Prince of Darkness, the Archbishop and the Counter-Enlightenment.

It is easy to dismiss Archbishop Williams as a bumbling
academic lost in a fog of convoluted and contradictory
statements. Do not be fooled. Beneath all the waffle
he has in fact a very clear objective. He wants to
reverse the erosion of the role of religion in public
life that brought the Western democracies out of the
darkness of their theocratic and monarchial pasts.
This is not to deny the many important benign formative
influences of the Christian outlook. Thanks, but we have
grown up now and we need to move on. So, the Archbishop, who
has no particular interest in the enlightenment would
, I believe, be quite happy to see it rolled back in
order to entrench the position of his religion, all
religions in public life. To this end he reaches out to
all the other hot hocus-pocus players. If he can please
them and secure their thingies in a " pick an mix"
bazaar of laws and privileges, it also bolsters the
defences and existing privileges of the Anglican
Church. With immams, rabbis, shamans and cardinals etc, given
seats alongside his bishops in the Lords, the religious
cobweb is strengthend.


We live in dangerous times and should immediately
disestablish the Church of England. All religions
whose practices do not violate the law of the land
, knocked together by the humanity and bravery of
our ancestors, should be allowed. However, no office
in public affairs should be granted to a person
simply because they are a religious notable. Watch
this Archbishop. He may have a Father Christmas beard
but he is, as the cockneys would say, a tad moody.