"I have been - and remain - very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for his steadfast love," Queen Elizabeth writes in the foreword to a book published this April to help celebrate her 90th birthday. Photo: CPO
The Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Queen Elizabeth II, has made a strong personal statement of her faith, and has told the people that she is “very grateful” for their prayers for her; saying that she has felt God’s “faithfulness” during 64 years on the throne.
The Queen made her comments in the foreword to a new book, The Servant Queen and the King She Serves, which has been published by three British Christian charities as an evangelistic tool to mark the Queen’s forthcoming 90th birthday.
The book, by the Bible Society, HOPE and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, uses the Queen’s own words to describe her faith in God; and is said to offer “rare insights into the Queen’s personal thoughts and Christian faith.”
“I have been – and remain – very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for his steadfast love. I have indeed seen his faithfulness,” the Queen says before making reference to the changes she has seen during her long life as the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
“The extent and pace of change has been truly remarkable,” she said. “We have witnessed triumphs and tragedies.” And she alluded to the current problems in the Middle East saying that the world is now experiencing “terrible suffering on an unprecedented scale.”
The interim chief executive of the Bible Society, Paul Woolley, said: “This book bears witness to the Queen’s faith and the centrality of her Christian faith on her life and her reign. It goes into detail about her speeches and it often is drawing on her own words to give an account of how significant the Christian faith is to all that she represents.”
He said that the three agencies wanted to make the book widely available so that it would “become a talking point in your neighbourhood [and] in your office.”
They hope that Christians and churches will buy copies of the book to give away as an evangelistic tract; and have teamed up with the Christian Publicity and Outreach organisation (CPO) to make them available alongside promotional items that can be used to create publicity for special events around the Queen’s 90th birthday.