Archbishop's interview with Sir David Frost

The Archbishop of Canterbury has just returned from Sudan. For those interesting in discovering what the Archbishop actually said, some of which was broadcast on BBC 1's Heaven & Earth show yesterday, I have reproduced the entire transcript, below. Be warned, it is very long, but some readers might nevertheless find it interesting. Here are my own comments, on BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme. And here is what other papers had to say about it on Monday and on Sunday. My own brief report in today's Times can be read here.

(The photos reproduced here are by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times.)

There are many things that could be said about the Archbishop's Sudan visit, but as it is Lent I will resist the temptation to say most of what is on my mind. I will just note for reflection that George Carey's first and subsequent visits to Sudan were resounding successes. According to one source close to Lambeth Palace, "Sudan saved George Carey." Sadly, I am not sure this is the case with RW. Anyway, that's enough on that. It is being discussed on the Fulcrum site and there is more, with useful links, at Thinking Anglicans. It is also necessary to give credit for the clarity of his statements in the interview. He departed from his usual, more obtuse style. And whatever the interview lacked, his comments on Guantanamo Bay deserve plaudits. See David Aaronovitch's blog here.

In the transcript below, one of the most interesting items for me was when RW discussed his belief in God. Here is the relevant passage:

"I believe there is a God, with all the trust and the hope and the love that there is in me. I don’t know that there is a God, in the sense that I know you're sitting opposite me here in, in Khartoum. It’s not that kind of evidence, but it’s certainly, I think what people have called moral certainty, something that I would have to say I’d stake my life on when it comes to it. Now I say that blithely and hopefully, knowing that with another part of my mind that in crisis none of us quite knows how we’d response. But that’s where the faith of a Church like the Sudan is so important – I have seen people staking their lives on this – I can see how significant it is. I pray and hope that when it comes to the crisis I would have that courage."

I went on the Sunday programme and told how I felt this, and other aspects of the interview, were typical of his equivocal style. To me, it contrasted with the seminal Face to Face BBC interview given to Michael Freeman by Carl Jung back in the last century. Jung said he did not so much believe in God. "I know God exists." This had such a profound impact on me, because it describes my own faith exactly. For all my heretic doubts about the Trinity and much else, I "know" God exists. I like the phrase: "Look everywhere for God - that's where you'll find him." (*Note, if any reader knows where Jung's interview can be viewed online, plse do let me know. rg) However, I must conrfess that, unlike the Archbishop, I am not sure I would be prepared to die for my belief.

I suppose the Archbishop could be forgiven for not finding Him in Sudan, given the appalling human rights abuses that have gone on there. But then, if the transcript below is any guide, the Archbishop didn't appear to want to talk about the human rights abuses in Sudan, although he did find material to condemn in Guantanamo Bay and he did justify his decision to vote for divestment from Caterpillar.

But imagine my surprise when, just leaving the studio in Manchester after Sunday, I got an email from Jonathan Jennings, the archbishop's press officer. He had just got off the plane from Sudan and was concerned that I had described the Archbishop's belief in God as "equivocal".

Well, that is not exactly what I said. And as for whether that is what the Achbishop said, you can judge for yourself.

But I would have thought the ABC and his staff would have more important things to worry about than what a mere religion correspondent says, especially one considered too lowly, perhaps even too intellectually substandard a being, to be granted an interview of her own with this Archbishop.

Or maybe it's more that the ABC has something to fear from a more challenging interview than that offered by Sir David Frost, below, just as Tony Blair himself appears to prefer a lighthearted Parky to John Humphrys on Today.

Anyway, I understand that ABC is also bypassing my esteemed, profoundly intellectual colleague Stephen Bates on The Guardian and is shortly to be interviewed by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Let's hope Rusbridger does a little better than Frost in getting something stronger out of the mouth of RW. When I think of what the BBC must have spent, flying Sir David and crew out to Sudan for a week, truly this result just makes me want to weep.

This photo, by Jim Rosenthal of the Anglican Communion, shows the Arcbishop at the consecration of the new cathedral in Renk. The Frost interview is below.

DAVID FROST: Archbishop, you have a really fantastic welcome here, really at the first, first event, the first engagement of the al-Gariya displaced persons camp – there was real joy to see you there.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well I think people here feel so forgotten a lot of the time because the effect of the peace agreement are so slow arriving, the number of displaced persons in this area alone is colossal so I think any signal – even the smallest – that, that they’re not forgotten does impact on people here.

DAVID FROST: And some of them, apparently, have been displaced for 20 years.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well one way and another, this area’s been at war for decades, not just the big civil war but unrest that goes back as far as the Fifties. So yes it’s a huge problem and, well, you saw the numbers yourself, and that’s just a tiny bit of what’s in this area, when you think of the displaced people’s camps in the south and the Darfur borders then quite a substantial percentage of the population of this country is away from home.

DAVID FROST: The headlines in the local, two local English language papers, said that you were here on a quote peace mission – but it’s wider than that in a way, isn’t it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Peace mission sounds very melodramatic, doesn’t it? I think what it means is that I’m here to see what’s being done and listen to what’s being done and as peace unfolds, and to ask what it is that the church locally, and more widely, can do to assist the whole process of – well I was going to say reconstruction, but somebody reminded me only today, that it’s construction in lots of areas, it’s putting infrastructure in place for the first time - ... schools, hospitals, roads, water supply and so on.

DAVID FROST: And would you like to forge a closer union with the World Food organisation – the World Food Programme - ... the church?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: One of the big areas of focus for this trip has actually been the cooperation that’s going on in the ... area between the church and the World Food Programme. I have met the director of the World Food Programme before coming here, we’ve been very much helped in organising the trip by the WFP people and so we want to see what more can be done on the ground in the delivery of what the WFP has in mind. Food security – not famine relief – that is long term food security, to provide some sort of incentive for people to settle again.

DAVID FROST: And Darfur remains a sort of extraordinary symbol of man’s inhumanity to man.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Darfur is still clearly a running sore. Nobody has a quick formula for sorting it out. I think the difficulty many people find, or sense they find here in Sudan, is a feeling that some of the donors outside Sudan are waiting for Darfur to clear up before they can fully deliver on promises for the south and although that’s not a completely accurate percentage, it’s sort of skewing things a bit here, I think.

DAVID FROST: Have Christians suffered particularly, as far as death is concerned, in Darfur.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well Darfur is an almost entirely Islam ... an overwhelmingly Islamic majority there, so there it isn’t really a (con?)fessional thing at all - and of course it’s never been exclusively that in Sudan as a whole.

DAVID FROST: And what do you see as the future thus far, for Sudan – do you see it mainly as construction rather than reconstruction.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: It’s bound to be a future of construction, as I say infrastructure has to be put in place and there has to be, I think trust, in the national government. Because of the feeling of decades that basically the government has been run from the north for the north. The new government in the south the people from the south that have been brought into the national government need to display to the population as a whole that there is a worthwhile future for them in this collaborative enterprise. Now that means delivery, it means delivery of a fair share in oil revenues promised in the comprehensive peace agreement; it means access to food, employment, clean water, education and basic health care – I was hearing during my visit about the possibility of three new hospitals in the south west region, there’s probably about 200 beds by the time it’s all finished – it’s small but very significant in showing that peace is worthwhile, it brings profits.

DAVID FROST: And what about an area like this brings up the whole question, again one of the basic questions of Christian faith, about suffering. When you meet people in suffering conditions and they say “Why does God allow this to happen to me or to us,” what basically do you say?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Basically I say very little. I listen to what they say to each other because I think the churches in Sudan over the last couple of years, as I said on one occasion during this visit, have actually been a tremendous inspiration to churches elsewhere. In the most basic conditions, without buildings, without security, they have managed to carry on, witnessing, praying, in a most impressive way. They don’t worry too much about the theory and I think if you ask them a bit further they would probably say well the greed and inhumanity of human beings to each other has always been there, it’s part of the huge risk of human freedom, and we don’t blame God for it.

DAVID FROST: And they don’t blame God for that.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I don’t think they do. I don’t think they do. And they carry on and they ask what’s worthwhile, and what do they have to do next and what do they have to do not to give another turn to the vicious circle of violence and abuse.

DAVID FROST: Of course here in Africa we’re in a fulcrum of the Church at the moment. Very much so, and Nigeria with its 17 million members and vows to double it in a few years and so on, why is the Nigerian church so successful? I mean what is it about their message that is working for the people of Nigeria?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: An interesting question, which I’m not sure I can answer very comprehensively but I think two factors – or perhaps three. The first is the Nigerians as, as a nation are hugely energetic and what they set out to do they want to perform. And then, connected a bit with that, is an element of competition, a sense that Islam is on the march in that area, Christianity needs to get it’s act together, it needs to send people out to untouched regions; it needs to create new territories for development and it has that kind of leadership, that kind of focus, and in that context I think a Christian identity is a precious thing, a valuable thing that gives you a sense of worth and a sense of something to take trouble over.

DAVID FROST: And do you think it’s the evangelical message rather than whatever you call the other message – is that a part, is that a factor, do you think, in the African psyche?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think in, in many areas, especially areas that face a lot of deprivation, a simple and straightforward gospel is deeply attractive and deeply powerful. It has the power to deliver change, once again, and I think if you talk to Christians in Uganda, looking back at their own history, they would say it’s the message to deliver personal change, to motivate and transform people’s sense of themselves – which comes with the evangelical message.

DAVID FROST: This is predominately here in Sudan obviously a Muslim country and so on, and I read this week in the British papers here – and I quote – that in fact in a few year’s time – in fact by 2012 – there will be more people in mosques in London – in England, not just London – than in fact in churches. How will that change your role, the role of an archbishop?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: It’s a lot more complicated than that, I think, isn’t it. I mean I don’t like playing with these predictions – the old story that in 1890 they were predicting by 1920 London Bridge would be six feet deep in horse manure definitely is a reminder of how little we factor in the unpredictable changes. As a matter of fact, church attendance in Britain seems at the moment fairly stable. There are lots of signs of growth in various areas, nearly half of the Anglican diocese has actually had some numerical growth in the last 12 months. And the figures of attendance for Christmas, the number of new congregations springing up through an initiative which we’ve sponsored called Fresh Expressions, all that suggests there is life in the old church yet and plenty of challenges arising from that as to other things to do. And, following on from that, however many people there are in the mosque in Britain, there’s still a question, I think, as to what is the religious institution of first resort for the British people. Now culturally and historically I don’t see that being the mosque in fives years time. I think it remains true that the church on the ground is the basic network that the majority of people still want to plug into at moments of crisis or of challenge. Now that’s something perhaps much less than full-fledged faith – yet, it’s a bridgehead into the majority of the population which I think ...

DAVID FROST: And in terms of the other end of the scale, The Sunday Times, Jasper Gerrard, had a headline saying “Pray tell Reverend when you will damn Muslim hotheads,” the feeling being that you had gone soft on the Muslim hotheads. Is that a fair comment?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: No, not at all. I think that a lot of my own energy and the energy of a great many Anglicans in the last few years has gone into trying to build bridges to moderate Muslim opinion, strengthening precisely their own resistance to terror and violence. It’s a process that my predecessor began very, very effectively and the annual conferences that we hold on – called building bridges in fact, for Muslim and Christian scholars – have been a significant way of reinforcing that moderate, mainstream Muslim resistance to their own extremists. I, I have no time with terrorism, I hold no brief for Muslim extremism, I – you know, for what it’s worth - I could say it very unambiguously. I think it’s appalling, I think it’s an insult to God and man. How are we going to make a difference when we apply the influence, the pressure that brings change? Well not just from outside but by engaging as best we can on towards moderate Muslim opinion.

DAVID FROST: And in terms of the huge fuss about the cartoons from Denmark. Eighty-six per cent of British people felt the Muslim reaction – or part of the Muslim reaction – was a quote gross overreaction quote. Was there a gross overreaction in the response to those cartoons by -

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think

DAVID FROST: - some Muslims.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think in some parts of the world there was hysterical overreaction, violent overreaction, but we then have to ask the next question – so why was this such an iconic issue? Why did it spark in the way it did?

DAVID FROST: What’s the answer to that?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: It’s, it’s a many layered one. I think it has to do with this curious two-fold perception that Muslims in the West, and in the world generally, still feel they are at a disadvantage. We look out, we the British liberals, right-thinking people, we look out and we think Islam is strong, menacing, terrifying. Their own perception of themselves is that they’re constantly being pushed to the edge of every discussion and every negotiation in the world. And we’re not talking about terrorists but about the average Muslim. Now, with that perception, then something which appears to be, if you like, a flexing of the Western muscle at the expense of Muslim feelings, a gross insult to Muslim sensibilities, which is apparently brushed off or regarded as unproblematic, of course it will be seen as a really, really grave offence. And that’s not in the least to excuse or justify the kind of horrendous and mindless violence there’s been in ... or Nigeria, but just to put it in context.

DAVID FROST: And in this context of a multi-faith country, can in fact Prince Charles be, as he put it, defender of the faiths as well as head of the established church?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I hope that when he talks about being defender of faiths what he means is that he’ll have something to say for the public role, the public contribution of all faith communities to building a worthwhile society together. It’s not the same thing as his historic role in relation to the Church of England, and that’s perhaps a reminder that the Church of England still has this role of leverage, brokerage, presence, across the country, which is never very accurately estimated just in terms of the people who turn up on Sunday mornings.

DAVID FROST: People who muse about your thoughts and so on, read your words, say that in fact the phrase you used earlier about a church of first resort, you would be quite happy for that to be the Church of England even if it was not established, that you’re not that stuck on an established church ...

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think that a great deal of what is meant by church of first resort would survive changes in the legal position. But of course the, the complex side of that is that establishment isn’t just one thing – you can’t just pass one bill, disestablishing the Church of England, you’ve got to unscramble a huge kind of cat’s cradle of relationships, which is going to take a very long time. Now it’s not, I think, at the moment something that’s at the top of anybody’s particular agenda. If the time comes for that legal relationship to shift, and it’s almost bound to shift in bits and pieces, over time, I think the Church can weather it. But I don’t feel I particularly want to go out campaigning for it at the moment.

DAVID FROST: No, but you’d live with it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I thought I have lived with a disestablished church where the relationship between church and community was a very intimate one.

DAVID FROST: And indeed Gordon Brown is reported as feeling it is somewhat anachronistic for the Prime Minister to appoint archbishops, bishops, deans.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think there’s, there’s a set of questions to be asked there about how that relationship works. In fact, the way it works at the moment leaves the Church a huge amount of freedom. We’ll see how it evolves. I think it’s an agreement which is relatively recent but it seems to be working well.

DAVID FROST: Does it, does it restrain you in any way – could you have said more about your feelings on the War in Iraq if the Church wasn’t established? Or are you in fact free?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I’d regard myself as free there. You know, the constraints on the position of an archbishop, don’t depend on government, I think. They, there may be circumstances where you think well if I’ve somehow got to find words that will make sense for the whole of this national community, then I’ve got to choose them very carefully.

DAVID FROST: Very carefully because of?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Because of our broad relationships ... a national identity which is, which is nebulous, difficult to define and yet very real. (OVERLAPS) ...

DAVID FROST: ... People, for instance, wanted you to – some of them anyway – wanted you to negotiate them out for the Church of England in terms of the Civil Partnerships Act, similar to that that the Catholics got. Is that something you could have done more easily if it wasn’t the established church.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: In strictly legal terms, it would have been a lot more complicated to do that. I think what we ended up with was a situation which, to be honest, very few people in the Church are completely happy with but recognises that this is the law of the land, we have to define a position in regard to it, we are able to do so on the basis that the Civil Partnerships Act doesn’t oblige us to change our doctrine about marriage.

DAVID FROST: We were talking earlier on about the way in which the Church in Africa is a fulcrum and of course it’s in the Church in Africa, and in particular in Nigeria, that’s focused on the current controversy about gay bishops and so on. And on the one hand bishop, Archbishop ... made his memorable remark “We don’t have to go through Canterbury to get to Jesus,” – presumably not straight to your face, that wasn’t, was it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: No, but I think if he had said it to my face I would have agreed entirely. (LAUGHS)

DAVID FROST: And the situation does look in terms of their strong point of view, for the Church in Nigeria, someone wrote “Sexuality is a defining issue – they would leave the Anglican communion if a non-repented American Church remained within it.” And on the other hand the American Church seems to be saying, unlikely to say yes to no more gay bishops and to repenting and so on. It does look to bring those two points ... together does seem to need a miracle really. Now, there’s no one better at miracles than God, obviously, but, but what can you do?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well you pray a lot.

DAVID FROST: Yes.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I can try, I think, to find ways, as long as possible, of getting these two sides to make sense of themselves to each. The biggest problem is people don’t listen very much. That’s, you know, that’s human nature, and the Church is no exception. And so long as people are still trying to – so long as people are aware that they’ve enough in common to disagree, rather than just to tear it all up, so long as that’s true, it’s worth working at. Now the point may come where people say well we no longer have enough in common and we may reach that point – I don’t know. Meanwhile, my first priority is to try and keep the conversation going, to say do you understand why this matters.

DAVID FROST: And, as you say, it may, it has to walk apart, as one quote said. And I mean if in fact this issue led to a situation where a new formula was created that, let us say, was more of a federation, more of where each country, in addition to the freedoms they have now, would have a doctrinal freedom as well and Nigeria could have a different doctrine, perhaps, definitely, than American or whatever ... Now would a federation, or an umbrella, be practical?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think we have to wait and see on that. There are other world churches, the Lutheran Reform Churches, which get on with a federal pattern. There’s always been, I think, a higher expectation in the Anglican Communion, that we, we have more, more at stake than that. And of course what that means is that if there is rupture, it’s going to be a more visible rupture, it’s not just going to settle down quietly into being a federation. And, I suppose my anxiety about it is that if the Communion is broken we may be left with even less than a federation.

DAVID FROST: Even less than a federation.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: And there will have to be an awful lot of bridge-building, absolutely decades to restore some sort of relationship there.

DAVID FROST: Yes. ... at the moment is that ... majority of the Anglican Communion are quite clear that active gay relationships should not be blessed in church and actively gay clergy should not be ordained and that these are unwelcome new developments in America. I mean that would be the common view, wouldn’t it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Very much the majority view and I think on a matter of real substance like this, a matter that effects the interpretation of the Bible, the discipline of clergy and lay people, what actually the Church will bless in God’s name; for a change on that I think we would need, as a Communion, to have a far greater level of consensus than we in fact have. Which is why the American determination to go it alone is, is worrying.

DAVID FROST: And is the, is the convention in June likely to be that moment of decision?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: A lot rides on that and people have projected lots of expectations. I’ll wait and see.

DAVID FROST: And as if that was not enough, there’s women bishops as well. But that is more under control, isn’t it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Never a dull moment in the Anglican Church.

DAVID FROST: ?? No.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think what we’re trying to do in England, and it’s, you know, specifically an English problem at the moment, is to see if there is some way, precisely, of not falling apart into less than federal relationships but keeping some sense of being a single national church with sharply divided elements in it but elements which are prepared to work at means of communication, of the sharing of certain tasks and certain resources. Again, I think it’s worth working at. The devil’s in the detail, always. At the Synod, there was a very, very strong signal that people wanted to work at that – almost unanimous. A feeling, therefore, that if we can find a way of allowing the two very seriously held points of view in the Church to co-exist, with, as I say, some sharing of vision and resources, worth doing.

DAVID FROST: So will we see a female Archbishop of Canterbury in your lifetime? It depends how long you live.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: It depends how long I live, I think – and I’m certainly not speculating on that.

DAVID FROST: But at the moment the compromise obviously while waiting for further developments in 2012 and so on, at the moment makes the women in the Church of England, the women clergy, slightly second class citizens, doesn’t it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: There is certainly a feeling that if woman are priests, it’s an oddity to have a category of priests who could never be bishops – that’s something which the Church hasn’t, hasn’t ever had. Those against, I think would say it’s not a matter of seeing you as second class citizens, it’s a matter of all sorts of considerations about the wider Church, about our relations with other Churches. But it’s inevitable that women will feel this and will feel that they’re being, if you like, fobbed off with something. But, once again, going back to the Synod, it seemed to me that the, the generosity on both sides – the generosity of women wanting to accommodate those who were unhappy about this move, the generosity of those traditionalists who felt well we don’t want to, we don’t want to put spokes in the wheel endlessly, let’s find something we can all live with – that encourages me.

DAVID FROST: And in fact, I mean in terms of women clergy, more than ten per cent, yes, currently are women clergy at the moment?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: And rising steadily. I think ... candidates for ordination, pushing half.

DAVID FROST: And, and have the woman bishop, woman – Have the women priests who’ve come into the Church, have they enriched the Church do you think?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think they have enormously, the level of pastoral care that women have brought has been universally appreciated – and, again, it’s good to hear those who were opposed to women clergy on principle saying look we’re not challenging the pastoral excellence and the theological excellence that’s been brought by this – it’s not a, not personalised in that way.

DAVID FROST: There are many, many issues that face you every day, every day, and in, at the moment there are a tremendous number of controversial issues. One is, to be topical for a moment, Caterpillar, the disinvestments controversy over the vote about disinvesting in Caterpillar unless they change their ways and so on, and which was criticised in fact by your immediate predecessor, saying it was regrettable and one-sided statement and so on. Where do you stand on that now?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well I voted for the motion in Synod.

DAVID FROST: Yes.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: And I voted for it on these grounds, that we had already committed ourselves to looking at this question within the bounds of our existing ethical investment policy – it’s not a new thing. But there really is a question, there really is a moral question about how far we should, as a Church, profit from activities about which we have some serious ethical misgivings. Now as I wrote to Chief Rabbi after that vote, I wholly understand that the timing of this motion was very unfortunate. I guess there were many like myself who voted for it because they couldn’t conscientiously bring themselves to vote against it and yet were immediately aware of the negative signal this might send. So the positive engagement with Israel, itself, with the Jewish community in Britain, remains a priority. It’s something, again, to which a lot of time has been given and will be given and in this particular year, the 350th anniversary of the restoration of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom, is an occasion where I think we would want as a Church to affirm the immense significance of the Jewish community to our common life here.

DAVID FROST: And oddly enough there was a, a Jewish controversy from the other point of view too, in the last couple of weeks, where David Irvine, the controversial historian, has been given three years prison in Austria for denying the holocaust. Is that a hate crime?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think it has to be really, I think it’s, it’s the case always that words have consequences. People who live by words sometimes don’t understand the practical consequences. At a moment when, for example, the President of Iran is able to say the things that he has said about Israel and it seems regard the holocaust as, you know, an arguable matter, words about the holocaust aren’t neutral. They’re not, they’re not just in midair.

DAVID FROST: So it’s understandable legislation.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: It’s understandable that, because –

DAVID FROST: It’s so often the balance between free speech on the one hand and respect for religion or –

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well absolute free speech, you know, the liberty to say exactly what you want, to whom you please, at any time you want, has never really been the foundation of legal systems. What we’ve valued, I think, about free speech, as an ideal, as a political ideal, is governments don’t have the right to tell us what to think and that, you know, that’s entirely right and proper. And the encouragement of what I once called an argumentative democracy is always a good thing. That within those overall recognitions that it’s possible to say things that have appalling consequences, we have to register those consequences. And as in our laws about racial abuse and racial hatred we, we reckon the consequences of our words.

DAVID FROST: Your colleague the Archbishop of York has spoken out strongly on Guantanamo, as have you indeed. Not just an anomaly, he said, but it’s a breech of international law and a blight on the conscience of America. Your wording would be similar to that?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I think what we’ve got in Guantanamo is an extraordinary legal anomaly, as my colleague has said, creating a new category of custody with prisoners – these are not people who have been found guilty, and these are people who don’t have the kind of legal access we would normally assume to be proper. Now precedents matter in law, nationally and internationally. Any message given, that any state can just over-ride some of these basic habeas corpus type provisions, is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future. Once again, words have consequences, policies have consequences. What, in ten years’ time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this.

DAVID FROST: What about your quote, “I have to keep as many voices in play as possible.” That is one of your greatest challenges, to be an outspoken voice for what you believe and at the same time to keep the many voices in play. That’s difficult ...

ROWAN WILLIAMS: (OVERLAPS) There’s an element of squaring the circle about it, yes.

DAVID FROST: Yes.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: But I would say that that’s a priority for me on the grounds of what I believe theologically, what I believe as a Christian. In the first instance in the Christian setting any Christian, I think, ought to believe that the faith delivered in Jesus Christ is much bigger than their individual mind, their individual preferences, their individual policies. In other words, other Christians are always going to have things to say to me that I would never have thought of for myself. And I may not like it when they say them but I need to hear them. Now in building up what the Bible calls the body of Christ, that corporate living in the power of Jesus Christ for the sake of transforming the world, we need each, we need those voices. So anyone, I think, in a position of leadership in the Church is going to be bound to that priority. Let’s keep as many voices in play as possible, so that we hear as much as possible what other people see of Jesus Christ.

DAVID FROST: In terms of your faith, do you believe there’s a God or do you know there’s a God?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I believe there is a God, with all the trust and the hope and the love that there is in me. I don’t know that there is a God, in the sense that I know you're sitting opposite me here in, in Khartoum. It’s not that kind of evidence, but it’s certainly, I think what people have called moral certainty, something that I would have to say I’d stake my life on when it comes to it. Now I say that blithely and hopefully, knowing that with another part of my mind that in crisis none of us quite knows how we’d response. But that’s where the faith of a Church like the Sudan is so important – I have seen people staking their lives on this – I can see how significant it is. I pray and hope that when it comes to the crisis I would have that courage.

DAVID FROST: And will you carry on with this job ‘til you’re 70 or more? You can can’t you?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I can, yes. I’ll carry on with it as long as I believe God is giving me the strength and the vision to do it and I try not to think about how long, I try to think what have I got to do today and tomorrow, because that’s what I’m asked to do like every believer. What’s the rule of God now, what’s the rule of God tomorrow morning, and respond as fully as I can.

DAVID FROST: And, and when you contemplate the future, what is your vision of heaven?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: My vision of heaven, probably best expressed, because I ... I like poetry, something like George Herbert’s poem about love. “Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.” Heaven is complete unequivocal welcome, such as none of us can imagine. It’s knowing that we are utterly at home where we were made to be. The Shakers of North America had that hymn “This a grace to be simple, this a grace to be free, this a grace to come down where you ought to be.” And that coming down where you ought to be is heaven, I think. And yet at that very moment, when we know ourselves most fully at home, we shall know a truth, a level of love and commitment which will make us for that moment of our experience ashamed, aware of our uneasiness and yet in that poem, of course, it ends with love saying “but I’ve dealt with all that,” relax, you must sit down says love, and taste my meat, so I did sit and eat.

DAVID FROST: There may be judgement seats on the way to ...

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Exactly that’s, the judgement is knowing how profoundly unworthy I am of the love of God. Knowing that it’s pure gift and generosity and that in the very moment when I acknowledge it, God is there to say yes, I’ve dealt with it, I’ve done that.

DAVID FROST: Well it’s been a joy to meet here in Khartoum and to follow you round on your very successful mission. And what would you hope would be the outcome of your mission here?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: I hope that the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church here in Sudan will feel encouraged and affirmed and feel that we haven’t forgotten them, that our commitment will take practical shape in the future, that we can help them do what they can do in building up a new country here. I hope too that being here will remind people in public life and the government of the international role of the Church and of the need to build a properly plural future where people of different religious communities have their freedoms. I hope too that I’ll be able to go back to the UK and be something of an advocate for this place and its wonderful people.

DAVID FROST: Archbishop, thank you very much. ROWAN WILLIAMS: Thank you.

Comments

[Keith Downer]

Reading the interview that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave to David Frost raised several concerns for me but his response to the comment on the smaller number of people attending church relative to Muslims attending mosques by 2012 in the UK was particularly worrying.
When you are in Rowan William's position, I can readily understand the need for diplomacy and caution when expressing comments on any issue but found myself upset, almost angry at the wishy-washy, complacent remarks such as there is "life in the old church yet".
During the past week I composed a carefully considered and balanced comment which I intended to post here and which attempted to relate issues such as Islam, the growing immigrant population, minority groups seeking more influence, the decline in teaching Christianity in our schools, the increase in problems where behaviour in our society is concerned and the importance of a common belief system and way-of-life amongst all members of a community if it is to remain peaceful and stable. Needless to say, the comment was not only carefully considered but also far too lengthy to post.
I guess the comment I was trying to make was that never has it been more necessary that the strong attempt to influence our way-of-life in this country, from other belief systems such as Islam and from other minority groups, be strongly counterbalanced with a resurgence and vigorous re-establishment of the Christian teaching, values and standards upon which our society has been built. That should clearly be the main focus and primary responsibility of the Archbishop and the senior representatives of the Church at this time.
Of course, the Christian Church has a responsibility to be diplomatic, to maintain dialogue and forge strong links with other belief systems such as Islam but it has an overriding responsibility to define, protect and strengthen the Christian ethos that provided the foundation and which is still integral to the structure of our society in the UK and the way-of-life than many of us value.

[sebastian]

The timid Archbishop can't mention the Sudanese Government's genocide (much of it against Christians) whilst enjoying that wicked Islamic country's dubious, grisly hospitality. But he can bravely condemn Guantanamo. Presumably Rowan Williams would need to be in Guantanamo to speak out about the horrors in Sudan, then. So we should send him there immediately; and keep him there, speaking out, until the terrible events in Darfur cease.

[Sergeant Raj Joshi, Leicestershire]

Dear Ruth,

May I say that faith is about hope and forgiveness. It must be. Whilst I may not understand fully the discourse between Rowan Williams and the Jewish community there must be a way forwards.

Today my son was involved in a car accident. Through his excitement of having passed a driving test he forgot the basics of car control and adverse weather conditions. This together with peer pressure put him somewhere where he should not have been. His car crossed a major "A" road and it hit a tree .

(Thankfully Lord Krishna, or Lord Jesus must have been looking after him. The road is normally full of Heavy goods vehicle traffic and he is fortunate.)

Initially like every parent I was fuming. The anger raged because he had done something I did not like. He was supposed to use the car to go to school, not to go out with his friends. And I was shocked and upset that my faith and trust in him had ben betrayed. But he is only a child and he did not know any better. By 8pm this evening I realised that the anger had gone. I realise how much I love him and I guess how much we all love our children. Is this not faith? Can we not have a common faith?

Whatever the differences between Rowan Williams and the Jewish community it is the faith which has least power that must "forgive" as perhaps my example reveals. In the case with my son, he has more power as a teenager than I as a father.

Incidentally, I could not locate him and was pretty worried, so was thankful that a police colleague was able to get to him. Even I, as an anti racist campaigner in my work, acknowledge that not all police officers are bad. This colleague looked after Ishaan and made sure I was OK too.

When my colleague dropped me off I looked at her, and for a moment there were tears in both our eyes. We both realised just how much in common we had and I think she realised just how much I loved someone that had inadvertently hurt my feelings.

On the whole we should be thankful that people like my colleague serve police forces throughout the country. Forgiveness is not an easy road but it takes both parties to forgive properly. Can forgiveness not reconcile matters? I hope Rowan Williams reads these blogs.

[Dr. Irene Lancaster, Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East]

Many of your bloggers have asked questions about the Middle East.

May I suggest that all questions be directed to me at the e-mail address above and they will then be sent on to Canon Andrew White, our CEO, who will be able to answer them when he is not away in Iraq (where he is Vicar) or other parts of the Middle East.

[Nersen Pillay]

Rowan Williams seems to know that the vast majority of Anglicans (let alone Christians) do not welcome the particular religion of some ECUSA leaders like Gene Robinson etc. So, why pretend there is real common ground when there obviously is little? Given nobody really likes Anglican fudges, why make all Anglicans suffer and put the church through the ordeal of the last couple of years when it is so unlikely that very different sides will ever agree? Obviously, from his writings, Williams’ sympathies lie with Gene Robinson et al so he is putting the whole church at risk while trying to allow “innovations” and preventing a split at the same time. This is not leadership but a juggling act.
A workable solution for the Anglican church is not difficult to see: let Gene Robinson’s ECUSA go its own way and let all those Anglicans around the world who want to join them do so. The majority of Anglicans could then be left to get on with their faith in peace. Also, this way people like Gene Robinson would not have to put up with troublesome African bishops who still believe the Bible means what it says! Instead, with integrity, Robinson et al could follow their new religion and if they are right in their beliefs, they will have a strong church in the coming centuries. Currently, equivocation and delays lead to the whole Anglican church being weakened, distracted and depressed.

[Martyn Sandford]

Are the Palestinian authority using bulldozers which are armoured and equipped with machine guns for the building work which is taking place? I wonder why they don't need them, and the Israeli Defence Force does?

[Simon McIlwaine]

I have to say that we at Anglicans for Israel feel that Archbishop Rowan has missed a great opportunity to speak out forcefully against the continuing genocidal policies of the Sudanese regime.

If he had researched the issue before the Synod vote, he would have known that Caterpillar bulldozers are used by the Palestinian Authority to construct new housing or demolish old buildings.

Israel has not demolished homes of suspected terrorists for many months now and this policy may be coming to an end.

The ignorance of so many in our CHurch-the last Archbishop, Lord Carey, and Canon Andrew White being heroic and admirable exceptions-about the true situation in Israel and the Territories is not calculated to bring peace to the region. Reconcilation cannot be constructed on lies.

[Malcolm Bowden]

Amazing also that the Archbishop can condemn Guantanamo from the Sudan without commenting on the atrocities being perpertrated by the authorities there. Guantanamo certainly raises issues for all liberal people, but whatever may be going on there, it's not genocide.

[Fran]

Amazing that the Archbishop can be in Sudan and fail to mention the genocidal attacks perpetrated against the Christian community in the south - which carry on to this day - in the name of Islam. Nick Cohen nails him in an article in the guardian and posted here www.nickcohen.net

[J. C. Fisher]

"DAVID FROST: Yes. ... at the moment is that ... majority of the Anglican Communion are quite clear that active gay relationships should not be blessed in church and actively gay clergy should not be ordained and that these are unwelcome new developments in America. I mean that would be the common view, wouldn’t it?

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Very much the majority view and I think on a matter of real substance like this, a matter that effects the interpretation of the Bible, the discipline of clergy and lay people, what actually the Church will bless in God’s name; for a change on that I think we would need, as a Communion, to have a far greater level of consensus than we in fact have. Which is why the American determination to go it alone is, is worrying."

David should have been corrected: "actively gay" is *nothing new*. HONESTLY gay (and, in the case of +GR, honestly espoused!), *is*.

But WHY in the world would ++Rowan Cantuar say that "this [is] a matter that effects the interpretation of the Bible"??? He well knows that we, on the American side of the Pond, don't believe it does (i.e., what we're blessing is NOT what St. Paul was condemning).

If the ABC is being "equivocal", it seems to me that, in terms of church polity, he thinks too much (makes it too complicated). Lambeth '08: he simply *invites* (as Our Lord did/does). If some don't wish to come (being Pharisaical towards "publicans and sinners!" in their midst), that's nothing over which he need agonize (Regret, Yes. Repent of, No. As an Episcopalian, we're familiar with this combination...)

[Dr. Irene Lancaster, Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East]

Dear Ruth

You have done us all an incredible service by setting out the full interview between Rowan Williams and David Frost on the Heaven and Earth Show.

We can now see that Rowan Williams hasn't learned anything from his grave error of judgement at Synod. He has been told, the EIAG has been told, and his interfaith advisor has been told, by Canon Andrew White, who is there on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian areas, that Caterpillar bulldozers are being used to build up the infrastructure for the Palestinians which, at their own request, necessitates first destroying the buildings of Jewish settlers who have now left Gaza. What is unethical about that?

If you, Rowan Williams, accept that Andrew White knows a great deal more than you do about the area concerned, why don't you be a man, admit you have made a mistake and then we can start afresh.

Now to come to the 350th anniversary of the return of the Jews to Britain. I gave the first lecture in the series to celebrate this 350th anniversary, the day after the Synod decision on Israel. You may be surprised to learn that your former student and great friend, Dr. Andrew Shanks, Canon Theologian of Manchester's Anglican Cathedral, who were hosting the event, spontaneously opened proceedings by stating that your decision had been very wrong, and that Synod's decision had been very wrong and that this had to be said, because it transcended the bounds of friendship. And we all heard him, the Jewish community of Manchester and the very many Christians who came to support the event, and they all agreed with him.

Your decision has nothing to do with bad timing, but all to do with your appeasement of Islam. This is the third time in less than a year that you have been willing to sacrifice the tiny British Jewish community and tiny Israel on the altar of the appeasement of Islam. The question is: what are you going to do to make amends?

Because the rift between you and the Jewish community is very great and the rift between you and that half of your Church which disagrees with you on this is also very great.

[stephen bates]

I hope you weren't being too satirical about my abilities Ruth! But yes, it's true, after four years of asking, Lambeth Palace is finally giving an interview, though to the editor of The Guardian, not me. I'm not invited. Perhaps, as Jonathan Jennings said to a colleague once, I really ought to have bought him more lunches.
Anyway, the editor has a copy of my book (for which I did get an interview with the Abp in 2004) so he's had a briefing of sorts....

[Sergeant Raj Joshi, Leicestershire]

Dear Ruth,

In Hinduism there is one intrinsic belief. Lord Krishna said, "fear no one person or group." These weren't his exact words but I hope you get my meaning.

The best I can achieve in relation to the Lord is that there is good in us all for surely a Supreme being exists, for he, erm she, created us all.

And sometimes there is bad and sometimes more bad in others. Obviously the police service deals with bad people as well.

Coming back to the point, I do drift away I know sometimes, sorry, but I do like the use of the letters ABC by the way. This is the sign of a good journalist, I mean you of course!

Right, I have decided that in my work I fear no one, but this is not so easy to practice. I took this approach of fear no one with the Commissioner and on my comments into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes I was pushed abruptly back by his staff officer; we say "bag carrier."

I have thought in relation to my Chief Constable, who often talks about the good work he has done in relation to Stephen Lawrence; well actually I care not about the bad past and past work, I care about your position today for there are only two positions, racist or anti racist. And still today these people refuse to acknowledge the truth. They still heavily rely on what they have done. But that says nothing about their current position on issues.

The ABC and his Secretaries may actually fear the intelligent journalist. The intelligent human being points out the truth and I think you have done that with Sudan and many other issues. I personally like the approach of the ABY, "The Archbishop of York", and I say people need their beliefs challenging, and the ABY has done that with Mr Blair. In short, not that you fear any person, perhaps these people fear you! Indeed I also believe my spelling is getting better...

(RG writes: Don't feel bad about spelling, I made a really shameful spelling error in this post which I've just changed, and am hoping no-one noticed.)

[Graham Kings]

Thanks for reproducing the transcript, Ruth. However, there is an interesting mishearing and misprint in the discussion about "believing and knowing God", between "him" and "you're".

According to the transcript, Rowan Williams says:

'I don’t know that there is a God, in the sense that I know him sitting opposite me here in Khartoum.'

In the TV interview, Rowan Williams said:

'I don't know that there is a God, in the sense that I know you're sitting opposite me here, in Khartoum.'

This affects your own comment: 'I suppose the Archbishop could be forgiven for not finding Him in Sudan', because Rowan never said that.

He was actually referring to David Frost, whom he does know in the sense that he can see him etc. 'Knowing God exists' is a different category to 'knowing someone sitting opposite you exists'.

In effect, he is saying, I don't know there is a God in the same way that I know you are here, sitting with me.

RG writes: Thank you for pointing this out Graham. I have slightly amended my own comment accordingly and also amended the transcript.