The Church of England — originally split off from Rome by Henry
VIII for the purpose of divorcing his wife — has just named a new
Archbishop of Canterbury. His name is Rowan Williams. From his
newspaper photo he bears a resemblance to the goofy shoe bomber,
though he’s older and sports a Brillo-like white beard.
Henry and his successors appointed trusted associates as
Archbishop of Canterbury, lopping off their heads if they proved
too independent-minded. Things are tame by comparison nowadays.
Nominally appointed by the queen, the archbishop is actually chosen
by the prime minister from a short list of candidates. Why Tony
Blair chose Dr. Williams seems puzzling, until one recalls that
Blair must now and then throw a sop to the Loony Left contingent in
his Labour Party.
Archbishop-to-be Williams, you see, is every Marxist’s dream of
a cleric. He speaks in the clichés of the left. He seems as
anxious as the ACLU to omit any reference to religion in public
life. In a booklet published after the September 11 attacks last
year, he wrote that “the words of religious faith are usually
formal or flat or self-serving.” Oh.
He chanced to be in New York on September 11, attending a
conference. A little like Reuters news service, which commanded its
reporters to not describe the terrorists as terrorists (as in one
man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter), Dr. Williams said,
“Bombast about evil individuals doesn’t help understanding
anything.” What he is getting at is that Osama’s disciples in
effect had no choice because exploitation by the industrialized
West made them do it.
He writes, “We have something of the freedom to consider whether
or not we turn to violence and so … are rather different from
those who experience their world as leaving no other option.”
So, the 19 suicide bombers couldn’t help themselves and thus are
not to blame for killing 3,000 people? That is what Dr. Williams
seems to think. He describes the war on terrorism as a “discharge
of tension.” The U.S. strategy is “confused” and the “random
killing” of Afghan civilians is “a matter of military policy.”
The solution to all this according to Williams is to sit down
for a nice chat with the terrorists, once we recognize that their
evil acts were not their fault. Then, “We begin to find some sense
of what they and we might together recognize as good.” Picture the
scene: Do you take milk or lemon with your tea, Mr. Osama?
The bombing in Afghanistan which drove out al Qaeda and the
Taliban was “morally tainted” in Williams’s view, and any action
against Iraq would be “immoral and illegal” unless it were approved
by the United Nations. Not long ago he signed an open letter to the
British government which asserted that “eradicating the dangers
posed by malevolent dictators and terrorists can only be achieved
by tackling the root causes of the disputes.”
The root cause, of course, is Old Devil capitalism. “Every
transaction in the developed economies of the West can be
interpreted as an act of aggression against the economic losers in
the worldwide game,” according to Williams. Every transaction can
be interpreted that way, but the interpretation would be wildly
wrong.
Williams seems to see everything through the prism of Marxist
class warfare. “It is hard,” he says, ” to start any sort of
conversation when your conversation partner believes, in all
sincerity, that your aim is to silence them (sic).” On September
11, the silencing was the other way around.
The Church of England is in a dilapidated state. Polls indicate
that something on the order of two percent of its members regularly
attend services. Can it be that the rhetoric of the far left has no
message for the other ninety-eight percent?
