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.
Once upon a time there was a family living in a house in the Province of Manglia. It was a clean house with clean children who drank clean water from the well owned by the landlord. The landlord maintained the well, following carefully the instructions in the big black Well Manual.
For many years the family lived happily and got on wonderfully with the landlord.
One day, when the well was due for its scheduled maintenance, the landlord (who, to tell the truth, was bored with the same old maintenance routine), decided to try something different, something that the Well Manual said Really Shouldn’t Be Done: he tossed a dead sheep down the well.
Before long, the family noticed that their once clean water didn’t taste quite right; they complained to the landlord, but he told them that the water just had one of many diverse flavours that they would eventually get used to. He pointed out that nobody likes change at first.
The family wasn’t happy, but the neighbouring Province of Ganglia generously routed some of the water from their clean well to the family. Now as everyone knows, strictly speaking, unauthorised pipelines across other landlords’ Provinces are Bad Manners, so although the family was happy, the landlord of Manglia was furious that the landlord of Ganglia had had the effrontery to question his prophetic, pastoral well-management innovations and ship in foreign water.
So the family and the landlord of Manglia both appealed to the Landlord of all the Provinces – known collectively as Tanglia because they are in a bit of a mess just like the Landlord’s eyebrows – who told the landlord of Manglia to fish the dead sheep out of the well and the landlord of Ganglia to stop interfering and keep his clean water to himself.
The landlord of Manglia responded by throwing another dead sheep down the well; by now he had captured the attention of other landlords who were beginning to think he was on to something. The landlord of Ganglia told the family, “don’t worry, plenty of clean water to go around – even if it is Bad Manners to say so”, upon which the landlord of Manglia decided to evict the family from their house so he could sell it to someone who likes water that smells of dead sheep.
The Landlord was furious and in private stamped his feet and gnashed his teeth; he wanted to throw both landlords down a well.
Of course, being the Landlord, he was obliged to maintain an air of decorum. To punish both landlords he told them that neither was invited to any more parties thrown by the Landlord, nor would they receive the Landlord’s traditional Christmas gift of lava bread made personally by the Landlord from oven-dried Swansea seaweed. That should sort them out, thought the Landlord, rubbing his hands in glee.
Or, to put it another way:
Dr Rowan Williams announced that provinces which had ignored his “pleading” for restraint would be banned from attending official discussions with other Christian denominations and prevented from voting on a key body on doctrine.
He admitted the 80 million-strong Anglican Communion was in a time of “substantial transition” but held back from taking the most serious step of expelling national churches from it.
His action, taken after years of patiently asking both conservatives and liberals to abide by agreed rules, will affect both sides in the dispute over whether the Bible permits openly homosexual clergy.
It has been triggered by the progressive Episcopal Church of the USA, which ordained its first lesbian bishop, the Rt Rev Mary Glasspool, earlier this month. The Episcopal Church also elected the first openly homosexual bishop in the Communion, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, in 2003.
But the move will also hit orthodox provinces in the developing world – known as the Global South – that reacted to the liberal innovations in America and Canada by taking conservative American clergy and congregations out of their national churches and giving them roles in Africa and South America. This has triggered bitter legal battles over the fate of church buildings.
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 just wish I’d been there with my camera:
Meetings of Church of England bishops are usually sedate – and that’s how they like it.
But last week’s proved decidedly more eventful, when they found themselves sharing their conference hotel with a hen party.
It was the cue for Carry On-style high farce which culminated in the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, 67, gallantly offering his dressing gown to a naked girl, who was apparently locked out of her hotel room.
Other bishops soon became aware of drink-induced vomiting and screaming – and everyone was eventually forced to evacuate the hotel in the middle of the night when a reveller let off a fire alarm.
The Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt Rev Stephen Platten, 63, said: ‘The alarm seems to have been triggered when two young ladies, who were pickled, came back late at night.
‘One of the ladies was naked and one of the bishops had to give her his dressing gown to cover her nakedness. I think the other woman was trying to take her clothes off, too, but she was stopped in time.’
Nearly 50 bishops, among them the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had gathered at the £130-a-night Park Inn Hotel in York for the meeting, where the main item was admitting women to the episcopate.
Rowan Williams denied foreknowledge of the ladies’ night out and shortly after tussling with Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt in an attempt to thwart his dressing gown manoeuvre, inspired by the moment, burst forth into this peroration: “Nothing will stop sex being tragic and comic. It is above all the area of our lives where we can be rejected in our bodily entirety, where we can venture into the exposed spontaneity and find ourselves looking foolish or even repellent: so that the perception of ourselves we are offered is negating and damaging. And it is also where the awful incongruity of our situation can break through as comedy, even farce.”
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.
