The King of Kings Coin: A Call to Personal Leadership
The new Chris Duane Silver Shield coin, “King of Kings”, expresses two themes. The first is the most obvious.
Christ is the King of all earthly Kings.
European Kings were, and still are, some of the most devote Christians on earth. In fact, prior to 1534, all of the dominant European monarchies were Catholic. The kings and emperors revered and respected Christ’s legacy of peace, joy and servitude which was embodied within His Catholic Church. The rulers and their subjects all acknowledged, and understood, that the kings were given their authority by God himself. And as such, these leaders were personally beholding to a higher power and behaved accordingly. Despite their power and influence, they knew that they were merely earthly kings and that their rule was ephemeral. What mattered more was their earthly journey towards salvation in alliance with the true King of Kings, Christ.
All of this changed when England’s King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534, making himself the head of his own creation, the Church of England. This was predicated upon the Pope’s refusal to grant Henry’s request to divorce his barren wife in order to remarry and produce an heir for the English throne. Henry literally usurped the singular power of the Catholic Church to represent Christ on earth and to also grant divorces. King Henry literally proclaimed himself “Pope” of his new church thus becoming his own King of Kings.
This set in motion most of the European wars that followed, while the remaining Catholic European countries tried to overthrow the Protestant rulers in England and reestablish the Catholic Church. They were successful for a short period of time while Catholic Mary I ruled. She was the only surviving child of Henry’s first marriage to the Catholic Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon.
Ultimately, upon Mary’s death, her sister Elizabeth was crowned Queen Elizabeth I. She was Henry’s daughter by his second wife, Anne Boleyn, whom he put to death for adultery. Henry was to go on to marry six times, and yet, never produced a male heir who survived to adulthood. But, his daughter Elizabeth did succeed in defending his new Protestant faith, and her Protestant country, from all attackers. She institutionalized Protestantism in England forever and thus, interestingly, became the Queen of Kings.
Today, things have gotten more confusing as thousands of men have now declared themselves King of Kings. And their declarations as kings are not over their huge country’s faith, but over their own small personal churches. In fact, the system has devolved to the point where there are now more than 25,000 individual denominations of Protestantism across the globe, all lead by regular “kings”. This has left millions of people confused and in search of solid answers.
And, this brings us to the second theme of Chris’ new “King of Kings” coin, which is to…
become your own personal King, unallied with church or country.
Yes, although the Catholic Church is the only church that can trace its establishment directly back to Jesus Christ Himself, many men are still bewildered and confused by the thousands of contentious declarations of righteousness prevalent today.
Other recent Silver Shield Proof Round releases
Chris’ coin suggests that in order to begin the journey towards rediscovering peace, joy and redemption in your life he encourages men to raise the bar by plowing through the turmoil and become their own personal Kings. Embrace Christ’s teachings, ignore the pushback and loudly lead by example.
As Mother Teresa once said,
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples”
and you can too. Who knows? Your ripple may become the tidal wave of Christian religiosity that the world so desperately needs.
So, take the inspiration from Chris’ new coin and become your own King of Kings today!
