HUMAN EVENTS: When even the religion reporter for the Times of London has to ask if the Archbishop of Canterbury has gone bonkers, the question has become rhetorical. The answer is all too obvious.
Last Thursday morning, February 7, Rowan Williams -- the Archbishop of Canterbury, top man in the hierarchy of the Church of England -- took to the airwaves. In a BBC Radio Four interview, he said that the United Kingdom will eventually have to adopt Islamic Sharia Law -- on a limited basis -- on the premise that this will create social cohesion.
His words have had quite an impact -- perhaps best compared to the effect of dropping a suitcase nuke into the room at high tea in Buckingham Palace. If there were any English still sleep walking through the destruction of their national identity, the ultimate wake up call just came.
When Henry the 8th wanted a divorce and the Catholic Pope would not give it to him, the Church of England was born. Henry not only broke the bonds of fealty to the Pope, he seized all the property held by the Roman Church, dissolved their monasteries, killed or banished the Catholic clergy, and forced all surviving remnants of Catholicism in England underground for centuries.
While he was at it, Henry ended all foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction over his Kingdom and made all future monarchs the titular head of the Anglican Church. Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth the First, fleshed out this policy. She decreed that the break with Rome restored to the Crown, “the ancient jurisdiction over the state -- ecclesiastical and spiritual -- abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same.” This is not just an opinion. It is an Article in the founding document of the Church of England.
The Times’ religion editor, Ruth Gledhill, reviews this history and then adds her own ironic observation. “And now Queen Elizabeth II's very own Archbishop -- and let's not forget she is his Church's Supreme Governor - wants to introduce a new jurisdiction into this realm of England. And an Islamic one at that!”
For those who might not be up to speed on Sharia law, it is not like The Ten Commandments or the Bill of Rights. It is not just Holy Law; it is wholly Holy secular law too. It is the all-inclusive law as imposed by a theocratic state. It governs everything from banking to marriage. And it carries some pretty heavy penalties, from cutting off the hands of thieves to stoning women caught in adultery, even if the adultery stems from a gang rape. It also looks the other way when fathers, brothers, or uncles kill family females who dare to date outside of Islam. These are known as “honor killings.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury supports his partially pro-Sharia law position by citing the inherent inequity which ensues when Catholic adoption agencies discriminate against gay couples. Of course, there are no gay people in Iran according to Ahmadinejad so that isn’t the best illustration the Archbishop might have chosen to make his point. In fact, instances of sharia law being carried out within British Muslim communities have been reported. A young man who knifed someone was judged by a Sharia court and let out on the streets when his family compensated his victim financially. Archbishop of Canterbury Gone Bonkers >>> By Susan Easton
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