 BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britainâs Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath. The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a âpublic act of repentanceâ. The bishops admit that their suggestion is provocative and bound to attract publicity massive criticism, but insist it is not âa cheap gestureâ.
| I think eventually, and possibly soon, the Church of England is going to reach its tipping point and just disappear for lack of anyone who gives a rat's patou. They've built up such a stock of lip-wristed warm milk pronouncements that no one possessing a testicle (or preferring the company of people with testicles) is going to be able to take them seriously. |
Their renewed condemnation of Britainâs role in Iraq since the 2003 invasion will further widen the rift with Downing Street.
 | It's fashionable to "question authority." The Church of England, however, is kinda by definition a part of the Establishmentâ¢. Since they've ceased fulfilling their function as defined by Henry and Elizabeth, that's still more reason for them to disappear, to be replaced by a puppy which can then be given away. |
The proposal for a public apology comes in a new report published today. In the report, the bishops plead for more âunderstandingâ of what motivates terrorists.
| It's obvious Their Excellencies don't read Rantburg or any other publication that actually does examine the motivations of terrorists. If they do, the certainly don't apply their findings to the Christian concepts of good and evil. |
They criticise Western democracies as âdeeply flawedâ and accuse the US of dangerous expansionism.
| If Western democracies are "deeply flawed," what are Middle Eastern autocracies? What are the differences between the two? Is the flawed system that's subject to control preferable to the degenerate system that's beyond the control of those effected? Time limit is one hour. Turn in your blue books to Miss Fishbreath when completed. |
The bishops, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, want Christian leaders to express their repentance in an âact of truth and reconciliationâ for the Westâs contribution to the problems in Iraq. The bishops cite as precedents the official statements by the Vatican expressing sorrow for the Christian persecution of the Jewish people throughout the ages, the repentance by the Anglican Church in Japan for its complicity in Japanese aggression during the Second World War and the regret expressed by leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa for their theological and political backing of apartheid.
| Kind of a perfect wave of warm milk, isn't it? The propensity of Christian holy men to apologize for thing they're not responsible for can be breath-taking. I'm still waiting for the reciprocal mass apologies from the Learned Elders of Islam. |
The bishops cite a âlong litanyâ of errors in the Westâs handling of Iraq, including its past support for Saddam Hussein, its willingness to sell him weapons and the suffering caused to the Iraqi people by sanctions.
| "Past support" for Sammy was actually pretty far in the past, and it wasn't what you'd call a cozy level of support. While there was a certain amount of Western commerce with the Baathists, the great majority of the support his regime received came from the Soviet Union. That's especially true of that willingness to sell him weapons. Such trade as the U.S. engaged in was limited by law to non-military items, the exception being the limited support extended during the war with Iran. The sanctions resulted in suffering for the Iraqis â and not as great suffering as was presented in the course of the propaganda campaign â because of the way Sammy jobbed the Oil for Food program. |
However, the bishops acknowledge that it would be âirresponsibleâ to withdraw British troops in the current chaos, adding that the forces should remain until there is a secure Iraqi regime in place.
| Mighty daggone generous of them. |
 In the report, Countering Terrorism, Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, the bishops acknowledge the impact of the July London bombings.
| That establishes them as reasonable men, y'see... |
The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend Richard Harries, one of the authors, concedes that all governments have a âproper responsibilityâ to take the steps necessary to safeguard their citizens. But he says that the steps should not âinfringe hard-won civil libertiesâ.
| In other words the gummint should safeguard their citizens unless safeguarding them might result in infringing their liberties, despite the fact that not safeguarding them in the interest of such protection will result in the eventual loss of said liberties. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Obviously the principle of "pay me now or pay me later" is not a part of post-Christian theology. |
Bishop Harries, the Churchâs leading apologist for the Christian just-war theory, says: âThe Churches have a particular message here based on biblical insights about fear and how playing on the fears of enemies makes for unwise policies.â
| I'm not too sure where he got that. Seems to me they spent a lot of time in the Old Testament either striking fear in the hearts of Jebusites and Amalekites and suchlike or having similar fears struck in their own hearts. We might also add that in a war on terrorism â the point of which is to strike fear in the hearts of the inoffensive â a bit of counterstriking might actually be in order as a tactic. |
He goes on to argue that to many people, it is not terrorism but American foreign policy and expansionism that constitute âthe major threat to peaceâ.
| That's a very fashionable position to take, but fashion doesn't dictate truth. We didn't fly any aircraft into somebody else's buildings. We didn't invade Kuwait. We don't run terror networks. We don't cut people's heads off on the teevee. |
He says: âWe suggest that the United States, like all major powers in history, does indeed seek to expand its economic, political and military influence and power. What distinguishes it from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness. In this there is both sincere conviction and dangerous illusion.â
| He's not doing a very convincing job of dispelling the illusion, though. And he doesn't pause for a second to consider the possibility that we're right. The expansion of our economic power is pretty peaceful, his bitch being that McDonalds and KFC and Gap and Madonna are displacing the local couscous or goatmeat shack, and kids wear tee shirts instead of colorful traditional native garb, and they listen to music that's either Western or Western-inspired. That displacement isn't the result of force of arms but of the competition of ideas, and the guardians of the ideas that are being displaced are bitching about it even while their kids kick up the volume on the iPods to drown out the noise. It's that displacement of ideas that's the "root cause" of terrorism, a reaction against new and competing concepts that includes Evangelical Christianity. The Church of England is decidedly not Evangelical, they're incapable of competing with much of anyone in the field of ideas, and as a result they find themselves on the side of the displaced, among the dictators and beturbanned holy men, warlords, oligarchs, and similar riff-raff, trying to enforce their obsolete droits du seigneur. |
He is also critical of the power of the so-called Christian Right on Washingtonâs policies. The bishops question the US sense of âmoral righteousnessâ and criticise the use of biblical texts by some in the US to support a political agenda in the Middle East. The bishops say: âThere is no uniquely righteous nation.â
| Obviously there's not a uniquely righteous body of holy men, either. But that doesn't mean that it's a useless excercise to attempt to pursue righteousness in the antique Christian sense, nor does it mean that some societies don't come closer to righteousness than others. That could have something to do with why their Lordships the Bishops aren't competetive in the field of ideas anymore, too, since they've obviously stopped looking for the paths of righteousness even as they've retired to the theological bathroom to explore their sexuality. |
Drawing up a 13-point schedule of âChristian principlesâ in response to the terror crisis, they call for states to âunderstandâ the perspective of their terrorist antagonists. âWinning hearts and minds is absolutely fundamental in countering terrorism,â they say.
| What if you truly understand the enemy and discover that you hate his principles? What if you discover that the world will be a better place after the enemy's been crushed, his major power centers destroyed, his intellectual guides killed? What if you discover that they're so evil you don't care about their hearts and minds and want to concentrate on killing them? Would Their Excellencies the Bishops recognize Evil if it came up to them and kissed them? Would they recognize it if it tried to kill them? The Lord suggested turning the other cheek, but he had a good idea of how many cheeks he possessed. |
States must address the âlong-standing grievancesâ of the terrorists and even, perhaps, offer them economic support.
| Why? The "long-standing grievances" of the terrorists are based in the fact that they lost Andalusia, they lost at Lepanto, they lost at the gates of Vienna. Now they're losing the war of ideas. The nations they have controlled have been cultural and economic backwaters, their only international significance having been their irritation factor. If my house is infested with cockroaches, I'm not going to address their grievances and I'm certainly not going to offer them economic support. I'm going to call an exterminator. |
They go on to condemn the Western style of democracy, saying that it cannot be imposed on any other country by force. âDemocracy as we have it in the West at the moment is deeply flawed and its serious shortcomings need to be addressed,â state the bishops, members of the only unelected house in the Churchâs own governing democratic body, the General Synod. Even using the term âwar on terrorismâ is, like the war on drugs of the 1980s, a piece of âdangerous rhetoricâ.
| "Dangerous rhetoric" to me is the imam down at the local mosque calling for jihad against his infidels neighbors. I've no doubt that Their Lordships the Bishops would condemn the Western style of democracy, since it doesn't include automatic deferrence to one's betters. Instead, it contains those principles they'd find antithetical: individual liberty, the freedom to choose one's religion or lack thereof, the ability to think for oneself, to change social classes, the possibility of excelling along with the risk of failure. These are ideas that have been banging against the intellectual gates of the Church of England ever since Calvin and Knox and Wesley, to which the church often grudgingly adapted. But once they got the "social justice" pablum served up by Marxists they thought they found a counterargument, which would be guaranteed outcomes of all that nasty striving and thinking and action. Since they still have to compete, and since they've never been really good at defining the concepts of right and wrong even at their peak, they're on the side of the losers, which is where they'll remain. |
The 100-page report states: âReligion is now a major player on the public stage of the world in a way that few foresaw two decades ago. We believe that the Churches have an important role to play, not simply in urging the importance and applicability of Christian principles, but in a proper awareness of the role of religion, for good as well as ill, and initiatives it might take towards reconciliation between adversaries.â
| My previous point is made: notice they don't suggest competing against their adversaries, notice in fact that they don't even regard the adversaries as their adversaries. They prefer to maintain neutrality, rather like they do with the concept of sin. |
The bishops plead for understanding of Iranâs nuclear ambitions. âThe public and political rhetoric that Iran is a rogue regime, an outpost of tyranny, is as fallacious as the Iranian description of the US as the Great Satan. Iranâs relationship with Islamic terrorist organisations should not be seen as proof of any al-Qaeda link.â
| But it should certainly be seen as a relationship with terrorist organizations, shouldn't it? Or should the fact that Iran is and has been for 30 years a major player in the Wonderful World of Terror be ignored because they are only allied with al-Qaeda tactically? |
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