The Archbishop of Canterbury 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.
Friends of Dr Rowan Williams say he is in a state of shock and dismayed by the criticism from his own Church.
All of which simply proves that the guy is too naive, too unimaginative to hold the post that he does. He may or may not be right; personally I think he’s out of his gourd, but several people that I respect assure me that what he intended to convey is definitely worth consideration. However, any reasonably clueful person would have been able to predict the reaction to William’s speech; the fact that he is in shock simply confirms that he is incompetent to hold the position of responsibility that he does. Predictably, blog entries are appearing with titles like “Who will rid us of this troublesome priest?”, although in this case we’re dealing with stupidity rather than punctiliousness. For context, I recommend Ruth Gledhill.
Why does all this matter? It shouldn’t, really: Muslims make up less than 3% of the population of England, and a minority of those actually want Sharia. ((Of the majority, it’s hard to separate those who genuinely don’t want Sharia from those who would like it, but recognize that such a move would provoke a backlash. Let’s assume that most are sincere.)) It’s hard to resist the suspicion that Williams is getting involved in this issue because he sees it as a way to bolster the obsolete notion that religious representatives should be involved in politics. Or perhaps he’s pandering to Akinola and the Southern Cone….