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Archbishop of Canterbury raises tempers in Britain over Islamic law

Let's see, as close as I can figure, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was giving a lecture and got into the subject of "sharia law," or Islamic law based on the Koran, and British civil law or secular law. Something he said in the course of the lecture suggested finding ways to accommodate matters of "religious conscience" for Muslims by including or at least recognizing elements of sharia law in Britain.

I'm pretty vague on the details of all this, because at this point the issue has gone way beyond the archbishop's comments and taken on the tone of a serious "witch hunt," with many good Anglicans and Anglican leaders calling for Williams to resign -- in tones which indicate they'd prefer to just have his head displayed publicly somewhere on a pike pole.

Apparently the anger is directed at Williams for proposing some sort of "parallel" legal system in Britain -- and many anti-Muslim forces were outraged at that idea.

But according to the Archbishop of Canterbury's website, Williams had no such proposal in mind:

Instead, in the interview, rather than proposing a parallel system of law, he observed that "as a matter of fact certain provisions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law" . When the question was put to him that: "the application of sharia in certain circumstances - if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples' religion - seems unavoidable?", he indicated his assent.

That article on the archbishop's website ends with this explanation of the context of the lecture:

He concludes his lecture with the comment:

"if we are to think intelligently about the relations between Islam and British law, we need a fair amount of 'deconstruction' of crude oppositions and mythologies, whether of the nature of sharia or the nature of the Enlightenment"

The lecture, which was given before an audience of about 1000 people and which was chaired by the Lord Chief Justice, was the first in a series of six lectures and discussions which are being given by senior Muslim and other lawyers and theologians at the Temple Church on the general theme of 'Islam in English Law'.

For those of you who don't know: the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England under the queen, and the titular head of the worldwide Anglican Communion -- which includes the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. here in America.

How bizarre. It's somewhat comforting, in a way, to realize that not all the religious ignorance and fanaticism is confined to various conservative fundamentalist Christian groups here in America, I suppose. Hope the archbishop gets through this all right. From what little I've seen, read, and heard of him, he seems to be an intelligent and good man to lead the Church of England.

Ah, well, what do I know? I'm just a guy who reads the papers and tries to leave most of the heavy-duty religious and theological debates up to God. I figure he can handle it.
[tags]Church of England, Britain and Islamic law, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]