Ban on the burka reveals our fear of Islam

For what it is worth, I think Belgium's decision to ban the burka, and France's consideration of the same says very little about a European concern for women's liberation and an awful lot about our fear of Islam.

At the same time, I don't think this is, as Amnesty International have apparently argued, an issue to be resolved by an appeal to human rights or religious freedom (though essentially I'm personally committed to both).

Why do I think it is a move based on fear? Well, imagine a situation where a slightly loopy man decided not to go out in public except wearing a Zorro mask. We would think him sad, he would probably be jeered at by children, and he might cause some alarm in banks. But we would not expect to see the police arrest him, or want Parliament to be bothered with legislation to prevent his eccentricity.

Now our modern advocates of secularism are all for reminding us that religious people are all 'fruit loops' who believe in a 'magical friend' or something similar, and that our outlook is laughable and our influence is waning prior to our inevitable and much-to-be welcomed demise.

But surely what is sauce for the Christian goose (because that is where most of these remarks are directed) is equally sauce for the Muslim gander, the Jewish duck and so on?

In other words, Muslim women in burkas are just a gaggle of equally fruit-loopy people, who are just as much to be pitied as our hypothetical Zorro-mask wearer. And although we should perhaps, in the interests of public order, protect them from the jeers of children, we will have to work jolly hard (if we are secularists) not to despise them just a little bit for the folly of their own practices and the iniquity of them passing their empty notions onto their children.

But given that their ideas are stupid, their practices eccentric and their beliefs doomed to die out, what's Parliament got to do with it? A few more years, a bit more education and the burka will go the way of the Vestal Virgin's distinctive outfit.

That, at least, is what a confident secular society ought to think.

So why the need for a ban?

It is, I suggest, not because we feel sympathy for the women under the burkas. It is because we feel fear. And that is something worth a bit of self-examination.

John Richardson
1 May 2010


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The head that wears the crown

Apropos my piece on who is now the ‘Supreme Governor’, in Anglican terms, of the Church of England, I note that the popular, and generally astute, Cranmer blog has this comment on EU legislation regarding sexual equality:

The spirit of Factortame is alive and well as once again Her Majesty’s Government is forced to amend a sovereign Act of Parliament in order that it might conform to a higher-sovereign EU directive.

Importantly, he adds,

There are now so many sovereigns that it is difficult to find the head that wears the crown.

As Christians (following the principles of Romans 13) we are, of course, subject to the governing authorities, whoever they are. But as Anglicans in particular, we recognize that the head that ‘wears the crown’ is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. That was part of the original, and almost unique, Anglican self-understanding at the time of the Reformation.

At his trial, Cranmer (the other Cranmer) was forced to acknowledge that in this, narrow, sense, Emperor Nero was ‘head of the church’ in the time of the apostles, which raises the worrying picture that the self-described ‘grey mouse’, Herman Van Rompuy, now fits that bill.

This is also a reminder that the Christian’s attitude to government in Romans 13 must always be offset by the Christian’s experience of government in Revelation 13. In today’s climate we might be especially aware of the warning in v 17 that “no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.”

The Babylon of Revelation is not a bad place to live, provided you toe the line. There are harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, workmen of every trade, millstones grinding, lamps shining at night and the joyful sounds of weddings filling the air, whilst the ‘great ones’ of her world are the merchants who provide the wealth to keep it all going (Rev 18:22-24).

The only people who really have to worry about life in Babylon are the Christians. “Welcome to the suck.”

John Richardson
23 November 2009

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Goodbye Church of England, hello Church of Europe?

It is a little-understood feature of Anglican theology that the relationship between the Church of England and the Queen is not entirely unique.

This is because the principle that the Queen is the Church’s ‘Supreme Governor’ depends not on the nature of the Church of England, but on the nature of the Queen’s rule. Article 37 deserves careful reading in this regard:

Where we attribute to the King’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers. (Emphasis added)

Three things should be noted. First, the powers attributed to the monarch are given by God, not designated by the Church. It is only required of the Church, therefore, to recognize those powers. Secondly, the powers of the monarch apply to all ‘estates and degrees’ under their rule, without exception. Any and every institution is governed by the monarch. Thirdly, this includes the Church of England, but applies equally to every ‘Ecclesiastical or Temporal’ body. According to this understanding, the Queen is thus ‘Supreme Governor’ of the mosques, the gurdwaras, the synagogues, the Baptist chapels, and yes, even the Roman Catholic Church in these islands.

Properly speaking, then, The Episcopal Church in the United States is the Church of America, whose Supreme Governor is Barack Obama (it matters not one whit that church and state are separated in law), the Supreme Governor of the Church of Nigeria is Umaru Yar’Adua, and so on, in just the same way as the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England (indeed, in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, England is generally italicized in such a context).

Or rather, it might be more accurate to say ‘was the Supreme Governor, up until recently’. For the reality is that, even in terms of a constitutional monarchy, she is no longer the supreme governor. That power now lies somewhere else, and since it does, the Church of England becomes, de facto, subject to that power and authority. It may be geographically still in England, but it is not the same as before.

One of the key ‘building blocks’ of the Henrician Reformation was the 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals, the opening paragraph of which read as follows:

Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realmof England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king ... etc.

This principle, together with the older Statute of Praemunire, was the basis on which it was declared in the Act (to the clergy specifically) that all legal cases,

... shall be ... heard, examined, discussed, clearly, finally and definitively adjudged and determined within the King’s jurisdiction and authority, and not elsewhere ...

Now of course, this has not applied for some considerable time in these islands. As far as I can determine (though I am happy to be corrected), the Statute of Praemunire was repealed by the Criminal Law Act of 1967. (I vaguely recall that Enoch Powell was one of the few MPs to draw attention to the enormous significance this might have.)

However, with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, commentators are now recognizing that we are in a radically different situation regarding our own sovereignty. Indeed, it is clear that absolute sovereignty, of the kind conceived in the days of Henry and beyond, no longer applies.

The fundamental question, then, is whether the Queen is still the ‘Supreme Governor’ of England, via her ministers in Parliament. Of course she is in a ‘sentimental’ way —but is she in political reality? If she is not, then she is no longer the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

And this outcome is not a matter for debate if the political realities have changed. At his trial, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was forced to admit that in the times of the Apostles, the earthly ‘head’ of the Church was the emperor Nero. Why? Because in that capacity, he beheaded the Apostles, who had to submit to his authority (following Romans 13).

We are therefore in the curious situation where the Church of England might theologically more properly be called the Church of Europe. Even more worryingly given the possible outcome of the appointment of the EU President, we may be about to see Tony Blair about to become, in effect, its Supreme Governor.

Revd John P Richardson
7 November 2009

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