"There is no dispute about our common allegiance to the law of the land" Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams told the General Synod of the Church of England - and a watching world on TV and the internet - this afternoon, following the recent furore about his BBC interview and lecture on Sharia and English civil law last week. Dr Williams' speech came after the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, while affirming his leadership of the established Church of England, asked for clarification of his views, which he said he believed had been "misrepresented" in a debate which rapidly became extremely over-heated.
The archbishop, whose address was preceded by a standing ovation from an assembly evidently closing ranks in spite of concerns about the furore, said: "“I hoped... to raise a wider question about the relationship between faith and law. We have taken it for granted that the law protects the consciences of religious believers. And all that I said last week needs to be read in that context. I mentioned the conscience clauses about abortion relative to the medical professions."
He went on: “So while there is no dispute about our common allegiance to the law of the land, that law still recognises that religious communities form the consciences of believers. And it hasn’t pressed for universal compliance with aspects of civil law where conscientious matters are in question."
“However there are signs that this cannot necessarily be taken quite so easily for granted, as the assumptions of society become more secular. I think we ought to keep an eye on this trend. And if we do, we shall have to do more thinking about the models of society and law that we work with. It’s an area where Christians and people of other faiths ought to be doing some reflecting together.“
Dr Williams' presidential address at the beginning of Synod, the Church of England's governing authority, comprising bishops, clergy and elected lay people, was originally going to focus on the plight of Zimbabwe and global issues. The Sharia row overran his original intentions, but Zimbabwe and other concerns did feature in his speech.
In a new development, some global Anglican conservatives are now accusing the archbishop of undermining vulnerable Christians in Muslim-majority situations threatened with the implementation of contentious forms of Sharia. They say he should apologise.
Dr Chris Sugden, executive secretary of pressure group Anglican Mainstream told BBC Radio 4's The World at One today "[Dr Williams] has caused great difficulties for our colleagues especially in Nigeria, especially in other countries where there's significant Muslim pressure for Sharia to come in."
Dr Williams himself said this afternoon: "I have had a fair amount of recent first-hand contact with Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries which has left me with no illusions about the sufferings they can and do face, even when there is a national legal framework that fully recognises their liberties. But I noted that many Muslim majority countries do distinguish clearly between the rights of citizens overall and the duties accepted by some citizens of obedience to Islamic law. It is this that encourages me to think that there may be ways of engaging with the world of Islamic law on something other than an all-or-nothing basis."
Simon Barrow of the independent religion and society think-tank Ekklesia commented: "While global ramifications cannot be ignored, it is important that we distinguish between the frameworks needed for relating minorities and the majority in plural societies with a common civil law, and those situations of conflict where different minorities face repressive interpretations of Sharia as a statutory criminal and civil code. This distinction applies whatever we think of Dr Williams' local proposals and his subsequent clarification of them."
He added: "Solidarity with those whose rights and dignity are denied - by whatever ideology, religious or secular, is vital. But conflating the different challenges of different contexts is misleading."
Ekklesia has argued that the family and restorative justice traditions and commitments of minorities in the civic arena can operate distinctly from formal legal arrangements, which should protect all citizens regardless of creed.
It suggests that general contract law provides a way of translating local agreements into formal ones, where that is needed, but points out that community resolutions avoiding litigation have their own value - provided they do not discriminate against or marginalise particular groups of people, such as women, whose equal rights are upheld in the common civil code.
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