Rowan williams

Some years ago there was a study at Harvard that tried to find out what people did when they held an incorrect opinion. Not an opinion of the kind that the era happens to deem incorrect, but one that is actually, provably not the case. The study looked at what happened when that factually incorrect view was introduced to the evidence that it was wrong. We might hope that the results would be clear: man holding wrong view meets the right view, immediately throws up his hands and asks himself how he could have been such a dolt. Alas, as anyone who has ever been married will know, people do

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing

We at 22 Old Queen Street have never been great fans of Rowan Williams. At a time when strong ecclesiastical leadership was needs he served up abstract, pew-emptying waffle. But as this week’s leading article in the magazine argues, his successor Justin Welby has taken a more subtle, serious and successful approach — which bears fruit, as we saw last week with the government’s crackdown on the most sharkish of the payday lenders. ‘Welby’s intelligence on financial matters stands in direct contrast with that of his predecessor, Rowan Williams, whose pronouncements on current affairs so often came across as those of a lofty professor who had found himself in the wrong lecture hall. Straying

Steerpike is back in this week’s magazine. As ever, here is your preview: ‘”A Cambridge student reports this snippet from a Sainsbury’s checkout. ‘Is that a Lord of the Rings pendant?’ asked a white-haired shopper, pointing to an ornament dangling from the student’s neck. ‘Yes, it’s a replica of the One Ring,’ replied the student. ‘Ah’ said his inquisitor. ‘I thought so. I’m more of a Game of Thrones man myself.’ The white-haired shopper? Rowan Williams.” Subscribers, you can read the rest of the column here. Non-subscribers, you can join us today for as little as £1 an issue.

I spent Thursday evening at the Cambridge Union debating the motion ‘This House believes religion has no place in the 21st century.’ I spoke against the motion. My opponents on the opposite side included Richard Dawkins. My opponents on my own side were Rowan Williams and Tariq Ramadan. Anyhow – there has been a certain amount of press coverage and a number of readers have got in touch. This is just to say that I hope to post the video of the debate here as soon as it becomes available. UPDATE: Video of the debate is available here.

I hope all readers had a happy and peaceful Christmas. As this is the first day back at the office for most of us, I thought I would cheer everyone up with how Christians around the world experienced the period. Here is what Christians in Indonesia had to put up with. In Egypt a prominent cleric issued genocidal threats against the country’s Christians, and taunted them: ‘What do you think — that America will protect you? Let’s be very clear, America will not protect you. If so, it would have protected the Christians of Iraq when they were being butchered!’ Meanwhile, in post-Arab Spring Tunisia, the locals were warned by

To mark today’s news that Rowan Williams will be stepping down as Archbishop of Canterbury, here’s a piece he wrote for The Spectator during the financial crash of 2008: Rowan Williams, Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism, 24 September 2008 Readers of Anthony Trollope will remember how thoughtless and greedy young men in the Victorian professions can be lured into ruin by accepting ‘accommodation bills’ from their shifty acquaintances. They make themselves liable for the debts of others; and only too late do they discover that they are trapped in a web of financial mechanics that forces them to pay hugely inflated sums for obligations or services they

One of the odd things about David Cameron is that he wants to be a consensual radical. Unlike Margaret Thatcher he doesn’t want to have ‘a people’, a section of the electorate that is loyal to him personally. Rather he wants to be seen as a unifying national figure. He is, to borrow a phrase from The Economist, a ‘one nation radical’ But Cameron’s persona doesn’t mean that the left aren’t going to fight him with everything they’ve got. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s assault on the coalition today in the New Statesman is a classic example of the kind of opposition he is going to face. (If you read the