Category Archives: Rowan Williams

A prophecy of doom from Rowan Williams, climate expert

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Rowan Williams, in a burst of prescience which had completely deserted him during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, has declared that a weather crisis is upon us and it is all the West’s fault for burning too much fossil fuel.

What seems to have escaped Rowan’s attention is that China is now the largest consumer of fossil fuel in the world. Perhaps it hasn’t though: heaping carbon sin opprobrium on a communist country is not necessary since the global warming crusade is less about science than it is about wealth redistribution – and that is supposed to have already arrived in China’s Marxist paradise.

From here:

Former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has spoken of his fears for the global climate, saying the winter flooding was a portent of what is to come in the future.

He has blamed the lifestyle of Western countries for climate change, which he said is ‘pushing the environment towards crisis’.

He said the floods in Britain and similar weather-related catastrophes around the world are the clearest indications yet that predictions of ‘accelerated warming of the Earth’ caused by the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels… ‘are coming true’.

Rowan Williams thinks British Christians are cry-babies

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From here:

Lord Williams said religious believers should be wary of complaining about their treatment in the Western world, with those claiming they are “persecuted” making him “very uneasy”.

He added the level of “not being taken very seriously” or “being made fun of” in Britain and the United States is not comparable to the “murderous hostility” faced by others in different parts of the world.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, he urged those who complain of ill-treatment for their beliefs in Britain to “grow up”.

No-one cared much what Rowan Williams thought when he was Archbishop of Canterbury – actually, due to his tortuous, eyebrow-matching tangled communication abilities, most people didn’t know what he thought – so I doubt that anyone cares now that he isn’t.

Nevertheless, he will keep spouting pious aphorisms as if we do – care, that is.

Christians in Britain are being persecuted: they are losing their jobs, losing their businesses and losing their right to freedom of expression; because he was seen to represent Christendom, Lee Rigby lost his life. Sadly, the only thing that would make Rowan Williams side with British Christians is if he discovered that greedy bankers were, somehow, selectively making obscene profits from them – that would still be about the bankers rather than the Christians, of course.

Rowan also believes that Muslim women “assert themselves” by wearing a veil, that sharia law is a good idea and that playing at being a druid is a routine component of being an Anglican archbishop.

When I “grow up”, perhaps I will agree with him.

Rowan Williams says goodbye

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From here:

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says his final goodbye.

It’s been a turbulent 10 years for the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury.

Only recently he has had to fight to maintain unity within the Anglican community amid rows over the contentious issue of women bishops.

And in the past he has come under fire for comments made on a number of controversial topics, including sharia law.

Cheerio, Rowan. I’ll miss the beard, the eyebrows, your wisdom on how well sharia law would fit into British life, your denouncing of evil bankers, the failure of capitalism, the jewels to be found in the inner depths of Marxism, your heroic Hegelian striving to find a happy medium between truth and lies and your virtuoso performance in taking the public position you did on human sexuality while privately believing the opposite. I expect your successor will continue much of your good work, so it only remains for me to say:

Rowan Williams to be Baron Williams of Oystermouth

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Oystermouth is a village in Mumbles near Swansea, quite close to where I attended university. In those days a train ran along the sea front from Swansea to Mumbles; I still have fond memories of riding on it to Mumbles pier as a child.

It was a quaint, pretty area – I haven’t been there for many years – and doesn’t deserve the ignominy of having the person who did nothing to prevent the disintegration of its established church become a baron bearing its name.

Rowan Williams will be created a Baron for Life by the style and title of Baron Williams of Oystermouth in the City and County of Swansea.

The Queen should be the next archbishop of Canterbury

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Why? Because she seems to have a firmer grip on the significance of the Incarnation to ordinary people than either the current or soon to be Cantuar.

In her Christmas message, after a brief recap of the year, she spoke of Christ’s example in serving others:

“This is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son ‘to serve, not to be served’. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ.

“It is my prayer this Christmas Day that his example and teaching will continue to bring people together to give the best of themselves in the service of others.

In contrast to the Queen, Justin Welby simply couldn’t resist blathering on about cherished leftist articles of faith: wealth and the implied need for its redistribution, foreign aid, justice and the poor, inequality and higher taxes for the wealthy – encased in a thin veneer of Christianity.

Rowan Williams calls for more gun control in the U.S.

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From here:

The leader of the world’s 80 million-strong Anglican Communion has thrown his support behind stricter gun control in the U.S., saying the easy availability of powerful weapons drew vulnerable people toward violence.

[….]

Turning to the issue of gun control, Williams said: “People use guns but, in a sense, guns use people too. When we have the technology for violence easily to hand, our choices are skewed and we are more vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action.”

If Rowan Williams is right and “guns use people” then, if the citizens of the U.S. are completely disarmed and only the police and armed forces have guns, only the police and armed forces will be “vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action”, potentially leaving ordinary citizens at their mercy.

If Williams is right – and I’m not sure he is – that’s a good reason why U.S. citizens should not be disarmed.

Rowan Williams still at sea

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All his efforts concentrated in frantically Rowan without a paddle.

Since, in the essence of my being I am empathetic and soft hearted, I feel rather sorry for Rowan Williams as he throws in the towel as Archbishop of Canterbury. By any measure he has been a dismal failure – but not for lack of trying. The sad thing is, when not wasting his time by tilting at windmills, his trying has been directed at attempting to achieve the impossible: reconciling the irreconcilable, squaring the circle, synthesising a happy medium between zero and infinity .

As has become transparently apparent in North America, Anglican liberals and conservatives adhere to different religions: both call their beliefs “Christian” but that’s where the similarity ends. Rowan Williams has staunchly attempted to occupy a position mid-way between the two, a contributing factor to the incoherence of everything he says.

And he still hasn’t learned his lesson; he believes that if he had visited the “United States when things began to get difficult” it might have gone better. But without him doing the one thing he could not do – take a stand for one side or the other – it would not have made a blind bit of difference.

From here:

“Thinking back over things I don’t think I’ve got right over the last 10 years, I think it might have helped a lot if I’d gone sooner to the United States when things began to get difficult about the ordination of gay bishops, and engaged more directly with the American House of Bishops,” Williams said in September.

Rowan Williams denies importing a secular fuss into the church

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But who believes him?

Here we have “empowerment of women”, “global industry”, “damage being done to our environment” and “running out of a world to live in”, all of which were secular obsessions long before the church even noticed them. The Anglican Church has taken its cue from secularism ever since it abandoned proclaiming Jesus’ uniqueness in being the only way to the Father in favour of the foggy ambiguity of the fatuous “Five Marks of Mission”.

The Chair of the forum, Archbishop Rowan Williams, agreed saying that environmental issues were bound with issues of moral courage such as land ownership, empowerment of women and global industry.

He said that, considering the damage being done to our environment, “running out of a world to live in is a mark of our unfaithfulness,” adding that Christians should not consider environmental issues “a secular fuss imported into the church”. Followers of Christ should not “shrug our shoulders when we are asked why there is not sufficient food or safe, clean water…That is not what Christians should be. That is why this is a matter of faithfulness to our creator and redeemer.”

 

Archbishop of Canterbury visits New Zealand

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From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is in New Zealand, in what will be his last major international engagement before he retires.

It’s a relief to see Rowan doing something useful at last: trying out for a part as stunt double for Balin’s beard:

 

Rowan Williams congratulates himself on not being too cautious

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Unfortunately, he threw caution to the wind when pontificating on political matters that were really not his primary concern, thereby earning derision from the right and applause from the left, and timid to the point of abject poltroonery when it came to standing up for the Christian Gospel.

If, as the remarks below imply, he really did say what he believed, he would have been better suited to the job of Labour Party backbencher than Archbishop of Canterbury.

From here:

In a question and answer session at the end of a densely theological lecture on the nature of the individual, organised by the religion think tank Theos, Dr Williams admitted some of his statements, which have touched controversially on issues from the Iraq war to government economic policies, were risky.

He said: “I just don’t think that it will do to be too cautious in a job like this, you are here, as is true for any archbishop, you are here to try and say what you believe you have been given to say – by which I don’t mean by divine inspiration.

“To try and share a particular picture of what the world is like, what God is like, which of course leads you into sometimes risky and anything but infallible judgments about particular issues of the day.”