A Different Kind of Kingdom

A Different Kind of Kingdom

Americans often tell me this. ‘We used to have kings,’ they say, ‘but we gave them up. You British understand these things; we don’t.’ This is a misunderstanding. The constitutional monarchy we have today in the United Kingdom is quite different from ancient monarchies. In fact, the president of the United States is, in some ways, more like an ancient king than any British head of state has been for a long time. But that’s not the point. When we use the word king, we are not buying in to one particular kind of kingship, whether ancient or modern. Here, as elsewhere, Jesus deliberately forced people to look from fresh and disturbing angles at things they thought they knew about already…