Thus my first point about the role of plural religious communities in society is that they both underpin the notion that there are values which are not negotiable, and that at the same time they prohibit any conclusion that such values can ultimately be defended by violence. They challenge the drift from Enlightenment optimism to the postmodern enthronement of power and interest as the sole elements in political life; that is, they allow societies as well as person to fail with grace and to find space beyond anxiety. That is not at all the same as saying that they require passivity, resignation to the unprincipled power of others. But they allow human beings the dignity of accepting defeat in certain circumstances where the alternative is to abandon the moral essence of a society in order to win: they suggest the subversive but all-important insight that failure might be preferable to victory at the cost of tolerating, say, torture or random military reprisal as normal elements in political life. By being absolute and thus in a sense irreconcilable, they remind society that a unity imposed by force will always undermine the moral substance of social and political life. There is no way of finding a position outside or beyond diverse faith traditions from which to broker a union between them in which their convictions can be reconciled; and this is not bad news but good ”“ good because it does two things at once. It affirms transcendent values; and by insisting that no other values are absolute, it denies to any other system of values any justification for uncontrolled violence. Transcendent values can be defended through violence only by those who do not fully understand their transcendent character; and if no other value is absolute, no other value can claim the right to unconditional defence by any means and at all costs. Thus the rationally irreconcilable systems of religious belief rule out any assumption that coercive power is the last resort or the ultimate authority in our world.
And if that is the case, we can see how religious plurality may serve the cause of social unity, paradoxically but genuinely. If we are prohibited from claiming that social harmony can be established by uncontrolled coercive power ”“ that is, if we are obliged to make a case for the legitimacy of any social order ”“ but are also prohibited from solving the problem by a simple appeal to universal reason, we are left with a model of politics which is always to do with negotiation and the struggle for mutual understanding. Politics is clearly identified as something pragmatic and ”˜secular’, in the sense that it is not about absolutes. As the world now is, diverse religious traditions very frequently inhabit one territory, one nation, one social unit (and that may be a relatively small unit like a school, or a housing co-operative or even a business). And in such a setting, we cannot avoid the pragmatic and secular question of ”˜common security’: what is needed for our convictions to flourish is bound up with what is needed for the convictions of other groups to flourish. We learn that we can best defend ourselves by defending others. In a plural society, Christians secure their religious liberty by advocacy for the liberty of Muslims or Jews to have the same right to be heard in the continuing conversation about the direction and ethos of a society that is characteristic of liberal polity in the broadest sense of the word.
This is very much a “read it all.” Although the immediate context is interfaith dialogue, there is a fairly obvious application to the intra-Anglican situation.
I agree with #1 that this is a serious essay which reveals Rowan Williams’s thinking and hence can be extended to his thinking about Anglican Communion matters.
What is curious is that he seems to be speaking not out of his own truth tradition but as a social philosopher or a philosopher of religions. To put it another way, the truth tradition from which he speaks seems to be a conservative postmodernism, and he seems to see “classic†Christian apologetics, including I think the tradition of Richard Hooker, as an historical product of “medieval†culture and the Enlightenment. Hence it seems to me Abp. Williams has no roots to go back to. He is a “post-“ kind of thinker rather than a “neo-†kind.
Contrast this with Benedict XVI in his notorious lecture [url=http://www.zenit.org/article-16955?l=english]“Faith, Reason and the Universityâ€[/url]. I do find one important agreement between them. Both believe that, to quote Canterbury, “transcendent values can be defended through violence only by those who do not fully understand their transcendent character…†However, within the Christian sphere and the wider philosophical sphere, Benedict is calling for Christians to recover unapologetically the classic synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem enshrined in the Church Fathers and the natural law tradition (see my brief commentary on [url=http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/12/science-truth-and-university.html]“Science, Truth and the Universityâ€[/url]). Rowan Williams, while “understanding†those truth traditions, seems incapable of “owning†them.â€
As for extrapolating these thoughts in Anglican Communion matters, I note that he distinguishes between the way that truth claims are exercised inside a religious tradition and outside in the wider pluralistic society.
[blockquote]The reality of religious plurality in a society declares, as we have already seen, that some human groups hold to their convictions with an absolute loyalty, believing they are true and thus non-negotiable. If they thought otherwise about these convictions, they might be involved in negotiations about merging or uniting in some way; there would be no ground for holding on to a distinct identity. Yet they do hold to their claims to truthfulness, and so declare to the society around that certain things are not liable to be changed simply because of to changes in fashion or political theory or political convenience.[/blockquote]
In his Anglican Communion apologetics he brings the same skeptical pluralism to the truth tradition of the Church that he brings to the wider pluralistic society. Surely the most obvious way of describing the battle over human sexuality since 1998 involves one party claiming that it cannot negotiate a basic Scriptural truth claim because the wider society finds a particular lifestyle fashionable. Yet Williams cannot bring himself to do more than acknowledge philosophically that this is the traditional teaching of the Church. Again, he can own it only as an observer, not as a defender.
Hence while acknowledging the intellectual seriousness of Abp. Williams’s argument, I find it telling he is unwilling to step out the boat of postmodernism and walk by the truth claims of classic Christianity. His argument is not only [i]paradoxical[/i], to use a favorite word but [i]paralyzing[/i]: he can in one breath defend the necessity of immutable religious truth claims and yet have difficulty articulating the very Christian truth claims that he himself is pledged to defend.
Dr. Noll you said, “His argument is not only paradoxical, to use a favorite word but paralyzing: he can in one breath defend the necessity of immutable religious truth claims and yet have difficulty articulating the very Christian truth claims that he himself is pledged to defend.”
My question is, if the above is true and the ABC does not defend the pledge he has made to uphold the Faith, is not the ABC denying Christ?
Kendall, thanks very much for posting this address. It helps readers of the blog get a better sense of +++Rowan’s program of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Hi Dr Stephen
I think the Archbishop’s address need to be read in it’s context. Invited by the Islamic Council of Singapore (though the Anglican Church co-hosted), which is a government body here, the topic was already agreed upon prior to the meeting – ‘Social unity and religious diversity.’ In the public lecture, apart from Islamic leaders, there were also many politicians and civil leaders present. Given the nature of the lecture and the multi-faith environment in Singapore, many of us thought he gave a sensitive and appropriate message, especially in the face of secularism and the tendencies of our society (like others) to sideline religion.
His visit was a very positive one for the Church and our relationship with other religious bodies and our government, even though it was primarily a Building Bridge event.
The Archbishop delivered an address in Pakistan some time back, on the person of Christ, where it was appropriate for him to explain and defend the faith. Check the link [url=http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/lecture_delivered_by_the_archbishop_at_the_islamic_uni/]here[/url]
Terry Wong