Rowan Williams clarified his thinking and showed contrition for his clumsiness, but he declined to apologise and many commentators and public figures are writing that he is not off the hook. Also heard are calls for disestablishment of the Church of England according to the Christian think-tank Ekklesia.
Alex Kirby, who has been a leading religion correspondent, writes on the BBC’s website: “If Rowan Williams ever imagined his explanation could get him off the hook, he is wrong. The damage is done, and it will take more than his elegant mea culpa to undo it.”
Kirby continued: “The archbishop was wrong to accept in his BBC radio interview that there could be anything inevitable about any part of Sharia ever holding sway in the UK. He was also pretty certainly wrong not to ask someone to rewrite his speech so he would not have to apologise, as he has, for its ‘unclarity’ and his own ‘clumsiness’.
“And he should have had some idea of how the very word Sharia is enough to drive reason from many minds. All that said, though, the damage he has caused is minuscule by comparison both with what his critics are doing and with the good he himself has done,” concluded Kirby.
Emphasis added.
In a news release Ekklesia argues that Dr Williams’ speech “highlights the need for disestablishment and a level-playing field for faith communities with other groups in civil society, distinct from the legislature, executive and judiciary.”
Also from Ekklesia reports on Archbishop Williams’ speech to the General Synod clarifying his remarks on Sharia Law in the UK.
“There is no dispute about our common allegiance to the law of the land” Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams told the General Synod of the Church of England – and a watching world on TV and the internet – this afternoon, following the recent furore about his BBC interview and lecture on Sharia and English civil law last week.
Dr Williams’ speech came after the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, while affirming his leadership of the established Church of England, asked for clarification of his views, which he said he believed had been “misrepresented” in a debate which rapidly became extremely over-heated.
The Washington Post reports:
Commentators called Monday the most important day of the archbishop’s five years in office, following a weekend of often harsh rejoinders that recognizing sharia would undermine British values and laws, notably concerning the rights of women. There were scattered calls for his resignation.
The furor underlined the unease that many Britons of Christian heritage feel concerning the creed of the approximately 2 million Muslims who live in the country.
Sharia already figures in the lives of many Muslims here. Informal neighborhood councils provide rulings on family issues such as divorce; banks such as HSBC market mortgages compliant with sharia rules of lending.
Thinking Anglicans has an extensive listing of the latest articles on the continuing controversy.
Some of the latest editorial opinion:
From Anne Applebaum:
Every time police shrug their shoulders when a Muslim woman complains that she has been forced to marry against her will, every time a Western doctor tries not to notice the female circumcisions being carried out in his hospital, they are acting in the spirit of the archbishop of Canterbury. So is the social worker who dismisses the plight of an illiterate, house-bound woman, removed from her village and sent across the world to marry a man she has never met, on the grounds that her religion prohibits interference. That’s why — if there is to be war between the British tabloids and the archbishop — I’m on the side of the Sun.
From The Wall Street Journal:
There are discomforting surveys showing that up to 40% of British Muslims want Shariah in the U.K. But even if those numbers are accurate, some 60%must not want to live under Shariah. Many Muslims have fled to Britain precisely to escape a legal system that chops off the hands of thieves, asin Saudi Arabia, or hangs homosexuals and stones adulterers, as in Iran. Mr. Williams appears to be suggesting some form of “Shariah lite,” as if one could pick the bits of Islamic jurisprudence that might be acceptable in Western democracies and reject the rest. That’s an awfully slippery slope.The best guarantee for social cohesion and religious freedom is the primacy of secular law that’s blind to anyone’s faith.
Meanwhile Dave Walker at Cartoon Church started a new Facebook site The Archbishop of Canterbury is a good man. The group grew by over 1000 members in less than 24 hours.