ANNABEL FENWICK ELLIOTT: Why I just don't believe Prince William
I don’t believe the assertion that Prince William has a ‘quiet’ faith in God. It looks very much to me like he has no belief whatsoever – and for this I commend him.
Why else would he be so evasive about it? ‘The Prince of Wales’s commitment to the Church of England is sometimes quieter than people expect,’ a Palace aide told the Press last week.
I rather wish he’d be brave enough to go further and confess that he, like me and millions of other Britons today, enjoys Christian traditions but doesn’t fully believe.
He can’t, of course, given he is destined to govern the Church of England. I can see why that puts him in something of a pickle, because I do believe we should preserve it, even as an atheist.
There are plenty of lovely things about the institution. I myself am a cultural Christian. Christmas is my favourite time of year. I find churches beautiful and enjoy being in them and, given that religion must exist in some form for most humans to feel comforted, I’m glad our country is Christian rather than Muslim (for now, at least).
But I do not for one moment believe in the stories of the Bible. I don’t think Jesus had magical powers. I reject the notion that we get judged by a supernatural entity for the things we do when we’re alive, so as to be sorted into the heaven-or-hell bin when we die.
Honestly, I cannot take anyone seriously who does believe these things. I can’t fathom how you can genuinely subscribe to the notion that of the 3,000-odd gods that humans have come up with over the course of history, just one of them is real and furthermore, that you just happen to have been born into the corner of Earth that worships the correct one.
What an astonishing coincidence that would be!
I have always found it toe-curling to watch powerful figures being performative about religion.
William attends the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church with his family.There are plenty of lovely things about the Church, writes Annabel Fenwick Elliott. I myself am a cultural Christian and Christmas is my favourite time of year
Kate and William with Dame Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury
William on a visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Why shouldn’t we have someone level-headed and relatively ‘quiet’ about their belief at the helm of the Church of England, asks Annabel Fenwick Elliott
Take Donald Trump, who never did anything in his professional career to suggest he might be a godly man. As President of the United States, of course, he must consistently drag God into his rhetoric. I find it creepy and, though he might be delusional about many things, I simply don’t believe he genuinely thinks, for example, that Noah’s Ark really happened.
You might say that it’s harmless to believe in the Christian God today. Christians in the modern Western world don’t routinely round up and murder anyone who doesn’t believe in their storybook. But they did, until quite recently, and they still do in some remote parts of Africa.
All major religions have the same maniacal, genocidal roots in their blurb. How can we just shrug that off? Personally, I just do not understand why anyone can excuse this sort of hatred and still sign up to its associated belief system.
I very much resent the fact that in England, if I want to get married in a pretty church, I’d have to – as many of my friends have – pretend to believe in God for a bit in order to get permission. Why can’t we love history and appreciate the architecture of a chapel without having to convince the vicar?
Some of the best schools in the country are Catholic or linked to the Church of England, and parents must play by the same rules to gain admission. I don’t want to have to tell bare-faced lies about what I believe in order for my children to get a good education.
As for the less excellent schools and churches, where abuse is rife and often covered up, they don’t do much for the cause either.
My poor grandmother, one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, was raised in an Irish convent and subjected to such horrific cruelty she was later paid reparations by the Government. She went to her death a few years ago still terrified of ending up in hell. Nothing about her experience with Catholicism is remotely acceptable to me.
I acknowledge that I’m not in the majority in being an atheist, and in not thinking we must have religion to be a good person. I am not suggesting we ban Catholics or dissolve the Church of England, and will continue to celebrate some of their traditions – especially considering today the first ever female Archbishop of Canterbury will be enthroned.
Taking away standard religion doesn’t relieve humans of their need to preach, or breed hysteria around Doomsday. We’ve seen that happen with younger generations getting just as evangelical about topics such as climate change and Covid.
But anyone who is currently bashing Prince William for not adopting Trump-level rhetoric about God, which would quite obviously be dishonest of him, needs to don their thinking hat. Wouldn’t we rather have someone level-headed and relatively ‘quiet’ about their belief at the helm of the Church of England than a fanatic?
If more people admitted to going to church on Sundays purely because they value the community and like singing, rather than because they believe it possible – against reams of scientific evidence – for a man to part oceans and rise from the dead, then I’d be inclined to join them.
