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In his first interview since his controversial comments, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali vows not to be forced into silence

His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on this country.

Those comments were followed soon after by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion that the adoption of aspects of sharia law in Britain was “unavoidable”.

The bishops’ views in The Sunday Telegraph sparked a storm of criticism and raised questions over the role of the Church in society but, most seriously for Dr Nazir-Ali, led to threats that he and his family would be harmed.

Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. “I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out,” he says. “The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out.”

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We think it is important to let you know our reasons for not acceding to your request, and also to make them public since your letter is public. We have a number of concerns.

First, the Lambeth Conference is not a two hour seminar discussing a contentious issue. It is three weeks in which we bishops and our wives are called to share together our lives, our prayer, our bible study, our meals, our worship and the Lord’s Supper, to be a family together.

You will know that some of us have not been able to take communion with the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church since February 2005, – a period of about three years. The reason is that TEC took an action to consecrate Gene Robinson as Bishop in 2003 contrary to the resolution of the Lambeth Conference, an action of which they have not repented. The consecrators of Gene Robinson have all been invited to Lambeth, contrary to the statement of the Windsor Report (para 134) that members of the Episcopal Church should “consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion”.

You will know that some of those who objected to this consecration in the United States and have made arrangements for orthodox oversight from other provinces including ours have been charged with abandonment of communion. Their congregations have either forfeited or are being sued for their properties by the very bishops with whom you wish us to share Christian family fellowship for three weeks.

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THE Archbishop of York has appealed for funds for humanitarian relief in Kenya.

Dr Sentamu, addressing the General Synod on Wednesday after his visit to Kenya last week, said that there had been progress in talks between the two main parties, at odds since the disputed December election. But after more than 1000 people had been killed, and 300,000 forced from their homes by the fighting, humanitarian relief was a top priority.

As part of the response, Dr Sentamu told Synod that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury were setting up a special fund, together with the Church Mission Society.

“In the many camps, I saw people with broken limbs and other physical injuries, and many who had been terribly traumatised. One woman had lost her mind, because she saw her husband hacked to death in front of her children.”

he Church was seen by President Kibaki and the Opposition leader, Raila Odinga, as vital in humanitarian relief, peace-building, and reconciliation, he said.

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The astonishing misrepresentation of Archbishop Rowan in virtually all newspapers over the last few days, and the scorn and anger which this has fueled, have caused many people within the church to ask what on earth is going on. The issues are complex, but let me try to highlight the key points.

Obviously it would be good for people to read the whole lecture, which is available on line at his website together with further clarification. There is an excellent summary and discussion of the whole issue by Andrew Goddard available on the Fulcrum website.

First, the lecture which Rowan gave was the start of a series organized by and for the legal profession, about the nature of law. He was not making a public statement about his belief in Jesus (people have asked me ”˜why doesn’t he speak about Jesus?’ and the answer is ”˜he does, a great deal of the time, but this wasn’t that sort of occasion’). He was addressing some of the most serious and far-reaching questions which face us both in Britain and throughout western culture, and was doing so with the sensitivity and intellectual rigor which the occasion, and his audience, rightly demanded. We should be grateful that we have an Archbishop capable of such work, not demand that his every word be instantly comprehensible by the casual uninformed onlooker. If I ask someone to fix my car, or my computer, I don’t expect to understand everything they say about the technicalities; rather, I’m glad someone out there knows what’s going on and can do what’s necessary.

Second, the fundamental issue he was addressing is the relation between the law of the land and the religious conscience of the citizen…

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I’ve often heard people say, “I’m going to heaven soon, and I won’t need this stupid body there, thank goodness.’ That’s a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.

TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.

[Bishop of Durham Tom] Wright: There are several important respects in which it’s unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, “Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven.” It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.

TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?

Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,” and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.

TIME: But it’s not where the real action is, so to speak?

Wright: No. Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I’ve called the life after life after death ”” in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth.

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English law is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and, in particular, our notions of human freedoms derive from that tradition. In my view, it would be simply impossible to introduce a tradition, like Sharia, into this corpus without fundamentally affecting its integrity.

The Sharia is not a generalised collection of dispositions. It is articulated in highly concrete codes called fiqh. It would have to be one or the other, or all, of these which would have to be recognised. All of these schools would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like monogamy, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of inheritance and of evidence. This is not to mention the relation of freedom to belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy.

We should learn from the debate on this question which recently took place in Canada. Here it was mainly Muslim women’s group that succeeded in preventing the application of Islamic law in matrimonial matters. The importance of a single law for all was strongly re-affirmed.

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THE Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, was due to fly out to the troubled country of Kenya last night for a four-day visit, with the encouragement of the Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Revd Benjamin Nzimbi. The trip has two purposes: to be a fact-finding visit, and an expression of solidarity with, and prayer for, the Kenyan people.

The visit was arranged after a long phone conversation with Archbishop Nzimbi, when it was agreed that it would be helpful. Church leaders in Kenya still appear to be at odds about the best way forward in the conflict.

The Bishop of Mbeere, the Rt Revd Gideon Ireri, in eastern Kenya, told Ecumenical News International on Tuesday that he had serious concerns that the Church was not speaking with one voice.

A delegation from the World Council of Churches in Kenya said this week that political leaders in Kenya believed that the Church there had taken a partisan approach, and were not keen that it should be involved in the mediating process.

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But the landscape is changing. Many leading evangelicals have begun to voice concern. Caring for God’s creation is becoming a political issue, especially among younger evangelicals.

In Orlando I took part in a seminar on faith and the environment. The host was Joel Hunter, pastor of a mega-church. It holds 3,500 and they fill it five times on a Sunday. There, defying all prejudice, were the local Catholic bishop, imam and rabbi discovering common ground from their sacred texts about caring for God’s earth.

Evangelicals make up one of the largest voting blocs in the electorate and the Democrats know that they have to get a sizable slice of it if they’re to make it to the White House. All the Democratic candidates have signed up to the climate change agenda. Significantly, it is Mike Huckabee, the surprise candidate among the Republicans, who’s the first to register his interest in this issue.

On Super Tuesday when the voters go to the polls they’ll be sending some of the candidates into the political wilderness. However, it is the outcome of the election in November which will determine whether planet Earth will join them in the desert.

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The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, is under police protection after he and his family received death threats over his claim that parts of Britain had become “no-go areas” for non-Muslims.

The Bishop is also facing anger from the most senior members of the Church of England hierarchy for his comments on Islam.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has made Islam a priority of his archiepiscopate and set up a Muslim-Christian forum to promote relations between the faiths in 2006. One senior cleric told The Times yesterday: “The Bishop of Rochester is in effect threatening to undo everything we have done.”

The cleric said that some congregations in cities such as Leicester, where interfaith work was a priority, were increasingly wary of donating money towards this work. Church leaders in towns with a large Muslim population were anxious that relations with their neighbours were being undermined.

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The media have reported what they think is depressing news for Anglicans in England. First came the announcement that Tony Blair has been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Then statistics showed that in 2006 the numbers of people in England attending Roman Catholic worship had exceeded those attending Anglican worship for the first time since the Reformation. And I’ve lost count of the number of times I hear remarks in the media about how mainstream churches in the UK have “lost it”, or are in “terminal decline.”

Now in part we only have ourselves to blame. We English Anglicans are extraordinarily good at talking down our church. It’s frightening to ask yourself: how often have I been in a conversation with non-churchgoers during which I’ve criticized “the Diocese” or “the Evangelicals” or “the Prayer Book groupies” – or simply failed to use the opportunity to say what I really value about my church and my faith? And we are incomprehensibly obsessed with sex – or at least that’s the impression we often give. Perhaps we’ve never really got over the fact that one of our founders (Henry VIII) had serious marital problems.

But all this is light years away from the real purpose and vision of our church, which is to proclaim and celebrate what God has done and is doing for us in Jesus Christ, who died for us and now lives and reigns as lord and king. There’s a crucial moment in Matthew’s Gospel when Peter (rather reluctantly) gets out of the boat and walks towards Jesus on the water. At first he stays upright; “but when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened” and begins to sink. And Jesus both rescues and rebukes him, saying “you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:30-31). Notice two things: first, Peter is able to walk on water for as long as he focuses single-mindedly on Jesus. The moment he gets worried about the wind (or gay bishops, or the parish share), he starts to sink. Secondly, the word translated “doubt” really means “look in two different directions at once.”

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Today Christians celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. It is an unusual feast, for it is not an anniversary of the death, or martyrdom, of a saint but a commemoration of a “turning around” of one of the great teachers and thinkers of the Christian world.

St Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles how Saul, the strictest of Pharisees, was journeying to Damascus to persecute and put to death Christians, the followers of a new way, which he regarded as heretical. They had to be stamped out because they were leading the people of God astray. Suddenly, on the Damascus road, a blinding light from Heaven overwhelmed Saul, the blinding light which in the Jewish tradition was the shekinah, the dazzling glory of God. He falls to the ground and asks “who are you Lord?” To which the answer comes: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” There, at the very centre of the glory of God, is the One whose followers Saul had come to Damascus to root out. Blinded and overwhelmed by this experience, Saul is led stumbling into Damascus. There, a Christian disciple, Ananias, comes in obedience to find the persecutor, and lays hands on him that Saul may receive his sight again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

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ST PAUL, facing shipwreck off Malta, spotted the soldiers getting into a small boat to rescue themselves. “Unless these men stay in the ship,” he said to the centurion, “you cannot be saved.”

A similar urgent plea must now be addressed to those who, envisaging the imminent break-up of the good ship Anglican, are getting into a lifeboat called GAFCON, leaving the rest of us to face the future without them.

I have shared the frustration of the past five years, both in the United States and around the world. I have often wished that the Windsor report could have provided a more solid and speedy resolution. But the ship hasn’t sunk yet.

The rationale of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) is: “The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen; it’s time to split.” No mention is made of the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, or, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter, insisting as it does on scriptural authority, which GAFCON seems to regard as its monopoly.

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For those of you who are following the South Carolina Convention.

Attempts to heal a damaging split over women bishops in the Church of England have faltered after bishops could not agree on a compromise deal.

It was widely expected that plans to appoint women bishops, backed by the liberal and conservative wings of the Church, would be presented to the General Synod next month.

But when bishops met behind closed doors to thrash out proposals, there were heated exchanges and no final decision could be reached. It means that the Church is back at square one on the issue.

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Clergy on the ground acknowledge that parallel communities exist, but they insist that problems arise from social as much as religious factors, and that many bridges have been built since the riots in places such as Burnley and Bradford in 2001.

The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Revd John Goddard, insisted on Monday: “There are no ”˜no-go’ areas in Burnley, or in East Lancashire as a whole. There are areas of separation where there is what we would describe as parallel lives. This can lead to misunderstandings, not least fostered by groups such as the BNP. But there are superb good stories to be told, not least the work of the churches across all boundaries . . . a real attitude of presence and engagement.

“We remain in all areas. We serve the whole community through our schools. One of the things we recognise is that you have to learn to be church in rather a different way when you are a minority faith.”

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The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, faced calls for his resignation after his article in The Sunday Telegraph….

He said he was echoing concerns voiced by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality Commission, and those in the 2001 Cantle Report on the race riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley.

“I deeply regret any hurt and do not wish to cause offence to anyone, let alone my Muslim friends, but unless we diagnose the malaise from which we all suffer we shall not be able to discover the remedy,” he said.

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One of Britain’s top Anglican bishops has infuriated Muslim leaders by claiming that Islamic extremism has turned parts of the nation into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims.

Writing in London’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, the Pakistani-born bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, also warned of growing efforts to “impose an Islamic character” in some communities, including broadcasting the five-times-a-day call to prayer from mosques.

Islamic leaders have reacted angrily, including Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain’s inter-faith relations committee, who denounced the bishop’s remarks as “simple scaremongering.”

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Multiculturalism, globalism, and an emphasis on “inter-faith” (which is really inter-faithless because in this view Truth does not exist) are contributing to the decline of the West just as paganism, hedonism and greed undermined past empires. Rather than learn from their mistakes, the West thinks it can engage in such practices without consequence.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has expressed concern about the loss of “Britishness” and the failure to learn English and embrace the national heritage. But unless he does something to slow, even reverse Muslim immigration, Britain, as we’ve known it, will be lost and radical Islam will remake Britain in its own image.

As Bishop Nazir-Ali writes, “But none of this will be of any avail if Britain does not recover that vision of its destiny which made it great. That has to do with the Bible’s teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in G-d’s image.”

The segregationists didn’t believe that at one time in America and the Muslim segregationists in Britain don’t believe it now.

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One of the Church of England’s best-known theologians is suing the Bishop of Liverpool following a row at an Oxford theological college.

Dr Elaine Storkey, a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day slot, told an employment tribunal in Reading yesterday she had been bullied while a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall.

She accepted around £20,000 from the trustees of the college after they acknowledged that she had been unfairly dismissed from the post. But the 64-year-old is still seeking a ruling of religious discrimination against the president of the 130-year-old college, Bishop James Jones, over the row.

The dispute, which has split evangelicals, erupted following clashes between the Rev Richard Turnbull, the principal, and staff who criticised his allegedly abrasive management style and conservative brand of Christianity.

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I have had an unforgettable time in the last five years. My term of office has included being present at the Funeral of Pope John Paul II and the Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI. Those were amazing events, forever enshrined in my memory. I have had the opportunity to engage with Popes and Cardinals and Archbishops, with ambassadors and senior politicians ”“ and even more importantly with ordinary Roman people, at all levels. I have had the enormous privilege of being “centre-stage” in the ecumenical engagement of Anglicans with Roman Catholics.

Along with Monsignor Don Bolen, my opposite number in the Vatican, I have masterminded four visits to the Vatican by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the current head of the world-wide Anglican church. I have watched with hope as the friendship between Pope Benedict and Archbishop Rowan Williams has grown warmer with each visit. They speak personally and gently with one another in both German and English. It is a revelation. Reunion between Anglicans and Catholics may still be a long way off, but over the years we have made deep friendships with one another, even at the top of the pyramid. And deep friendships keep the ecumenical journey alive, and assure its continuance into the future.

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Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali’s warning that Islamic extremism is creating ‘no-go’ areas in parts of Britain has provoked a predictable barrage of outrage.

He has been condemned for making ‘inflammatory’ remarks, distorting the truth about our inner cities and ‘scaremongering’ against the Muslim population.

But, paradoxically, this reaction from the politically-correct establishment is an indicator of the weight of his case. If our ruling elite were not so worried that his views would strike a chord with the public, it would not have been so anxious to condemn him.

His statement about the dangers of the rise of radical Islam matches the reality of what people see in our cities and towns, where the influence of hardliners is undermining harmony and promoting segregation.

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In fewer than 50 years, Britain has changed from being a society with an acknowledged Christian basis to one which is increasingly described by politicians and the media as “multifaith”.

One reason for this is the arrival of large numbers of people of other faiths to these shores. Their arrival has coincided with the end of the Empire which brought about a widespread questioning of Britain’s role.

On the one hand, the British were losing confidence in the Christian vision which underlay most of the achievements and values of the culture and, on the other, they sought to accommodate the newer arrivals on the basis of a novel philosophy of “multiculturalism”.

This required that people should be facilitated in living as separate communities, continuing to communicate in their own languages and having minimum need for building healthy relationships with the majority.

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A Church of England bishop has criticised the Lambeth Conference, which starts in July, for shying away from the issue of homosexuality.

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, said it would be “odd” and “irresponsible” for the meeting to sweep the controversy “under the carpet”.

There are no plans for a major public debate on the issue of gay clergy and much of the conference will take place behind closed doors.

Many bishops, including moderates, fear that divisions will deepen unless the issue of homosexuality is confronted.

Bishop McCulloch criticised conservative bishops who are threatening a boycott because the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has invited American liberals.

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For many, Christmas is a couple of weeks of massive over-consumption. Two facts say it all: four million Brussels sprouts are purchased in the week before Christmas, and more than 8,000 tons of wrapping paper are used at Christmas, which the Government estimates is enough to wrap the whole island of Guernsey!

–(The Rt. Rev.) David Gillett, Bishop of Bolton

The Archbishop of Canterbury kept a special communion service for gays so secret that he failed to tell the Bishop of London it was happening in his diocese, The Times has learnt.

Dr Rowan Williams inflamed the row over homosexuality which is tearing apart the Anglican Church when it was reported that he had agreed to hold a eucharist for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clergy.

But even his critics have been taken aback to learn that he did so by making an incursion on to the patch of the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, without giving notice or seeking permission.

Dr Williams now risks being seen as, at best, discourteous and at worst, in breach of canon law, for sneaking into a church near the Tower of London under the Bishop’s nose. Canon law says that only a bishop can authorise services in his own diocese and infringements may result in an intruder being removed from office.

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The Bishop of Rochester could be heading for a confrontation with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the ordination of gay bishops.

The issue has threatened to cause the biggest split in the Anglican Church’s history, which the archbishop has so far managed to narrowly avoid.

Dr Rowan Williams flew out to New Orleans in September for last-ditch talks to persuade the American Episcopal Church to abandon its decision to ordain gay bishops, as it had done in 2003 with the ordination of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

Several diocese split from the American church as a result of the ordination, which also prompted some conservative clergymen, particularly in Africa, to call for the Americans to be cast out of its international body, the Anglican Communion.

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More than a fifth of the Church of England’s bishops could face the axe under new proposals being drawn up by its leaders.

Secret documents discovered by The Daily Telegraph reveal that the Church Commissioners – the financial wing of the Church of England – are considering reducing traditional funding for the hierarchy.

The proposals come in the wake of criticism that the Church is top heavy and the bishops too costly, while congregations are shrinking and parishes are strapped for cash.

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