Last Saturday’s opinions linked here included Rowan Williams writing in The Times that A society that does not allow crosses or veils in public is a dangerous one.
On Sunday, he was interviewed by Roger Bolton on the radio. You can listen here (7m 21s Real Audio).
When Dr Rowan Williams returned to the UK after his visit to China, he said he felt he had stepped into the middle of what felt like a general panic about the role of religion in society. He wrote in the Times that “The proverbial visitor from Mars might have imagined that the greatest immediate threat to British society was religious war, fomented by “faith schools”, cheered on by thousands of veiled women and the Bishops benches in the House of Lords”. …Roger asked him whether it really felt like that.
Yesterday, Andrew Brown wrote about the article on Commentisfree. Read Respect underwritten by fear.
Ruth Gledhill wrote about this also, see Loving religion, til China and Europe meet.
Ruth Gledhill mentioned that ABC had been criticized for failing to meet or advocate on behalf of the underground church. One of my observations in the last few months is that certain parties are quick to scream censorship and repression when their agenda can not be openly and easily communicated. But there are groups that then quickly act to squash and discourage dialogue within their own spheres of influence. This gives an impression that it is not censorship that they are concerned about, but that they are the ones being censored. This leads into some other contemplations that there are… Read more »