The Wardman Wire

The Archbishop of Canterbury on Freedom of Speech and Blasphemy

This is an introduction to a short series of articles sparked by a note on Dave Walker’s cartoon blog about a speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury:

I was distracted this morning by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent speech about Religious Offence and who should be allowed to cause it. I haven’t decided what I think yet. He says some good things, but I’m not sure I agree with all his conclusions. All I can say is that it needs more thought than has been given by some prominent bloggers, who don’t bother to look up the original speech and just hurl abuse. This seems to be a more well thought out critique. I’d be interested to read comments by those who agree with the Archbishop.

There are two aspects to this: the debate that the Archbishop has entered and how that debate is being conducted.

Cowboys shooting from the Hip?

Some bloggers and commentators have been throwing buckets of bile in the ABC’s (ABC: Archbishop of Canterbury) general direction, without apparently having the foggiest understanding of the subject he was addressing - or the British context to which he was speaking. To quote a few comments:

• “Pointless man offers stupid opinion” (Link). These are comments on this post:
  • “Britons already have allowed their right of self-defense to be taken from them; freedom of speech is always the next to go. If –Rowan had showed the slightest bit of common sense or intelligence in the past, I might surmise that he was angling for the position of High Chancellor.”
  • “This is good news for America - they will see the scary effects of creeping fascism/Sharia in Britain, and thus the 40% of Americans who still have common sense will react to prevent this for going to far in the US. Sane Brits will move to the US or Australia. The rest will become Dhimmis.”
  • “Swampy has turned out to be the most foolish Archbishop in living memory.Try as I might, I can find nothing Christian in his vicious idea.”
• “REPLACING BRITISH BLASPHEMY LAWS with a ban on being thoughtless and cruel.
  How about a law against being laughable and pathetic?” (Link) (This one is a law professor).

There’s been a more informed debate going on over at Stand Firm in the comments, and at Dave’s own blog.

And what did he actually say

You can get a hint of the fact that this is a semi-academic lecture, which needs far more than knee-jerk reactions (never mind knee-jerk reactions from those who do not know British Law and history), from the final paragraph of :

I have attempted to go a little below the surface in the discussion about what protection religious believers should enjoy from the law of the land, in order to pinpoint some of the related issues around what is actually desirable and morally defensible in a society that is ‘procedurally secular’ but genuinely open to the audibility of religious voices in public debate. It is clear that the old blasphemy law is unworkable and that its assumptions are not those of contemporary lawmakers and citizens overall. But as we think about the adequacy of what is coming to replace it, we should not, I believe, miss the opportunity of asking the larger questions about what is just and good for individuals and groups in our society who hold religious beliefs. As a believer, I think, of course, that what is just and good for such persons is also crucial to the justice and goodness, indeed the sustainability, of the whole society, in a very strong sense. But I also think that even the unbeliever or agnostic might reasonably ask how authentic are the claims of our society to proper democratic pluralism if we cannot do justice to this particular kind of variety in our public life and conversation.

Ho-hum. Welcome back to 2007

To me it looks like a reprise of the process that happened last December, when - again - we had a whole series of people jumping on a Times article and reaching conclusions on the basis of a conflation of about 2% of the actual material.

What do I say?

This was my initial comment over on Stand Firm (which is a traditionalist Anglican blog):

I have 2 questions (and I will respond on my own blog when I have digested the ABC’s lecture).

1 - How many of the prominent bloggers (Instapundit et al) diving into this have read the lecture rather than the Times report. We all know how simplistic and inflammatory recent Times Online reports of ABC speeches have been. Why are people even taking any notice of a report on the ABC in that paper?

2 - Echoing Mousestalker, this is the ABC talking in a memorial lecture to a British Prime Minister about British Law reflecting British history in a British context in his role as a participant in the British political process.

WTF are all these North Americans sticking their oar into our internal political debate for? What’s it got to do with them?

I’m tempted to say “butt out” (it’s what they would say to us if we did the same thing with North American laws), but I haven’t spent enough time reflecting yet to know whether that’s what I think.

We all know:

a) What happened when Brits attempted to have an influence North American elections (cf the “twinning” project the Guardian newspaper ran at the last US Presidential Election last time). The linked article is entitled “Dear Limey Assholes“.

b) How resolute ECUSA has been in defending their “ecclesiastical sovereignty”, regardless of the impact on the rest of the Communion (recognising that many readers of SF probably don’t have much truck with the national ECUSA leadership at this time).

[Note to Wardman Wire Readers: ECUSA - Episcopal Church of the USA, SF = Stand Firm]

What are we doing

There are areas we will be looking at:

1. Looking at what the ABC has said, and reacting to it. This should be out this evening, with more detail later.
2. Responding to the over-hasty reactions of some bloggers, and how that is cheapening an important debate. This should be out on Friday.

I’m also tempted to have a detailed look at how the Times Online is reporting religion, but I may leave that one alone for now due to time available.

Watch this space.