Bishop of Oxford - A response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Sharia comments

The speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury on British law raising the question of making some accommodation to sharia councils has stirred both hostility and puzzlement.

I think it's important to realise that in Rowan Williams we have a man of enormous intellectual capacity and integrity who isn't afraid of tackling contentious issues but usually intends to stir a wide-ranging debate rather than to state a final position. His arguments are often more subtle and sophisticated than most people are used to.

The Archbishop's main question is about how a secular legal system can give appropriate space to religious groups and religious commitments. I believe this is part of his longer term project to make sure religion is kept in the public square and not neutralised and privatised. That much is vital.

There is always a problem when the word 'sharia' is mentioned, however, because we have got used to associating it with extremes that are clearly totally unacceptable in a modern western state. The conjunction of the words 'archbishop', 'sharia' and 'unavoidable' were bound to end in tears and I could wish they had not been given the opportunity to do that.

The Archbishop may have been trying to open up a debate on overlapping jurisdiction in matters of marital and financial law, and in mediation and conflict resolution, but British society is clearly not ready for such a debate sponsored by an archbishop.

British law has Judaeo-Christian foundations and has been enacted and shaped by Parliament and the courts. The basis of a stable modern democracy is the rule of law - for all - and I believe we have to honour and protect that common standard.

Other discussions about reasonable accommodation for religious conscience (including Christian religious conscience) would have to take place very carefully and cautiously, and only if public opinion could engage with it without alarm.