Flog the archbishop….
February 10th, 2008…..only joking.
But I am getting seriously fed up with the acres of print broadcast and web coverage of the statements of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Ever since he got the job I have been reading stories by sympathetic journalists telling he what a fine intellectual mind he has, what a nice man he is, though a bit unworldly. Last week, in a long and very sympathetic interview he told us that it was inevitable that our multi-cultural society would lead to sharia law as an alternative to British law. And that this was a good thing.
There is a need for more understanding that sharia law has roots that are similiar to rituals in Christianty and Judaism and no more evil. But it is a plain fact that there are several Muslim states where, under the name of sharia law, women are stoned even killed for adultery. And there is a serious problem in this country where young Muslim women who want to depart from traditional Islamic practices, are being pressured by their families and some Muslim leaders to abandon their boy-friends and marry the person of the family’s choice.
The archbishop’s comments were a clear message to tip the scales still further against these young women. And they flew in the face of the long and patient efforts to rid us of the remaining powers of eclesiasticcal courts of the Church of England.
Rowan Williams has only himself to blame that the tabloids have had a field day at his expense. And I am tempted to advocate a simulated ritual flogging of the Archbishop on some reality television programme. This is not entirely a joke because he is clearly an obstinate man. But it is certainly time for his advisers to corner him in Lambeth Palace to tell him that the time has come for him to stop talking to the media and to return, as soon as possible to his former career of preaching to the faithful in Wales.
There he can do little harm. But while he continues as the spokesman for the Church of England nationally and internationally he is not only doing harm to the Church but he is exacerbating the tensions between British muslims and the rest of us.
There is an intellectual argument for increasing public awareness that