I care what happens in the Anglican Communion, but since I became Orthodox I've been told to "stay out of Anglican business". This statement reveals testy territorialism and a partisan view of the Church. I am no longer qualified to make observations because I don't belong to the Anglican "party."
Read moreLast summer, Prime Minister Gordon Brown prohibited his ministers from using the word Muslim in connection with terrorism. In January, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith went further, actually describing terrorism as "anti-Islamic." And last week the Home Office completed the obfuscation by issuing a counter-terrorism phrasebook that instructs civil servants to refer only to violent extremism and criminal murderers, not Islamist extremism and jihadi-fundamentalists.
Read moreLast summer, Prime Minister Gordon Brown prohibited his ministers from using the word Muslim in connection with terrorism. In January, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith went further, actually describing terrorism as "anti-Islamic." And last week the Home Office completed the obfuscation by issuing a counter-terrorism phrasebook that instructs civil servants to refer only to violent extremism and criminal murderers, not Islamist extremism and jihadi-fundamentalists.
Read moreCoercion in the Muslim communities of Europe is so commonplace that duly-constituted governments there no longer wield a monopoly of violence. Behind the law there stands the right of the state to inflict violence, and the legitimacy of states rests on what German political economist and sociologist Max Weber once called "the monopoly of violence". Once this right is conceded to private groups, the legitimacy of government crumbles.
Read moreCoercion in the Muslim communities of Europe is so commonplace that duly-constituted governments there no longer wield a monopoly of violence. Behind the law there stands the right of the state to inflict violence, and the legitimacy of states rests on what German political economist and sociologist Max Weber once called "the monopoly of violence". Once this right is conceded to private groups, the legitimacy of government crumbles.
Read moreSome of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said in the Royal Courts of Justice last Thursday. But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview, and for any misleading choice of words that has helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large and especially among my fellow Christians.
Read moreSome of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said in the Royal Courts of Justice last Thursday. But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview, and for any misleading choice of words that has helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large and especially among my fellow Christians.
Read moreIf Rowan Williams ever imagined his explanation could get him off the hook, he is wrong. The damage is done, and it will take more than his elegant mea culpa to undo it.
The archbishop was wrong to accept in his BBC radio interview that there could be anything inevitable about any part of Sharia ever holding sway in the UK.
Read moreIf Rowan Williams ever imagined his explanation could get him off the hook, he is wrong. The damage is done, and it will take more than his elegant mea culpa to undo it.
The archbishop was wrong to accept in his BBC radio interview that there could be anything inevitable about any part of Sharia ever holding sway in the UK.
Read moreHe elaborated especially on the Muslim community in the UK and on Islamic law, and argued for an accommodation between English law and Islamic law so that either law system could be used for dispute resolution and for marriage, divorce, inheritance and other matters.
Read more