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

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.