Rowan Williams and Sharia law: the debate continues

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Astonishingly, Archbishop Rowan Williams’ comments on Sharia law are still the top story on the BBC news website after more than 24 hours. It is very rare that any story, let alone a religious one, keeps that top spot for so long. In the latest article there, the Archbishop

is said to be overwhelmed by the “hostility of the response” after his call for parts of Sharia law to be recognised in the UK.

Yesterday I repeated, but did not answer, Ruth Gledhill’s question: has the Archbishop gone bonkers? John Richardson in one place gives a short but straight answer:

No, but I’m not sure about his advisors.

On his own blog, Richardson writes at much more length an explanation of his position, which is well summarised in his post title: Dr Williams and Sharia: wrong suggestion, right concern. Continue reading →

Has Archbishop Rowan Williams gone bonkers?

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For once this is nothing to do with the Lambeth Conference or the fragmentation of the Anglican Communion. And it is not me asking this question, but Ruth Gledhill of The Times. The occasion for asking is Williams’ astonishing call, reported by the BBC, for “certain aspects” of Islamic Sharia law to be introduced in the UK. To their credit, politicians of all main parties have rejected this call. But it is extremely worrying that a man who heads the established church in this country could even consider making this appeal.

Ruth Gledhill’s commenter Tom Jackson writes the following:

To say I was dumbstruck this afternoon when I read the Archbishop’s comments would be an admission that somehow, I expected better of him.

But these latest observations by Rowan Williams just serve to demonstrate once again just how unfit to lead the Anglican Communion this man is. …

The Archbishop should resign, should go and make way for someone more suited to such high office to take his place.

I agree. And if he did, that might help to sort out the Lambeth mess as well, although it is getting a bit late for that.

Another quiz: What is the Kingdom of God?

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I just found this quiz entitled What is the Kingdom of God? As this subject interests me, I will put myself in a theological box, as they put it in the post where I found the link to this quiz, even though it is not Friday. So here are my results:

What is the Kingdom of God?
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as The Kingdom as a counter-systemThis approach has been adopted by Anabaptist and similar groups who saw themselves as recapturing the essence of true Christianity in opposition to a “Christianised” society and an institutional church.

The Kingdom as a counter-system
92%
Kingdom as a Christianised Society
67%
The Kingdom as Earthly Utopia
50%
The Kingdom is mystical communion
42%
The Kingdom is a Future Hope
42%
The Kingdom as Institutional Church
33%
Inner spiritual experience
33%
The Kingdom as a political state
33%

Interesting to see that I came out with the Anabaptist position of a Christian counter-system, although I wasn’t consciously thinking on those lines. But, and this is one of the points which I had trouble explaining to John Hobbins in our discussions on pacifism, I don’t take this to the extreme of withdrawing from the world, and so some of my answers reflected my position that I should be seeking to bring the values of this counter-system into the wider society.

Why is Easter so early this year?

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I am writing this primarily as an article for Baddow Life newspaper, for which I am one of the editorial team; hence the local references. I thank Liturgee for a comment on Lingamish’s blog which led me to an informative post on this subject. I have also made use of this Wikipedia article, this one and this one. Also a Google search found me interesting comments on this blog post.

Easter Sunday this year is unusually early, 23rd March. This causes difficulties especially for schools, and in fact this year Essex children will be back at school for four days after Easter and before their main spring holiday. At least it may mean that this year there are daffodils still in bloom to decorate our churches.

In fact Easter has not been this early since 1913. The earliest possible date is 22nd March, but the last time it was on that day was in 1818. These dates are determined by complex calculations which go back to the 6th century: Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon on or after 21st March, supposed to be the day of the spring equinox. This year the moon is full exactly on 21st March, and so Easter is on the following Sunday.

There have been many proposals to fix the date of Easter, which would certainly make things easier for schools. Parliament passed the Easter Act of 1928 to do just this, but it was never implemented. The Roman Catholic church has accepted in principle a fixed date if a consensus could be reached among churches, and the Church of England position seems similar. But at the moment no such consensus is likely.

One reason for this is because a fixed Easter would break the link with the Jewish feast of Passover or Pesach. The original events of the Easter season, the death and resurrection of Jesus, took place at this festival season. Passover is a celebration of the night when the Israelites fled from slavery in Egypt, which for obvious reasons was at full moon. Easter is similarly a celebration of how Jesus delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and it is important for some that the link to Passover is retained.

As the ancient Israelites used a lunar calendar, and modern Jews still do for religious purposes, Passover was always celebrated at full moon, the 14th day of the first lunar month Nisan. The Christian feast day is supposed to be on the nearest Sunday to this date. But in fact over the centuries the calculations have diverged, and so in some years, including this one, Passover is a whole month later than Easter.

Eastern Orthodox churches also often, including this year, celebrate Easter about a month later than western churches. This is mainly because they calculate the dates according to the old Julian calendar which is 13 days behind our Gregorian calendar.

This Easter, watch out for the full moon and remember how its light helped ancient slaves to escape from Egypt. Then remember that, as the psalmist wrote, God’s word to us in the Bible is “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”. By this light we can follow the way which Jesus Christ has opened up, to escape from anything that enslaves us and find true freedom.

Where will the evangelical bishops' long route via Lambeth lead to?

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21 evangelical bishops in the Church of England have written an open letter to the Church of England Newspaper urging their fellow Anglican bishops around the world to attend the Lambeth Conference. The signatories include NT Wright, Bishop of Durham, but not bishops Nazir-Ali of Rochester or Benn of Lewes – nor for that matter Broadbent of Willesden, as far as I know the only bishop so far to comment on this blog (but I have no idea of Broadbent’s position on this issue).

I have not actually seen the open letter, which is not in the CEN’s free online daily edition. But I have read the CEN report as republished by Anglican Mainstream and others, with extracts from the letter. In one of these the bishops write:

We urge you therefore to take the long route, waiting for God to work through the processes that are already in train and praying for him to work his purposes in us and through us together.

That is, they are asking their fellow conservatives in the worldwide Anglican communion to abandon their boycott, which they at least implicitly consider a short cut, and take a long route via the Lambeth Conference.

But the problem with taking long routes is that they don’t always lead to the intended destination. This one is at least starting off in what a direction which seems completely opposite to the one which the evangelical bishops want to go to. Continue reading →

Is the blogger's glass half empty or half full?

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Two contrasting views on having most of one’s friendships online, through blogging or Facebook.

First, Dilbert’s view from a “glass half empty” perspective (follow the link – I can’t easily display an image as wide as this, and anyway I don’t think I am supposed to). I think Dilbert needs to take up blogging, or join Facebook or something, then he might find some real friends who are interested in what he is.

Then, a more positive, “glass half full” outlook from a Facebook greeting card which Sam sent me and which I can echo:

A meme points to peacemaking

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Doug has tagged me with an interesting meme:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

Like Doug, I discounted the Bible on my desk, so I picked the first book that came to hand on my bookshelf. This happened to be “Studies in the Sermon on the Mount” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Here is what I found on p.123 – I have included the preceding sentence so that this makes sense:

Why are peacemakers blessed? The answer is that they are blessed because they are so absolutely unlike everybody else. The peacemakers are blessed because they are the people who stand out as being different from the rest of the world, and they are different because they are the children of God. In other words, I say, we are again plunged immediately into New Testament theology and doctrine.

Interesting comment in the light of my ongoing discussions with John Hobbins on pacifism, and most recently on peacemaking in Africa, issues on which John seems unwilling to be even a little bit “unlike everybody else”. So I will content myself with tagging John on this one.

Bishop NT Wright's "spirit of cultural superiority"

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I greatly respect the theology of NT Wright, Bishop of Durham, although I don’t claim to understand all of it. I have referred to it several times, mostly positively, on this blog.

However, a letter from Dr Vinay Samuel reported by Anglican Mainstream alleges a different side to Wright’s character. Samuel, a well respected Indian theologian and evangelical Anglican, is a director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life. In his letter Samuel was responding to a commentary by Wright in the Church Times, which can be read here. In this article Wright attacks the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), concerning which he refers to

the small group represented by Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns, and Peter Jensen. It is clear that they are the prime movers and drafters, making a mockery of Canon Sugden’s claim … that GAFCON is about rescuing the Churches from Western culture.

Samuel responds firmly to this. He writes that Wright

has suggested in particular that that this whole movement is now following the lead and the agenda of three white men, Bishop Martyn Minns, Archbishop Peter Jensen and Canon Chris Sugden.

I am part of the leadership team of this movement. I have known and worked with Archbishops Akinola, Kolini, Mtetemela, Nzimbi and Orombi and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali for many years. I have to say that if the scenario were as BishopWright imagines it to be, neither I nor any leader of Christians in the non-western world who have stood for years for the identity, selfrespect and dignity of Christians from the “global south” and their right to self-theologise and organise their own networks independent of influence from the former metropolitan centres of power, would have anything to do with it.

Continue reading →

Which Winnie-the-Pooh character am I?

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I found a quiz on Facebook (thanks to my friend Emily) Which Winnie-the-Pooh character are you? My result came out as:

You are:

Winnie-the-Pooh
You are Winnie-the-Pooh, the slow but lovable bear. You love your friends and always make time to spend with them, especially if they share their snack with you.

Perhaps I got this result because a lot of my answers revolved around food!

Is Blogflux Commentful dead?

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UPDATE 30th January 9.50 PM GMT: Jacob from Blogflux has replied in a comment, thus proving that his company is not dead. The problem with the contact page seems to have been fixed – at least they responded to a test message with a proper Message Received page, not the word “shoo”. But mail to web@blogflux.com is still being bounced.

FURTHER UPDATE 30th January 10.00 PM GMT: When I tried to resubmit my list of problem web pages, the “shoo” message reappeared. Perhaps the reason for this is that the system is rejecting messages over a certain length, or containing more than a certain number of links to websites. While I can understand this as a sensible anti-spam measure in some cases, it does seem a perverse one for use by a company which provides web-based software and so needs to be informed about problems with websites. And I consider it very rude to respond even to probable spammers with a message like “shoo”, because of the likelihood of false positive spam detections. It costs (very nearly) nothing to respond with a polite message about spam.

I use Blogflux Commentful to keep track of comments on blogs which I read and comment on. Usually it seems to work well. But its working has recently become erratic; in fact basically it is failing to pick up new comments on many (but not all) posts on several of the Blogger blogs I read, including Complegalitarian and Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream. So I cannot recommend this product at least until it is fixed.

But I not hold my breath for it to be fixed. This is because I have been unable to contact Blogflux to report these problems with Commentful. When I submit feedback through their contact page, their response is a simple page with just the message “shoo”. Now I don’t know if this is an intentional message or just a random one, but to me a message “shoo” is very rude! And then when I try to submit my comment to the e-mail address which they give, I get a rejection message

550 <web@blogflux.com>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual mailbox table

This situation has persisted for several hours. In other words, Blogflux appears to have terminated support for their products and blocked every way of contacting them. I have searched their site for any indication that they are working on fixing a temporary problem – which they could have reported in place of the message “shoo”.

Blogflux and Commentful are stated to be resources provided by Bloggy Network LLC, but they offer no contact information at all. The domain blogflux.com is registered to Enthropia Inc in Toronto, Canada, for which at least I can find a mailing address (PO Box 592, Station-P Toronto, ON M5S 2T1 CA) and an e-mail address. So I will send them a copy of my feedback with a link to this post.