Explainer

Culture

Royalty

26 April 2023

4 min read

Why we make kings

As the new King's coronation approaches, Ian Bradley explores the deep roots of kingship as an answer to anarchy and disorder.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

A medieval illustration of King David being anointed by Samuel

Samuel anoints David king. An early 14th century illumination from the Vaux Psalter.

Lambeth Palace Library.

At the most solemn moment of King Charles III’s coronation on 6 May, the Westminster Abbey choir will sing Handel’s thrilling setting of words from the first chapter of the first Book of Kings:

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.

It provides a reminder that the anointing of the monarch with holy oil is carried out in direct imitation of a practice described in the Bible in connection with the inauguration of the kings of ancient Israel.

This is not the only link which the coronation will make with stories found in the Bible. Legend has it that the Stone of Destiny, on which Charles will be seated when he is crowned, started life as the pillow on which Jacob slept when he had a dream of the ladder leading up to heaven as described in Genesis. Jacob set the stone up as a pillar to commemorate the place where God had talked to him. Later stories identify it as the pillar beside which Abimelech was crowned king of Israel and King Josiah made his covenant with the Lord to keep his commandments and statutes.

The theme of monarchy looms large in the collection of books making up the Hebrew Bible which tells of God’s dealing with the chosen people of Israel and forms the Christian Old Testament. The word ‘king’ occurs 565 times and ‘kingdom’ 163 times. Six of the so-called historical books have the monarchy as their main subject matter, including the aptly named first and second books of Kings. The life of one particular king, David, occupies more space than that of any other figure, including the great patriarchs, Abraham and Moses.

By popular request

Kingship is presented in the early books of the Old Testament as both the popularly requested and the divinely appointed answer to the anarchy and disorder prevailing under the judges who ruled the people of Israel for the first two hundred and fifty years or so after their arrival in the promised land of Canaan around 1250 BCE. The Book of Judges emphasizes the corruption and lawlessness under this form of government, noting: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did what was right in his eyes.’

The inauguration of the Israelite monarchy, which took place around 1020 BCE, is described in the Book of Samuel. A crucial role is played by Samuel, the last of the great judges who becomes the first king-maker and presides over the coronations of both Saul and David, the first two Israelite kings. Samuel is portrayed as prophet, seer and intermediary between Yahweh/God and the people, to whom the elders of Israel come asking for ‘a king to govern us like all the nations’. Samuel puts this request to Yahweh who is initially reluctant to accede to it and tells him to spell out to the people the dangers of kingship in terms of the accretion of private wealth and military might. These warnings are ignored, however, and the people continue to insist that they must have a king ‘to govern us and go out before us and fight our battles’. When Samuel reports this to God, he is told, ‘Hearken to their voice and make them a king’.

On king making

If there is a certain initial unease in God’s mind about the desirability of kingship, the institution is subsequently given divine blessing, with the king been seen as God’s chosen one – Messiah in Hebrew, or Christos in Greek. There is a sense of partnership between Yahweh and the chosen people of Israel in the making of kings. The emphasis is on a three way covenant between God, king and people. This concept of covenant is one of the most distinctive and central features of Israelite kingship, as is the idea that the monarch mediates and represents divine rule and stands for justice, fairness and truth.

During and after the long period of exile that followed the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of Israel in 597 BCE, Jews increasingly pinned their hopes on the future coming of a new Messiah, a king from the house of David, raised up by God to deliver Jerusalem from where he would reign, restoring and re-uniting Israel and bringing about a new world order of justice and righteousness, as looked forward to and promised in the Psalms and the writings of the prophets.

The theme of kingship, so fully explored in the Old Testament, continues to figure prominently in the New Testament, although its central focus is on the kingdom of God, inaugurated and proclaimed by Jesus, with its dethroning of the rich and powerful and exaltation of the humble and meek. All four of the Gospel writers use royal titles and monarchical allusions in their descriptions of Jesus. He is identified as the anointed king, the Messiah or Christos, leading his followers to be known as Christians. From his birth in Bethlehem in the house and family of King David, and his baptism where he is identified by God as his beloved Son, to his trial and crucifixion for being ‘King of the Jews’, the royal theme runs as a clear thread through his life and death.

Jesus himself redefines the concept of kingship. This is signalled most dramatically by his choice of a donkey on which to make his entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. He deliberately opts for an animal associated with humility, humiliation even, rather than a proud charger or stallion more fitting for a king on a triumphal progress. In washing his disciples’ feet on the first Maundy Thursday, he further shows that he is, in Graham Kendrick’s memorable words The Servant King displaying meekness as well as majesty. When Pontius Pilate repeatedly asks him whether he is indeed the King of the Jews, he gives the cryptic answer 'You have said so'. Jesus never repudiates the idea of kingship but gives it a wholly new meaning of humble servanthood which has been the inspiration for Christian monarchy ever since.

Review

Culture

Film & TV

Mental Health

25 November 2025

4 min read

Pluribus and the problem with “Good Vibes Only”

When only misery can save the world

Joshua Bloor

Joshua Bloor is a pastor, author, and New Testament scholar.

A passenger oeers out and down the aisle of an empty plane.

Rhea Seehorn stars.

Apple TV.

Imagine waking up to discover that the whole world is suddenly happy and whole. Overnight, an alien virus has swept the globe, and its effects are astonishing: everyone joins a single joyful hive mind. Everyone is connected. Content. At peace. The anxious inner voice that once whispered fear and worry is hushed. Humanity, it seems, has finally found contentment.

Except, there’s one problem.

You’re immune.

While everyone else partakes in this glee, you remain fully yourself. Still anxious, still low, still wrestling with the angst of life. To make matters worse, you’re surrounded by legions of the blissfully enslaved. You’ve never felt more alone.

At first glance, this premise sounds strange, maybe absurd. Yet Pluribus (Latin for “many”), from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, is devastatingly insightful. Carol Sturka, portrayed with raw emotional precision by Rhea Seehorn, is the most miserable person on Earth.

During “the Joining,” everyone else is absorbed into a harmonious hive mind who self-identify as “we.” They remain fully functional, thoughtful, and emotionally engaged human beings. They are hardline pacifists, utterly convinced they are liberating humans from conflict, negative emotions, and ultimately, from themselves. In their eyes, they haven’t lost anything. They’ve simply traded their individual suffering for collective contentment. Finally, humanity has become what it was always meant to be—happy! Except they can’t quite figure out how Carol, and a few others, remain unchanged.

Oddly, Carol’s incapacity for happiness becomes humanity’s final hope. Her depression, the very thing that weighs her down, is now her superpower. Carol’s misery makes her immune, yet the challenge she faces is unique: How can she convince people they need saving when they’ve never been “happier”?

Many of us are taught from childhood to avoid sadness— “Cheer up, you’re fine.” In a world of inspirational quotes and booming wellness industries, sadness feels wrong. Yet valuing only positive feelings sets an impossible standard. People end up feeling like they must avoid sadness at all costs. It’s no wonder many of us feel ashamed or anxious when we have a bad day. Like the Pluribus hive-mind, cheerfulness is mandatory, and anything less is seen as “broken.”

Ironically, studies show that the societal pressure to feel happy (and never sad) is linked to poorer mental health. Neuroscientists have found that when children grow up in families where emotions aren’t named, noticed, or welcomed, it actually shapes how their brains develop. The regions responsible for managing feelings and handling stress don’t grow as strongly as they should.

When parents respond to a child’s emotions—comforting them when they cry, delighting when they’re happy, sitting with them when they’re sad—it has the effect of watering a garden. Those emotional pathways in the brain strengthen, deepen, and flourish.

But when feelings are ignored, dismissed, or shut down, it’s like a garden left unwatered. The soil dries. Growth stalls. The neural pathways that support healthy emotional regulation don’t develop in the way they were meant to.

The long-term impact can be significant. Children who aren’t allowed to express their feelings often grow into adults who struggle with anxiety, depression, or chronic stress. Their nervous systems learn to stay on high alert, and regulating emotions becomes much harder than it should be.

Sadness in fact reminds us of what truly matters and what gives our life meaning. Far from being purely negative, it can ground us, deepen empathy, and make joy feel more genuine. Hiding or suppressing sadness actually intensifies it; what psychologists call “amplification.”

Feeling happy, then, is not life’s goal, human flourishing is; living well and doing well. The ancient Greeks had a word for it, eudaimonia, often mistranslated as “happiness” but better understood as “flourishing” or “living the good life.” This way of living life and flourishing includes struggle and growth.

This is where Pluribus makes a dramatic point. By eradicating personal pain, the hive mind also erases depth of feeling. Humanity gains perpetual comfort, but at the expense of authentic connection. Carol’s misery keeps her tethered to reality — she is the only one who can remind the Joined of what love and meaning truly feel like, because she alone remembers what it’s like to suffer. In ending world suffering, they’ve also ended love, since real love includes the possibility of loss and suffering.

As Dostoevsky suggested, suffering is not just pain, it is wounded love. Hell, as Father Zossima claims in Brothers Karamazov, “is the suffering of being unable to love.” This is true on a divine level. Because if God cannot suffer, then God cannot love, either.

With Pluribus, Carol’s desolation becomes a form of resistance—an insistence that authentic human experience demands the full spectrum of emotion. She’s not fighting for the right to be happy; she’s fighting for the right to be real. And with the series still unfolding, one question lingers: can Carol save the world from its own happiness? Can her sadness persuade others that real life includes both the highs and the lows?

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

Pledge now