[Magdalen] Christ, the King

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Judy Fleener

>I just posted something to the Julian Affiliates about this.  I'm not sure
>that in the US we have any adequate models of king, Elvis was mentioned and

There are no Kings in the model thought of up until 100 years ago. Save for 
historians, I don’t think anyone in our congregations really knows what a King 
(or Kingship) represented to people in Biblical times or even the Renaissance. 
The entire idea of being "in charge" because God ordained it through a lineage 
by luck of the inherited chromosomes is simply an alien idea.

There were some at the time of the American Revolution (we'd call them 
conservatives of their time) who believed the U.S. needed a King because that's 
the Godly Model of Government" (you don’t hear that from today's religious 
conservatives! <g>. George Washington rejected the idea of becoming King 
himself, and the other founders likely would not have put up with it in any 
case.

I think one could argue that today's ambivalence toward religion in Western 
Countries may be in some measure a product of hostility toward the idea of a 
King in the sense that their (and our) ancestors believed in.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie