A LONE protester, Muslim groups, and the Prime Minister offered their support to Dr Williams this week — despite strong criticism from many politicians, leaders of the Anglican Communion (including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey), and large sections of the media.The opposition to Dr Williams was on an unprecedented scale: the BBC received a record number of emails after the Archbishop was interviewed on The World at One on Thursday — almost all vehemently disagreeing with him.
Many web forums were also filled with negative and intemperate comments against him.
“If The Sun can send its Page 3 girls to Lambeth, I felt I had to come as well,” said Steve Rhodes, a barrister who wore a placard with the words “Support Rowan Williams” and “More reason, less fear” during a one-man protest on Monday.
The Prime Minister also spoke in support, saying that Dr Williams was a man of “great integrity”.
A Downing Street spokesman added on Monday that Mr Brown understood the “difficulties” Dr Williams was facing.
The Muslim Council of Great Britain said that there should be debate within the British legal system as to whether a small aspect of Muslim family and personal law about marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance could be accommodated.
The Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations in Cambridge said that there should be deeper reflection in the light of the Archbishop’s lecture, which “had been taken out of context and blown out of proportion”.
The Christian Muslim Forum described Dr Williams’s lecture as “significant”, and that he had raised the vital issue of how to allow religious conscience and belief within the framework of UK law.
The Labour MP Alun Michael, who chairs the Christian Socialist Movement, described the media reaction to the Archbishop’s words as “hysterical and largely uninformed”.
There was no justification for the way his contribution had been misrepresented.
But both the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Andy Burnham MP, and the Opposition spokeswoman Baroness Warsi, criticised the Archbishop’s remarks as unhelpful.
Mr Burnham said: “If people choose to live in this country, they choose to abide by that law and that law alone.”
A statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales was more cautious.
The Archbishop had raised an important debate, it said, but: “There are also wider implications, as the press coverage of his remarks made clear.”
In a BBC interview, the Bishop of Jos, Northern Nigeria, the Rt Revd Ben Kwashi, said that he was shocked and disappointed. Sharia is practised in his diocese, and he pointed to the cutting off of hands in Zamfara state, and the case of a woman in Kaduna who was sentenced to be stoned to death. By introducing some parts of sharia, the rest would follow, he said.
The Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, the Most Revd Greg Venables, also expressed concern in a BBC interview about the timing of the speech, when, he said, there was tension between Christians and Muslims in some parts of the world.
“Taken within the context of other things that have been said and done in recent months, it would just add to a general sense that confidence in the leadership of the Anglican Church has plummeted,” he said.
Lord Carey wrote articles criticising Dr Williams’s remarks in two Sunday newspapers, The Sunday Telegraph and the News of the World .
The United Reformed Church expressed its support: “We welcome the Archbishop’s initiative in raising the issue.”
Before Synod began, the Bishops of Blackburn, Lincoln, Norwich, and Southwell & Nottingham all issued statements in support of the Archbishop.
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