Archbishop’s incredible feat: he unites the British

Archbishop Rowan Williams has united the nation for the first time since the end of World War Two. The UK has changed so rapidly and become so diverse in its peoples and cultures that it was thought no longer possible to decide which common characteristics define “Britishness”. Politicians tried, but it was beyond them. In one cunning move the Spiritual Leader of this sceptered isle has united us all.

All he had to do was to be fair to Muslims by presenting a carefully-reasoned argument – that certain elements of sharia be incorporated into the British legal system in much the same way that Orthodox Jews have some decisions of their own legal bodies so incorporated. The British rose up as one – the politicians, churchmen, and lawyers, the media and even the man on the Shepherd’s Bush Omnibus (himself one third Muslim), to proclaim what they were, but more especially, what they were not. The furore shows the British have three negative and two positive preferences:

Negative:
1. We are a nation that dislikes reasoned argument. The more closely-reasoned the argument, and the more erudite the exponent, the more they are despised.

2. Instead the British much prefer rhetoric and abuse, especially as used by the Sun, which implied that the Archbishop was not only a goat, but a dangerous goat. Does the Sun believe that Rowan has horns? Nope: Sun journalists just hate beards (now known as facial hair), with which the Archbishop is rather obviously well-endowed.

3. The British know they are allergic to sharia law.

Positive:
4. The British love the rule of their own law, since amputation is not allowed, and no-one is stoned to death (literally as opposed to figuratively). Furthermore, women have equal rights with men (and no beards). Surprisingly, this view is shared by a large number of British Muslims who clearly value the absence of sharia law-enforcement in their daily lives in Britain, and have taken to saying how wonderful British law is.

5. The British have been reminded of how much they hate religion, because over the past 1000 years it has been the basis for hatred. And used to justify unjustifiable acts by people of one persuasion against others.

So if you love God but are British, keep it to yourself.

Well done Archbishop, keep it up!

Seriously though…
Secular society has recently been characterised by some religious thinkers as equivalent to a religious group, but a group lacking the God who decrees law and conduct. Such a group, it is argued, has no right to impose its views on other belief groups, to which it is equivalent.

This ingenious anti-secularism is a desperate argument. But it is one of the contexts in which Williams, a sensitive theologian, has to work.

So was the sharia speech an attempt to bring religious considerations of any kind – Muslim, Christian, Jewish – back into secular life?

The storm created by the Archbishop demonstrates that secular society is not just a godless religious group but instead provides the ground upon which all individuals, whether members of a religious group or not, are given equality, are legitimised, and supported. This legitimisation and support is limited only by a series of rights and obligations applicable to all individuals within civil society. A secular society may be the only type of society that can support multiple ethnic and religious groups on a basis of equality. Secular society limits the special claims characteristic of some religious groups that they alone have access to the One Truth which others would benefit from adopting too, from which they argue their right to dominate and impose their beliefs.

It is secularism that guarantees the survival of religious activity.

11 February