The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, is creating a new stir by suggesting that Britain should incorporate aspects of sharia law to accommodate its Muslim citizens.
Williams, you may recall, was in the news at Christmastime for publicly questioning Nativity traditions and seeming to imply that the virgin birth was optional to Christian belief.
Now, in an interview with the BBC, Williams has said that it is “unavoidable” that Britain should adopt aspects of sharia — Islamic religious law — and that doing so would help maintain social cohesion. (Hear the full interview.)
Williams doesn’t say exactly what aspects of sharia law he likes, though as he talks about how in Islamic law “quite often provisions relating to women are more enlightened than others of their day,” one gets the strong sense that Williams thinks it would be OK to hand over divorce and other women’s rights issues to a sharia court.
Williams does concede that no one would want to see the “kind of inhumanity that’s sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states.”
Yet he goes on to assert that the law already accommodates other beliefs, and he seems to equate Christian and Jewish moral principles with Islamic sharia.
“There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law,” Williams said.
Once again, Williams has astounded me. Here’s a man, supposed to be the leader of a major Christian denomination, essentially saying there is no moral difference between Christianity and Islam, and nothing particularly special about Western culture, so why not just give it away piece by piece?
The naivete and incipient secularism of this “archbishop” is just dumbfounding. At best, he demonstrates a dangerously ignorant attitude toward sharia, which contrary to his implications does not come in an “enlightened” variety.
At the worst, I can’t help but feel the man has in his heart turned away from Christianity and the Bible. I said this when Williams made his comments about the Nativity, and I was promptly jumped on by atheists and “liberal” Christians alike. But I’m going to say it again: I think Williams has turned, and if he wants to go on the way he has been, he should just admit he’s lost his love for Christ and go form his own religion instead of misleading Christians.
There is nothing in sharia law that is compatible with Christianity or Western law, but that doesn’t stop liberals like Williams from trying to give away Western culture to the followers of Mohammed. But like most liberals trying to promote the slow destruction of the West, Williams is reportedly “shocked” at the outrage he has stirred up.
European Parliament member Gerard Batten said of Williams, “I think he’s shown he is totally unfit for the role he undertakes. He’s not fit to be archbishop of Canterbury, he doesn’t seem to know what his own business is, and he’s not fit to sit in the House of Lords. I think he should go.”
Archbishop Ben Kwashi, archbishop of Jos in Northern Nigeria, said, “Our people here are in shock that an Anglican archbishop is calling for sharia law. If the Christians are the ones asking for sharia law, now that will be used against us who are saying that we do not think sharia law will help the cause of freedom and the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Northern Nigeria. … We (Christians in Nigeria) have experienced it. We know it, and in the last nine years, full-blown sharia law has been introduced in at least 11 states in Northern Nigeria, and what the church are experiencing in these states is, to say the least, unbearable.”
Under sharia law, Christians and Jews are expected to pay a heavy tax, called jizyah, or convert to Islam. If they choose neither, then they are given the third option: death. Under that system, Christians and Jews are called dhimmis, and they are effectively second-class citizens who are barely above slaves in terms of their rights. Under sharia, depending on the whims of the local tyrant, dhimmis are banned from teaching their religion to their own children, banned from repairing or replacing their places of worship, have to wear special identifying clothing (hint: you don’t want a gold star in Islamic schools), and must generally expect to be terrorized by Muslims.
To ignore the barbarism of sharia and suggest that it can be incorporated into Western law is the equivalent of trying to incorporate “enlightened” Nazism. There is no “moderate” sharia, as Kwashi and millions of other Christians worldwide living in dhimmitude can testify.
Naturally, Muslim organizations think Williams is the best thing since hummus. But Christians need leaders who believe in Christ and promote a Christian moral view, not kowtow to Mohammed’s followers. Williams should resign.
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