“By plotting a graph of the expansion of the monasteries throughout the Middle Ages we might easily have concluded that nine-tenths of the British people were celibates today.” John V Taylor’s wisdom, in his prophetic, ecological gem Enough is Enough, is worth remembering concerning any future predictions, not least the growth of Islam in the west. None of us knows what is round the corner.
Another shrewd attitude towards the past and the future is that taken by Zhou Enlai, the Chinese prime minister who died in 1975. When asked how he assessed the French Revolution, replied, “It’s a little too early to judge.”
Are Anglican conservatives in the Anglican communion turning their attention away from issues of sexuality to the threat of Islam? From reading articles and comments and taking part in various private discussions, this seems to me too simplistic an analysis. Perceptions on both these subjects may interweave and are likely to feature in future comment and campaign.
There seems a background here with which I am unfamiliar. Who are the conservative Anglicans who might be thought (and is it wrongly or rightly – I’m not quite sure) to be desirous of the destruction of Islam? And who are those who don’t wish to eradicate Islam but do wish to introduce faithful muslims to Jesus? Are some folks suggesting that muslims should not be loved but refuted (to use the unusual conceptual opposition quoted in the article)? I really don’t know – it hasn’t been my experience when meeting christian leaders from muslim majority areas of the, so called, “Third World”. Or is there some debate within the Church of England with which I am not familiar?
I am generally in agreement with the tone and thrust of the article but don’t really understand with whom the author is disagreeing (if anyone). FWIW I do think there is an ethical obligation for some in all faith communities to engage in respectful and loving dialogue about truth – call it apologetics if you wish. (See the former Anglican and now Catholic theologian Paul Griffiths, “An Apology for Apologetics”).
It has to be recognized that Graham Kings is speaking within the British context, but as one who has served in Africa and has been academically involved in mission studies at Cambridge. In the British setting ‘conservative’ Anglicans are such a significantly large group that there is a broad spectrum of viewpoints and attitudes that come under that label. It also needs to be pointed out that he is writing in ‘The Guardian,’ a newspaper that caters for a leftish and well-educated audience, many of whom will have strongly secularist leanings — which means part of his job is that of interpretation to that audience. What Graham has said is, I think, a pretty fair analysis of the situation as viewed from within England.
I can he is speaking to the Guardian readership (and defending Bishop Michael to them) but he’s speaking about some unidentified “other”. Who – in the British Anglican context thinks the kind of thing he critiques?
There has been some recent comment on the American side of what passes for “conservative” protestantism that the next big thing (after routing homosexuals from our midst) is the challenge of growing Muslim influence in America. I understand that this was a British audience, but similar sentiments are beginning to be expressed here.