Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-20T14:25:31.828Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - The Church of England, minority religions and the making of communal pluralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2020

Get access

Summary

In a 2008 lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice that quickly became one of the defining moments of his archiepiscopate, Rowan Williams offered a characteristically thoughtful justification for why the British legal system should recognize the operation of sharia law within the British Muslim community. In a phrase that seemed almost designed to be misconstrued, the archbishop argued in an accompanying radio interview that ‘there is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law’. He was careful to insist that the issue of ‘supplementary jurisdiction’ was not distinctive to Islam alone, as legal allowances had already been made for other religious minorities, such as the recognition of Jewish courts as arbitration tribunals. Nevertheless, media reports of his lecture effaced the nuance of Williams’ lecture, in favour of accusations that he was a ‘dangerous threat to the nation’. Observers of the Church of England have since commented on Williams’ apparent inability to grasp that theological and legal musings that would spark robust and reasoned discussion in an Oxbridge tutorial might provoke overheated controversy when aired in public by the archbishop of Canterbury.

Although Williams was unusually explicit in his advocacy for the distinctive treatment of different religious groups in the eyes of the law, his underlying sentiments closely followed those of his immediate predecessors at Lambeth Palace. George Carey was among the most prominent critics of Williams’ remarks on sharia law, yet he had, in 1994, pronounced it ‘always a pleasure’ to ‘intercede’ on behalf of other religious communities, presenting that responsibility as a rationale for the enduring presence of Anglican bishops in the House of Lords. Robert Runcie, archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991, similarly embraced a role as an intermediary between minority faith communi-ties and the political establishment, specifically emphasizing his actions during the Satanic verses affair and the recognition of non-Christian faiths in the religious education provisions of the 1988 Education Reform Act.

Both Carey and Runcie described their acceptance of this role as a departure from earlier conceptions of the relationship between the archbishop of Canterbury and non-Christian religious groups.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×