A Canterbury Tale
Reflections from an evening with Uncle George
He wore a psychedelic purple shirt with a huge swinging wooden cross and had grey hair. An ageing hippy? Well, perhaps, but more commonly known as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Dr. George Carey giving the annual J. B. and W. B. Morrell lecture on “Tolerating Religion”.
Our intrepid reporters Joanna Chamberlayne and Liz Hopkins tell…
And what a controversy it’s provoked too. I think that generally speaking we must all raise a big thumbs aloft to George for his straight forward approach, meeting head on all major issues from Terry Waite to Northern Ireland; the Kurds to the ordination of women. He certainly covered in breadth what he didn’t cover in depth, but perhaps that was his strategy.
To be fair to the poor bloke, he had a dodgy topic which was bound to rankle somebody. The crowd consisted of five nuns, at least five C of E clergymen and countless members of the public keeping suspiciously secret about their religious standing. In this respect, at least George was bold enough to lay HIS particular beliefs on the line.
About fifty minutes of the sixty-three minute long lecture to the three-quarters full Central Hall involved very intellectually based concepts of the morality and history of toleration, and how it’s a jolly decent thing to do for all parties. However, he did finally refer to the real reason for toleration from a Christian point of view, namely Jesus did and so should we.
The main crux of his argument was the distinction between toleration as opposed to apathy, pointing out that most people consider themselves tolerant about things that they don’t really care about, and hence are not really tolerant at all. He used as an inevitable example the variety of religious groups in the world today, stating that as they must tolerate us, so we must tolerate them. His expression of love towards the other world faiths and his understanding of the difficulties in which they find themselves was really quite touching, however when referring to the ‘open letter’ which concerned Christian evangelicals have sent him about the ever decreasing freedom for evangelism in Britain, his scepticism and almost derisive condescension was sad.
Carey himself was fairly careful not to be too explicit concerning his opinions of other faiths, citing from famous historical thinker’s assessments rather than putting it in his own words and risking being quoted.
As for the paradoxical controversy that has sprung up as a result of his speech, it seems to me that the dissenters are the very people who would have benefited most from the lecture.
Joanna Chamberlayne writes about the resulting controversy…
The first thing I heard as I switched my radio on the following morning was the outrage from the friends of Salman Rushdie that the Archbishop had not condemned the death threat on the author. It is important to look at the context in which he referred to “The Satanic Verses”.
He pointed out that to westerners what is written in a novel is fiction and that the fictional blasphemy in “The Satanic Verses” is therefore not considered particularly serious to many of us whereas the Muslims find this deeply insulting. This he compared with the pain Christian felt at the film “The Last Temptation of Christ”. He was neither approving or condemning anyone, merely stating facts, and in a lecture on religious toleration, which he had begun by stating
“It is not just important that religion should be tolerated but that religion should learn to tolerate others”,
I feel that further comment would have been superfluous.
Tolerating Religion: Paraphrases from the speech.
God’s very being with men in the person of Jesus involved Him putting up with us and throughout the Bible adjectives synonymous with tolerance are to Him — forbearing, longsuffering, patient, enduring. His tolerance is observable in his teaching and His refusal to take up arms against those attacking Him.
It is possible also that Paul’s commentary on Love in 1 Corinthians 13 is based on a meditation on Christ —
“Love is patient…it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”
“The principle of Charity will stop any group from being narrow-minded and intolerant”.
In response to those who fear such a doctrine of tolerance is a threat to evangelism, he pointed out that while Judaism was once the only religious minority in Britain, many religions are now growing side by side. He referred to the Muslim Shabir Akhtar’s comment that ‘fanaticism is other people’s passions’ and said that
“Because God is the kind of God He is, our integrity compels us to believe that our nation needs this toleration.”
Nevertheless,
“Evangelism is still a binding obligation on the believer…Although the task remains the same, the method of sharing faith is different in the new context.”
The three monotheistic religions do have a common ground which we must use for dialogue.
We will leave you with three of his most striking quotations:
“Toleration involves commitment, not indifferentism. Genuine religious tolerance is shown when people hold their religion as so important that they are prepared to die for it and yet recognise that another’s religion and faith are just as important and valued.”
“Tolerance involves entering each other’s strangeness — the difference can be overcome only when we realise that it can bring us benefits.”
“The genuinely tolerant enter into the pain others feel in their conflicting passions. When we are prepared to die for another’s right to believe, we may then have begun to explore the toleration of God, because it His toleration of us that will make us all free in this world and the world to come.”