Accommodate civil Sharia law, Archbishop of Canterbury suggests

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has triggered a fierce debate in Britain after calling for a limited application of Islamic Sharia law for marital or financial matters. [...]

Williams, who delivered a speech on the topic Thursday night, said he isn't advocating Britain adopt extreme aspects of the law, which have been associated with harsh punishments meted out by Islamic courts in Saudi Arabia and some other countries and have been used to undermine the rights of women.

Instead, he said, British Muslims could choose to resolve marital and financial disputes with Sharia law instead of within the British courts. He noted Orthodox Jews are permitted to resolve disputes under traditional Jewish law.

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[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Originally posted by unionist:
While the U.K. in partnership with the U.S. and NATO marauds and murders in Muslim lands to install "Western" values,

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Her Majesty's own Chief Christian thinks Islamic law should be inflicted on the mother country. Well, why not? Great idea!

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[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: remind ]

[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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[A]t least two General Synod members have called for Dr Rowan Williams to resign following the row.

Colonel Edward Armitstead told the Daily Telegraph: "I don't think he is the man for the job." [...]

"One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas."

Alison Ruoff, a Synod member from London, said: "Many people, huge numbers of people, would be greatly relieved [if he resigned] because he sits on the fence over all sorts of things and we need strong, Christian, biblical leadership right now, as opposed to somebody who huffs and puffs around and vacillates from one thing to another.

"He's a very able, a brilliant scholar as a man but in terms of being a leader of the Christian community I think he's actually at the moment a disaster."

Brigadier William Dobbie, a former Synod member, described the Archbishop as "a disaster, a tragic mistake".

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Whether the demands to resign will succeed, may well depend on how the tabloid press chooses to report the story.

From BBC report:

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...The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was grateful for the Archbishop's "thoughtful intervention" on the discussion of the place of Islam and Muslims in modern Britain.

A spokesman said: "The MCB observes, with some sadness, the hysterical misrepresentations of his speech which serves only to drive a wedge between British people."

The Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, said he was dismayed at the "knee-jerk" reaction to Dr Williams' comments.

"We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest Archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day," he told BBC Radio 4.

"He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds of this nation.

"The way he has been ridiculed, lampooned and treated by some people and indeed some of the media within this process, is quite disgraceful."

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[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: bliter ]

[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
"Fatwas" in marital and financial matters???

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In Sharia, "Fatwa" is a ruling by an Islamic scholar on any issue, be it social, marital, political or financial. Many such scholars publish their book of fatwas, or issue fatwas in response to specific questions from their followers. You can find examples on their web sites (e.g. check www.sistani.org).

Why rolling eyes?

[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: sanizadeh ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I understand that the way this was "resolved" in Ontario, after the indignation around the Boyd Report (a very informative read), was to simply nix religious arbitration courts.

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Originally posted by sanizadeh:
Why rolling eyes?

[ 08 February 2008: Message edited by: sanizadeh ]

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The problem is that there is absolutely no unique reading of Islamic sharia law; each cleric can issue fatwas based on his own understanding and interpretation. There is no central authority to make decisions on what is and is not included in sharia, and it definitely is not based on any democratic values or individual rights. Sanizadeh

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No matter what aberrations could be improvised through interpretations, Canada's laws, human rights codes and Charter of Rights and freedom supercede. That is what Boyd wrote.

The central authority and the supreme laws are Canada's, not Sharia or Allah. That is the eseence of Boyd's report.

Read this, Sanizadeh, it will relieve your and others' panick.

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Supreme Court of Canada overturns Jewish "get" refusal

December 17, 2007

by Jeffrey Cottrill

A recent ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada may permanently change the course of how Canadian family law handles Jewish divorces -- known as "gets" -- as well as other religious divorces. Last week, the Court awarded a Quebec woman damages in Bruker vs. Marcovitz after her ex-husband refused to grant her a get for 15 years.

Stephanie Bruker, a Jewish woman who legally divorced her husband in 1980, successfully sued him after he refused to give her the get until she was in her mid-40s and past child-bearing.

According to the National Post, the Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling in Marcovitz' favor from the Quebec Court of Appeal, thus rejecting his argument that penalizing him for refusing the get would violate his "religious freedom". Instead, the judges felt that "the public's interest in protecting fundamental values such as equality rights and autonomous choice in marriage and divorce" had "significantly outweighed" the religious issue.

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http://tinyurl.com/322pml

"Threats" of Muslim or Jewish or any religious tribunals to women or to democracy or to anything, having been put to rest, anyone with half an ounce of intelectual integrity should refrain from harping on these lines.

Psst! Canadian laws will not be interpreted by fatwas !

[ 09 February 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

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can you imagine the contrast, with hundreds of thousands of women in Turkey expected in the streets today to protest any reintroduction of Shariah, and UK moving in opposite direction? Sven

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Do you agree with a law telling women or any citizens what to wear or not to wear ?

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..Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Party... sees the issue as one of individual and religious freedoms in a country seeking European Union membership.

http://tinyurl.com/39k86t
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Sven,

You can, if you wish, balance your watching the CNN with this reading from the Toronto Star.

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Turkey takes action against the shadowy far right

Given the prevailing paranoiac obsession with Islam, the media have duly informed us that the "Islamist" government of Turkey is set to lift the "secular" ban on the hijab in universities.

Another view of this development would be that a democratic government is about to restore some basic human rights for women: freeing them from state strictures on what they should or should not wear.

Meanwhile, a more significant development in Turkey is going unnoticed in the West: the busting of a right-wing plot of murder and mayhem, designed to destabilize the country and trigger a coup against the elected government.

Number one on the plotters' hit list was Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

Thirty-three members of a clandestine cell are charged with "provoking armed rebellion."

They include: A retired army general who was earlier allegedly associated with bombings and extrajudicial killings – incidents that were blamed on "Islamists" and others; A leading prosecutor who had hauled Pamuk and other writers into court, on the infamous charge of "insulting Turkishness" – such as questioning the official denial of the 1915-17 Armenian genocide; Some former army officers with links to an anti-Semitic academic, who thinks that "Hitler was right about certain things," and that 9/11 was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

Turkey is abuzz with the expectation that a thorough probe and a transparent trial may, finally, unmask "the Deep State."

...

http://tinyurl.com/3yp9lg

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[ 09 February 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

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Originally posted by adam stratton:

http://tinyurl.com/322pml

"Threats" of Muslim or Jewish or any religious tribunals to women or to democracy or to anything, having been put to rest, anyone with half an ounce of intelectual integrity should refrain from harping on these lines.

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Originally posted by sanizadeh:

Actually, IMHO the above supreme court decision is even more troublesome than religious-based arbitration. Here the supreme court is essentially interfering in what should be outside the reach of civil government authority.

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I disagree. Every contract in Canada is subject to scrutiny by our courts. Calling it a "religious contract" cannot immunize it - otherwise, we would indeed have special status for the church in our state.

Back to the Archbishop of Canterbury: his comments prove once again the pernicious and divisive role of religion in public life.

Those who defend him are quick to say: "But Sharia won't be used in criminal law!!" Why not, I say? Why not have different laws for everyone, depending on which flavour of "god" you choose to worship?

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I disagree. Every contract in Canada is subject to scrutiny by our courts. Calling it a "religious contract" cannot immunize it - otherwise, we would indeed have special status for the church in our state. unionist

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Ditto.

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Those who defend him are quick to say: "But Sharia won't be used in criminal law!!" Why not, I say? Why not have different laws for everyone, depending on which flavour of "god" you choose to worship?

Religion is compatible with modern society only in so far as it remains a matter of personal conscience and private worship. Once it leaves the front door and enters the street, it starts to misbehave.

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I am sorry, unionist, but it appears to me that once it has been shown that Canadian law has and will have supremacy, you seem to be out of arguments and thus have indulged in an -uncharacteristic- rant.

I say rant because I know you are not the type who would fan the flames of xenophobia. So what you are doing is ranting.

Do you really think that Sharia criminal component is needed and/or requested or hoped for in Muslim lands that do not have it, let alone in Canada ? Even though some fundamentalists wish it, the likelihood of its implementation is less than zero on a scale of a thousand.

[ 09 February 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

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Originally posted by adam stratton:
Do you really think that Sharia criminal component is needed and/or requested or hoped in Muslim land that do not have it, let alone in Canada ?

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Sorry for confusing you adam, but I was not talking about Canada here at all - rather I was alluding to this from the original article:

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Shafiq said it is important that non-Muslims in Britain understand Williams is not suggesting Shariah be adopted for resolving criminal charges but only civil disputes.

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In other words, here you have some character promoting recognition of religious law in civil matters, and saying: "Oh don't worry, it's only civil stuff! Not important!"

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In Sharia, "Fatwa" is a ruling by an Islamic scholar on any issue, be it social, marital, political or financial. Many such scholars publish their book of fatwas, or issue fatwas in response to specific questions from their followers. You can find examples on their web sites (e.g. check www.sistani.org). -sanizadeh

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Canadian law takes precedence as evidenced in the Supreme Court ruling.

Bring in the fatwas !!!

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Hope I didn't push some button of yours that has no "stop" setting on it... -unionist

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Here is scholar Anne Marie Goetz's attempt to parse this dialectic in various societies:

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(...)The rights-based framework has been criticized on many grounds, as being an instrument of Western cultural imperialism (Mutua 2002; Lewis 1995; An-Na'im and Deng 1990), and as being tied to a specifically western liberal republican approach to constitutionalism and political democracy. Some critics even imply that it forms part of an expansion of capitalist markets in which human rights are the entry-point for reforms to systems of governance that are designed to integrate national economies into a global market (O'Neill 2000a:144).

Rights-based approaches have also been described as impractical and deceptively easy to promulgate while being deeply evasive on the matter of identifying the agents obliged to satisfy rights claims, and the degrees to which they should do so (O'Neill 2000b:97; Nussbaum 2000:238). The same feminist philosophers who advocate a material 'enabling' framework for gender justice argue that rights-based approaches falsify the position of the socially weak, who are in no position to make claims or ensure that more powerful actors meet their obligations. Instead, it is the obligations of powerful actors that ought to be the matter for concern, as well as how to create mechanisms to prevent the strong from neglecting their obligations (O'Neill 2000a:163). Others point out that absolute resource constraints in poor countries limit the potential responsiveness of public authorities to rights claims and undermine the principle of the indivisibility of rights (Johnson 2001). In addition, rights-based approaches are sometimes seen as legalistic, top-down, and relying excessively on supranational legal frameworks, formal legal instruments and institutions (Seshia 2002), to the detriment of an appreciation of the priorities and practices of people who frame and make rights claims in struggles over resources or social power.

(...) the stress on the process of defining rights and justice draws attention to the way the institutions that produce rules and adjudicate disputes between women and men institutionalize biases against women.

(...)Gendered power centres: the state and other law-making institutions
The ways an individual experiences formal and informal justice depends upon the terms of their membership in different communities—the family, the community, the state—in a word, their citizenship rights. Citizenship 'constructs the subject of law' (Collier Maurer and Suarez-Navaz 1995:5) in a particular state—where the subjects of the state are defined through legal processes that specify the rights, entitlements, and obligations of people in relation to each other and to the state in which they live (Lister 1997:29). For the purposes of limiting the discussion that follows, I will not address the way international law and new concepts such as the principle of universal jurisdiction10 can undermine the coincidence of the boundaries of the state with the boundaries of justice, though I will touch on this later. International law and institutions can be used to breech state sovereignty to prosecute human rights offenders. Nonetheless, the fact remains that if citizenship describes membership of a community, then traditional communities and to a lesser extent the 'imagined communities' of nations—and not the amorphous notions of regional communities or a global community (still barely a 'virtual community')—remain the prime sites in which rules are formulated and rights legitimized.

10 See the Princeton Project on Universal Jurisdiction 2001, and the invocation of universal jurisdiction for international human right law by the Spanish prosecutor Balthazar Garzon to prosecute General Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity (an account is provided in Feitlowitz 2001).

Citizenship, then, describes the terms and conditions and benefits of membership of a political community. For women, membership of such a community—even on the basis of the idealized and rarely realized liberal notions of citizenship rooted in equal individual rights—does not guarantee gender justice. But this formal membership is an indispensable part of the struggle to attain gender justice. Around the world it has been the universal language of citizenship that has provided socially excluded groups with a lever to demand inclusion and their fair share of public resources and social recognition. What has been promised to 'all men' in formal constructions of citizenship cannot be denied to women—or to ethnic or racial minorities—without exposing flagrant social discrimination on the part of formal lawmakers.

Displays of extreme sexism by public actors, however, are not required in order for women to experience citizenship in ways that confine their choices to a limited range of gender-roles, and that deny them justice in disputes with men over control of property, control of their own bodies, in disputes with kin or clan groups over inheritance, child custody, and the like. Indeed, the majority of states currently grant women more or less fully equal citizenship rights with men at least on the paper upon which their constitutions are written. However, the achievement of gender justice on the basis of claiming these rights seems to be a practical impossibility for women. In order to understand why this is so, we need to understand how authority and justice systems in states actually work, as opposed to the idealized version taught in civics classes. This means recognizing that in recently-constituted states, as well as in weak states traumatized by conflict or economic collapse, the public sector's dominance as a lawmaker and rights-guarantor is far from established. In fact, it competes with many other sources of social power and dispute adjudication that are far more meaningful and legitimate to participants than is the distant modern public authority. We need to understand how these 'acknowledged' communities (Kabeer 2002), as opposed to the only weakly 'imagined' community of the state, not only limit the capacities of women to claim rights, but also deny the legitimacy of constitutional notions of equal rights—even where women claim those rights. These older, more established systems of social organization deny the state any remit in matters relating to injustices between women and men. They also profoundly penetrate state institutions by supplying powerful informal norms and prejudices in the decisions of state actors. These norms and the behaviours they endorse make state agencies and actors at best reluctant advocates of women's rights, and sometimes even direct perpetrators of gender-based injustices.

Reciprocity instead of contract: multiple social authorities, limited remit of formal law
Most contemporary approaches to good governance and legal reform take a 'legal centralist' approach—a view that the state is the central authority in legal systems, and should be the ultimate unifying source of legal norms. But in most states, particularly in developing postcolonial societies, there are plural and overlapping legal systems, and multiple social authorities—clan or tribe elders, religious leaders, feudal elites. They command loyalty and services from members of their communities, and make determinations about what is fair and right in human interactions. This severely limits the province of formal law in many contexts, casting doubts on the effectiveness of a feminist focus on the state as the medium through which to enforce changed rules and norms in gender relations (Manji 1999:439). It also obliges us to examine how rule-making and enforcement works in other enduring normative systems such as clan and kinship networks, how these position women and men in relation to each other, and how these positionings might either be influenced by changes in formal state law, or by other means.

To understand why formally equal citizenship rights do not produce equivalent entitlements for women and men, let alone gender justice, it is important to acknowledge that there are few states in which clear distinctions are drawn between public office and private interests. Equally, there are few states in which norms, prejudices and affections that have been developed in particular communities are excised from the deliberations of public actors in deciding who should benefit from public resources. In some contexts, these pre-state normative and authority systems are particularly strong. Therefore, the state's rulings on justice are ignored by powerful groups, and the rights it extends to all citizens are not deemed legitimate or relevant to those who most urgently require them in order to transform oppressive social relations. In other words, the problem is not (only) that the state does not address gender injustice, but rather, that it cannot. It is perceived to have no province nor remit in matters pertaining to the relationship between women and men.

(...)Exempting personal law from constitutional law is a recognition of the intensity and endurance of traditional connections, what Kabeer calls 'parallel traditions of belonging', which represent 'the juxtaposition of a moral economy, founded on norms of reciprocity between socially-acknowledged members, with the contract-based economy, based on agreements between abstract individuals' (2002:16). The notion of a voluntary agreement or 'social contract', where free individuals delegate power to a government based on the rule of law, in exchange for the right to hold it to account through the popular franchise, is an abstraction based on hundreds of years of struggle and experimentation in the West to evolve a concept of citizenship based on the individual enjoyment of civil and political—and eventually economic and social—rights, at the expense of the customary claims, obligations, and securities of traditional communities.11 As Carole Pateman has shown, the exclusion of women from the right to rule, and hence from the sphere of justice, was a feature of this process from the start, providing the means for the constitution of modern patriarchy (1988:2). The transition from ascribed status to negotiated contract involved the 'replacement of the family by the 'individual' as the fundamental 'unit' of society' (1988: 9–10). The frequently tyrannical rights enjoyed by clan patriarchs were abolished in favour of equal rights for 'free rational men'. This produced a fraternal patriarchy based on an implicit 'sexual contract' because it excluded women from the public sphere and failed to address the tyrannies that men inflicted on women in the home.

11 See Kabeer, 2002: 3–16 for a historical review of concepts of citizenship.

This struggle for individual equality did eventually provide openings to socially excluded groups—racial minorities, non-propertied men, and women—to claim citizenship rights and to struggle for release from relationships excluded from the purview of justice—relationships such as bonded labour, patron-client relationships, and ascribed roles in the family. Inseparable from this extended struggle for inclusive citizenship in the West is the penetration of capitalist relations of production and the commoditization of labour, enabling unpropertied men, racial minorities, and women to enter into market contracts. This produced a profound 'individuation' of people within social relations—a conception of individuals as separable from social relations and exercising rights over themselves and their property (Kabeer 2002: 28).

In many non-Western societies, the struggles against feudal tyrannies did not pre-date the formation of modern states. Such struggles have perhaps been inhibited or forestalled by the imposition of Western notions of citizenship that presume this struggle has taken place already. Likewise, the penetration of capitalist relations of production has been distorted by colonial extractive economies, inhibiting the emergence of a domestic bourgeoisie needing to assert individual rights against those of an exploitative ruler. Instead, ascriptive roles in traditional relationships continue to be more meaningful. As Suad Joseph notes for Arab countries: 'the concept of citizenship as a set of contractual relationships between 'the individual' and the state is, in most Arab countries, often overridden by the notion of the person as nestled in relationships of kinship and community' (2002:24).

This implies that rights are accessed through personal relationships and connections, not through contractual arrangements whether in the market or with the state. Connectivity, not individual striving, is expected to produce access to resources and political power. Farida Shaheed, writing about politics in South Asia for DAWN's Political Restructuring and Social Transformations Programme, provides a graphic illustration of the implications of the carryover of kin relations into politics for democracy and accountability:

While formal, de-personalized structures of State and politics do exist, the dynamics of real power in South Asia remain intricately linked to family and personal connections... The issue goes far beyond leadership. Formal channels and structures of political power in the region are seriously threatened by the politics of informal power brokerage, and systems of patronage overshadow the formal systems of governance. Consequently, the exercise of real power is often indirect... The disruptive potential of indirect and irresponsible power is amply demonstrated in Pakistan by the influence wielded by politico-religious parties that have never won any significant number of seats in parliament, but exercise tremendous political leverage. A similar situation seems to be emerging in Bangladesh. The exercise of indirect power is, nevertheless, based on providing tangible proof of power, often by creating law-and-order situations and/or disrupting the normal flow of things. By comparison, women's capacity to demonstrate such power is marginal (2003:6).

Relying on connections and relations for access to resources means that the hierarchies and inequalities of ascriptive communities carry over into other arenas. These inequalities include social prejudices discriminating against poorer families within the same kinship network, between elders and juniors, and between men and women. Women, specifically, are brought into public discourse as mothers, wives and economic dependents, their roles and contribution to society prescripted, and their entitlements from the public sector already circumscribed by assumptions about their needs in these roles. This gender role spill-over renders formal rights ineffective.

Connectivity is not necessarily a negative thing—feminists have critiqued the radical individualism of liberal theory for years on the grounds that it neglects the essential interdependence of members of communities. Advocates of multicultural accommodation in governance, such as Will Kymlicka, likewise argue for the importance of recognizing that meaningful choices and a sense of identity come mainly with reference to a particular community's culture. 'Cultural membership provides us with an intelligible context of choice, and a secure sense of identity and belonging, that we call upon in confronting questions about personal values and projects' (Kymlicka 1995:105; cited in Nyamu-Musembi 2002:144).

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[ 09 February 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
It can be tempting to simply rail at religion's influence on people's lives and advocate for a secular system, but this can have the effect of allowing abuse and disentitlement of women to proliferate - precisely because some people do and will go on seeking solace, advice and interpretations of conflicts from non-secular systems, be they based on kin, community or religious systems.

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The issue in this thread (the debate in the U.K.) is whether or not the law should officially recognize religious - or any alternative - legal systems for resolving civil disputes.

You're saying some people will avoid using the official channels, because... because what? Because they're pressured by bigots to not exercise their civil rights?

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Originally posted by unionist:

I disagree. Every contract in Canada is subject to scrutiny by our courts. Calling it a "religious contract" cannot immunize it - otherwise, we would indeed have special status for the church in our state.

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That's absolutely correct and I agree with it. However I was wondering if religious rulings or customs should be interpreted as legal contracts at all. IIRC (and please correct me if I am wrong) in that Supreme court case, this women's main complaint was that other Orthodox Jews would not marry her because they did not accept her civil divorce. Is that a valid ground for suing? Supreme court agreed. I am not that sure.

Could supreme court rule on whether a specific individual could be considered a pious Muslim, for instance? If Catholic church ex-communicates someone, should s/he be able to sue? Considering that there is no definition for "religion", could it be extended to ideologies as well? If the communist party expels a member for not following communist manifesto, should the Supreme court intervene?

Unionist writes:

"The issue in this thread (the debate in the U.K.) is whether or not the law should officially recognize religious - or any alternative - legal systems for resolving civil disputes."

The issue is that it recognizes people's right to use these systems and the arrangenents they come to therein. The challenge, I think, is to make such recognition more efficient in protecting people's rights (i.e. records of agreements, possibility of appealing, no contradiction between entitlements).

"You're saying some people will avoid using the official channels, because... because what? Because they're pressured by bigots to not exercise their civil rights?"

That happens but it doesn't explain away all choices to bypass "official channels" or look to other sources of guidance and support. The text above explores this in detail. Non-religious mediation has already become an "official channel" (more and more often mandatory) in our own societies, and it is generally unregulated, giving way to much injustice - often strong-arming women out of their financial entitlements for instance. Secular arrangenents are still submitted to judicial tribunals, however, while those entered into via religious institutions are not.

"The solution is to educate, assist, encourage people to know their rights and how to use them."
Absolutely; chasing them away with insults about their beliefs and clerics, and colluding in their continuing disentitlement by washing one's hands about the agreements they come to and their own values and cultural solidarities is not.

[ 09 February 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by sanizadeh:
... in that Supreme court case, this women's main complaint was that other Orthodox Jews would not marry her because they did not accept her civil divorce. Is that a valid ground for suing?

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You're misunderstanding the case. She claimed that a contract had been signed as part of her civil divorce, wherein her ex-husband contractually agreed to grant her a get. The rat welched on that contract for 15 years. This caused her damages. The rat then claimed that the courts shouldn't enforce the civil contract because it infringed on his "religious freedoms". The court told him to pound salt - that his religious freedom was trumped by the civil contract that he had signed.

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If the communist party expels a member for not following communist manifesto, should the Supreme court intervene?

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Depends on the nature of the agreement entered into between the communist party members. If it is deemed to constitute a contract, and one member wants to claim that the other party or parties have violated the contract to his detriment, why shouldn't she have access to the courts???

Let's pretend you and I sign a contract, whereby I promise to stop posting on babble, and you promise to pay me $1000 per month in return. Should we have access to the courts if one alleges the other has been delinquent? Of course. Well, what if I promise to adhere to the Communist Manifesto or Qur'an or whatever in exchange for $1000 per month. Is that contract immune from judicial scrutiny?

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I was thinking maybe we could instead decide that religious customs and traditions have no legal meaning in our system.

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As shown by my examples above, what you are really saying (although I'm certain this is not your intent) is that all anyone has to do to escape judicial scrutiny is to introduce some religious nonsense into the contract - then they are free to commit whatever crimes against each other that they want.

- The cbc.ca story errs. Cantuar did NOT "make a speech" on the subject. He responded to a question which positted the possibility of some recognition for Sharia law.

- +Rowan Cantuar often forgets that he is no longer a theology professor in an ivory tower nor the relatively obscure Primate of Wales. He is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of an established church, a member of the House of Lords and primus inter pares of the Anglican Communion.

- Generally those wanting to get rid of +Rowan are the hard right, mostly evangelical, almost entirely anti-gay crowd who want him to expel the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada from the Anglican Communion.

I challenge anyone to read this article and explain his "clarification".

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Originally posted by unionist:
Archbishop of Canterbury clarifies, defends remarks on Shariah law

I challenge anyone to read this article and explain his "clarification".

The man is an idiot.

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I'm not sure why you think he is an idiot. I think he has cleary spelled out the position of the head of a state church. He says it is the responsibility of representatives of the established church to speak out for all faith communities (i.e. those not the official state religion).

That was the point he made in the first speech: non-Christians should not have to choose between state and cultural loyalty in the UK (where the state is officially Christian).

Now having a state religion in the first place is a dumb policy, but that doesn't make the archbishop an idiot. He seems to be the best candidate possible you could hope to have in that position (though perhaps with more PR savy).

[ 11 February 2008: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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Originally posted by -=+=-:

That was the point he made in the first speech: non-Christians should not have to choose between state and cultural loyalty in the UK (where the state is officially Christian).

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Uh, no, not.

He didn't offer to incorporate Sharia law into Anglican canon law. Had he done so, I would have said, "A blessing on both your houses!"

Instead, he suggested that Sharia law be incorporated into the law of the land.

Are you suggesting that British common law is currently "Christian" law, and that he was kindly offering to make it more ecumenical so Muslims could feel more at home?

[ 11 February 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Originally posted by unionist:

Uh, no, not.

He didn't offer to incorporation Sharia law into Anglican canon law. Had he done so, I would have said, "A blessing on both your houses!"

Instead, he suggested that Sharia law be incorporated into the law of the land.

Are you suggesting that British common law is currently "Christian" law, and that he was kindly offering to make it more ecumenical so Muslims could feel more at home?

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I know absolutely nothing about Brtitish law, but for many centuries the Church of England had a large hand in administering it, and I assume forming it. This seems only logical. (Though I would defer to an expert here).

The point being made is that in a country with an established church (and the legacy of that church in its law), the way to tolerant religious pluralism is to include some non-Christian codes in law. The other option -- disestablishment of the state church is a non-starter.

This way the non-Christian could be loyal to state and culture at the same time, instead of having to choose. And as was made clear in the second speechs, despite the hysterics, the archbishop does not mean including laws that take away fundamental human rights.

(Of course, having no state religion is the best way forward, but that seems to be impossible in Britain).

[ 11 February 2008: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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Originally posted by -=+=-:

I know absolutely nothing about Brtitish law, but for many centuries the Church of England had a large hand in administering it, and I assume forming it.

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He is, however, an academic by history and inclination, and he tends to lard over everything he says with far too much nuance. Anyone following the inter-Anglican wars of the moment will find that Rowan's contributions are usually viewed as both dense (as in thick with nuance) and unhelpful by all sides.

The Jesuit scholar Hugo Rahner once said of his more famous ecclesiastical and familial brother Karl Rahner "What is needed is not a good translation of my brother Karl from German into English, but a good translation of my brother Karl from German into German."

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Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:
Rowan Cantuar isn't an idiot - in the sense that he is not a stupid man.

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quote:

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I understand that the way this was "resolved" in Ontario, after the indignation around the Boyd Report (a very informative read), was to simply nix religious arbitration courts.

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The way it was "resolved" was to pass legislation to bar any recourse to the civil courts to enforce the decisions of religious-based arbitrations on matters of family law.