THE NEW STATESMAN AND MR WILLIAMS

The Current Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams launches a verbal onslaught on the coalition government in, of all places, the pages of The New Statesman. No fan of the coalition government my self it might be thought that I would welcome this intervention however I have to say that the article made me feel more than a little queasy.


The New Statesman has more than a mixed history; however it has historically represented a strong brand of rational secularism. Now it has a regular contributor who believes that The Koran represents the literal word of God* and invites an obscurantist like Mr Rowan Williams to opine on his pages. This to me feels like the sad demise of a once impressive publication of the left.

As to the Archbishop’s concerns that the coalition are enacting far reaching legislation that nobody voted for is of course correct, however it comes a bit thick from someone who sits in the House of Lords as a matter of right, don’t ever remember seeing his name on a ballot paper.

Now as a citizen Mr Williams is free to speak his opinions and I defend this right absolutely he should do so as an ordinary citizen and not accorded any privileged status.

*’”No. The Quran is not the end of all knowledge, the Quran is the beginning of all knowledge. The Quran is the Word of God. Most Muslims accept that the Quran is the Word of God. Now that is a definition of a Muslim. If you do not accept that the Quran is the Word of God you cannot be a Muslim,” Ziauddin Sardar http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/belief/scripts/ziauddin_sardar.shtml

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