UUI and Pluralist Monarchism

Yesterday, for the first time in years, I attended a service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis where I grew up (1987-96), mainly because my dad was preaching a lively and thought-provoking lay sermon (which you can read at his blog). Not having an obvious Episcopal church in Indianapolis to attend anyway, it was good to attend a service with my father and brother for a change, not something that happens often. While I formally rejected Unitarianism when I got baptized at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in 2009, it occurred to me that there is at least one sense in which (perhaps ironically, given that most UUs are very far from being monarchists) my UU upbringing shaped and continues to influence my approach to monarchism. This is that I refuse to let my commitment to Monarchy as the best form of government be limited by sectarian or theological divisions, and so (despite strong reservations about a few of them, particularly Saudi Arabia) I make no apologies for supporting not only non-Anglican but also non-Christian monarchies, probably more so than most (though not all!) of the Christian monarchists I know.

Obviously I think Christianity has something to offer that no other religion does, or I wouldn't have embraced it. Nor does it make sense to me for an English-speaking, Anglophilic traditional monarchist of European descent to adhere to any religion other than Christianity. But I refuse to be the sort of believer who sees value in earthly institutions like Monarchies only if they conform to my particular religion. This pluralist approach has occasionally led me into conflict (usually online) with fellow Christians (often Roman Catholics) who while they may have some sympathy for monarchies of their own faith decisively reject my kind of pan-monarchism. Anglicanism has its problems, but at least no Anglican coreligionist has ever given me a hard time for supporting Catholic or Orthodox monarchies!

In particular, while I think it is clear from Facebook posts like my recent one about St. Francis de Sales Oratory that I have nothing but respect for traditional Roman Catholicism, over the years on the internet I've often been frustrated with the sort of Catholics who have a bitter Anglophobic chip on their shoulder, as if they personally suffered in the Irish potato famine which presumably just occurred last month. I'm deeply grateful for my Catholic friends who are not like that, but it's an overly common problem in online Catholic circles, and gets quite tiresome. I just Blocked one such individual, which is probably more prudent than getting dragged into an endless and nasty argument. I wonder if it ever occurs to Roman Catholics who imply that being a good Catholic means hating England and The British Monarchy, that if they really believe that there is No Salvation Outside the (Roman Catholic) Church, they are essentially condemning an entire nation (dispersed via imperialism throughout the globe) to hell, for there are millions of people (including me) who are never going to be convinced that they ought to repudiate their heritage or their Crown.

More broadly, must Christian monarchists cut ourselves from the even larger numbers of people who can see, or might conceivably be persuaded to see, the merits of Monarchy, but are less likely to be convinced of Christianity? I don't think so, for if something is good at the natural level, it is good, and to be a monarchist is to believe that Monarchy is good. For Monarchy more than any other system of government reflects the Divine order, and this is true even if the monarch is not a Christian. So God Save the Queen, by all means restore the Habsburgs and Bourbons or Romanovs, and hooray for European Altar & Throne traditionalism, but let us also praise and support the Kings of Jordan, Morocco, Bhutan, Cambodia, & Thailand, the Sultan of Oman, and the Emperor of Japan, and let us pray and work for the restoration of the King of Nepal, the Shah of Iran, the kings of Laos, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and so many others!