The betrayal of the Anglican communion

d1carter

To all of my British friends, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Only you, the British people, can stop this madness.

Fabio P. Barbieri

It is worth noticing that Ruth Gledhill, who has been at the forefront of the Archbishop's critics as soon as she heard his speech, had thus far been his most enthusiastic and articulate supporter in the Press. You really cannot speak of the usual suspects in this case.

Austin Barry

I may be wrong, but I believe that there is something strange and deeply significant in the fact that the Archbishop has cultivated his appearance to resemble a child's idea of God. It reminds me of Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class playing a madman who also believed himself to be God and with a similar appearance. When asked why he thought he was God, O'Toole's character replied, "Because when I pray I find that I am talking to myself." One wonders whether the Archbishop has also promoted himself to the next rung in the Christian management structure.

Eric Green

This man is a dangerous, dhimmified menace to post-Enlightenment, Judeo-Christian-secular Western civilization. It was gratifying to read that at least some members of the Synod refused to applaud, let alone stand, for his attendance.

(And, yes, I have read his comments and subsequent furious equivocating and dissembling)

C Powell

For shame indeed. But one unintended consequence of this is that the outrage expressed by so many may give our politicians reason to pause and think a bit harder about these issues. Or so we must hope. One thing we can do immediately, though, is to write to the PM and ask him precisely what British values are represented by his Government's decision to permit polygamy in this country for some and apparently funded by us.

DaveP

Many years ago I wrote to Ronan Williams, that he should offer some solace to Christians persecuted by Muslims in Africa and much of Asia. His reply was that this the fault of both parties. He really did not know, or just did not care to know what was going on. But really, as far as the Islamisation of Britain is concerned, the Archbishop is innocent. It is successive governments, and New Labour one in particular, that has allowed this to happen, and has placed the nation in mortal peril. We would not be in a state of hysteria over some statement over shari’a, were it not for this. The government, the opposition, and the press, who should have called the government to book on the Islamisation of Britain, abdicated their responsibility, and are looking for scapegoats. How delicious and ironic that the scapegoat happened to be a prominent Christian as well.

YA

hands off Archbishop of al-Canterbury, The Great Defender of Islamic Justice and Tolerance. He is genuine friend of Sharia and from now on he is under full protection of the goodwill and the power of The Umma. No further explanations are necessary, OK?

Andrew Gower

Gordon Brown has a lot to answer for. With his 'British Varlews' his governemnt has helped make Sharia practice an even more mainstream aspect of British life.

Frank

The prodigious protest from the ordinary people of this country over Dr Williams' cryptically contrived promotion of some aspects of Sharia Law being introduced here has, at least, sent out the strongest possible message that no aspect of this law is acceptable in this culture. Many in the government, the media, and elsewhere must, I feel, be surprised by the extent of the protest and left questioning their own diffident and equivocal attitudes in this area. The people of England might not have spoken yet, but they now have a powerful tool, it is called a computer, and they're using it.

David

Rowan Williams is a man of his time. He was chosen by then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as the New Labour Archbishop of Canterbury, a bien pensant left leaning liberal, to whose caste of mind, like Blair's, all things are negotiable and, where there is dispute, compromise is always available. He applies the same principles in his suggestion for the incorporation of aspects of shari'a law into English law. He implies that as other religions (Jews and Catholics) have their own "courts" that have some jurisdiction over matters relating to personal life (marriage, divorce) so should Muslims have theirs. He implies that any Muslim arrangement along these lines would be the same. English law implies acceptance of the impersonal judgement of the court of law, irrespective of the personal religious convictions of those who are before it. Its judgements apply to all, of all beliefs. There are Jewish and Catholic "courts". But these are arrangements for arbitrating disputes among the faithful. These are essentially private. They are not independent of English law. These are wholly subservient to it and to English courts and they acknowledge their primacy. The problem for Williams, and which he has not addressed, is that Islamic law does not acknowledge any distinction between the private and the public. Jurisdication that applies in the private sphere applies universally. There can be no acceptance for Islamic law of the primacy of English law. They will always be in conflict. He simply does not understand.

Ethan

Rowan Williams gave an intersting new interpretation of the role of the head of the Church of England. Apparently his role is now to speak up for all faiths. Call me old fashioned but I would expect the Chief Rabbi to speak up for Jews, the Archbishop of Westminster to speak up for Catholics and the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak up for the Anglicans. Foolish of me, I know. In trying to be all-inclusive, I am convinced that you achieve the opposite. You end up speaking for nobody. That certainly seems to be the case with Rowan Williams.

Joseph McNulty

Why is it that a layman such as a friend of mine, seems to know more about Islam -- what the Qu'ran and Hadith actually say -- than the Archbishop of Canterbury, the supposed leader of a worldwide Christian communion? Islam is inexorable. It will not be ruled by another system for long. It is folly to allow it to have an inch. Immigration from Muslim countries is madness, but at least there is the possibility that the immigrants come to Great Britain to gain freedom and escape Sharia. And what does the Archbishop of Canterbury do -- he proposes the importation of aspects of Sharia law -- cutting off thei5r means of escape. The problem is that each compromise with Islam seems to be "reasonable" amd minor, but in 20 years we will look back and see where this "creeping Sharia" has brought us. The combination of Sharia and Islamic "no go" areas where the writ of the British government is optional will lead to calls for some kind of federated semi-Muslim state. Have we lost the will to survive so that we cannot recognize where this is headed?

AFS

Why does it feel as if this entire sorry episode is some sort of set-up? (1) ABC makes strange pronouncement, (2) citizens up in arms, (3) gov't rallies to support of "British values", (4) citizens shake off some more apathy and start getting angry (or are being allowed to burn off their excess energy), (5) PM sends out a message effectively telling everyone it's all OK, (6) ABC goes to address synod which applauds him before he even opens his mouth, (7)ABC has final word -- which was in fact original word that got the ball rolling in the first place! Can anyone make any sense of this for me? It's like watching a conjuror's trick -- you know something clever has been done but you're not quite sure what. Only this time it ain't entertainment, that's for sure!

M Clyde

Melanie, thank you once more for this incisive, feisty, defiant piece. I am in low spirits at present. I am just gutted at the thumbs up he has received from the Synod. This whole woolly liberal class is dangerous and has to go. It's time for a revolution. He reminds me more and more of Charles I and his ill-fated Laudian 'reforms'. All he has done is kick ordinary people in the face whilst giving encouragement to their enemies, the Islamist extremists. I believe his speech is now pride of place on Hizbut Tahrir's website.

field

Yes the ABC is betraying the beleaguered members of his communion who are oppressed in Shariah-dominated countries. I have some sympathy with AFS's comments. I think this was a bit of choreography: the ABC making the "moral" case for Shariah creep before the judges and other members of the elite in the hallowed precincts of the Royal Courts of Justice, swiftly followed by an interview or two with the Lord Chief Justice making the same case, after which the recognition given to Beth Din courts was to be extended to Shariah courts under the 2002 Act. This was obviously disrupted by the strength of the public's opposition, which had not been anticipated. However, now we are back to more choreography: PM backing ABC, demonstration of support at Synod. We might yet see an interview of two with a judge in a few months' time and then (more quietly perhaps) extension of the official recognition to the Shariah courts under the 2002 Act - there is nothing to prevent that happening. Parliament has no more say on the matter - it's down to the judges (our unelected rulers). I expect

sebastian

"...not talking about parallel jurisdictions". I wonder how Rowan Williams explained this to his mohammedan chums who, like us, may also have thought otherwise. So will he be disappointing their gleeful expectations as quickly as he's aroused our grim apprehensions? Will he move as quickly to extinguish the muslim one as he has to belittle the Christian other? I'm waiting to see which constituency he thinks has "misunderstood" him least. Probably not the one that needs most telling, don't you think?

3lance@gmail.com

melanie - do you or any of your posters know that the Shariah Council in Britain has been carrying out services for over two decades without a squeak of protest from the likes of you ??

phil

Field i have tried to be nice to you also probably rude to you for which i said *sorry* ,but now I realise you are suffering from obsessive compulsion disorder and that you cannot help yourself from mentioning the beth din in everything you write-you can be treated for this of course and then we can all be amused or amazed by your efforts-dont give up you are part of a club where people really care.But please try to leave them alone,they are utterly harmless .

J. Isaacs

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good/ Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood", sang The Animals in 1965. The Archbish repeated the refrain in 2008 and the Synod rose to the occasion in adulation. But he was never going to win Pop Idol. Could the Prime Minister please help British voters by banning Hisb-ut-Tahrir as Tony Blair promised to do not so long ago.

Hunt S. Cross

"We got to get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do..." - more Animals, similar vintage. I take several posters' point about apparent choreography and wonder how soon we'll be hearing from the "Protector of faiths". Is it old-fashioned self-righteousness that makes the illiberal left impervious to rational argument? If a nation that celebrates (that over-used word) celebrity and other forms of superficiality longs to return to the certainties, values and intellectual challenges of pre-Enlightenment times, then Sharia would seem to offer an exemplary regulatory system. But watch out Archbish - the Church won't enjoy the same privileged status it had last time round.

Hereford

Ethan: He is probably preparing the ground for Prince Charles, who wants to be the defender of faith, rather than the defender of the faith.

Hereford

Oh I don't know Hunt, the Anglican Church has long since been toying with integration with, or a return to the Mother Church (depending on your viewpoint). It has become a weak, craven, dithering irrelevance to, well everything really. Perhaps the Bish's agenda is to seek integration into the only religious system left in the world which would return absolute power to theocrats. Perhaps he is prepared to follow any god rather than allow godlessness.

David Gray

Melanie for Prime Minister.....AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

Hunt S. Cross

With absolute power in the theocrats' hands, what's left over for the deity, Hereford? And for us? Submission is what it's all about, as it is, nominally, for x billion. Submission and the moral exercise of free-will being at opposite poles, what's right and why are questions that needn't bother us unduly. No, I don't believe for a moment the Hairy One's in tune with The Animals singing "I'll always be your slave, when I'm dead and buried in my grave." It's a different problem. Too much shutting of ears and eyes to the facts, too much making accommodation, not enough making of choices mean you lose the ability to make headway under your own power. The exercise of this once great position's authority elides into a quest for relevance. And relevance is more readily perceived and less easily swept away when it aligns itself with a trend and benefits from the support of the big guns. It may not be in line with the early Church's philosophy, but for every one looking to a Beckett later on, another looked to a Medici. The details may change over the years, but the dynamic remains. There's nothing commendable about the Archbishop's ready surrender of the principle of one law for all, advocacy of different standards for different people as a facilitator of social cohesion, focus on Sharia as the vehicle when its most vociferous advocates deny the legitimacy of any other approach and misrepresentation of the powers of the Beth Din. But what's particularly disturbing is his characterisation of the adoption of elements of Sharia law as "inevitable". It's a word that's been used with misplaced pride to herald the anticipated triumph of the Thousand Year Reich and with inadequate logic to call the dictatorship of the proletariat into being. It's also a word that's been used with regret, rather than shame, when referring to the burning of Joan of Arc, the massacres of the Tutsis, the Jewish holocaust and much besides. It's a word whose justification is, too often, implicit in the word itself. I believe that the outpouring of anger we have witnessed is, as much as anything else, a rejection of what the use of that word by someone in the Archbishop's position implies.

YA

field - aaa!!! How to explain this? your first love was Jewess and she rejected you? Or she was beautiful Gentile but preferred a Jew? Or you are a Jew but grew up knowing that it is shameful? There is some personal story here. Moderators: this is not vicious, I am not attacking this poster, just frustrated. BTW thanks moderators for keeping the site clean. This is very suggestive - there is no necessity to engage in "debates". Can I then use the hint of moderatoras and ask - now people maybe it is time to start thinking about WHAT TO DO. Presently, what are the options? To vote for BNP? Oh no.. But without coordination, just in "silent majority" regime, could one do something? OK I've never bought Guardian newspaper and if I see the one on a bench in airport I put it immediately in trash. I always buy Israeli vegetables. I hate BBC license fee. Yeah it looks like options are limited.. However I do have one idea.. I'll post it later.

field

Only three possibilities YA? How about my mother ran off with the local Rabbi? Would that be enough to make me want to diss the Beth Din? And why are you now suggesting that people on this site should give active consideration to voting BNP - a neo-Nazi front organisation? I am sure most of the people here are perfectly civilised people and would never for a moment think of voting for such an outfit.

Mike Homfray

No, what the Synod supported is giving religions space to divert from the agreed one law. Now, i disagree with them. But many appear to argue that this space should be given to conservative Christians and Jews in the case of say, obeying equality legislation But not to Muslims because Islam is nasty and horrid whereas Christianity is nice and British too. That sort of argument makes no sense. All religion should be kept where it belongs - in the private sphere.