From Christianity Today:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to host an event at Lambeth Palace which will bring together 50 imams and clergy from 25 local areas to encourage and strengthen local inter faith relationships.
Let’s hope Rowan sticks to encouraging inter faith relationships and doesn’t try to convert the imams to Christianity; we wouldn’t want that – very un-Anglican.
To politicians, that is:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, today questioned whether the public would be ready to accept years of austerity for the sake of repairing the economy.
And Dr Williams warned that it would be more difficult for politicians to demand sacrifice from the public if it appeared that the burden of austerity measures was not being borne equally by different parts of society.
In an interview conducted before this week’s General Synod in York, Dr Williams insisted he did not worry about “being a nuisance” to politicians.
Of course, you can only be an effective nuisance to people who are not ignoring you; since even the Church of England ignores Rowan, it is a little optimistic of him to think that politicians won’t.
His pronouncements on economics – of which he knows next to nothing – would appear rather more credible if his labours the Church of England – of which he should know at least something – were bearing fruit. They are not.
Perhaps he finds it easier to be a merchant of leftist egalitarian claptrap than to coherently preach the Gospel.
From American Thinker:
What’s a dhimmicrat, you say? It’s not the same thing as a Democrat. A dhimmicrat is a person who, while not Muslim himself, nonetheless clears the path for shariah law to be adopted and incorporated into otherwise free nations.
One prime example of this would be the Right Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Normally, you would think this top Anglican cleric, who lives in a palace in London, would appreciate Britain’s history as the world’s leader in the Rule of Law. As a minister of the Gospel, Mr. Williams might see his country as a Christian country. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, an immigrant from Pakistan, has tried heroically to awaken Britons to their peril. Bishop Nazir-Ali says English law and the Christian religion are the two things that make Britain great. And every day, dhimmicrats like Rowan Williams are trading away their birthright for a mess of pottage. Rowan Williams said Britain must accommodate herself to shariah law in large swaths of her urban neighborhoods.
Much as I appreciate American Thinker, the author of this article, Ken Blackwell, obviously has no appreciation for the intelligence, learning and subtly nuanced thinking of the figurehead of the august and hallowed Anglican Communion.
Rowan has pointed out quite clearly (for him) that we have to “face up to the fact” [that] some citizens did not relate to the UK legal system. And he’s right: Britain has thousands of potential Islamist terrorists who have the greatest difficulty relating to the British legal system; to deprive them of the option of being tried by the ideology whose main means of persuasion is to blow people up would be, well, un-Anglican.
I wonder why. From Newsbiscuit:
PepsiCo have announced today that they are terminating the current contract with Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury as the face of Pepsi Cola. The brand will now be moving away from the centrist Church of England image, in which Pepsi drinkers were portrayed reflecting upon difficult spiritual matters as the product is remarketed ‘in more of a hip hop direction towards youth and music’.
Although a number of global brands have previously benefited from major celebrity endorsements, PepsiCo have had been forced to admit that choosing an elderly Anglican archbishop has not provided the massive boost that they had hoped for. ‘Oh it’s very easy to be wise after the event’ said Pepsi Co’s Head of Marketing Chad Taylor. ‘Suddenly everyone seems to be an expert in celebrity endorsement and claim they knew this would never work.’
Rowan Williams confirms that he is completely out of touch with the common man with this condescending aphorism wafting serenely to the plebs from the hallowed halls of Lambeth Palace:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, risked conflict with the new Government when he criticised opponents of immigration. He also challenged the view of his predecessor that migration “threatens” British identity.
Dr Williams said that those who feared new arrivals showed “confusion” and a “lack of proper confidence” in society’s ability to learn.
He has to go and apologise:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed his “deep sorrow” for any difficulties caused by his comments about the Catholic Church in Ireland.
His claim that the Church had lost all credibility because of its handling of child abuse by priests was criticised by both Catholic and Anglican clergy.
The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said he was “stunned”.
Dr Rowan Williams later telephoned Archbishop Martin to insist he meant no offence to the Irish Catholic Church.
I had hoped that we were seeing the emerging of a new muscular, incisive, un-Hegelian Rowan, but no.
How disappointing.
Unfortunately, it’s about the Roman Catholic Church:
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has lost all credibility because of the child abuse scandal, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
In a rare breach of ecumenical protocol, Dr Rowan Williams criticised the Catholic Church over its handling of the paedophile priests crisis and made plain his anger over the Pope’s plans for a new ordinariate to tempt dissatisfied Anglicans over to Rome.
Rowan may well be right. He should know; after all, he’s the head of the Anglican Church and it is awash with credibility.
Rowan Williams continues to astound:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned evangelist “bullies” who attempt to convert people of other faiths to Christianity.
Dr Rowan Williams said it was right to be suspicious of proselytism that involves “bullying, insensitive approaches” to other faiths.
In a speech at Guildford cathedral, Dr Williams criticised those who believed they had all the answers and treated non-Christians as if their traditions of reflection and imagination were of no interest to anyone. “God save us form that kind of approach,” he said.
But he added: “God save us also from the nervousness about our own conviction that doesn’t allow us to say we speak about Jesus because we believe he matters, we believe he matters, because we believe that in him human beings find their peace, their destinies converge, and their dignities are fully honoured.”
In his address, titled “The Finality of Christ in a Pluralist World”, Dr Williams addressed difficulties modern Christians have with Biblical texts which suggest that Christianity is the only path to salvation.
Dr Williams admitted that in the past four decades, the problems around the classical interpretation of these texts had become more prominent.
He asked: “What about all those people who never had a chance of hearing about Jesus?”
He also asked about the generations before Jesus and the many cultures untouched by Christianity.
“Can we believe in a just God, who in effect punishes people, for not being in the right place at the right time?”
He raised a political objection to the claim that Christ is the final truth about God and the Universe, suggesting it had helped justify “wicked” things such as crusading and colonialism.
“What could we possibly mean by saying that a truth expressed in the Middle East 2,000 years ago was truth applicable to everybody, everywhere?” he asked.
Belief in the uniqueness or finality of Christ, in the way it has usually been understood, is something that “sits very badly indeed, not just with a plural society – whatever that means – but with a society that regards itself as liberal or democratic”.
In the Gospels, Jesus said: “No one comes to the father, except through me.”
Dr Williams said that in this context: “The father cannot be shown as an object in the sky, something abstract, something you can point to.” Instead, God should be understood in the first or second person, walking with Jesus towards the cross and resurrection.”
The Archbishop’s speech was an attempt to reconcile the claims of the Bible about Jesus and Christianity with the multi-faith societies in which Christians around the world must live.
The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament urge believers to spread the “good news” or evangelise, but the need for good relations with other faiths in the secular world militates against proselytism.
Dr Williams said: “When we sit along side the Jew, the Buddhist, the Muslim, Hindu, when we sit alongside them, we expect to see in their humanity something that challenges and enlarges us.”
The Archbishop quoted the Koran: “And God did not elect to make everybody the same. God has made us to learn in dialogue.”
On the question of whether Christians could legitimately believe that people of other faiths could be saved, Dr Williams said believers were too reluctant to leave this to God to sort out.
“We have often a vague feeling that God hasn’t read the proper books,” he said. “I’m very content to let God be the judge of how far anyone outside the visible family of faith is related to Jesus or has turned towards the father.”
According to Rowan:
To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, if Jesus is who he claims to be, he is of ultimate importance; if he isn’t, he is of no importance at all. The one thing he cannot be is what Rowan is determined to make him: moderately important.
Next month, Rowan will give a lecture on why the Western Anglican Church is disappearing.
It begins with unexpected promise:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged Christians to approach inter-faith dialogue with confidence in their own beliefs about the uniqueness of Christ whilst retaining a desire to learn from others.
In an address exploring the finality of Christ in a pluralist world on Tuesday, Dr Rowan Williams said people who believed in absolute truth were liable to be branded bigots or intolerant by those who felt that what was right for some was not necessarily right for others.
“Belief in the uniqueness or finality of Christ is something that sits very badly indeed, not just with a plural society but with a society that regards itself as liberal or democratic,” he said.
“This is a world where the ideal is simply to be presented with the choice that makes you comfortable and the question of truth or finality isn’t really allowed to arise.”
The Archbishop admitted that accepting the uniqueness of Christ was “problematic” for many people and that Christians faced the challenge of communicating what they believe.
He doesn’t go quite as far as saying that for a Christian to deny the uniqueness of Christ is illogical, but “not sensible” is better than nothing:
He added, however, that giving up on the uniqueness of Christ was not “sensible”.
To prevent anyone falling into the trap of thinking that Rowan is being uncharacteristically straightforward, he muddles things with:
“Christians have claimed and will still claim that when you realise God calls you simply as a human being into that relationship of intimacy with Jesus, then you understand something about God which cannot be replaced or supplemented,” he said.
“The finality lies in the recognition that now there is something you cannot forget about God and humanity and which you cannot correct as if it were simply an interesting theory about God and humanity.”
Rowan seems to think that Christ’s uniqueness lies in his unforgettability, rather than his unique offer of salvation through atonement – to admit the latter would have been too embarrassingly fundamentalist, perhaps.
The Archbishop said that affirming the uniqueness and finality of Christ, rather than being unfair to those who had not heard of Him, made possible the universal reconcilability and fellowship of human beings.
Is the “universal reconcilability and fellowship of human beings” the purpose of Christ’s atoning sacrifice? What about being reconciled to God (or is that what he is alluding to – who knows)? Either way, Rowan gives the impression that he is a Universalist.
He warned that there was a danger of “treating others as if they know nothing, and we have nothing to learn” if Christians simply believed there was no hope for people outside of the Christian faith.
A belief in the uniqueness and finality of Christ, he said, gave Christians a “generous desire to share” and a “humble desire to learn”.
But not, it would appear, a desire to evangelise by speaking of the salvation that only Jesus offers.
“In dialogue between people of different faith we expect to learn something, we expect to be different as a result of the encounter. We don’t as a rule expect to change our minds,” he said.
A Rowanite Christian is one who, when encountering other faiths is content to have held on to his own beliefs.
“We come with conviction, with gratitude and with confidence, but it is the confidence which I believe allows us to embark on these encounters, hoping that we may learn – not change our conviction – but learn.
“When we sit alongside the Jew, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Hindu, we expect to see in their humanity something that challenges and enlarges ours. We expect to receive something in their humanity as a gift to ours.”
All this leaves me wondering whether Rowan is actually a Christian at all, in any coherent sense of the word.
Rowan Williams, in his Presidential Address, postulates that our Anglican troubles are caused by seeing in only two dimensions; so, put on those polarised lenses, stare at the screen, and prepare to be amazed:
Earlier I mentioned ‘three-dimensionality’. Seeing something in three dimensions is seeing that I can’t see everything at once: what’s in front of me is not just the surface I see in this particular moment. So seeing in three dimensions requires us to take time with what we see.
Until Rowan attempted to explain it, I thought I understood seeing in three dimensions; never mind, if Rowan is seeing that I can’t see everything at once it’s probably only because he forgot his 3D glasses. And, of course, seeing in three dimensions requires us to take time with what we see means we have to take time into consideration and see in four dimensions, which will require a tinfoil hat in addition to the 3D glasses – see?
