Manchester University Press Monarchy, Religion and the State: Civil Religion in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the Commonwealth

The monarchy, which has important features that were shaped by religious conflicts of over three hundred years ago, remains a significant contemporary institution in the UK, Canada, Australia, the 13 other realms of the monarch and in the 54 countries of the Commonwealth of which the Queen is head, but there has been little recent serious social science research about its current status and future prospects. This volume explores current religious features of the monarchy and the state that seem increasingly anachronistic in more secular and more religiously diverse societies. Archaic laws and customs that govern the accession and coronation of a new monarch and which require the monarch to profess Christianity and Protestantism are increasingly discrepant with the development of official UK inter-faith initiatives, multi-faith prayers in the Scottish Parliament and an official multi-culturalism that diminishes the role of religion in the public sphere in Canada and Australia. Unless the relevant existing laws are thoroughly and democratically reviewed in advance, the inappropriateness of existing arrangements for the royal succession could lead to profound constitutional crises, particularly as the heir to the throne and UK Prime Minister Cameron seek to promote a continuing religious dimension to the state while the population of the major realms of the monarch increasingly disregard formal religion. Monarchy, religion and the state will create considerable debate among, students, lecturers and researchers in political science, religious studies, sociology and history and those citizens interested in the future of the monarchy and religion in the 16 realms of the monarch. It is essential reading for those who wish to understand the contemporary monarchy and its problematic future.