Or as we used to call them, Ginger Nuts; a particularly appropriate epithet in this case.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has revealed his recipe for ginger biscuits which forms part of a new cookbook bringing together dishes from a range of Christian groups.
Dr Rowan Williams’s tasty treats are the Church of England’s contribution to Loaves, Fishes and More – a 70-recipe collection which aims to raise funds for Christian Aid.
Well, actually, make that a group of ecclesiastical political correctness apparatchiks who know nothing whatsoever about science, climate or normal life, led and hosted by the Anglican Ken Dodd impersonator:
At a meeting hosting by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Zoroastrian faiths called on the UK and G20 governments to fight for an ambitious deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions at UN-led talks in Copenhagen in December.
A statement issued by the groups meeting at Lambeth Palace, London, said catastrophic climate change posed a ”very real threat to the world’s poor and to our fragile creation”.
h/t Damian Thompson
Richard Dawkins, has made buckets of money saying things like “The universe we observe has … no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”. Yet, when it suits him, this champion of reason has no qualms in using the concepts – good and evil – that he claims don’t exist:
What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV. Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.
In a bleak Dawkins universe of “blind pitiless indifference” the above ravings don’t have to make sense: they are merely the random firing of neurons in Dawkins’ fevered – I was going to say imagination, but in a materialist universe, that doesn’t exist – brain. In the real universe where good and evil do exist, a brief search of Catholic charities is all that is needed to see what a fool Dawkins makes of himself when he pontificates outside of his field.
The most disturbing part of this incoherence is the fact that Dawkins thinks Rowan is saintly. It’s hard to know what Dawkins means by that since a saint is a Christian – a person whom Dawkins enjoys hurling inane schoolboy insults at; whatever he means, Rowan Williams doesn’t need a friend like Richard Dawkins.
Rowan Williams shows us the way to become fully human:
People should use the climate change crisis as an opportunity to become human again, setting aside the addictive and self-destructive behaviour that has damaged their souls, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today.
Dr Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, told an audience at Southwark Cathedral that people had allowed themselves to become “addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost”.
The consequences of such a lifestyle meant the human soul was “one of the foremost casualties of environmental degradation”.
Small changes, such as setting up carbon reduction action groups, would help them reconnect with the world in addition to repairing some of the damage to the planet, because it was too much to expect the state to provide all the solutions.
It’s such a relief to realise that when Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” – Mark 7:20ff, he got it all wrong. It’s taken 2000 years for a bearded Welsh Archbishop to get to the root of things: what defiles us comes from the outside and it’s all tied in with carbon.
I’m going to turn the lights out, set fire to a scented candle and form a carbon reduction action group – phooey to suppressing all that theft, murder and adultery stuff – this is much easier. I’m reconnecting with the world; I feel more human already.
Rowan Williams strongly disagrees with the Iraq war and seems to think the Devil was behind it:
Williams cites the Devil in attack on invasion ‘spin’
The bitterness, recriminations and accusations of betrayal which enmeshed the Iraq war surfaced unexpectedly and powerfully at a memorial service for the fallen yesterday.
Dr Williams said: “The invisible enemy may be hiding in the temptation to look for shortcuts in the search for justice – letting ends justify means, letting others rather than oneself carry the cost, denying the difficulties or the failures so as to present a good public face.” In this context, “the invisible enemy” denoted the Devil.
It’s a shame that Rowan can only spot the Devil at work in government when he is working to such dramatic effect in Rowan’s own denomination.
Capitalism’s “unfair system of fault has reached the end of the road and is unable to move,” Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, said in his highly anticipated speech in New York.
Delegations from several nations, including the United States, walked out during the speech, partly in protest of Ahmadinejad’s past statements blasting Israel and denying the holocaust.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said he feared that the City was returning to business as usual with no ”repentance” for the excesses which led to the economic collapse.
”There hasn’t been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven’t heard people saying ‘well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, was empty’.”
”It’s a failure to name what was wrong. To name that, what I called last year ‘idolatry’, that projecting (of) reality and substance onto things that don’t have them.”
Other than the fact that Ahmadinejad is a little more incoherent than Rowan, is there much difference?
One of the ironies about Rowan Williams’ recent condemnation of bankers for not repenting of their capitalist ways, is that Rowan and his church have become more interested in how people are doing in this world than they are in where they will end up in the next. And he manages to be just as muddled about this as he is about his own church.
If Rowan were really interested in reducing poverty, he would be encouraging capitalism in places where it is squashed rather than demanding repentance from western practitioners of it; as this article points out, capitalism produces wealth, Rowan and his ideas don’t:
I respectfully disagree with Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over his views on the City and its finance industry. He regrets there has been “no repentance for the excesses which led to the economic collapse,” and describes a feeling of “diffused resentment” that bankers have failed to accept their responsibility for the crisis.
While the archbishop is entitled to express his views, I am sure he will not mind me pointing out that these are somewhat uninformed views. He admits to not being an economist, saying the crisis has taught us that “economics is too important to be left to the economists.” I am sure he will not mind me pointing out, either, that financial services are not founded on greed. For the most part they represent honest trading by well-intentioned people whose skill lies in the efficient allocation of resources. This skill, internationally, has lifted more people from the blight of poverty and hunger than any other force in history, including religion.
But not from The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada. He’s tackling something much easier: he wants the banks to repent:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has told the BBC he fears financiers feel no “repentance” for the excesses which led to the economic collapse.
Dr Rowan Williams said the government should have acted to cap bonuses.
He also warned that the gap between rich and poor would lead to an increasingly “dysfunctional” society.
Dr Williams told BBC Two’s Newsnight programme: “There hasn’t been a feeling of closure about what happened last year.
“There hasn’t been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven’t heard people saying ‘well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, was empty’.”
He must be practising before he deals with his own organisation.
If I understand Rowan’s message – not something that I would normally take for granted – Jesus, God incarnate, came to earth to “work with the grain of creation” and help us reverse climate change. Pretty exciting.
One of Jean-Paul Sartre’s bon mots was Hell is other people (No Exit); Rowan Williams takes the opposite view:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has described hell as being stuck by himself for ever.
Dr Rowan Williams said that although his vision was not that of the traditional inferno, being alone with his “selfish little ego” for all eternity would be torment enough.
This view fits well with one biblical metaphor for hell: being cast into outer darkness (Matt 22:13).
According to C. S. Lewis, people choose hell for themselves on the principle, better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven (The Great Divorce).
Another type of hell might be having to spend eternity with no-one to talk to except Rowan Williams.
