When we got a new king in Denmark on January 14, we not only got a man on the throne for the first time in 52 years. It was also only the fourth time since 1523 that we had a ruler who did not proclaim to rule with God at his side.
Almost since Frederik I came with his “Nihil sine numine”, “Nothing without God”, the monarch has included the Lord himself. Margrethe II said directly as the first Frederik: “God’s help, the people’s love, Denmark’s strength”.
The newest Frederik, the tenth in line, has chosen to say: “Covenanted, committed, for the Kingdom of Denmark.”
What does that mean?
And does it matter that he doesn’t say anything about God?
Some Christians have resented it angrily. Kristeligt Dagblad wrote that it was “disturbing”.
Writing like that, I think, is disturbing.
The king should choose a motto for his work that will stand the test of time. The decisive factor is therefore the content’s relation to him. He must be able to stand by it.

Connected to the duty

King Frederik is not known for being a man of big words. Quite the opposite. We, on the other hand, consider him to be honest. Whether he is or not, none of us subjects can attest to it, but his choice of proverbs signals it. We recognize him in it.
He is popular, as they say, and has shown a connection with and in the society he rules over.
But he has also had a hard time with the great duty he was born for. He stands by it, and he takes the duty upon himself. He even emphasizes that it applies to the entire kingdom – including the planet’s largest island, where he himself has worked in the Sirius Patrol, and which we know he loves.
His election slogan thus becomes a signal to stand by himself, his heritage and duty and do it for the common good.

Using your own words

In Sweden, you’re not used to royal mottoes with God. In Norway they always have the same, “Alt for Norway”. In Denmark, the monarchs have apparently had a greater need to flaunt their faith. Or perhaps with their God-given power? Is it sympathetic? Christian?
75 percent are members of the Danish National Church, and both the regent and the successor to the throne are compulsory members, but Christianity would not be (even) better off in Denmark if the king had chosen the G-word. Perhaps quite the opposite? It is rather the naturalness, the honesty that can lie in not using the church’s words, but one’s own, that can facilitate Christianity’s path to conversations and hearts. As the King does in his own words both at the coronation and in the book he published on January 17 about his upcoming office: “Some may wonder why I do not mention God explicitly in my royal word, but for me God is part of the notion of being ‘connected’.”

King of the bluff

When I interviewed Queen Margrethe (as she still goes by) about her faith in 2008, she explained how she “belongs in the Christian culture, in the Danish National Church”, but that both she and her father, King Frederik IX, to whom she was very close, were “modest” about their faith. “My father was a person who knew that you can’t do it all alone. And he knew where help would come from. There’s no doubt about that.”
So when King Frederik 10 spoke from the balcony where he was proclaimed king that he would rule with “help from that which is greater than ourselves”, only the most concrete and narrow-minded believe that he was only referring to the slogan Danish football players have from DBU, the Danish Football Association.
The rest of us think he was thinking of his grandfather.

And in God.

Column published in Sändaren, January 2024.
Photo: Dennis Stenild, The Royal House ©