The Archbishop of Canterbury rarely lets anyone amend his speeches. Unlike his predecessor, George Carey, Rowan Williams is confident enough of his intellectual gifts to consider that he does not need the wisdom of others in guiding the public expression of his thoughts.
This illustrates the divergent backgrounds of the two men ”” one is working-class, self-taught, rooted in the simplicity of an evangelical faith, the other is Oxbridge to the depths of his complicated soul, espousing a Christianity at once liberal, catholic and ascetic. Lord Carey reads the News of the World, and likes to write for the paper. Dr Williams prefers Dostoevsky, and is writing a book about him.
Dr Williams was advised before his speech on Thursday evening that the content could prove controversial. He heeded the warnings but went ahead anyway. He was “taken aback” by just how controversial it then proved but remains “chirpy” and unrepentant about his comments because he believes that they needed to be made.
Although he is a holy and spiritual man, danger lies in the appearance of the kind of intellectual arrogance common to many of Britain’s liberal elite. It is an arrogance that affords no credibility or respect to the popular voice. And although this arrogance, with the assumed superiority of the Oxbridge rationalist, is not shared by his staff at Lambeth Palace, it is by some of those outside Lambeth from whom he regularly seeks counsel.
Read it all. One of the many things made clear by this whole recent ruckus is that people do not know who Rowan Williams is. He was at Oxford when I was there in the early 1990’s and I say to people often you will not understand him unless you understand that he is a scholar, a Trinitarian and catholic Christian, a mystic and an iconoclast. No portrait that does not have all these four elements will do justice to the complexity of the man; and this recent episode has a heavy dose of #1 and #4 in evidence, but it is as if people forgot or never even knew this is part of the way he works. He likes to push the envelope, he likes to challenge so-called accepted wisdom–KSH.
Sorry to be picky, but I doubt very seriously that Dr Williams is an “iconoclast” in the proper meaning of that term. He may be fond of challenging the conventional wisdom (which is the popular understanding of the term “iconoclast”), but in a theological context iconoclasm has a very specific meaning. It is not possible for a person to be both a Catholic Christian and an iconoclast.
[blockquote] It is an arrogance that affords no credibility or respect to the popular voice. [/blockquote]
It should be emphasized (because the article seems to conflate the two) that respect for the ‘popular voice’ is not the same as respect for the ambulance-chasing, scandal-mongering undereducated, self-important nabobs that comprise the media. The later has richly and justly earned the contempt with which they are treated.
carl
He does not take responsibility for his own communication.
I would suggest that those who question either his ability to communicate or his deep Christian commitment should read [i]The Wound of Knowledge[/i] or [i]Anglican Identities[/i].
The appellation of arrogance to the liberal elite of both our countries is fitting as well as unnerving: it masks a certain spiritual blindness evident to anyone filled truly with the holy spirit. It is the source of what is wrong with the ECUSA leadership and our seminaries. It is as evident in our current PB-ette [ knows more about sea anenomes than man’s relationship to God ] as it is in Williams, who seems to relish being the iconoclast more than he does being a man with a pastor’s heart. I don’t really care what he did or didn’t do at Oxbridge. There are now consequences to his comments. It is no longer the parrying of the classroom. Perhaps we need to hear from the conservative elite: Pope Benedict, who, in 2006, made some comments on the distinction between the Christian and Muslim worlds; from Winston Churchill, who experienced the negative consequences of Muslim activity in Africa in early 1900: from Thomas Jefferson, who purchased a Koran specifically to learn to combat the ravages of Muslim pirates against American citizens in North Africa in the 1790’s.
I think that he might be the perfect expression of benign post-modern Christian accommodation. (Curiously enough, I have noticed that my friends who readily embrace “post-modernism” ( the idea that the Enlightenment Project has failed, that reason is suspect, etc.) are the ones that do not have any science training, could not, if life depended, tell the difference in a mean and a median.)
“it masks a certain spiritual blindness evident to anyone filled truly with the holy spirit”
Hmmmmmm!
It seems to me that the truly gifted intellectuals, like C.S. Lewis in the past, or Bishop Tom Wright today, bring light and clarity to difficult ideas, issues, and theologies. You can hardly read a sentence that Williams writes without stopping to scratch your head. You certainly see through his glass darkly.
Dale, I do not doubt his [b]ability[/b] to communicate. I merely note that based on the evidence he prefers to say what he has to say in a manner that is virtually guaranteed to be taken as denying a tenet of the faith, dismissing the main point at issue, or in this case, advocating the introduction of foreign 8th century jurisprudence.
In each case it would have been possible for him to frame things to preclude his being taken the ‘wrong’ way.
But he simply won’t do it. He has misheard the Psalm, and is busy singing a nuanced song to the Lord.
Again, the comment section is most interesting, e.g., “Rowan Williams needs to learn that is supposed to be a defender of the Faith not a defender of faiths.”
Sorry, but I can’t help asking myself “What did he say?” more often than not, and then I often think to myself “I can’t believe that he said that!”
I think Kendall’s comments about who the Archbishop is are probably spot on. I’m not sure people have forgotten or are unaware of that so much as they may be disinclined to accept it as an excuse for errors of judgement. Similarly, I am disinclined to accept intellectualism as an excuse. It is one thing to raise points as an academic. It is another to fail to think them through. That is intellectualism of a very mundane sort. It is not what one has the right to expect of an Archbishop of Canterbury.
Incidentally, it seems to me that for all his pre-enlightenment mysticism, iconoclasm, or what have you, the Archbishop nevertheless seems to understand modernism and post-modernism perfectly well, as when he accepts the well-funded rule of TEC as it comes to efforts to thwart protection of the orthodox, and decries the conscience-driven border-crossing efforts of the lowly global south.
I think we are achieving greater clarity about both Lambeth and GAFCON. Not in the way one might have expected. And I am relatively sure that this will not be the last incident to cast a shadow on Lambeth before it starts.
[blockquote]”…a Christianity at once liberal, catholic and ascetic.”[/blockquote]
Hmmm…perhaps a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Christianity]cafeteria catholic[/url], picking and choosing that which appeals to his liking.
I would agree with Kendall except in his use of the word iconoclast. Yes +Rowan does like to challenge received wisdoms, particularly when they are contemporary liberal/conservative mantras and that is part of his scholarly demeanor, but he also values the symbols and rituals of the past which modern iconoclasts have been busily dismantling and casting down now for nearly 40 years.
Dr. Harmon, I understand what you’re saying about Dr. Williams, but current situations in the world and in the Communion make the continual effort required to understand and parse Dr. Williams’ statements extremely unhelpful. If he is unable to modify his own communications, then he should employ someone who can review his speeches beforehand looking for the minefields he continues to wander into, and trust that someone when he says, “Danger ahead.”
It is truly a monument to obtuseness that having read the text of the speech, the transcript of the interview, the clarification(s), and the address to General Synod, I did not perceive, appreciate, read, mark, learn, or inwardly digest that the ABC was concerned about the problem of women under informal Sharia courts currently operating in the UK. But I only have 15 years of post-high school education, a literary bent towards Dante and Milton and their ilk, and continuing medical education credits twice the number required annually. I realise the problem is all my fault, of course. Poor ABC, it’s so difficult to talk to the plebians.
[blockquote]Canon Guy Wilkinson, wrote to the Jewish academic Irene Lancaster, in Israel, about the planned content of the speech. Canon Wilkinson said that the lecture would be “a response to rising concerns about the extent to which Sharia is compatible with English civil law, especially in the extensive Muslim neighbourhoods where informal Sharia councils are widely in operation. In areas such as marriage and divorce, there is evidence that there is no proper connection with the civil courts and that women in particular are suffering.â€[/blockquote]
Why could he not have been so clear as this? He would have saved himself, and us, a lot of trouble.
I want to repeat what Churchill said to the British commander in North Africa when he releived him: Sometimes your best is not enough; sometimes you have to do what is expected. If Rowan can’t lead he needs to resign. And we all know he can’t lead. All this apologetic stuff about his being an academic etc. is unmittigated horse hockey. No one made him take the job; and the job is what it is, whether he and the rich, liberal elite like it or not. As nearly as I can ascertain his greatest act of leadership was to take a sabbatical after DeS. The crisis is upon him and (and us) and he wants to push some academic envelope instead of doing his job. I’d just like Rowan to lead, follow or get out of the way. My personal choice is #3.
Kendall writes:
Which is exactly why he was hired on – to present exactly that “image” to the Church of England and to the rest of the world that all is well. He is the Central Casting Choice, no doubt about it. But he has done nothing of the things that one must do to be a successful rector or a successful bishop and it’s pitiful really to watch. Scholars and Academics who have not had to deal with lay leadership and clergy assistants are ill-prepared for the role of Archbishop of Canterbury.
It may have been hoped that the actually “running” would come from New York (as it has in the past) and Rowan would be marched out from time to time for the photo ops and sound bites and scare everyone else off by his intellect and persona. It works on the University Campus, but not out in the aisles and pews and chambers of the Church. As any rector who has to stand out in the cold and heat, Sunday after Sunday, and shake the hands of parishioners – or not.
Rectors learn early – if they are going to succeed – to empower, disciple, engage, plead, beg, weep, rejoice, holler, and embrace the lay leadership in their parishes. If they do not have a base of support from the leadership (and part of their skill is figuring out who the real leaders are, as well as cultivate new leaders over time) then they are finished. Either they live off the endowments of their predecessors’ successes or they move on. Rowan has not enjoyed the process of refinement – he may get some of it at home by being a father and a husband (and there are often references to this, by the way), but he has not run a Vestry meeting where he has many pairs of eyes staring at him wondering “how are we going to fix the bad plumbing and the leaky roof and what are we going to do about the bishop’s reception punch this year (Old Mrs. McGuilicutty last year caused the bishop to be intoxicated after the grapes used in the punch fermented, you know the story) and what are we going to do about the stewardship campaign and who’s idea was it to bring drums into the 11:30 a.m. Sunday worship anyway – was that you Father? Was it?” Okay, you live through stuff like that you can deal with the Daily Mail and the Bishop of Rochester.
bb
The Church does not exist through its seminaries, academies, or intricate theology that removes it to an incomprehensible plain.
The academy, and other scholastic pursuits are to act as servants of the Word and illuminate it; not flash brighter than it nor create smoke to obscure it. The Church exists in the simplest soul and if the academy and its leaders cannot serve that soul then Christianity will become a Socratic exercise rather than conversion and sanctification.
Perhaps, as Christians, we might learn to be a bit more charitable toward the Archbishop. Fortunately, he won’t succumb the mob and exhibit the steady leadership he has. One element of leadership is making people angry.
What is amazing is that – even though he might be wrong – he ushered in a very impressive conversation about sharia and multiculturalism in Britain. He did it with clarity and magnanimity. He exposed rifts within the Muslim community; he challenged both Christian conservatives and secularists. He demanded we use our own minds.
DWstroudmd, Williams said, “We are not talking about parallel jurisdictions; and I tried to make clear that there could be no ‘blank cheques’ in this regard, in particular as regards some of the sensitive questions about the status and liberties of women. The law of the land still guarantees for all the basic components of human dignity.” Perhaps he didn’t gnash his teeth about sharia, but what is impressive is that Muslim Women were able to find their own voice. That’s more important than Rowan speaking for them – and his comments had the effect of raising alternative Muslim voices. If it seems accidental, I’d check out your family systems handbook.
by the vitriol heaped upon him, I’d suggest he’s doing his job. Didn’t this happen to Jesus?
Tired- its a cheap shot. Besides, it’s a big menu in Christianity, and you can’t eat everything.
Kendall – good luck. See how your friends treat the Archbishop, a Christian man, and weep. Even though they have never had the pleasure of knowing his pastoral gifts (which I hear are, in person, substantial), they judge him, insinuating they know the job that needs to be done.
“He did it with clarity…” from JW —
I would hate to try to understand him when he was being obscure.
#21, that spin-doctoring has just pegged the tachometer. Apparently, one only need go about saying foolish, destructive things to become a great leader…Christ-like, even. The conversation about multicultualism has been going on for some time, it’s just that the British public hasn’t been confronted quite so starkly with a nominal leader waving the white flag so enthusiatically.
[url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB12Aa02.html]Spengler[/ur] expands on ++Rowan’s prostration.
Gah….elven-kind, and you fix my unworthy html-fu?
#21–Now if he could only help raise the alternative Anglican/Episcopalian voices.
I was able to follow Jefferson’s link at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB12Aa02.html
which adds this:
[blockquote]As a final insult to conscience, he cites as his authority on sharia Professor Tariq Ramadan, who notoriously refuses to condemn the stoning of women for adultery, precisely because Muslim legal rulings specifically endorse such violence.[/blockquote]
So the spin is that this was all the Archbishop’s clever plan to expose the folly of Britain’s multicultural experiment? It has been exposed; in fact, it has been exploded as a result of his words, but I doubt that this was his plan. God works in mysterious ways.
John Wilkins, my family systems handbook has a description of the ABC, for sure. Dysfunctional. Massively dysfunctional. As in the “head” of the family is incapacitated and the family falls apart. Witness the errant behaviours of ECUSA/TEC/GCC and ACCanada and the inability of the “head” to hear the rest of the family and the resultant instability. And you have the gall to suggest that noticing that, and again in the secular sphere when the action is repeated, that the ABC is being scapegoated? being treated unChristianly. Have you ever heard of an intervention for such dysfunctionality? It would seem that The Father has. Your mileage probably differs.
Dr Williams may be a scholar of Christianity.
As a legal scholar, which is what he purports to be in the summation of his lecture (not the press interview) he is a fraud and poseur. His statement that “deconstruction” will destroy myths about the incompatability of the Enlightenment and Sharia is totally unargued, and as such, can only be considered ludicrous. His comments about legal positivism etc. show him to be an utter illiterate in legal theory attempting to impress by using big words he doesn’t understand.
The parts that Dr Williams’ defenders consider to be so scholarly, nuanced and insightful reveal more than the original “sensationalist” article, and are much more damning to Dr Williams.
That he impressed someone knowing him at Oxford suggests either that he is a con man, that the impressed person is an ignorant dupe, or both.
Stroud – in another handbook you’ll find that then people have to learn to take care of themselves rather than assuming that big daddy is going to take care of them. He’s not playing the role of the tyrant, telling people how to think. He’s simply stating what he thinks. “Dysfunctional” is just another way of saying you aren’t getting what you want. It’s simply another insult, which is how things seem to be done around here.
Celtichorse, I find that I’m able to understand him. Perhaps you might give examples.
Katherine: “folly of multicultural…” What is the experiment? He made a suggestion – one that was entering into dangerous territory. And now there are many voices. What makes you think that the Archbishop wasn’t aware that even out of the vitriol and hatred spewing in his direction God could do wonderful things? The archbishop has a much better sense of his own authority and effect than you do. Seems that we expect him to either be the messiah or keep his mouth shut, blaming him for injustices that are properly laid at the feet of conservative imams. Personally he’s going to come out of this doing quite well on several fronts because in person when he gets invited to various groups to talk, he will do well, as he most often does.
Kendall – note Toral1’s tone – a “fraud and a poseur” then an insult to both Rowan and yourself. You are commended for the work on your blog. But with such anger and hatred coming from the conservative camp, I’m not surprised if Rowan finally one day says, he’s had it with the reasserters.
Babyblue, University politics are brutal. I’m stunned by the people in this blog who seem to insinuate that intelligence is unimportant, that it is the responsibility of someone else to make things easy for us. Why should faith be easy or require the half-baked platitudes of an effective building administrator rather than someone who is thinking through difficult ideas? Again, its our own fault that we desire divine expectations from our human leaders. And it is predictable tht we ascribe to them the worst motives, and self-righteously assume others could do the job better….
#30: Contrasting Rowan Williams with- say – predecessor ABC Carey or ABC Ramsey: the later two, though certainly well educated (esp. ++Ramsey), had the gift of offering their intelligence and fervent Faith in a spoken and written form that we lesser educated minds could grasp and be the better for. ++ Williams, with all due respect to those (like Kendall) who are sharp enough to benefit from his communication, seems to provoke and confuse, more than edify and inspire. Plus, there is the niggling fact that our current ABC can go so spectacularly wrong with his convictions (re- both WO and human sexuality), that one really does wonder if his theological grounding is as stable as some claim.
#30: Spare the universal condemnation and guilt by association. You’re a better person than this comment reflects, I’m guessing!
I’ve wondered if Dr Harmon’s 4 aspects that one has to bear in mind, the complex sentences and the curious other-worldliness don’t just tell us about a youngster in south Wales who found in a church a window into Christ, an anglo-catholic view and the support and nurture that enabled him to learn, explore and rise academically to one of the great episcopal thrones and who I hope may yet as Mark McCall suggested go down as one of the great Archbishops of Canterbury.
Kendall,
You said “He likes to push the envelope, he likes to challenge so-called accepted wisdom”. i have seen numerous people in the workplace that have tried to push the envelope, and it has irritated people and set them to “discussing” this new thing.In the end all it accomplishes is a loss of time that could be spent working productively, and getting people upset. In a lot of theses cases the person always trying to push the envelope end up being let go because of the strife and ill feelings generated. Industry will not tolerate someone who causes friction in the workplace as ABC has been doing for several years.
RE: “Spare the universal condemnation and guilt by association.”
Actually, it’s pretty much standard boilerplate, Stuart, and therefore handily ignored.
Wilkins, it is evident that the ABC is dysfunctional in the setting of the Anglican Communion; in fact, it is experiential. That is not a matter of my not getting my way. Or may only the liberal properly evaluate what is and what is not experiential? I forget how touchy you people get when you don’t get your way or have the obvious error demonstrated to your superior intelligences. An affront to the order of the universe, your way. Hey! That’s beginning to sound dysfunctional, too. And its being acted out by the PB/Beers/EC liberal consortiuum in Quito even as we speak. Wonder what new associations these liberals will attempt in the vein of the dysfunctional “head”? Suggest sharia for the US? Postnatal elimination for the ideologically unfit as retroactive abortion as a “logical” extension of ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EC’s association with the RCRC? Or does dysfunctionality only work in one direction: that being opposite yours?
One wonders how it is possible for people to manage such anger and such nasty words and thoughts about someone they don’t know, whose books they obviously haven’t read and whose thoughts they seem ready to misunderstand?
Good people, though, have suffered similar fates since the beginning of recorded history. Some were shunned, some imprisoned and a few murdered. Mercifully the worst +Rowan faces are words, and he probably doesn’t read them. I hope he doesn’t.
What does worry me is a studied vein of anti-intellectualism which seems to run amok here on this which has been the more responsible and measured of the two major traditionalist sites. With friends like this who needs enemies? How one begins to defend this sort of nonsense from the Gospel -and I don’t mean a sentimental, liberal parody of the Gospel -is quite beyond me. Perhaps it is time to remind ourselves that this is Lent?
SO he’s a scholar. It doesn’t make him a teacher or minister. I have to keep remembering that not every Oxonian is a C.S. Lewis, Newman, Dix, WIlliams (Charles!). Alot of them can’t communicate at all. I continue to be amazed that Rowan did his dissertation on Vladimir Lossky. Lossky has a grand statement at the end of his chapter on the Trinity: “Between the Trinity and Hell there lies no alternative.” If Williams would quote that line and let the chips fall, I’d admire him. If he were asked about it, he’d waffle for a half hour and you’d know nothing about his beliefs at the end of it. The longer time goes by I feel less and less inadequate about not being an Oxbridge student.
wvparson, please, be more pastoral to John Wilkins. He’s having a difficult day with the family systems head’s actions and the provoked response. ;>)
“Family systems”? Ugh.
#1 Chris, you are right. Fr Kendall, I know you didn’t mean it, in the theological sense, when you called Rowan Williams an iconoclast. The original Iconoclasts were heretics who, trying to make Christianity more like Islam and thus more acceptable to Moslems, went about bullying Christians & destroying icons of Christ and His saints. I am sure you did not mean to imply this, but when you called him that, it was the first thing I thought of.
This March 9, we celebrate the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the victory of Christians over the Iconoclasts in A.D. 843.
(But in the present Age, all the old heresies keep coming back, because their origin is from the Evil One).
One of the keys, to my mind, having also sat at the feet of Rowan Williams, for opening a way to understanding him and the way he operates is provided by Robert Jenson’s astute review in [i]Pro Ecclesia[/i], XI/3 2002, pp.367-9, of his collection of essays, [i]On Christian Theology[/i] (2000), published (deliberately?) ahead of the new appointment of the ABC.
Jenson writes: “First. As the essays succeed each other, the bishop’s fear of closure begins to seem far too obsessive to be truly helpful in the life of faith. The confession into which teaching is supposed to lead us begins, after all, “I believe…â€, not “I wonder about….†Is it really the chief proper use of dogma and other theology “to keep the essential questions aliveâ€, (p.92) indefinitely to sustain puzzlement? Should dogmas and other theologoumena serve mostly to remind us of the problems they pretend to resolve? God is indeed a mystery, but between honour for the biblical God’s specific mystery and the kind of endless semi-Socratic dialectic Williams often seems to commend, there is, I would have thought, some considerable difference.
“No doubt argument and perplexity are permanent in the church’s thinking, and no doubt this is a good and necessary thing; so that stirring up stagnant conviction must indeed be one task of theology. But, e.g., the phrase just cited, “to keep the essential questions aliveâ€, occurs in an exposition of “the doctrine of Incarnationâ€, (pp.79-92) and the fathers of Chalcedon and 2nd Constantinople themselves certainly [i]thought[/i] they were [i]settling[/i] certain essential questions, in such fashion that conflict about them should not thereafter legitimately trouble the church.â€
He concludes: “As I write, an Anglican colleague suggests that in these essays Williams is making an apology for dogma and theology, directed to anti-theological liberals who still dominate the Church of England. And that seems plausible: another name for neo-Protestant theology is “mediating†theology. If my colleague is right, blessings on the bishop. But one must hope he may not – like some of his German predecessors – mediate away the store. Particularly if he is next for Canterbury!â€
So friends; here we have the depths of the ABC’s theological method revealed, together with its political consequences. Is RWJ prescient – or what?!
dwstroudmd, who is “you people?” sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I’m right. I object that the Archbishop should be crucified for making a statement. If anything, he should be commended given the much deeper conversation that is happening now in Britain. I would be wary about using the word “dysfunctionality” unless you are being precise. then you say, “Wonder what new associations these liberals will attempt in the vein of the dysfunctional “headâ€? Suggest sharia for the US? Postnatal elimination for the ideologically unfit as retroactive abortion as a “logical†extension of ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EC’s association with the RCRC? Or does dysfunctionality only work in one direction: that being opposite yours?”
I’ll tell you what. If TEC advocates Sharia in the US, or anywhere, or postnatal elimination, I’ll definitely side with you. Otherwise, its hysteria. But what is certainly the case is when one person makes a statement, as Rowan did, which was sophisticated, easily misinterpreted via the media, but touching a deep anxiety in Britain, everyone else – except him – went crazy. That doesn’t demonstrate bad leadership to me. It does show that he did reveal, perhaps, a “dysfunction” that was already there. In my opinion, the consequences have been good, in spite of the hostility spewing forth against him.
WVparsons had it right – the anti-intellectualism is worrying. I’ve not seen a single person back up their accusations of +Rowan with a statement of his. Just opinions of OTHER people and an eagerness to jump on the bandwagon.
Further, the accounts I’ve heard indicate that +Williams is a talented Pastor. NWlayman makes a strange comment insinuating +Williams doesn’t understand the trinity. Did he Read Williams in Cairo?
“Those Christian thinkers and their successors developed a doctrine which tried to clarify this: they said that the name ‘God’ is not the name of a person like a human person, a limited being with a father and mother and a place that they inhabit within the world. ‘God’ is the name of a kind of life – eternal and self-sufficient life, always active, needing nothing. And that life is lived eternally in three ways which are made known to us in the history of God’s revelation to the Hebrew people and in the life of Jesus. There is a source of life, an expression of life and a sharing of life. In human language we say, ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, but we do not mean one God with two beings alongside him, or three gods of limited power. Just as we say, ‘Here is my hand, and these are the actions my one hand performs’, but it is not different from the actions of my five fingers, so with God: this is God, the One, the Living and Self-subsistent, but what God does is not different from the life which is eternally at the same time a source and an expression and a sharing of life. Since God’s life is always an intelligent and purposeful life, each of these dimensions of divine life can be thought of as a centre of mind and love; but this does not mean that God ‘contains’ three different individuals, separate from each other as human individuals are.”
The point is not simply what he said – but that he discussed the Trinity to Muslims. In a way that was magnanimous.
#17, good quote, and great question – it is exactly the same quote I offered yesterday (comment 31) under ‘Synod backs Archbishop over Sharia controversy’. It seemed clear in Canon Wilkinson’s words there to Dr. Lancaster that ++W.’s speech was intended to help efforts to mitigate the unjust situations some British Muslim women, in particular, find themselves in. Are we now all trying to understand how it could have fallen so far afield of doing so?
And is it remotely possible that some media and press people fomented a great misunderstanding just to get ++Williams in a bad light? It’s possible. Yet if that’s the reality of this situation, where is the explanation, the elucidation of ++W.’s mis-understood statements, from any of his defenders, that can cause Ruth Gledhill, Dr. Lancaster, Melanie Phillips, Libby Purves, ‘Dr. Mabuse’, Minette Martin, Sarah Hey, commenter Katherine, BabyBlue, Joan Smith, Anne Applebaum, and others such as myself to say “Ah! Now I see! He isn’t suggesting at all that sharia law should be applicable within British society, thus perpetuating the hopelessly unjust situation that considers a Muslim woman as only half a man, to start with?” Where is that explanation? I am eager to see it.
John Wilkins, “you people” was a generic shorthand for all those defenders of the ABC on the grounds of his alleged intellectualism by arguing for the unmasking his astute and unrecognizable defense of all 17,000 Muslim females minimally recognized to be suppressed and/or suffering under the uninhibited, casual Sharia law courts functioning socially within the context of the United Kingdom and the claim that his circuituously prolonged and latinately loquacious construction, Byzantianly convoluted claimed manifesto on their behalf was pathetically unrecognized by the sub-intelligensia who were alleged too-busy-running-off-in-the-wrong-directions at the clear sense of the few English words he employed that were apparently able of decipherment from the malingering maelstrom of his expressed malcontent with the abstruse and blood-soaked conception of one unitary legal emplacement from which to protect all citizens without regard to their ghetto-producing unassimilated sociocultural mileu as a mitigating factor in the uniform and judicial application of such basics as members of the body politic of the United Kingdom which had the specific amelioration of said failure of incorporation of the said unassimilated by the unmitigated application of their severe and unremitting and unmerciful application of currently practiced pluriform interpretations of the same “social cohesion” by the deprivation of hands, limbs and life in the best interests of placating an implacable multivarious application of the same; thereby opening to your understanding the Grand Canyon-esque chasm of what the ABC apparently intended and what he actually, in his pedantic and overly-thoughtful way made impossible of understanding of the merely postdoctoral and liberal college educated amongst us who deal in the mere amelioration of physical and mental distress of the said sufferers when they come to attention by escaping said mileu or are suffering from if not found dead from consequences of not adhering to their social unit in its determined “social cohesion” format, and dared to make protestation against such a malignancy in the body politic aforesaid.
Does that help?
Dr Stroud, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Why Dr Stroud (#45), at last something of substance that my 18+ years of education can comprehend 🙂
JW, the anti-intellectualism you perceive is actually anti-bovine eliminations. Why throw away 1000+ years of English civilization and law to accommodate immigrants? Do you expect a reciprocal rash of multicultural Islamist discussions to allow Christianity and democratic possibilities for potential immigrants to Islamic countries?
Sorry my #47 was cut short…… I intended saying that Rowan appears to advocate ‘teasing out’ deeper meaning and possibly inadvertly mediating away English civilization and Christianity.
dwstroudmd, what is most interesting about your statement is that: he didn’t say anything like you insinuate. It’s fully your imagination.
Good for you!
#42: “…the kind of endless semi-Socratic dialectic Williams often seems to commend…”
That is an *excellent characterization of Williams’ method and why it is so frustrating – because on any issue at hand, he constantly raises question after question (all decent questions, too) from a modestly semi-skeptical or liberal angle but never lingers long enough to answer these questions firmly or to admit that the Christian Church has already reached ‘closure’ on them, before he has moved on to another one. If he tried this stuff in Biblical Studies, he’d be blown out of the water.
This author says well a number of things that need saying – another name to add to the list in #44:
http://www.godspy.com/opinion/why-accommodating-sharia-law-would-be-a-mistake/
John Wilkins, try that line on your average illiterate mullah-led Islamic individual in a ghetto-like no-go area in the UK as a female abused by your husband and see what mileage you get. Apparently, there is at least a two-tier level of understanding available. One would be what the masses heard but cannot read. The other would be what the literate read and heard in the reading, the interview, the corrections, and the General Synod speech that co-incides with what the illiterate heard/will hear/will be told. The alternative literate view is that only the special have an inside track on the ABC’s meaning and the inability of all but the cognoscenti to grasp the real meaning of dhimmitude.
John, alas, I forgot to include this “urbayne and progressyve” commentary done in Chaucerian mode. Enjoy.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/02/heere-bigynneth.html
Excellent Chaucer link! I laughed aloud at the Bob Dylan allusion; little did we know that when “the prophet of his generation” penned “Everybody must get stoned,” he was foretelling the imposition of [i] sharia. [/i]
Or to put Kendall’s words in more common phrase: He is a religious liberal. And this we have come to discover for ourselves as we have listened to him.
LM
#52 – um, Dr. Stroud, who is responsible for the Imam’s illiteracy? Rowan? Interesting.
But I wonder what would happen to Sharia if it were forced to adjust itself to British secular law. Laws don’t normally stay static. Further, you seem to insinuate that +Rowan is responsible for something that is, by and large, a media construction. Where is the truth in that? why not hold the media accountable for the perpetual misrepresentations of what Rowan said? Why are you letting the media off the hook? This is also about how we talk about truth. +Rowan could be wrong, but aren’t we acting a bit like our Muslim brothers when we are asking for his head on a platter for a media construction? Reminds me of Denmark….
Look at what happened, Dr. Stroud – after +Rowan spoke, Muslims Women defended themselves. That is far more effective than another Christian telling Muslims what to think. by simply opening up the issue, +Rowan has effectively opened up the discussion in ways we didn’t expect.
We assume that +Rowan cares about being right. After all, you seem to care about being on the right side. Personally, I don’t care if what he said was right or wrong: but I’m offended at the character assassination and the willful disregard for what the man actually said. This is how the prince of lies works.
We should not judge +Rowan, but instead look at the log in our own eye. We should stop hypothesizing about the imaginary people we think are hurt by his statements and just admit that we are shocked.
And then perhaps, we’ll realize that it’s our problem. Not his. If you want to blame someone for abusing Sharia, blame the judge. Not Rowan.
#56 …abusing Sharia? “What the man actually said” is what has touched off the firestorm, not his character. What he said without regard to its consequences reveals his character.
#57 – could you tell me what he said? Go to the original interview, and cut and paste it in your comment.
The commentators who quote the interview seem to understand what he said. To say that he touched off a firestorm is incorrect. He simply revealed the conflict that has already been there, and everybody was avoiding. Something a spiritual leader SHOULD do, even if he gets crucified for it.
Otherwise, you’re just telling him to shut up.
#58 John Wilkins
Without myself necessarily accepting #57’s views there is no obligation on him or her to do anything of the sort in response to what unfortunately comes across as hectoring. Please however feel free to cut and paste any quotes you wish to support your reading of the interview and lecture. You may however feel as I do, that the ABC having apologised in Synod that it is appropriate to let the matter rest there.
John Wilkins, I believe that the ABC said clearly in his speech and in his interview and still maintains the view that Sharia in the UK was “unavoidable”, that the concept of one law for all was “a bit dangerous”, and that Sharia was more than merely beheadings and amputations and executions.
I do not recall him saying Sharia would “unavoidably” be changed by incorporation in the UK or even suggesting that it should.
I think the Imam preaching the decadence of the West and the superiority of the Sharia interpretation he happens to hold has been handed “an apple of silver in a pitcher of gold” for those purposes. And, yes, that is the ABC’s fault. He was tossing out the golden apples from his pitchers of silver without regard to the realities at hand (or without hand, as the case may be).
I too am glad the Muslim women spoke out against the false conception of Sharia promulgated by the ABC.
I am very glad that the “speciality” of Sharia and what it means has been ventilated well in the UK to the consternation of the ABC’s apparently idyllic views obtained from his social strata and circle which has NOT been practicing the full version. The ABC ought be aware by this point that he may have been a wee bit mistaken in his judgment or understanding or speaking or in the trinity of the same.
But, I doubt that he believes such to really be true.
PS Another physician’s commentary worth a look:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0211td.html