HOW ABOUT THIS? You could hear it snap. The noise bounced out across the flagstones and the stained glass as the lord chamberlain broke a stick, placing it on Queen Elizabeth’s coffin as it was about to be lowered into its final resting place at Windsor Castle. After all that magnificent pomp and ceremony of the funeral, it was a small, but significant gesture, right at the end. The snapping of the wand of office. That’s right, it’s not a magical wand, but a symbolic token of the Queen’s reign and her right to rule. In the past the wand was used by the lord chamberlain to give people a gentle tap if they were getting out of hand in the monarch’s court. Breaking it, in this case by Andrew Parker, not Harry Potter, was the last signal that the sovereign’s reign was over. It was buried with her. That snap was like a little jolt of reality – snapping us into the post-Queen Elizabeth world. Yes this thing – whatever it is – really is over. Some might like to say it snapped us out of a form of delusion, the casual acceptance that the monarch of England rules under the overarching reign of God the true King. We were snapped back into the modern world, in which ideas such as Gods and kings and queens are stories best left for the children to Harry Potter, and, Game of Thrones (adults only version of Harry). The real world – the world of Instagram, global travel, democracy, cheap whitegoods and Amazon packages arriving on the doorstep, won’t allow for wands of office and all that hierarchy. The real world today is the world we can see. It’s a different way of looking at the real world than in the past. but we’ve come to the collective and unspoken conclusion that the visible world is the only reality available to us, and therefore the only one that really matters. The unseen world, if it even exists, has little to do with everyday life. In that story, the snapping of the wand buried more than a monarch. It was the final burial of outdated ideas around God and worship, church and state. The burial of hierarchal world in which the visible powers are a reflection of the invisible ones. Roll on republics. Those nations who have long since jettisoned the myths of the past. We’re all grown up now. And yet, what do we find? Kinda the opposite. In my home country of Australia, the idea of a republic – once touted as inevitable – is the idea being buried. And it’s not just sentiment. It seems we’re happy to think of an alternative, but not just any alternative to the British monarch being our head of state. Give us something that’s got the worth of the office, we seem to be saying. Give us something with weight. Give us another story as compelling as the one ended by the snapping of the wand. SO WHERE’S IT ALL GOING? Well for a start I think we don’t know. The very fact that even republicans are hesitant About which way to jump demonstrates the problem. Just as a global pandemic was predicted a couple of Decades ago Yet none of us was prepared for it So too this post-Queen Elizabeth age Predicted but not prepared For me that sums it up. There’s been a lot of talk about the loss of meaning And purpose in our modern world The sense of aimlessness Rootlessness Especially among the young But nothing tangible given to replace A corporate sense of meaning and purpose That’s right – a corporate sense. Disney – along with every other bit of pop culture – Has been telling us to “Look into our heart” To “Be yourself” All without realising that to do so We have to have reference points Signposts Reference points and signposts that our Modern West has been busily burning down. That great philosopher poet of the West Taylor Swift put it brilliantly in a recent Commencement service How did she put it? "I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: it’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: it’s totally up to you." The huge increase in anxiety And the long wait lists at counselling clinics Suggests it’s more “terrifying news” than “good” Good news Another word for that? Gospel! Taylor Swift has articulated the gospel for the modern age An age in which we are all kings and queens of our own hearts And it’s terrifying! The French writer Michel Houellebecq Constantly points this out in his searing novels About life in the secular age. He’s a modern day prophet A licentious, libertarian, hedonistic, over-sexed prophet But a prophet nonetheless In fact his novel Submission About the threat of radical Islam in French culture Was published the day of the Charlie Hebdo massacre His next novel – Serotonin – was not a reflection after the event of France’s violent farmer protests – He wrote it before those events happened. He saw it coming. So it’s worth hearing this hard-core, hedonistic atheist when he says things like this: “The Church tried to conform itself to the world at a moment when the world was becoming uglier.” His beef with the Catholic church in his own country Was that it was too much like the world It blinked in the face of modernism At exactly the wrong time. Instead of playing up difference It played sameness Instead of leaning into faith and ancient mysteries It leaned into sight and modern anxieties And these are not just religious observations. We’re in a stage of history in which the past is Not simply being exposed for its crimes But expunged for its crimes Statues disappear Never to be talked of again. Books are burned or banned Because we’re leaving the past behind And heading towards Well, heading towards what exactly… The Queen was like our grandmother Or great grandmother perhaps. Equal doses of stoicism, duty and joy. Grandmothers love their wayward children Nonetheless for their waywardness And wayward children – despite their waywardness Know the road back home because of their grandmothers Even should they choose never to take that road. We see this inability to carve out a clear path In the current reassessment of the sexual revolution. In want of any other descriptor The Boomer generation was sung to Lured by its poets into the fact that This was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Or the Gershwin number from Porgy and Bess It ain’t necessarily so How does it go?: It ain't necessarily so The things that you're liable To read in the Bible It ain't necessarily so The song was covered by rock bands Throughout the sixties and seventies Before the big sound given to it In my youth by Bronski Beat – A sexually charged, homo-erotic and politically motivated group Led by the indominable – and outrageously talented – Jimmy Sommerville. Sex and politics was set to change! Biblical orthodoxy was set to fall. A new age was being ushered in What age exactly? The album title Containing the single gives it away: The Age of Consent. And here we are forty years later Lamenting that all we have left to us When it comes to Sex is consent And who even knows what that is. It truly is the Age of Consent And it doesn’t feel liberating at all. With book titles such as Louise Perry’s The Case Against the Sexual Revolution Questions are being asked. Men – says Perry Were the winners of the Sexual Revolution Though given the scourge of online porn And its devastating effects on relationships Winning the Sexual Revolution Might just be a Pyrrhic victory And speaking of revolution What about political revolution? When so much of the activism in our political world Is predicated on the need for a permanent revolution Well that’s just a turn off to most people Who are struggling to pay power bills And who are just coming out of global lockdowns That will affect us all for years to come. “Ain’t nobody got time for that” As we might say. And if you do have time for that And you do have time to superglue yourself To the major arterial roads heading into your city To protest “something” You’re more likely to be told to “Get a job!” Than you are to be philosophically challenged. Yet amidst all of that Let’s be careful. As New York Pastor, Tim Keller, was oft to remind Those of us prone to slip on our rose-tinted glasses And long for a kinder, gentler past. “Christianity? Oh I remember that. That’s when blacks had to sit at the back of the bus.” Here in Australia on the day of mourning for the Queen We saw First Nations people Burning the flag And scorning her death. While news came out that at least one elite level sports team Was subjecting its young indigenous players to what can Only be described as racial profiling. I agree with and disagree with Australian Muslim commentator Waleed Aly In equal doses. But I’ve got to hand it to him He’s always pushing the limits of what We imagine might be possible. He’s a republican But in a Sydney Morning Herald article Made this brilliant observation: “If you’re going to ask Australians to forgo the monarchy, you’re going to have to replace it with something more fitting, but still magical.” Do you hear that? More fitting, but still magical! That’s it, yes? Aly is right. After all the huffing and puffing about How modern life has no space for the magical How the only things that are real Are the things we can see It turns out we need something magical. Not privately Not our own personal séance Or tarot reading But something that collectively says there are mysteries we don’t understand But can still assent to as nations And a grey-suited President Chosen by politicians Receiving people In an office replete with Danish furniture And a carefully curated wall of Australian art Just isn’t all that magical It screams out “immanence” In a world that is crying out for transcendence. That is the republican movement’s Achilles Heel In Australia And I suspect in other parts of the Commonwealth. That, and the fact that as we look across at The most powerful republic ever known The United States of America All we see is dissolution, bitterness and decay With leaders of both parties significantly Older than King Charles the Third When he took the throne. Leaders who have been in power since My generation – Generation X Was born. It’s a Claytons monarchy The monarchy you get when you don’t Have a monarchy. And increasingly Ain’t nobody got time for that either. Meanwhile two other states With self-styled nonroyal monarchs Russia and China Set about building their case For the future. Anyone? Anyone? So What Can We Do About This? Lest this sound like merely an exercise in despair Perhaps it’s the rising tension that is giving us hope. 1. Perhaps it starts by us asking ourselves Some hard questions as a society Questions like: Where is the optimism that accompanied the idea that we could get rid of the old moral/ethical frameworks And we’d be liberated. Perhaps too we need to put this Modern “uglier” world – as Houellebecq says Under the same microscope It placed the older world of Kings and queens. Why is there so little consensus Around what should replace it? How might we start that conversation: Perhaps it’s as simple As joining a reading group Devoted to books that speak About there being something More than what we can just see And if you’re not a reader Then film Ask why so much modern film Is devoted to worlds and universes we can’t see Or access But are right next door. 2. But more pointedly than that Perhaps you need to ask yourself some individual questions. If you don’t have a “transcendent” view of our existence. Why not? How did God fall off the radar for you And why? How sustainable is a godless existence? And how honest are you about what Is replacing it? I met a young woman recently Married with two children Who’d moved from not believing Anything about God or a world above us To becoming a follower of Jesus I was genuinely curious How? Why? What did it feel like? It felt light – she said As if a burden had been lifted. It felt like in her high performance job She was no longer constantly seeking approval She felt like she had that approval thing Locked away now because of Jesus. If in this non-transcendent world We’re always looked horizontally And only horizontally for approval Well that is fraught. Taylor Swift is right It’s terrifying! Now none of that is to say That the transcendent - God – exists. But it’s interesting that the new atheists The likes of Richard Dawkins etc Who were so confident they Had gotten rid of God Or at least the need for him Don’t hold as much sway In people’s imaginations as they once did And that celebrated side-of-the-bus advertising campaign They ran back in the day “There’s probably no God Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” Yet here we are crippled by waves of anxiety Worry at record levels. At the very time God has exited the public square. It’s worth asking ourselves why. As Waleed Aly observed You’re going to have to replace This world that the Queen represented With something “still magical” Perhaps the best thing to do is To sit in that space In this latest post-Elizabethan age And ask ourselves Why?