The Anglicans are sharpening the knives
Once again the Anglican church drops the mask.
In a paper published on Monday, the Church will voice concern over how the [Human Rights Act] is being interpreted and claim that it has been used by secularists to advance a liberal agenda.
Yes…as opposed to a theocratic agenda. And a theocratic agenda would be better because?
Leading Church figures have claimed that there has been an overemphasis on equality legislation at the expense of faith groups…[Christians] have complained that law has failed to allow them freedom of their beliefs. The Church paper suggests that Christians should be wary of resorting to human rights legislation, which it claims has become a “tool of secular liberalism”.
Instead Christians should resort to religious law, which of course cannot be a ‘tool of secular liberalism’ because religious law is authoritarian, dogmatic, unaccountable, unarguable, based on unwarranted beliefs, unconcerned with justice or equality or freedom, and inherently oppressive. Naturally that is much better than poxy old secular liberalism, which viciously wants equal rights for everyone. What could be more loathsome than that?
“The language of human rights, interpreted as the basis for the State’s relationship to faith, is not one with which all Christians can be comfortable. It is all too easy to adopt the tools of secular liberalism as if they straightforwardly reinforce our case against secularism’s deficiencies…It is part of the calling of the Established Church never to be ‘domesticated’ by the administration of the day.”
In other words, it is part of the calling of the Established Church to consider itself above the law, and to do everything it can to defy it and encourage its members to defy it. In other words is part of the calling of the Established Church to pretend that the non-existent laws of a non-existent deity should and do trump the laws of flawed but more or less accountable elected representatives.
“The uncomfortable truth is that a purely secular account of human rights is always going to be problematic if it attempts to establish the language of rights as a supreme and non-contestable governing concept in ethics.”
Because the only supreme and non-contestable governing concept in ethics is that of a hidden (and non-existent) god as interpreted by an unaccountable elite of priests who pretend to know what the hidden non-existent god thinks is right and that whatever that god thinks is right, is right, whatever any pesky secular liberal may say about rights or justice.
Don’t let anybody try to tell you that the Anglican church is ‘liberal’ – it’s no more liberal than Rick Warren is.
No, the Anglican church is not liberal, and it is getting less so by the minute, and all, it seems, because of a liberal who doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. Because, by all appearances, before he became ABC, Rowan was liberal. This is very disturbing, but not surprising. (Rowan is one of the main reasons why I am not a Christian – that is, reason in the sense of motivation – there are many good reasons beside.)
In a prescient book, The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow, Kirsopp Lake suggested that the church would shrink to the right. And the simple reason is that the liberals are, perceived from the institutional point of view, on the way out, and the conservatives comprise the reliable backbone that gives the church a continuing message and a determinate structure of authority. Even if institutionalists secretly (or, as in Rowan’s case, not so secretly) lean towards the liberal side, they will almost always act so as to shore up the conservatives. So, as liberals leave, and conservatives (a few of them anyway) begin to think, and shift in a liberal direction (on their way out), the church will shrink towards the right. And, as I say, it was very prescient, and a clever analysis too.
This applies, of course, to other religions, so, even if we do see a shrinkage in Islam, it will continue, institutionally, to shrink towards the right.
No church is liberal, unless, like the Unitarian church, it has no creed and no holy books. And no church is to be trusted, because their beliefs are, despite the liberals amongst them, unsupported by credible evidence.
Despite this, as I suggested in another thread, it is important for people concerned about the effect of religion on social progress, to encourage liberal theology as a staging post on the way to maturity. Itjihad may be similar in its way. However, given the resonance of the word ‘jihad’ in contemporary political discourse, it has disquieting overtones. So does Rowan.
What annoyed my most about that article is this part:
“While the archbishop supports the concept of human rights, he argues that they need to resist moral relativism.”
Where do they get the nerve? He complains that equal rights for everyone stops Christians from having special privileges, and then claims he is worried about moral relativism!
The Pope does exactly the same thing. The unending hypocrisy of conservatives is infuriating.
Ah yes, so he does…
Perhaps the idea is that what Christians have is not special privileges but – erm, not rights, since he says not to use rights-talk, so – erm – snights, let’s call them; Christians have natural snights because they are in a ‘faith group’ but the rights of people who are not in a faith group are a rampant, pus-filled symptom of moral relativism. Yeah, must be something like that.
Perhaps he is using “moral relativism” to describe the outlandish secular notion that morality is relative to truth. Christians have a superior form of morality based on superstition and magic so what they say goes.
Or more likely, this is just a new reworking of the old false dichotomy between biblical morality and amorality.
Or perhaps this ‘religious affairs correspondent’ has done just as good a job of creating a story out of shite as the one at the BBC you exposed last week? This whole newspaper article reads like a journalist failing to ‘decode’ and provide context reporting the words of half-understood groups. The writers of the original paper would not say it out loud but their quotes look like code for ‘Muslim groups have co-opted the human rights legislation and it is preferentially enforced against the white male establishment including us’. Given the course of the Ezra Levant saga and the Australian pastors convicted under hate crimes legislation for merely reading quotes form the Koran, the church hierarchy very properly ought to be cautious about trying to use human rights legislation to protect themselves, because the dangers of selective enforcement by ‘secular liberal’ politically correct enforcers in the public service are right here, right now.
Itis VERY important to read media reports of church fuckwittery in the worst, most oppressive and misogynistic light. Otherwise you might understand them.
Meanwhile, look at the other headlines on that page. ‘Williams told to act over gay clergy or face boycott’ for instance. Here the same church you are deriding is willing to lose its huge, vital and growing branches in the Third World, to give its clergy equal rights to an openly gay married life.
Chris,
Rowan Williams is in favour of Sharia law. He doesn’t seem to have much problem Islam getting special protection.
By “advance a liberal agenda” the Archbishop obviously meant “stop Christians discriminating against homosexuals.”
“[Christians] have complained that law has failed to allow them freedom of their beliefs.”
That’s standard Christian double-speak for “they don’t let us persecute gays.”
Jakob:’That’s standard Christian double-speak for “they don’t let us persecute gays.”‘
Ooooh yes. Its been ages since we had a good gay-burning. Especially gay paedophile priests, we used to persecute them soooooo much.
Jakob, you are witty enough to do doublespeak interpretations that sting because they are actually true. Give it a shot.
“Last week, a tribunal ruled Lillian Ladele was harassed and discriminated against by Islington Council for refusing to carry out gay “weddings”.
‘Ms Ladele said the civil partnership ceremonies went against her Christian beliefs and hailed the decision as a “victory for religious liberty”.”
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7510462.stm
So my interpretation is actually true.
Plus you just used the old “gay = paedophile” thing again. Protecting child abusers in your own ranks is hardly the same as refusing to discriminate against members of the wider public on the basis that they’re gay.
Rowan’s talk about relativism, and human rights legislation denying religious believers their rights, may be code for persecuting gays. But that’s only the start. It’s really code for “unless it’s religious morality, it’s relativistic.”
Rowan knows, when other just think they know. So does the pope, so does anyone who thinks that there is a being (i) whose will one can know (absolutely) and (ii) whose will one must obey.
And this puts religious people at a disadvantage in a rights oriented context, because, like the woman who didn’t want to officiate at a gay ‘civil partnership’, it goes against their absolute knowledge of God’s will. But, of course, their absolute knowledge often impinges on other’s rights.
Enough of this sort of thing – and it’s good to see the Islington Council is going to appeal the ruling – and we’ll get to a place where the ideal of equality before the law will seem like a distant dream.
‘While the archbishop supports the concept of human rights, he argues that they need to resist moral relativism’.
Time to chuck out the Bible then.
Adultery is punishable by death says the OT. Oh wait, let he who is without sin cast the first stone says Jesus. All have sinned, says Paul, so I guess that rules out death for adultery altogether.
Ah, but… the rules in the OT DID apply, but not since Jesus died for us, or something.
No relativism there, of course.
The Islington council has already appealed the ruling, and won – the ruling was overturned. Pay attention out there – I put that in News weeks ago!
:- )
chrisper,
“Itis VERY important to read media reports of church fuckwittery in the worst, most oppressive and misogynistic light. Otherwise you might understand them.”
Where did I say one word about misogyny?
That’s so typical of your method of reading – read something you don’t like the look of, get in a rage, and then type a furious comment at random, railing at things I didn’t say.
You do this over and over and over again. It gets very tiresome. Don’t you get tired of having it pointed out? Why don’t you stop doing it? Why don’t you post carefully instead of sloppily? Don’t you realize that if you did, you would have a better chance of being read attentively?
Look, OB, ‘misogyny’ may be gratuitous in the context of this particular post, but it is not arguable that part of your critique of religion is that misogyny is intrinsic. Sorry, that objection is trivial.
Now we are on something when you raise my habit of reading only a bit and getting all blustery about it. What we have this time is that you have done it too, I think.
It just gets me down seeing again and again here the angry writing about ‘news’ that is cherry-picked and re-interpreted into an un-necessarily revolting light. Some of this stuff really deserves ridicule not indignation. A light touch of human understanding would be helpful in this story.
That objection is not trivial, and you’re not sorry, either. It’s also not true that ‘part of [my] critique of religion is that misogyny is intrinsic’ – I don’t actually think it is intrinsic, I think it’s contingent; I think it’s merely de facto that most current religions are misogynist, but I don’t think they have to be. And in any case – your comment was a comment on this particular post, which reads as if this particular post did indeed talk about religious misogyny.
I differ with you about the language of that report; I think in the context of religious attacks on human rights, as a concept and in particular instantiations, what the Anglican church says in that report is theocratic and sinister. In any case, the fact that something gets you down doesn’t give you license to read sloppily and then barf all over the page.
Acknowledged. Have a great day!
Ophelia, I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days, and I’m not convinced you’re right. I can’t wait to get my hands on your book.
However, it seems to me that religion may, in fact, be a product of patriarchal ways of thinking. It’s possible, a la Paul Boyer et al., to think of religion as a matter of false positives in thinking of the world around us as powered by agency instead of energy. But most existing religions seem to be centred in patriarchal agency (from the creation gods of the Abrahamic religions to most ancient polytheisms). Of course, there were goddess cults, like the cult of Athena (read Mary), but goddess cults almost always, like that of (Athena) Mary, took place within a patriarchal context.
You say religions aren’t intrinsically misogynist. I’m not sure it’s just de facto. Except for Kali (and I’m not sure how she fits in the Hindu pantheon), real power seems to be vested primarily in male deities. (Think of Wagner’s Wotan.) Is there a reason why this should not be taken as an instrinsic character of most religions? Would there be religions at all, I wonder, if there had been no gender differences? Since gods tend to be so gendered themselves, this still seems to me like a question unaswered. And I suspect that the ABC’s concern about human rights has more to do with gender equality than he would like to admit.
Perhaps you’re not following this thread any more. If so, maybe you’ll respond in another comment somewhere.
>Rowan Williams is in favour of Sharia law.< Jacob, if you’re still following this thread, please quote a statement from Rowan Williams in which he says he is in favour of “Sharia law”, per se. No newspaper accounts, just a straight quote please.
Sorry, that should have been “Jakob”!
Eric, I didn’t say religions aren’t intrinsically misogynist, I said I don’t actually think misogyny is intrinsic to religion – a slight difference but an important one: I try not to phrase opinions as facts. Well, some of the time anyway.
I’m not sure it’s de facto either, I just think it is. I’m not really adamant about it – I’m just not convinced that all religion is necessarily misogynist. Maybe I think there are too many obstinate bloody-minded women around for that to be the case, I dunno.
Official policy for the Baha’i:
Women and men are equal:
Full equality and a firm sense of partnership between women and men are essential to human progress and the transformation of society.
http://www.bahai.org/
Thank you Ophelia, now it makes sense. It was a distinction that I didn’t make, and it’s clearly important.
Allen, I know that doctrinally Bahai hold women and men to be equal, but they also hold that Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, Krishna, etc., were messengers from God. Do you know how this all works out in practice?
>but they also hold that Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, Krishna, etc., were messengers from God. Do you know how this all works out in practice?< Sorry, I don’t follow what point you’re making. Care to expand?
While waiting for Eric to expand, I can supply what I would mean by saying that. If a religion considers ‘god’ to be a man or a male, or if it centers on a male prophet or messenger (with no corresponding female prophet or messenger) then it will pretty inevitably (I think) consider males more important than females – the way the three monotheisms do, for instance. Such religions may well conclude and rule that the clergy must be all-male, which also implicitly makes women not-so-good, and also creates a situation in which women are subject to rules and definitions which they are formally barred from helping to make or shape. This is formal, legal, institutional subordination.
>If a religion considers ‘god’ to be a man or a male, or if it centers on a male prophet or messenger (with no corresponding female prophet or messenger) then it will pretty inevitably (I think) consider males more important than females< Ophelia: I don’t think that follows. We have a case in point here. Do you have any evidence that the Baha’i consider males more important than females in practice?
The Quakers do not regard males as more important than females.
>Such religions may well conclude and rule that the clergy must be all-male< It is evident that this is increasingly becoming less so in the C. of E. as its more forward-looking adherents try to drag the organisation kicking and screaming into the modern world. Women have been ordained as priests (formerly a male preserve, obviously) for some fifteen years, and last year the Synod of the Church of England voted in favour of the consecration of women bishops. There may well be a long way to go (I have no idea, not being familiar with the inner workings of the C of E) but it is evident that institutional barriers to the progress of women to positions from which they were traditionally barred are no longer sacrosanct in the C of E (as they remain in the Catholic Church).
N.B. I withdraw my citing of the Quakers! Checking back, I see that the discussion is about religions, not religious organisations.
I think that all three of us can agree at least in general terms:
Ophelia wrote:
>I said I don’t actually think misogyny is intrinsic to religion< Eric wrote:
>Is there a reason why this should not be taken as an instrinsic character of most religions?< I note the use by Eric of the word “most”, which is not inconsistent with my citing the Baha’i as an exception to the general rule.
Yup I don’t think we’re very far apart, Allen.
I think the male god is an implicit background message. In a way, that might be even more insidious in the case of religions and clerics who say that god is genderless and transcendent etc but still go right on using the male pronoun. It’s all a bit ‘colored doll,’ I think.