Picking up on Boris Johnson’s reading from the Philippians, the Archbishop of York said that Paul’s advice is worth taking only because he follows Jesus, and Jesus should be followed because he “shows us who God is.” ”
Hence, “the best leaders are those who know how to lead”, which is constitutional monarchy in short. The queen does not rule by divine right but by divinely mandated duty, which may be difficult for the modern mind to comprehend. But she actually believes that she was physically transformed into a servant of the people by her coronation which, like Old Testament kings, is only worth her salt as long as she is loyal to the Lord.
Customs and rituals are manifestations of magic, at the center of which is a practical and moral mission to help others.
The prayers after the sermon, led by the Rev. Robert Coupland, a saint who was about 16 years old, were a naked attempt to link the event to the causes of the present. “O Lord,” the people prayed, “encourage us to respect our diversity” and “protect the earth”. But, with the exception of the 21st-century pejorative term, it felt like a service out of the fifties.
The music was by veterans of the English Renaissance: Sir Hubert, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and William Walton. The order was almost exclusively Anglican. There were many worldwide guests, including an imam, a rabbi, and a Buddhist monk, seen around the cave in a bright orange tunic.
But there was no allusion to the multiculturalism in the selection of prayer and music that future jubilee would almost certainly include, no quotes from the Qur’an or the wisdom of the Tao. (A century from now, we’ll be singing John Lennon’s Imagine as if it were a hymn.)
