The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury says in an interview with the Telegraph that society is ill-prepared to handle scientific breakthroughs because it lacks understanding of human life. He also speaks out about intellectual sloppiness and muddy thinking in interpreting and critiquing the Bible.
“The problem is with our own inability as a society to know what to do with discoveries of science,” he said.
“Man playing God is not a problem about science. It’s a problem about our decisions about the results of science and we shouldn’t be so much afraid of science as we should about our own inability to have a clear moral perspective on these matters.”
The archbishop will use a series of high-profile lectures this week to renew his call for people to pay more attention to the historical evidence supporting the Bible, rather than “ludicrous” conspiracy theories.
“People get away with extraordinary assertions about Christian origins, which they have picked up from here and there, yet there is a mountain of research which is increasingly friendly towards the Gospels being reliable documents,” he said.
“The Judas Gospel is a cardinal case and the sort of ludicrous, persistent Jesus-was-married-to-Mary-Magdalene sort of thing which keeps coming back in spite of the fact there is just nothing to go on it.
“Sometimes it is because, yes, what is presented can be so uncomfortable that it’s much more convenient to believe that it is all the ‘wicked’ Church’s conspiracy.
“The conspiracy theory is always attractive because it is dramatic, but look hard at what’s there. I think that any Christian will say we are quite prepared to argue this in public as long as you like and as hard as you like.”
Read: The Telegraph: Rowan Williams: Society can’t handle science
Hat tip to Entangled States.