As reported by the BBC, the Archbishop of Canterbury has attracted widespread criticism after appearing to back the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law in the U.K. This article goes on to explain that "under English law, people may devise their own way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process. Muslim Sharia courts and Orthodox Jewish courts which already exist in the U.K. come into this category."
In response, the senior member of the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod, who insisted on remaining anonymous, told The Times: "A lot of people will now have lost confidence in him. I am just so shocked, and cannot believe a man of his intelligence could be so gullible. I can only assume that all the Muslims he meets are senior leaders of the community who tell him what a wonderful book the Koran is."
My friend Jonny Baker posted via his blog that "Richard Sudworth has an excellent response to this controversy." In this article, Sudworth observes that "For most people sharia = stonings for adultery, hands chopped off for stealing and institutionalised misogyny." However, he challenges this misperception. "The vast bulk of Islamic laws that are invoked within Muslim communities (yes, present tense because it is a current reality here in Britain) concern family relationships (divorce and separation), and inheritance matters. The trouble is, the media and our beloved political establishment are either not intelligent enough to know this or, and God forbid this be the case, prefer to play to the simplistic public perception of sharia = stonings for short-term electoral expediency."
Becky Garrison explores reaching those for whom church is not in their vocabulary in her book Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church.
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