I was driving to take a funeral yesterday when I heard Radio Five report an interview that the Archbishop recorded for Radio 4's The World at One (audio of the WatO inteview here). I couldn't make sense of the row. He was described as saying that the adoption of Muslim sharia law in this country was unavoidable. At that time, I hadn't heard the Archbishop's interview, but piecing together the discussion it seemed that he was suggesting that we should countenance at least two parallel legal systems, one for Muslims and another for the rest of us. I was just as horrified as everyone else, from Gordon Brown, David Cameron, and Nick Clegg to the thousands of people sending in their text messages and emails.
This afternoon, I've taken the time to read his lecture, delivered to a gathering of legal experts last night (full text here). It's a very thoughtful piece and it's absolutely clear that Rowan Williams doesn't want to see anything like the smallest concession to the brutal interpretations of sharia held by 'Islamic primitivists'. Instead he raises philosophical issues which are very relevant to our multi-cultural society and highlights the confusions about identity, affiliation and cohesion. He suggests that it's problematic to simply assert that there is one law for everyone and therefore there's no scope for any other form of jurisprudence. He doesn't deny that there is, or should be, a universal law for every citizen but he acknowledges that religious affiliations inevitably lead believers to look for additional forums in which to resolve legal questions.
He's right to point out that there are already places where such provision is made. Orthodox Jews may avail themselves of the Beth Din, a religious court to whose judgement parties may voluntarily commit themselves. It is also already possible for litigants to agree to be bound by the arbitration provided by any group (including religious groups) . And in the Anglican Church, ecclesiastical courts meet to resolve issues such as the contested removal of pews from churches. It would be natural for us at St Paul's, to attempt to resolve any matter of serious dispute within our own faith context. If the dispute were serious enough, it could be referred to ecclesiastical structures for judgement, including the Courts of the Church if the issue touched on canon law.
At the philosophical level, I understand the Archbishop to be inviting a critical and reasoned evaluation of the role of the generalised secular law of the land in framing citizenship. He proposes that this post-enlightenment view must be open to question and that in seeking to find agreed bases for cohesive societies we should recognise that people's affiliations extend into other overlapping identities, including the religious. He calls for an unprejudiced assessment of sharia as something very different from the obscene and violent interpretations seen in some parts of the world and he appears to propose that a kinder, softer, more authentic sharia can be uncovered. For raising these possibilities, Rowan Williams doesn't deserve the condemnation he's received.
My problem is that while it may be theoretically legitimate to separate the religious from the cultural it is practically unrealistic in this context. The overlapping affiliations that define identity must include cultures, as well as faiths. Rowan Williams wants the state to take seriously the particular religious commitments of its citizens. Quite so, but if this is because persons derive their identity from these voluntary commitments then the state must also recognise quasi-religious and cultural affiliations as well. This is fraught with difficulty; cultures and sub-cultures would be able to claim a legitimacy simply because they had adherents. This would bring the grim possibility of cultic, misogynist, homophobic or racist sub-cultures claiming the right to make their own legal rulings. Where would the boundaries be drawn?
Gang-cultures are an example of highly-ethicised, identity-giving sub-cultures which, through the consent of their members, wield powerful sanctions and modes of redress when their codes are broken. They gain power through both an instinctive tribalism and through the dissociation of the individual from wider civic society. Though extreme examples, clans and gangs model for us the worst aspects of the localised legal regime - bullying, intimidation, and oppression. The state-wide system of universal law, for all its faults, came into being at least in part to offer every citizen protection against the mob.
We should share the Archbishop's concern for cultural cohesion. In a place like Oadby, it's essential that we find ways of relating, including transacting legal processes, which are inclusive. But I doubt that enhanced recognition for religious legal frameworks would do this. I fear that such developments would intensify cultural identities and reduce the common bonds of commitment to wider society. And I'm not convinced that the most marginalised and oppressed people within the minority groups would be sufficiently empowered to decline to participate in their processes.
As a Christian, I am inclined to always seek the mind of God in any contended situation. I trust that this may be discerned and received through the faith community to which I belong and through its structures. But I am also aware of the potential for misreading God, misunderstanding the prejudices of my friends and me as the mind of God, and excluding the weakest and the most marginal. I am content, though not always happy, to entrust and submit myself to the universal law of the land. Where this law clashes with my faith, my redress is to protest, to elect new lawmakers, or in conscience to disobey the law and to face the consequences. What I cannot do, is to claim special privilege on the basis of my faith and absent myself from the demands of the law of the state.
The New Testament makes it clear that Christians should live by codes which demand a higher morality than that required by the law of the land. But it's also clear that for every Christian, obedience to temporal authority is necessary. "be subject to rulers and authorities... be obedient." Titus 3.1.
The archbishop was absolutely right to ask whether we can find better ways in law of increasing cohesion and mutual commitment. However, striving to achieve consensus on what it means to be British, including what it means to participate in civic society and to be subject to the law of the land, is a good place to start.
Update: The Archbishop's web site has issued a clarification of his comments here: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1581
