Speaking of religions of beheadings, Catherine Howard was unavailable for comment. I'm grateful I can freely ignore the swill spewing from modern dhimmi Christianity.

Posted by: Beagle at September 19, 2005 8:10 AM

Dear old Auntie BBC presents this as if every Bishop subscribes to that opinion. This is a recommendation by a small group of idiots who have caused despair before for their views on other matters.
Unfortunately Al Jazeera has picked this up with a nice picture of the idiot in chief (Dr Harries of Oxford) and you can imagine the rest.

How do the army padres minister to their flock serving in the sand pit when they are so undermined at home?

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at September 19, 2005 8:19 AM

Yes, I agree. We must stop all "collusion" with this evil. We're sorry and we agree to pull out completely now, so that the "Iraqi people" can get on with things, busily building a splendid new country, under Shi'a domination, that will of course be a model for all those other Muslim states which, with the single exception of Iran, are Sunni, and so likely to look to a newly-enfranchised Shi'a leadership in Iraq for a model of how to reform their own countries.

Remember the remarks of these Anglicans. Remember them, because if the American government does come to its senses, does decide to withdraw in order to end the squandering of resources, in order to husband those resources, in order to exploit the natural fissures (fissures that began a thousand years before the United States was founded), such a howl will go up that "they must stay" and "they owe it to the Iraqis to prevent bloodshed" and -- oh, from every pulpit in every empty Anglican church, to every meeting of MoveOn.org, the message will be turned completely on its head, just as soon as it becomes clear what the Americans are up toto, and why, for the motto of such people is not "no war" and not "out of Iraq" but "do whatever harms the American and other Western governments the most" and prevent any harm coming, even self-inflicted harm, to Islam and to Muslims. For Islam is now the vehicle of choice to express one's hatred of the West, of America, of -- of whatever you feel like hating, as long as it isn't called Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at September 19, 2005 8:20 AM

And another thought
The days of Bishops like Odo who fought at the Battle of Hastings with a mace because he was not allowed to shed blood are long gone, which is probably just as well. But it was Battle of Britain Sunday yesterday and a special service was held at my church, and almost certainly 100s of others across the country.
How would such a report have gone down in 1940?

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at September 19, 2005 8:34 AM

It is time and more than time to disestablish the Church of England. Not one penny of taxpayers' money must go to this institution except for specific services (schools, charitable institutions, etc.). Its leaders must no longer have a legal place in British instititutions, and must no longer be presumed to speak, in some ineffable way, for the country. Let them compete for souls and bums on pews with other religions, on equal terms. then let us see how quickly they learn to talk responsibly.

The same, of course, goes for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which is, if possible, even worse.

Posted by: Paolo at September 19, 2005 8:48 AM

Anglican bishops have their work cut out to try and fill the empty churches in the UK. But instead of evangelising - something the Anglican Church has never been at all good at, but which is what they should be doing to save their own future - they cozy up to the Muslim communities by holding interfaith services. These, as we all know, are a complete waste of time, for there can be no reconciliation between these two competing faiths, faiths which are diametrically opposed in the first place.

The Anglican Church is fast becoming a total irrelevance!

Posted by: Mark at September 19, 2005 9:01 AM

Another well deserved nail in the coffin of organised Christianity in England.

This is not about the War, this is about further appeasing Islam & trying desperatly to show that The Church of England has some kind of relevance in today's England.

It does not, & this shows it.

Who, exactly, are they apologising on behalf of?

The English Churches are empty, save for the odd Christening & Marriage & "interfaith forum".

When the mask of Islam UK finally slips revealing the undeniable & horrid truth, we the English public will remember who, exactly, was sitting in Islam's corner doing their bidding.

Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

Posted by: albion at September 19, 2005 9:03 AM

"It is time and more than time to disestablish the Church of England.."
-- from a posting above

Wait a minute. Ever since my spelling-bee days, I've been a convinced antidisestablishmentarian. waiting for a pretext to use that word correctly. Butit never happened. Now it has.

And one more thing. Does one really want to touch a hair on the head of the Vicar of Dibley? A living's a living, for aw' that. While the Anglican leadership exhibits all the common sense of the Vicar's ditzy blonde friend, but without any of her comic sweetness (her amazing saving grace), vicars at the vicarage level cannot possibly be such sinister simpletons as so many of their higher muckety-mucks appear to be whenever they remark on Islam, or Israel -- can they?

Posted by: Hugh at September 19, 2005 10:17 AM

Paolo youre right it is certainly time to disestablish the church of england, especially after this nonsense. perhaps the german system of "Kirchensteuer" (i assume it is still in operation) should be introduced for the maintenance of all their architectural glories and their marvellous choirs. the germans have to formally leave the church to avoid paying it as it comes directly off their wages

btw are these people going to apologise to iraqi christians as well, or only to "muslim leaders"
i remember when they said they were standing shoulder to shoulder with the muslim community in uk as they suffered their "dreadful" backlash after 9/11 - not a word in support of their christian brothers and sisters in muslim countries as they suffered theirs, which fact was noted among suffering christians

paolo - if you have any information about taxpayers money going to the church of scotland, which you seemed to be saying was the case, id like to hear about it (i believe theyve had a fair bit from camelot)

btw how can the cos be worse than coe? impossible, its scottish for goodness sake

Posted by: freddiefreeloader at September 19, 2005 10:37 AM

vicars at the vicarage level cannot possibly be such sinister simpletons as so many of the big-shots appear to be whenever they remark on Islam, or Israel -- can they?

No Hugh they are not. And as one of the many people whose bum is on a pew most Sundays I do get to listen to a good few sermons in the course of a year. We have a few converts from Islam, and descendants of converts, none of whom have had it easy. We have members of the parish who have seen islam close up and personal in Africa nad India. We have close links with Africa and a local African church. And it was on my parish bookstall, not here at JW/DW that I first discovered the work of the Barnabas Fund.

My copy of Islam in Britain (foreword by Patrick Sookhdoe) arrived last week. Once I have finished it I will report.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at September 19, 2005 11:03 AM

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this last night at the BBC News site.

Isn't Britain a secular state? If so, why is the Church of England so vocal about politics?

I'll apologise about Iraq and 500 years of European colonial supremacy as soon as I receive apologies for the 1.5 million of Europeans abducted to North Africa by the barbary coast pirates to serve as concubines and eunuchs, and for 1400 years of religious warfare.

Ridiculous.

Posted by: cruzado at September 19, 2005 11:04 AM

Are these Anglican bishops so arrogant or dense as to think they wwould be untouched, left in peace by an Islamic take-over? Dhimmitude, thou hast reached a new level.

Posted by: bj at September 19, 2005 11:36 AM

Granny and Freddie:

links to a full transcript of the Hitchens/Galloway match, courtesy of FrontPageMag. It's about 20 pages long and split over two URLs:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19523

http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=19524&p=1

Posted by: waterdragon52 at September 19, 2005 11:55 AM

The bishops' report also attacks the 'Christian Right' in the USA (Bishop Peter Selby on the Daily Politics today accused people, "particularly in the United States", of using Christianity to justify violence - although he couldn't name one church leader or politician who used Christianity to justify the war), states that Western democracy is "deeply flawed" (is this an attempt to present Western democracy as morally equivalent to the Iraqi Baathist dictatorship or to an Islamic state?) and says that criticism of the Iranian regime "is as fallacious as the Iranian description of the US as the Great Satan". The report also states that "Iran’s relationship with Islamic terrorist organisations should not be seen as proof of any al-Qaeda link.” So presumably supporting Islamic terrorist organisations other than al-Qaeda isn't as bad?

I think the bishops' report plays straight into the hands of the Islamic propaganda which presents the Iraq war as a Christian "Crusade" against a Muslim nation. It is depressing that they seem to be showing more interest in scoring political points against Bush and Blair and supporting Muslim criticisms of the West than in speaking up for Christianity. For Church of England bishops to publicly apologise to Muslim leaders for the Iraq war when British and allied forces are still in the country trying to help bring stability and peace there would be wholly inappropriate.

Full story at the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1787421,00.html

PS. In defence of the Church of Scotland, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Rev David Lacy, publicly attacked Muslim clerics who preach hatred against Britain as hypocrites who "have been welcomed as brothers and have treated us as enemies", and should leave the country (this was reported on this site). He also defended our right to criticise such people without being accused of breaching their human rights.

Posted by: British Christian at September 19, 2005 12:24 PM

Its just a waste of time even to add a comment on this article. The church of England is a joke, they need to tend to their flock without getting involved in politics. Are all these people closet Islamists?
Now coming out!!

Posted by: faqi at September 19, 2005 1:07 PM

Very sad, we need that christians, and all people colaborate against islam, not supporting.

Posted by: Franze at September 19, 2005 4:40 PM

First of all, the church has nothing to apologise for, since they did not start the war and could do nothing to stop it.

If any apologizing is to be made surely it should be made to the Iraqi people. They are the victims of this conflict, and they are not all Muslim.

To apologise to Muslims as a whole is to suggest that the war was somehow an offence against Islam. Are the C of E really trying to endorse Bin Laden's central campaign platform? It's incredible. If the war was an offence to all Muslims then Saddam's multitude of crimes should have been much more offensive. Instead, many Muslims busied themselves with preposterous charges of genocide against Israel while Saddam committed real genocide against the Shi'ite and Kurds. Where was the jihad movement when Saddam was draining the marshlands of Southern Iraq?

I wish the media would be more forceful in challenging the basis of this global Muslim outrage on Iraq. It's accepted uncritically that Muslims everywhere get angry at the mistreatment of Muslims, which is understandable, even admirable. However, when you examine more closely, it's more accurate to say that Muslims get angry at the mistreatment of Muslims by infidels, which puts a whole different spin on things.

Posted by: Viking5 at September 19, 2005 6:28 PM

Of course, during this inter-faith meeting, while the Anglican clergy are apologising for the Iraqi war the Islamic imams will be apologising for Lockerbie, New York, Madrid, London, etc, etc, etc.
Won't they?

Posted by: Aardvark at September 19, 2005 6:39 PM

Albion, With all due respect I have more faith in the intelligence of the Bishops' working group than you obviously do. I believe you should have written "Forgive them Father, for they know exactly what they do."

However, I am in no way surprised. It was left-wing modernist rubbish like this that caused me to leave my ancestral church (CofE/PECUSA) over 30 years ago and things have only gotten worse in those 30 years.

Posted by: jovan66102 at September 20, 2005 12:59 AM

This mossie`s better than those lemmings:

"In the Friday sermon that I delivered at Stockholm’s Great Mosque after 7/7, I condemned the attacks unreservedly. I talked about how we now must, once and for all, deal with those forces that disgrace Islam by mutilating and murdering innocent people. The TV pictures from London had left me in such despair that I couldn’t hold back the tears while delivering the Friday sermon. That caused strong reactions.

"Afterwards, I was – in my own mosque – threatened by people who considered it reprehensible that I ‘wept for English children.’ Unfortunately, there is a minority among Swedish Muslims that holds extreme views, and that sympathizes with the London bombers. Some of these people are regular visitors to several Islamic congregations, among them Stockholm’s Great Mosque where I am active.
http://moonbatcentral.com/wordpress/?p=1338

Posted by: leavingtheleft at September 20, 2005 7:53 AM

"Isn't Britain a secular state? If so, why is the Church of England so vocal about politics?"

Exactly.

This wasn't started by the CoE, nor by Christianity in general, so neither the CoE nor Christianity in general have anything to apologize for.

Furthermore, this wasn't even a religious war, so why the hell are "we" (as Christians) apologizing to Muslims? This can do nothing but reinforce Muslim convictions that the West ("the Christians") are out to get them (which is how Muslims tend to see things; I suppose they reason that if they had the power the west has, they'd be invading *us*, so they just figure we're doing it to *them*).

I would like to appeal to "moderate Anglicans" to resist and fight back against the "extremist" elements in your Church's leadership. I trust you'll be able to do this more successfully than "moderate Muslims", given that the threat to your own safety for doing so is markedly lower.

Posted by: spect8or at September 21, 2005 3:23 AM