A selection of further material:
The Church Times which went to press before this story broke has now published a website article by Paul Handley Williams provokes row over sharia law.
James Behrens wrote Legal opinion on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s interview on Shariah Law.
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali wrote English law and the Sharia (PDF).
Bishop Alan Wilson wrote Abdul the Bogeyman.
Frances Gibb Legal Editor of The Times reported Lawyers: Sharia can’t trump English law. Meanwhile Ruth Gledhill has Archbishop of Canterbury ‘should resign’ over Sharia row and there is Sharia in Britain: the reaction.
The BBC has Reaction in quotes: Sharia law row and also Q and A: Sharia law explained and The end of one law for all?
The Daily Telegraph has Bishop: Impossible to have sharia law in UK by Jonathan Petre, Andrew Porter and Gordon Rayner.
The Guardian has Laying down the law: ministers cool on archbishop’s sharia suggestion by Will Woodward and Riazat Butt.
Here’s another “point of view” just in at BabyBlueOnline.org – http://babybluecafe.blogspot.com/2008/02/meanwhile-back-at-palace.html
bb
He could have picked a better time to walk into the propeller blade, couldn’t he?
From the Times report: ‘Virtually the only organisation to have come out on Dr Williams’s side of the debate was the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir’ This just about sums up the helpfulness of Williams’ proposals. I wonder if gullibility will be the word that sums up his primacy? For hardliners everywhere he has been a dream – naively assuming at every turn that they can be taken at their word, and pandering to their demands. The snobbish defence of Dr Williams by some on the basis of his intelligence and all-to-subtle approach to theological matters is beside the point. He… Read more »
Ok. Let’s look at what he actually said. On the question of surrendering to the will of the “primitivists” (Williams’s own word to describe ultra conservative Islamic jurists): “[Sacher]…argues that if we are serious in trying to move away from a model that treats one jurisdiction as having a monopoly of socially defining roles and relations, we do not solve any problems by a purely uncritical endorsement of a communal legal structure which can only be avoided by deciding to leave the community altogether. We need, according to Shachar, to ‘work to overcome the ultimatum of “either your culture or… Read more »
John Omani: “ponder whether he is not better suited to the life of academia”
I keep wondering about whether Lambeth 2008 should be the venue for Anglican Bishops to finally *choose* one of the Primates to be “first among equals”, rather than just accepting the person *appointed* as Primate of All England. Of the historical churches, only the Anglican Communion has such a feudal system.
It can’t be right in a modern global church that its spiritual leaders is selected by a committee that was appointed by just one Province’s religious and political leaders?!
“a communal/religious nomos, to borrow Shachar’s vocabulary, has to think through the risks of alienating its people by inflexible or over-restrictive applications of traditional law,..’ (RW)
Now Apply this to lgbt people in the Churches
To all you “thinking” Anglicans.
Go to the BBC Website and scan some of the unprecendented 20,000 posts (MP’s tell us if they get 20 letters on a topic it means many peope are concerned) and ponder the terrible damage this “thinking” Archbishop has done to the Co of E, interfaith and community relations in Britain and the many millions of Christians around the world who live under the fierce oppression of shariah.
Resignation sensationalist? You really ought to get out more.
“the terrible damage this “thinking” Archbishop has done to the Co of E,” Is it the archbishop who has done this damage, or the Press that has, it appears, misrepresented what he said so as to profit through sensationalism? The Globe and Mail in Toronto yesterday, for example, reported that he “argued sternly for a stronger application of Islamic sharia law” (Sat. Feb 9, 2008, page F3) and that he called “for more acceptance and wider adoption of Islamic Law in Britain”. (same page, same article). Is this what he actually said? My understanding is that he answered a question… Read more »
‘Why should we cave in just because the Press has lost all interest in fact?’ Ford, I am usually sympathetic to Rowan, but I am not convinced this time that the damage can be attributed simply to press misinterpretations, if indeed they are all misinterpretations. To call for changes to the law is to involve yourself in politics, and he ought to have given a great deal more thought to expressing himself in as clear a way as possible. We all know from the Pope’s Regensburg lecture in 2006 how the press loves to gorge itself whenever Christian leaders mention… Read more »