A week is a long time in an archiepiscopacy, as Dr Rowan Williams found last week. First, a learned lecture, coupled with a radio interview. Then vitriol poured upon vitriol through newspaper headlines. There were 17,000 emails of complaint to the BBC and 30,000 to one newspaper alone, expressing outrage at the Archbishop of Canterbury's thoughts on Islam and sharia law. But, day by day, a more considered response has emerged. Did Dr Williams, in his lecture on "Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective", have an important point after all, about the place of faith in the public square?
Dr Williams has had a tumultuous time as Archbishop of Canterbury, his five years at Lambeth Palace marked above all by rows about homosexuality and the priesthood, both in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. These rows have been observed by the secular world, more at ease with gay people in its midst, with bemusement and dismay. But for the secular world, the place of Islam in society is a topic with which it is most definitely ill at ease. A combination of understandable fear of Islamic terrorism, concern about threats to a British way of life, together with undeniable bigotry, makes for a troubling mix. Perhaps Dr Williams, in the rarefied worlds of Lambeth Palace and interfaith dialogue, had little idea of the volcanic nature of this brew, although the leading cleric in the Church of England ought to understand what bubbles beneath the surface of British society.
In raising the issue of sharia law and Islam, and the desire of some Muslims to use that law, Dr Williams was using it as an example of an undeniable development in Britain: that as society becomes increasingly secular, so the space for religion is squeezed.
That message was in danger of being lost amid the initial uproar. Dr Williams was right, when he addressed the synod on Monday, to acknowledge his culpability - what he called his unclarity - for the material of the lecture was undoubtedly dense. His startling claim that introducing some aspects of sharia in Britain is unavoidable caused puzzlement as well as shock. To many, it seemed that the archbishop no longer supported the equality of all before the law, a law originating in Judaeo-Christian teaching. But his broader message still stands - that the process of secularisation is eating away at society. Too often, people of faith feel they no longer fit. In the last few years this publication has reported regularly on the difficulties of religion finding an accommodation with society. In countries such as Turkey and France, enforced secularism is under pressure. In Britain, with its intertwined established Church and State, and its failed twentieth-century experiment in multiculturalism, the pull is the other way.
There might have been a naivety, a clumsiness and opaqueness about Dr Williams' comments. But he spoke about a problem in a way that soundbite politicians fight shy of. If his aim was to intensify the debate about British identity, he succeeded. The difficulty is that, rather than society having a stable identity, whether religious or secular, which its members collectively defend, the modern age is a time of unstable identity that must be thought about. Dr Williams had the intelligence to recognise this; he had the courage to speak about it. The challenge now is to continue the debate.
