The Archbishop And The Prime Minister: Religion And Politics In Britain

"Like" the Patheos Progressive Christian Page on Facebook to receive today's best commentary on Progressive Christian issues. Editorial Note : For the next four weeks, while in residence at Gladstone's Library in Wales, one of the world's great research centers for theology and politics, Greg Garrett will write about British religion, culture, and politics in hopes that these essays might shed fresh light on American issues.

Rowan Williams, The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury , has one of the best-known faces in England, and it is splashed almost life-size across the cover of the 13 June issue of New Statesman for which he served as guest editor—and in which he stirred up major controversy. The New Statesman has been published for a hundred years, and has always championed liberal values, but it isn't the Archbishop's presence in a left-of-center magazine that sparked a media flurry; it was the perceived criticism of the sitting British government, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, for its proposed massive cuts to health, education, and welfare in support of its Big Society initiative.

The Archbishop's remarks were condemned by some over here as being pure party politics, and these condemnations were loud and substantial: the liberal Guardian described the outcry as a "convocation of critics." The Telegraph , which splashed this controversy across its front page, also featured a commentary that found the Archbishop's criticisms "muddled and patronizing," and suggested he seemed like a politician jockeying for position. In an editorial , The Daily Mail , a popular tabloid, called the Archbishop's comments "ill-judged" and "blatantly political," accused him of arrogance, and suggested his engagement with these political issues discredited him.

The Prime Minister himself shot back at the Archbishop at a later news conference, saying, "The Archbishop of Canterbury is entirely free to express political views," but "I profoundly disagree with many of the views that he has expressed." All in all, media watchers concluded it was the strongest and most partisan attack by the Archbishop of Canterbury on a sitting government in decades.

I myself disagree, at least in terms of the commentary being a partisan attack on the government. A few sound bites aside—and it is always dangerous to try and sound-bite Rowan Williams, a writer and speaker who constructs beautiful and intricate arguments—the Archbishop's commentary seemed to me, as to The Guardian , instead to be inviting people to dialogue about the future of British democracy and about the building of sustainable communities where individuals care about more than simply themselves. It also seemed to challenge both the Government and the Opposition as it called for "a democracy capable of real argument about shared needs and hopes and real generosity." But such a measured and thoughtful invitation to the table, although it is typical of Williams both as theologian and as Archbishop, doesn't sell papers or attract listeners; as even a producer at the magisterial BBC said to me about the selling of the New Statesman commentary as a story, "We do have to have news."

Americans might have trouble comprehending why Rowan Williams' words have caused such a media and political uproar. In the States, religious figures regularly criticize legislation, court decisions, and government leaders. Conservative preachers and priests castigate the Obama government for failing to defend the Defense of Marriage act; progressive religious leaders condemn the Obama administration for failing to close Guantanamo Bay. This criticism is not unexpected, and often, unlike Prime Minister Cameron's high-profile response, it goes unremarked. All Americans consider that they have the right and privilege to comment on their government, and the only restriction we place on political dialogue from American religious leaders is that attempts to influence voters from the pulpit may jeopardize a church's tax-exempt status.

The difference between our two situations is that over here the Church of England—of which Rowan Williams is the religious head—is the official and established church, and the ties between Church and State run deep. According to the official website of the monarchy , the Queen of England is titled the "defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England," and priests and bishops take an oath of allegiance directly to her. After the previous Archbishop of Canterbury has been given permission by the queen to step down, a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen in consultation with the prime minister and approved by the queen. Moreover, the Archbishop and twenty-five other Anglican bishops and archbishops sit in the House of Lords as the so-called "Lords Spiritual," and the Archbishop of Canterbury often speaks in the Lords on ethical and spiritual issues, as well he should; few people are better informed or more seriously engaged with such questions.

The connection between church and state in Britain is thus very different from that in the United States, where our First Amendment assured that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." From the outset, Americans resolved that we did not wish to have an established church, and while religious freedom was hardly uniform among the Colonies, the diverse religious traditions represented by our settlers mitigated against any single official expression of it. But did we lose anything in choosing not to have an established church?

The Church of England has provided a backbone of tradition and liturgy most apparent during the recent Royal Wedding when Rowan Williams and the Dean of Westminster Abbey presided at a fairy-tale confluence of Church and State. As the nation has grown more diverse and actual church attendance less and less a part of national life, many observers have noted that the parish church and the Anglican prayer book have continued to provide a core identity for even those Britons who feel no attraction to Christianity. As novelist Philip Pullman, an atheist, noted in an essay in the offending issue of the New Statesman , the Anglican way remains part of the "customs of his tribe":

We can't abandon those early memories, by which I mean both that it's impossible and that it would be wrong. It is those that have made us and not we ourselves. . . . I'm not a believer, but at the same time it is my business: because of those memories of mine and because the Church of England is the established church of this nation. It belongs to all of us. We're all entitled to hold opinions about it .

Tradition and common values are all very fine, however the Williams kerfuffle brings up the obvious negative of an established church where national politics are concerned: How does the government's church criticize the government? How can it serve as a countercultural force when it is an established part of the culture? How does it condemn Constantine when Constantine has given so much to the church and to those who make it run?

Although he is the religious leader of a national church, Rowan Williams is also the convener of one of the world's largest gatherings of Christians, the Anglican Communion. He is also a Christian theologian and ethicist of the first rank. Thus, whatever the political fallout, he simply cannot keep silent when he witnesses what he perceives to be inequity or injustice, even though his position in the Established Church may cause others to believe he should remain still. He is a Christian leader first, a British leader second, and where those roles come into tension, it is his identity as follower of Christ which must take precedence—and does.

Williams was criticized last summer for his supposed naiveté in opposing the Trident nuclear missile (which he also did in 2006 during the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair), and more recently for suggesting that the killing of Osama bin Laden, while a happy political outcome, was not an event to be celebrated. The Archbishop has actually, at one time or another, made those on the left and the right angry, and that is perhaps as it should be. As Nick Spencer wrote in The Guardian , offending all parties "underlines the idea that the gospel for which the archbishop is such a prominent ambassador cuts rudely across our narrow political mentalities." And British evangelical Krish Kandiah wrote that

I share neither a political loyalty nor a denominational affiliation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I admire his willingness to speak courageously and graciously in the name of Christ. He models for the rest of us a willingness to engage in the political discourse, to champion the rights not of Christians but of the needy and marginalized, and to offer sensible, nuanced, firm and gracious counsel to both government and opposition.

The Church of England continues to be Established, although current debate about continuing that status is also loud and substantial over here. But even though it remains the institutional church of Britain, the Church of England is first and foremost Christian, and when the Archbishop speaks for those without a voice, stands up for peace and justice, and invites those on opposing sides to come together and seek reconciliation, he is reminding the entire world whose we are and what we do. And that, it seems to me, is worth the risk of controversy.

I will write again next week from this lovely island. May the Lord bless and keep you until then.

The Archbishop and the Prime Minister: Religion and Politics in Britain