Simon Barrow (London, Ekklesia): What on earth is Rowan Williams on about? The Archbishop of Canterbury is being widely interpreted as saying, in a BBC World at One interview and in his Temple Festival foundation lecture on ‘Civil and religious law in England: a religious perspective’, that aspects of Sharia should be incorporated in or alongside the English legal system recognised by world jurisprudence. What he’s actually arguing is something rather more modest: that in the restricted areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance and custody, voluntarily entered Muslim communal judgements might be recognised within what would remain a common framework of law, in the same way as now applies to some Jewish family law customs.
He adds that “no 'supplementary' jurisdiction [should] have the power to deny access to the [universal] rights granted to other citizens or to punish its members for claiming those rights”, but he clearly thinks some kind of accommodation would create a greater sense of recognition of Muslim communities while not fundamentally undermining either the civil or the criminal law of the land.
It’s not quite such an outlandish suggestion as the headlines and knee-jerk reactions of politicians who haven’t read his nuanced speech might make you think, but I still think it’s heading in precisely the wrong direction – though thankfully, without a prayer. At present the law of the Established Church and the law of the land, in the case of marriage, are conjoined. If they were separated, so that the ritual and covenantal understandings of faith communities were one thing, and the kind of civil partnerships offered by the state were something else, both the voluntary practice of religiously grounded duty and the integrity of a common legal framework would be preserved. The same would apply to Jewish, Muslim or any other customs and practices.
Likewise, blasphemy is not an issue the state should be involved in. Nor is the power of the state something religious groups should use to enforce their own codes of speech and behaviour. Public order should protect all citizens from harm, threat and harassment. Offence and insult are things people have to work through in civil society and through mediation.
The position I am advocating is based on the distinction between civil society and the state, voluntary association and statutory provision or protection. But the head of the Church of England, who favoured disestablishment when he was in Wales, seems to have got caught up with a mentality that says the only way to grant proper recognition to voluntary communities (religious ones, especially) is for them somehow to be incorporated in the jurisdictions of universal governance. Bad idea.
In an odd way, the Archbishop seems to be recognising that particular privileges for the Church of England are not on. But he is also being leant on to preserve them by seeking to construct a multi-faith establishment instead. That is no more credible or justifiable, it seems to me. His loss of a clear nonconformist conscience is unhelpful. Nonetheless, the issues ought to be discussable, and the anti-Muslim hysteria that seems to have conditioned some reactions to what Rowan Williams did (or didn’t say) is disturbing. We have a problem of cohesion and recognition, to be sure. But the way to solve it is by voluntary cooperation and civic action, not the collusion of religion with governance and vice versa. That is the Christendom era from which we are, rightly, retreating.
Simon Barrow is director of the religion and society think-tank, Ekklesia.
