division, fear and intolerance.

As a priest, this troubles me deeply. Faith is being hijacked by people who want to use it to split us apart. Christian Nationalism is not Christian. It is politics dressed up in religious trappings – crosses, hymns and Bible verses, all put to the wrong use.

The faith I know, rooted in Jesus Christ, is about humility, forgiveness and welcome. It reaches out to the people others reject. It does not build walls: it opens doors. It does not keep people out: it invites them in. It does not divide people: it is for all.

In December 2025, a far-right event called Put The Christ Back Into Christmas was held in Trafalgar Square. Bishop Anderson Jeremiah, the Diocese of London’s lead on racial justice, rejected the far-right’s “false” and “toxic” assertion that “British identity equals Christian identity equals White European identity.” He called it “a calculated political tool designed to weaponise faith and history against minority groups, particularly immigrants and refugees”.

Too many leaders are staying quiet and their silence is helping the far right grow. The numbers show it. According to The PopuList, which tracks far-right voting across Europe, almost one in four European voters now backs a far-right party. At the most recent national elections that share passed 23 per cent – up from about 10 per cent a decade ago, and around five per cent in 1995.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who resisted the Nazis, warned against keeping quiet in the face of racism: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Britain has acted before. In 1968 Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath sacked Enoch Powell from his Shadow Cabinet after Powell’s odious, racist “rivers of blood” speech.

Right-wing commentators may call the new wording a big moment. It is not. Before his 2023 coronation, there was talk that Charles might drop the historic title “Defender of the Faith” for the broader “Defender of Faith”. He did neither.

When he formally became King, Charles confirmed his role as “Defender of the Faith”. The title goes back to 1521, when Pope Leo X gave it to Henry VIII for a pamphlet, Defence Of The Seven Sacraments. In it, Henry defended the Catholic Church against Protestant reformer Martin Luther – ironic, given what came next. To divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke with Rome and made himself Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

However, the King set out his own view soon after ascending the throne in 2022. He called Britain a “community of communities” and said the Crown must protect every faith. “The Sovereign has an additional duty – less formally recognised but to be no less diligently discharged,” he said. “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. This diversity is not just enshrined in the laws of our country; it is enjoined by my own faith.”

Christianity, Judaism and Islam all share the same Abrahamic call: welcome the stranger, love your neighbour. But we live in an age of hyperindividualism that has pulled people apart, deepened loneliness, weakened shared values and worn-down empathy. We need to get back to basics.

I’ll end with Winnie The Pooh. Piglet asks: “How do you spell ‘love’?” Pooh replies, “You don’t spell love . . . you feel it.” In a world where so many feel rejected and pushed aside, that may be exactly where we begin. Let’s show the love.

Canon Guy Hewitt is the Church of England’s Director for Racial Justice and a former High Commissioner.