Category: Public square

Here are some more views on the Archbishop of Canterbury‘s speech on Civil and Religious law in England: A Religious Perspective:

Ali Eteraz comment at ‘Sharia Subjects VI: Concurrent jurisdiction would be used to coerce average believers‘ at Our Kingdom

A majority of British Muslims are just fine with the legal system. They consider it an Islamic duty to obey the laws of the land. They have learned to balance the requirements of their personal faith with their public obligations and limitations. For example, when they get married they go to city hall and afterwards go to the mosque for a second ceremony. When they get divorced they go to court and then they do an Islamic divorce. If these Muslims find certain policies problematic, they participate in the political process to try and change them. This is, in my opinion, the easiest and most sensible position for Muslims to adopt. It also leads to better citizenship. The development of this position augurs well for the development of a â??minority fiqhâ?? – a jurisprudence for Muslims living in majority non-Muslim areasâ?¦.

Courts like the Islamic Sharia Council are outgrowths of local Muslim communities which, in turn, exert an enormous amount of what I call â??piety-pressureâ?? upon average believers. Subtle black-mailing and intimidation will become further entrenched if Islamic courts are given concurrent status. Sharia bullies will not only be protected by God, but by State as well, just as they are in Islamist regimes around the world. Concurrent jurisdiction for Muslims should be opposed. The position adopted by the vast majority of British Muslims is the correct one: Sharia should remain personal law. Those Muslims who do not adopt this position should be persuaded to change their views, not be compromised with.

And here is Andrew Anthony He ought to split his church from the state

If Dr Williams was seriously concerned about constitutional law and religious justice, he would look at the dwindling number of his followers in this country and call for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

Much of the grievance members of other religions and denominations currently feel stems from the privilege – state endorsement, parliamentary representation – that Dr Williams’s church conspicuously enjoys. Who can deny that the church’s special treatment looks increasingly absurd in our multicultural society? Even Dr Williams himself has acknowledged that Britain is not a Christian country in terms of “active churchgoers”. Therefore the choice on offer is either to downgrade the Church of England, or upgrade other religions. Dr Williams has made his preference obvious.

And here is Andrew Copson The archbishop adapts to survive

But it must nag at you that there is a bit of a mismatch between the power and privilege your organisation holds and the public support it has; you may find it hard to justify the position of a national church when it doesn’t any longer represent the nation. With an eye to the future, you really do need to find another way to shore up your church’s position.

Judging by the outraged reaction of so many at Rowan Williams’ comments on sharia law, there was considerable surprise that he said what he said. In fact, nothing could be less surprising. Of course Williams wishes to argue for the extension of at least some of the privileges enjoyed by his own church to other religions. [This] is the best defence the church today has for its own privileged position.

What would have been genuinely surprising would be for an archbishop to come out in favour of universal human rights and state neutrality in its dealings with each citizen, whatever their religious or non-religious convictions; for an end to the archaic privileges.

But ‘universal human rights and state neutrality in its dealings with each citizen, whatever their religious or non-religious convictions‘ is just what the Archbishop did come out for. It is what the Christian faith comes out for.

To set out the secular sphere, by distinguishing between State and Church, is the privilege given to the Christian Church. It is the task which the Church has to perform for the nation as a whole. But this task is given to the Church by Christ, not by the State through ‘establishment’. ‘Establishment’ and an ‘established’ Church merely indicate that the State acknowledges that the Church has this role, and that the State does not, which is simply to acknowledge that any State must be secular, by definition – unless it is to start making its own religious, ideological or totalitarian claims.

Clearly we still have some convincing to do. Time for a more robust account of the Christian contribution to secularity and the public square. Perhaps London needs an institute for the Church and the public square?

Rowan Williams comments would have been much better said by someone else. The trouble is that he’s leader of the worldwide Anglican communion. His words therefore reflect on Anglicans in Pakistan, Nigeria and Uganda, whose churches are being firebombed by gangs of Muslims, whose leaders and their families are being attacked and murdered. Patrick Sookhedeo of the Barnabas Fund is pretty trenchant:

Furthermore for the many Anglicans and other Christians living in contexts where shari`a is being applied and causing untold misery and suffering, for example in parts of Nigeria and parts of Sudan, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestions are not just unwise, but insensitive to the point of callousness.

In many parts of the Muslim world, England is (mistakenly) seen as a ‘Christian’ country, so for the leader of global Anglicanism to suggest that Muslim law could possibly replace ‘Christian’ laws looks like a massive admission of defeat by Christians. The Ugandan church’s decision today to disassociate from the Lambeth conference may, in part, be a damage limitation exercise. There is a cost to the mission and ministry of the church in Uganda of being associated with a global church which looks like it’s lost confidence in the Christian faith. We haven’t lost that confidence, it’s just that a debate about culture, law and society within the UK looks very different when you’re looking from Uganda. That’s why, if this needed to be said (and the issue certainly needed to be raised, though maybe not this way), it would have been better said by a local, English bishop rather than AB of C. Symbolism is so important.

David Keen For what it is worth

On Thursday Gordon Brown’s spokesman denounced Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ claim that the introduction of sharia to the UK was inevitable. However, Gordon Brown himself has been quietly seeking to appease certain aspects of the agenda of ‘peaceful’ Islamist groups in the UK – including what amounts to a partial implementation of sharia.

In the 2005 general election Labour’s share of the Muslim vote collapsed from its normally rock solid 85% down to around 70%. It lost safe Labour seats to the Lib-Dems like Rochdale (5,650 maj), Hornsey and Wood Green (10,600 maj) – not to mention losing Bethnal Green and Bow (10,000 maj) to George Galloway – and nearly lost several other Labour seats. This was partly due to a Muslim Vote card campaign run by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), a Muslim umbrella organisation whose leadership was largely taken over by Islamists as soon as it was formed. Candidates of all parties were told to sign up to a range of Islamic issues – public funding Muslim schools, changes in UK foreign policy etc the MCB told Muslims told to vote against candidates who refused to do so. The MCB claimed it could swing the vote in at least 20 constituencies – as the Muslim majority was greater than that of the sitting MP – who was almost always Labour.

So whilst Labour’s record of appeasement may disappoint us, it perhaps shouldn’t surprise us. Labour has a similar relationship with Islamic organisations as it had with the trade unions in the nineties. It wants their votes – but doesn’t agree with all of their agenda. So, it appeases them by giving them some of what they want.

Cranmer Shari’a law and the hypocrisy of New Labour

The mortal exodus that afflicts our community cannot be averted until the Iraqi Church itself takes a clear position on the political situation and constructs a courageous pastoral plan. The future of the Chaldean-Assyrian Church is in Iraq: this is its land, it is here that its history and heritage were formed, an important part of the wider universal Christian heritage. Church means mission. A Church in diaspora loses its identity. Over the course of history, the Christian presence has contributed greatly to the development of Iraq. Christians have been, and can continue to be today, an instrument of dialogue, peaceful coexistence, and collaboration with our Muslim brothers. Emptying the country of this community is a mortal sin.

The question that requires an urgent and decisive response is: “How can the Iraqi Christians be helped?”. Our Church must reorganise itself and update not only its structure, but also its message. To survive these times, we need a strong Church, with a clear pastoral and “political” vision, with precise plans not only for protecting its faithful, but also for fostering reconciliation.

Louis Sako Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk The future of the Church in Iraq

Catholic Identity in the American Public Square

When we speak about a nation’s culture, we mean the entire fabric of its common life, from art and music to sports and schools. But since this is an election year, I want to apply the idea of Catholic witness specifically to our public life as citizens. Here are ten simple points to remember.

1. George Orwell said that one of the biggest dangers for modern democratic life is dishonest political language. Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics-which then leads to bad public policy and bad law. So we need to speak and act in a spirit of truth.

2. Catholic is a word that has real meaning. We don’t control or invent that meaning as individuals. We inherit it from the gospel and the experience of the Church over the centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe and how we act. We can’t truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act as though we’re not.

3. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship with the Church and with Jesus Christ that’s similar to being a spouse. If a man says he loves his wife, his wife will want to see the evidence in his love and fidelity. The same applies to our relationship with God. If we say we’re Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes. Otherwise we’re just fooling ourselves, because God certainly won’t be fooled.

10. The heart of truly faithful citizenship is this: We’re better citizens when we’re more faithful Catholics. The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, choices, actions and convictions, the more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our nation.

Archbishop of Denver Charles J Chaput shows his fellow bishops how to do it. Even his website demonstrates a determination to communicate clearly, generously and evangelically. Can’t we do that?

Dr Nazir-Ali does not simply blame the Saudis, or other foreign governments who might have been funding militant Islam in the mosques of Great Britain, for the rise in Muslim chauvinism in this country. He blames the British people themselves, arguing that there has been a catastrophic collapse in Christian-based morality and spirituality in this country over the past 40 or so years and that this has created a “moral vacuum” in society as a whole, which has been increasingly filled – at least in the minds of impressionable youth – by fundamentalist Islam.

Here, as a leading figure in the Church of England, Dr Nazir-Ali is swimming in dangerous waters. Is it the British people who should be blamed for deserting, in their millions, the once-dominant Church of England? Or should not the Church of England look at its own performance and try to understand why it has lost such a vast proportion of its audience – at least as defined by regular churchgoing, rather than notional affiliation?

Dominic Lawson

I have been particularly concerned at reports of the decline in the proportion of Christians in the [Middle East] region and the displacement of ancient and established communities. The effects of this tragic situation, about which I have spoken here in the UK as well as in the region on several occasions, are felt not only in the individual lives so deeply affected but also in the threat to some of the core values that underpin healthy societies. Not only will individual nations in the Middle and Near East be immeasurably poorer should they lose viable Christian communities, but the wider international community is likely to suffer as a consequence too.

Archbishop of Canterbury’s message to the General Assembly of the Middle East Council of Churches

Core values? Like civil society and rule of law, perhaps? Only the presence of Christian communities prevents these countries from becoming Islamic totalitarianisms, perhaps?