The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams called today for the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK. He said that the establishment of Sharia was “unavoidable” and would be helpful in maintaining social cohesion.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One, the Archbishop said that it is time for the UK to “face up to the fact” that many of its Muslim citizens do not relate to Western culture and the British legal system. He said that the British Muslim community should be able to choose a parallel legal system more in line with their culture and religious beliefs:
“That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a western democracy.
“But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don’t have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that.”
Response: Archbishop Williams is running up the white flag and calling for what is tantamount to a surrender of Western society, British culture, and Christianity to Islam—calling it “unavoidable”. With leaders like that who needs enemies.
He really seems to have a rather naive and an ‘idealized’ idea of what form Sharia law would take in the UK. He acknowledges that ‘one law for everybody’ is a pillar of ‘social identity as a western democracy’ yet is ready to scrap it all for a parallel Sharia law which would create separate societies, separate laws, and separate identities in the same country.
He says that Sharia in the UK should not include extreme punishments and unequal treatment for woman, yet those provisions come from the Koran itself and are part of Sharia wherever it is established. What about polygamy, easy divorce for men, beatings for woman, amputations for theft, stoning for homosexuality and adultery?
How can Sharia possibly be allowed alongside English civil law and how can it possibly be ‘helpful in maintaining social cohesion’? Who would ultimately decide where one set of laws applies and the one other doesn’t? Maybe they could set up fences separating the different communities like in Israel? That sure would help with ‘social cohesion’!
Here’s my solution for the cultural and religious problems facing the UK:
May the Lord God flood the British isles with his Spirit and bring Christian revival to the land once more. Let the Gospel go forth among the Muslims and may millions of them be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ who is God’s Son and the real Messiah and Mahdi. In Jesus name Amen.