Bishops and theologians back Archbishop's sermon

-22/4/04

Bishops and theologians have backed the Archbishop of Canterburyís sermon on obedience to Government in which Rowan Williams suggested that a Government loses its authority when it fails to tell the truth.

In an interview for BBC2's Newsnight programme, Ekklesia's director praised the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon at St Benet's Church, Cambridge.

Jonathan Bartley told BBC2's Newsnight; "Rowan's Williams sermon seems very critical indeed, implicitly and almost explicitly. What he is saying is that if a government doesn't tell the truth...it forfeits its right to govern.

In such circumstances where a Government fails in its truth-telling said Ekklesia's director, The Archbishops sermon suggests that "Government has no place to command obedience. Government doesn't have a place to command loyalty."

"It is a very subversive message that Rowan Williams is giving."

Bishops also said yesterday that the church was right to provide an opposing voice. reports the Times.

Repeating Dr Rowan Williamsís call for an apology for mistakes made in Iraq, they made it clear that his critique was only the beginning of a debate on trust in public life, with church men and women taking a lead.

Religious leaders at the highest levels believe that the Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties are failing to provide the effective opposition that is needed and it is now up to them to fill the gap.

Dr Williams had been thinking about the sermon for several months and briefed the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, at the weekend on what he was planning to say. Although Dr Hope declined to comment publicly, a source indicated that he was in full agreement with his fellow Archbishopís argument.

The Bishop of Sheffield, the Right Rev Jack Nicholls, said that the Archbishop, as someone independent of the political loop, could speak what was in the minds of many people.

He added: ìMr Blair is like Margaret Thatcher was, living with a majority which is very difficult to overturn. That results in a less effective opposition than one might hope for.î

In his sermon the Archbishop said; "Credible claims on our political loyalty have something to do with a demonstrable attention to truth, even unwelcome truth. A government that habitually ignored expert advice, habitually pressed its interests abroad in ways that ignored manifest needs and priorities in the wider human and non-human environment, habitually repressed criticism or manipulated public media ó such a regime would, to say the least, jeopardise its claim to obedience because it was refusing attention."

He continued; "Part of the continuing damage to our political health in this country has to do with a sense of the events of the last year on the international scene being driven by something other than attention. There were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a privileged basis which, it emerged, were anything but certain; there were things which regional experts and others knew which seemed not to have received attention."