The dependably dismal Archbishop of Canterbury, a man who thinks his god favours a massive force backed regulatory state which takes one person’s wealth implicitly at gunpoint and gives it to someone else, get a well phrased hammering by Graeme Archer:
It is obscene, Dr Williams, that some people choose not to work, and are better off as a consequence than those who do not make such a choice. Such people are less deserving than others. If there are no jobs available, what are all these Polish men doing on this bus, at 6.30am? They deserve more than to be viewed as taxable cart-horses.
And you? On an average salary? Trying to raise a child and thinking about having another? Coming to the conclusion that you might be able to balance commuting against mortgage costs, if you moved to an unpopular area farther out than you’d like? It must be hard for multiple houseowners such as Mr Cruddas, or the Archbishop in his palace, to understand: this is life, for most of us. And we’re not fascists because we make a distinction between the deserving and the undeserving when we see where our tax is spent.
Read the whole thing. My only regret is Archer does not follow the moral argument to its logical conclusion.
I don’t know about the British practice, but at one time it was common in the US for a rural Protestant congregation to provide its parson with a farm from which he could earn a living… by farming. Perhaps Dr. Williams would find an analagous style of compensation enlightening: no pay for being Archbishop, but a guaranteed job teaching ethics to grammar school students, for instance?
BTW, who pays him for being Archbishop? I get the feeling that I know the answer, but just to be sure?
I think that the Archbishop did make an interesting point, namely that the traditions of voluntarism that sustained a smaller state in Britain in the past (think Friendly Societies etc) no longer exist.
The question is would they reassert themselves with the shrinking of the state or were they too dependent on a series of national and regional cultures that cannot be re-established even if the state does shrink?
Statists of left and right, meaning people such as the Archbishop (in his case a self-described ‘beardy leftie’) are utterly complicit in the shrinking of the ‘voluntary sector’ because, lets us be clear here, the state has progressively nationalised what used to be charity.
And in so doing, they have removed any moral choice from the works in question (as they are funded coercively rather than via freely given charity) and therefore preventing such function from being ‘charity’ at all in any way whatsoever… i.e. turning them into a purely politically derived means of redistribution of people’s money.
The big problem for the Archbishop is that he doesn’t believe the gospel is powerful enough to change people so that they’re willing to give to those who are genuinely needy. He, like most people in Britain, thinks the state is the ultimate solution for every problem and he, like most people, will be very shocked when the state fails.
Nah. The state fails and fails and fails and all they do is vote for more state.
Richard, you write, “I think that the Archbishop did make an interesting point, namely that the traditions of voluntarism that sustained a smaller state in Britain in the past (think Friendly Societies etc) no longer exist.”
I find this particularly tragic. Same process every time – private system evolves – good but not perfect – state comes along to “fill the gaps” – gradually crowds out the private, which can’t compete with a “free” service – then the state system gradually goes putrid, I think because of the force-poison inside it – and finally quite often collapses in chaos.
By this time, of course, all the voluntary networks are dead. They can be reasserted but it takes years, maybe decades, since it is a profound cultural shift, and of course there is much misery before the voluntary network can be restored, if it ever can be.
I’m glad the old boy seems to perceive the first part of this at least. Who knows, maybe the rest of it will penetrate one day.
I do think the Friendly Societies are a great thing to mention when talking to lefties. One can point out that these were systems run and sustained by the poor themselves, not imposed from above.
Alisa, asked, “who pays him for being Archbishop?”
To be fair I’m pretty sure that the answer to that is ultimately the voluntary contributions of congregations, plus the results of investments, endowments and land ownership. The C of E does not get direct government support. More here – Wikipedia knows everything.
He presumably also gets £335 for every day when he attends the House of Lords as one of the Lords Spiritual, but I don’t think it adds up to very much in comparison to his standard salary, which is £60k.
(I mention all this in case you were considering archbishoping as a career choice).
Alisa, I tried to answer your question on who pays for him being Archbishop but was, rather appropriately, smited for my presumption.
The Archbishop’s sermons from the book of Toynbee are a good example of the Establishment in action. The Establishment is not a single institution or an organised conspiracy. It is a loose network of people with similar backgrounds and similar views who hold positions of influence. It once consisted of privileged conservatives who went to expensive private schools and Oxbridge. It now consists of privileged lefties who went to expensive private schools and Oxbridge. But becoming a part of this network still depends on having the right attitudes and the right background.
Nor has it become any less reactionary. No matter what its ostensible ideology might be, the Establishment always fears change because once you’re on top there is no way to go but down. It particularly fears any change that might reduce its ability to exercise power.
So it responds to this threat by deploying all the institutions of the Establishment to rubbish the idea. The state broadcaster, the established church and the cultural Establishment will all use their bully pulpits to denounce it. This does not require any orders from the centre because a group of very similar people with very similar views will naturally respond in the same way.
But it only works if the public believes that those institutions and the people within them have moral or intellectual authority, and that belief is steadily declining.
Natalie, your reply to me has now been thankfully unsmited, but gave rise to another question: do you think they may consider a middle-aged Jewish woman with anarcho-capitalist leanings? And BTW, how often would she have to attend the House of Lords? And in what kind of attire (and what about the eyebrows)?
In any case, I have to admit that I am pleasantly surprised that he is not a government employee, as that would have added a needless insult to the injury.
Perhaps if the Bishop stuck to saving souls and the State did a little less moralising – we’d all be better off.
I’m not so sure that Dr. Williams has a monopoly on presumption here. Mr. Archer says:
I was always lead to believe that the primary motivation for people to work was the fulfillment of their own wants and desires, (and those of the families they are trying to support) first, and that any others had second (rather than first) call on the fruits of their labor. To be fair, Mr. Archer may be indirectly hinting at exactly that in the rest of the article, but I don’t think he does a strong enough job of pounding the point home (or “following the moral argument to its logical conclusion,” if you prefer).
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m wary of anyone who starts talking about a “contract” between me and people I don’t know, and who don’t know me (even the so-called deserving jobless poor). As soon as you agree with the presumption that social classes owe each other something, you’re leaving the door wide open for “helpful” types like Dr. Williams to step in and decide the amount of that “something,” seeing as how it’s already been established that Party A owes something to Party B by dint of party B’s existence.
Also, I’m unclear as to why Mr. Archer is presuming to speak for everyone else on the 254 (“What the people on the 254 would say to the Archbishop”). He tells us:
It seems like he’s doing an awful lot of surmising in that article. For all he knows, his fellow passengers might in fact be rabid supporters of Dr. Williams and his way of thinking. Perhaps if he actually spoke to his fellow passengers, he’d get a better idea of what they think? Of course, Mr. Archer makes some good points and, frankly, it’s nice to hear someone from the UK talk the way he does. However, presuming to speak for others is a trait I strongly associate with collectivists.
It would have been nice if he had made the effort to talk to a couple of his fellow passengers and gotten a quote or two from them to help support his premise. After all, he has had 90 minutes, five days a week, in which to do it. Who knows? Judging by his description of “brows creased in irritation” and whatnot, they might even have welcomed the distraction.
Finally, (and Alisa may have alluded to this earlier) Dr. Williams is, without a doubt, the possessor of the scariest set of eyebrows in existence. Honestly, those eyebrows are far better suited to someone like Anton LaVey rather than the AoC. I can’t understand why Dr. Williams is wasting his time writing editorials endorsing the continued government extortion of money from the gainfully employed when those eyebrows would seem to represent absolutely endless fundraising possibilites. Speaking for myself, I would be scrambling for my chequebook in no time flat if he were to show up on my front doorstep brandishing those absolutely frightfulappendages.
Would someone please be good enough to start up a foundation whose sole purpose would be to have those eyebrows seen to, brought under control, and regularly maintained? I’m good for a fiver.
Indeed, hence I wrote… “My only regret is Archer does not follow the moral argument to its logical conclusion.”
I do not recall ever signing any ‘contract’ myself.
I was always under the impression that Dr. Rowan Williams was a character portrayed by John Cleese in a long running sitcom. The only difficultly that John has experienced in his portrayal was melding religious thoughts, from the ancient Middle East with Dark Ages France and more modern England, into the Fawlty Tower’s script………….
The Archbishop really ought to re-read the parable of the talents. It completely torpedoes his line of preaching.
David Snell. Indeed so. And Jamess regarding that Rowan Williams does not really believe in a supernatural God. If he did he would simply trust Him a lot more.
I think the whole situation is the Marxist Frankfurt School(Link) at work, simply doing its thing – isn’t it?
Rather than the making of mistakes by the stupid.
T’is a brave new world to which they look forward.
The real tragedy here – one of them – is in the past the church actively engaged in charitable work of it’s own bat. Dr Williams now seems to thing it’s job is to lobby government to do it instead which is very much not the same thing. The CofE is continually bleating bout falling attendances* and about trying to make it’s self “relevant”.
So this is the message I would like to hammer through Dr William’s skull in morse code** with a… er… hammer?
Stop bitching about the government and do something for the poor and needy in society off your own bat. You are the spiritual leader of quite a few people in this country. Use that to the good. Go out into the community and fix things and help people. And guess what your bonus is? People will rapidly begin to find you “relevant” again. The people did so much abandon the established church*** as the other way around. Very few people give a toss about your political lobbying or theological sophistries. They would care if they saw Anglicans on the streets doing stuff.
Alisa,
I think you sound the ideal candidate. It would bring a breath of fresh air and you undoubtedly look much better in a frock!
*To a large extent these are defections to religious traditions that actually stand for something.
**Though in his case morose code might work better.
***Establishment is another issue. I’d let the CofE go myself.
Yes, I did try to acknowledge that (perhaps rather clumsily) a bit later in the post:
Archer sort of touched on the real problem in this bit:
If only he would have immediately followed that up with something like:
Of course, I’m a graduate of the Winston Churchill School of Rhetoric:
…so don’t mind me. 🙂
Obviously the Archbishop is grievously mistaken in his economic arguments, but I do feel he has a point about democratic legitimacy.
On a basic level, people vote for parties whose platforms they would prefer to see implemented. Even if the entire package is not their ideal preference, they can decide which is the lesser of the many evils.
This government is a coalition of parties that managed to renege on their manifesto commitments within days of the election, as part of their coalition agreement. Who voted for a platform that included both a binding referendum on the voting system and increased tuition fees for universities? Not one single person in the entire country.
Of course the government is legally constituted, it holds the confidence of a majority of members of the HoC, but it does not command a moral authority of a government that has won an election on its promises.
Why doesnt the archbishop write a piece decrying massive government waste?
Hes under the impression all thats needed is more money, but fails to hold the very organisation responsible for wasting most of it. Let me put it simply Mr Williams. EVERY dollar wasted is a dollar LESS to be spent where its needed.
The waste isnt due to some nebulous “other” it is actually a huge part of the system you believe can solve poverty.
I happen to think you are deluded in your faith in the state.
But surely consistency requires you to tackle waste, rather than calling for higher taxes?
I might also add you do need to have morality as part and parcel of charity. For way to long handouts have been “free for all” with little in the way of responsability.
Religion outsources/delegates personal responsibility and moral code from the individual to “God” and uses guilt and Authoritarianism as tools, so no surprise it is happy to see the outsourcing/delegation of charity from the individual to The State using the same mechanisms.
Church and State have been separated, but they are blood brothers.
No it does not. On the contrary, it places personal responsibility squarely with the individual – hence the concept of ‘sin’.
Actually you have that 180 degrees wrong, at least in the case of the catholic (small c) way of seeing things, which includes the C of E. Indeed the core concept is that of personal responsibility for the morality of your actions. I am an atheist and thus have no dog in this fight but I do understand the underpinnings of Christian thought.
The church, as she is commonly known and accepted, is the result of the takeover of most of the the functions and structure in the temporal world of the true supernatural church, by people whose concerns are rooted in political power and the affairs of the temporal world.
Much the same way that many organisations established for one purpose are subsequently taken over and redirected by those whose purposes might be quite opposite to those who founded the organisation.
A not uncommon happening.
We are, indeed, individually responsible before God.
Of course, if a person doesn’t really think God exists, then that would be a bit hard for them to be, or even to begin to understand as a realistic possibility.
I think God realises that.
Alisa – he is paid for by voluntary donation and the income from the property of the Church.
There is a big difference between an Established Church and a State Church.
It is not even the case that it is the apointment of Bishops by the state that it is the problem – as they have to be chosen from two candidates suggested by the Church (Mrs Thatcher caused some panic in the Church leadership by picking the “monkey candidate” the one that was put up as “clearly unaccepatable” so the Church could get the candidate they wanted).
The problem is “what is the Church”.
The people who go to Church (who are mostly conservative – both theologically and politically) have little (if any) power. The “synod” with its three houses (laity, clergy and bishops) is a nightmare – a classic example of “representative democracy” not being very democratic at all.
The Church of England is basically controlled by an internal network of administrators and committee meeting goers.
In short it is controlled by the letters page in the Guardian newspaper.
Theologically there are three main factions within the Church.
The “High Church” (Anglo Catholics) who are leaving.
The “Low Church” (evangelical Protestants) who are also leaving (but less quickly – because where do they go?). The last Archbishop (appointed by Mrs Thatcher) was an evangelical Protestant (and also working class – which really horrified the elite, who are all for “the workers” in theory, as long as they do not have to sit next to one).
And the “others” – called the “liberals” or the…. well or the Guardian letters page.
The others make up a tiny percentage of the Anglican Church (if one considers all the people who go to church every Sunday) – and control everything.
How to make one of the “others” really uncomfortable.
Do not debate politics with them – no, do something else.
Ask them theological questions – such as “what is your view of the doctrine of predestination….”
And resist (politely but firmly) all their efforts to change the subject to something more “relevant”.
Just carry on asking them polite questions about theology and about scripture.
After all – they are supposed to be specialists in this stuff (to really love it).
They can hardly say “bleep off with all this religion nonsense” (no matter how much they may be thinking it).
By the way – be careful to address them by their full titles (it annoys them – as was seen with Bruce Kent the “Catholic” CND man, it was found that being called “Father Bruce” really irritated him…. so we did it, endlessly).
The real tragedy here – one of them – is in the past the church actively engaged in charitable work of it’s own bat.
There’s a reason that nurses are called “sister” and British Sign Language word for “social worker” describes a priest’s stole. So much of what we think is the Great Socialist Revolution was just a takeover of the common middle class churchgoers duties.
Indeed, the reason why Williams is such an arse is that a de-socialised community would be more dependent on religiously inspired charity and add millions to his dwindling flock.
And they would do a damn better job too.
On a basic level, people vote for parties whose platforms they would prefer to see implemented.
And it’s a pity they do, instead of voting for a democratically elected representative for your interests in government, like how it was meant to be ((c) de Monfort 1265).
“Alisa – he is paid for by voluntary donation and the income from the property of the Church.”
Ah, but wasn’t all that church property stolen from the Catholic Church by Henry VIII when he broke away? And, for that matter, didn’t the Catholic Church steal much of it from the Templars, or acquire it from the sale of indungences? So isn’t it all stolen property anyway?
Ah, nothing the LVT wouldn’t fix! 🙂
Alisa – as far as I know, within the CofE, the Archbishoprics are traditionally filled with males … (hmmm – I wonder if that was the source of the name for the position – “Rowan Williams holds the Archbishopric of Canterbury” … (and all that, without a single reference to the current Democrat poster child over here) …
(innocent grin)
Which means that, sadly, absent a Swedish sojourn surgical, you probably lack the plumbing to be one …
Alisa, i think the CofE is ready for you! ‘The Bishop of Didley’ has prepared the ground, now they could do with you as the first anarcho-capitalist feminist Archbishop! Imagine the surprise when you read the ‘Old’ Testament in the original Hebrew! you might need to quote from the ‘New’ Testament now and then, but I’m sure you could bluff your way quite nicely.
Tim Carpenter- what are you talking about? some Churches might peddle rubbish like that, but not any I know! Sin is an individual matter.
And nowhere did Jesus tell his followers to take over the state and use its’ taxing powers to help the poor! With Christian charity, they were supposed to want to help the poor themselves!
I see you feel very strongly about it, Nuke! Really! You obviously do! !!! ! 🙂
You just had to go and rain on my parade Alasdair, didn’t you – and all just because you have the plumbing to do it! Bummer.
Having Jewish people leading Christian churches isn’t completely inconceivable.
One might say, there’s precedent. Not recent precedent, but precedent.
Sunfish, that reminds me of my late grandmother who used to answer a certain accusation more or less thus: “So what, we killed one of our own – none of your damn business”.
Sorry, I was not clear – what I meant was the formation and decisions what constitutes personal responsibility and morality and if/when it is transgressed.
God (and representatives/interpreters) and the State decide when this occurs, not individuals. They decide who is deserving and who is not.
Alisa @ 01:32 PM – that sounds like something from Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish … my own favourite from that book is the quote by the mohel “So what would you put in the window ?” …
Laird – we are not going to get into the “justly acquired” fantasy world are we?
As you know in the real world “justly acquired” means “you did not steal this – and the person or organization you got it from legally held it”, not “this property was never stolen in the whole of human history” (that is fantasy world stuff – not real stuff).
Of course it is normally insincere as well….
For example if it turned out that the first human being to walk into a bit of the unoccupied world and claim it was NOT dead (he has been taken away by aliens – and kept in suspended animation) and returned….. The “justly acquired down all of human history” crowd would NOT be pleased.
Why would they not be pleased?
Because they do not want to return the land to the orignal owner (oh dear me no) – they want to use the “this land was stolen by the Norman Conquest” line (or whatever) as a excuse for communalism.
I note that Rowen Williams (in a desperate effort to rebuild his relationship with ordinary Christians) is now going about how Christians are being persecuted in the Middle East.
Odd that he has been rather quiet about this before (the persecution is hardly new – although the “Arab Spring” has, of course, made it worse). Also this is the same man who said, only a couple of years ago, that Britain had to accept Islamic law – not that Rowen Williams knows anything about Islamic law of course, but it is an anti Western thing to say, so he said it in order to seem “hip” and “with it” (to show how “modern” – i.e. 1960s, he is).
As for the persecution of Christians in Britain by the secular state (not murder – but being kept out of fostering and adoption and having guest houses and so on run on Christian principles, attacked by government regualtions and court judgements…..) Rowen Williams has been silent.
In fact he has made it (quietly) known that he backs the state’s persecution of “homophobic” Christians.
What does he think of Christain doctors and nurses being forced to particpate in abortions (slavery – indeed slave labour devoted to actions that Christains, some athiests – such as the famous athiest Christopher Hitchens, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, I told you Rowen Williams knows nothing about Islamic law, regard as terrible crimes )?
Really I do not want to know what Rowen Williams thinks about this – or anything else.
That is why I find it harder and harder to call myself an Anglican.
Alasdair: that was said in Russian, but it did (as always) have very heavy Yiddish overtones:-)
‘Window’?
Alisa-
Between that and her other saying that you’ve mentioned about “smart for himself, stupid for others,” I’ve never met her but I already like her.
Paul-
Do you think there’s any point in a petition drive to have the next archbishop be someone who actually believes in some form of Protestantism?
Well Sunfish, she was one of those people that you’d be glad to have met, and even more glad to have parted from – but I won’t go there here. Suffice it to say that she was quite a character, and that I have only inherited her most admirable traits, and left the less admirable behind…;-P
Nuke: who are you calling a ‘feminist’???!!!
Paul, you are so predictable! 🙂
Paul Marks @ 08:39 AM …
A while back, folk around here were putting forth the idea that we should not talk about the Crusades because for Muslims, the Crusades (attempting to restore the Holy Land to Christians after Muslim Conquest) were “just yesterday” …
Such comments stopped happening around me after I pointed out that, if the Crusades were “just yesterday”, perhaps we should just go back to “the day before yesterday” and the then-owners of the Holy Land – who, funnily enough, were, yup, Christian …
(For the historically-challenged, if the Crussades are considered to be in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries AD (or CE, for the PC folk), then taking a midpoint of 1250 as “yesterday” gives “day before yesterday” as around 500 AD … back then, I believe that the Holy Land was Christian … thus, during the “day before yesterday”, Islam wasn’t a problem for *anyone*)
Apparently, that gets filed with a response of “Look ! Over there ! Shiny !” …
Alisa, I would have thought that any woman who wanted to be a Vicar or Bishop would probably be a feminist. Why else would you want it?
As for meetings and greetings, I like the quote by Oscar Wild. “Some people bring happiness wherever they go; others, whenever.”
Greed and vanity?
Alisa, as a member of the clergy, you’d be required to speak out AGAINST greed and vanity!!!
I know it seems unlikely, but it is true! In America, you can start your own religion and become rich (look up Ron hubbard and Joseph Smith, etc.). In an established Church, you’re supposed to tow the moral line against such things. Sorry about that.
Damn, I just can’t win, can I.
Sure you can. Nothing wrong with a little hypocrisy as long as you’re sincere about it.
🙂