Friday 15 February 2008

Archbishop was on target

I submitted the following letter to 'Reform', the URC's national magazine, yesterday.

Archbishop Williams seems to have been reading the penultimate clause in the URC's 'Statement of [its] Nature, Faith & Order' (Rejoice & Sing No.761), for his lecture on 'Religion & Law' reads like a call for the separation of the powers of State and religion, with the State, as the pragmatic 'referee,' holding all other authorities — including religious ones — accountable to itself and each other for the 'common good' and the dignity of every individual.

Much of the hostility to that lecture came from those who were stung by his suggestion that secular wisdom doesn't have a monopoly on truth and that justice and peace are likely to be ill-served by a secular 'moral majority' that marginalises all religious insight.

Howling about the abuses heaped on women in the name of Shar'ia in some communities may make the anti-religious (or simply anti-Islamic) feel a glow of self-righteousness, but stereotyping whole communities in that way (the very thing Williams appealed to his hearers to avoid) only serves to drive those women further behind the closed doors of male-dominated communities, because as a result their 'guardians' become ever more defensive and resistant to 'outside' intervention. The only way out that all this self-righteous posturing offers them requires them to reject their entire culture, family and religion, but for economically dependent women this is simply not a practical option. The only practical suggestions for improving matters that I saw in all the coverage (albeit that it was only in the form of underlying principles) were those which the archbishop had offered. A lecture that in itself tentatively offered a way of reaching respectfully into those communities and at least not making those women's situation worse has been turned by the secular Moral Majority and the Christian right into an anti-Islamic frenzy that almost certainly will.

A sad day for British journalism, a sad day for Britain, and a sadder day still for those crushed between the jaws of religious and State power, as was Jesus.

5 comments:

ditsyone said...

A sad day for journalism indeed with 'What a Burkha' on the Sun's front page! But well done (how ever misrepresented he was) to Rowan Williams who approached one of the 'silent' topics and brought the Islamophobes out of the closet! It has given us all a chance to think and challenge our complacency. It is such a shame that an intelectual man is so often misrepresnted in the media because of the journalistic misbelief that the church has only piety to present to the post-Christendom world. All I can say is that modern journalism is not up to the task of unpacking such wise words.

I cannot help but wonder how many church ministers have tackled this topic head on this week in their congregations or lent groups!!

Tony Brett said...

The archbishop was quite right in his comment but he REALLY should have known that the gutter press would have reacted the way they did.

I am really disappointed that the Archbishop's office is not more intelligent with the way they handle the media. Had a press release been issued, explaining the background and what he actually meant, BEFORE he actually made the comment then the outcome could have been hugely different.

SarahH said...

I've emailed your article to a generally open-minded member of my congregation who can't see past her fear of oppressive aspects of Sharia law.
Part of the trouble, as I see it, is that no one in the West has read the text of Sharia (if one text as such even exists, rather than a series of interpretations of the Qur'an and hadiths by different schools of thought?).
In consequence, it can be defended as moderate ('it makes doctors wash their hands in hospitals') or abused as extreme ('it cuts thieves' hands off') with none of the parties to the dispute pointing to chapter and verse (sorry, sura and ayah), only to different legal interpretations, which may or may not be owned as 'Islamic' by other Muslims. A distinction between civil and criminal law isn't made either (apart from by the Archbishop, and who's listening to him?) so the general lack of clarity is increased.
But why bother thinking when we can enjoy expressing our moral indignation instead?

Dick said...

Responding to Tony : I've seen in the press three interpretations of the 'mishandling' of the lecture :
(1) what you've thought - bungling press office (2) an arrogant archbishop who thinks he can do better than his press office people (3) Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian - an archbishop who simply doesn't care about buttering up the press and playing their media games, despite the risk. I'm not sure which to think.

Dick said...

Well, well. Five months on, the Lord Chief Justice reiterates and endorses what the Archbishop said.

The BBC Today programme insists on referring to the issue as controversial - more accurately as 'having caused controversy when it was aired by the archbishop'.

So effectively, the media is narcissistically reporting its *own coverage* as news, not the news item itself. Eventually it will disappear up its own backside.