Rowan Williams 2‘Final call for Rowan Williams. Paging Rowan Williams. Would Rowan Williams please report to the nearest courtesy phone.’ 

Please, for the sake of not just the Anglican Communion but Christian hierarchy — stand down now.  Even the Queen — Defender of the Faith — finds the state of the Anglican Church frightful.  This is the man who says he had no idea Anglo-Catholic clergy were in discussions with Rome, when the story appeared in the papers in July! 

On October 14, 2009, the Daily Mail reported his latest pronouncements at Southwark Cathedral in London on economic growth and saving the planet.  I’ll highlight the leftist rhetoric and theory for you in these excerpts:

The Archbishop of Canterbury called for an end to economic growth to save the planet…

But he acknowledged that poverty should not be romanticised and said that economic growth could be one cause of ‘human liberation’…

‘We have to ask whether our duty of care for life is compatible with assuming without question that the desirable future for every economy, even the most currently successful and expansionist, is unchecked growth.’

However, Dr Williams added: ‘It is right to work for a world in which there is security of work and food and medical care for all, and to try and create local economies that make local societies prosper through trade and innovation…’

How are economies going to improve without growth?  During his lifetime, British manufacturing has gone from boom to bust.  So has our scientific and mathematical innovation;  UK engineering was known and respected worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s we made a transition to the much-trumpted ‘service-based economy’, which has gone bust, too. So, where are we going to work now?  If, as is the case, we lack scientific and mathematical education, how can we innovate?  How can we provide decent medical care in that state?

Williams continues:

‘But the question more and more people are asking is whether there are macro-economic models that would allow us to see more investment in public infrastructures and the development of sustainable technologies as priorities for a healthy economy, rather than a simple growth in consumer power.’

In recent months the Archbishop has been increasingly critical of the way the economy is run and the importance of finance and consumer power.

He has attacked belief in market forces as ‘idolatry’; praised the contempt of Marxists for ‘unbridled capitalism’, and, last month, condemned the City because no-one has said sorry for the excesses that ended in recession.

So, he gives more evidence for what we had supposed all along: he is a socialist. Yes, of course, there are guys in the City (London’s financial district) who pick up whopping bonuses, but so what?  They’re all we have left in a Thatcherite service-based economy.  If they go, we all go down with them.  And macro-economic models are notoriously socialist;  not only that, but if you can’t keep to your promised quota, you stop getting funding for your enterprise, then you’re back to where you started and in debt. Very compassionate. It’s not easy to be a young widow with children in a third-world country and make a go of macro-economic ventures.  Some succeed, but many fail.

Williams encourages us to enjoy nature:

He also called for people to ‘go out of doors in the wet from time to time’ and take chances to watch the changing of the seasons in order to ‘restore a sense of association with the material place and time and climate we inhabit and are part of.

Commuters already do that, but, thanks for the thought.  It’s not as if trains drop us off at the office door.

The call for an end to growth is likely to stir fresh controversy for Dr Williams, who last year called for Muslim sharia law to be recognised so that people could choose whether to have their cases heard in the state courts or Islamic courts.

As if we needed reminding!

But Dr Williams’ own critics say he is himself credulous in his unquestioning acceptance of the theory of man-made global warming, and that his ambition of a world without growth would mean deep poverty, especially in the Third World…

Dr Williams said: ‘Whatever we do to combat the nightmare possibilities of wholesale environmental catastrophe has to be grounded not primarily in the scramble for survival but in the hope of human happiness.’

The man obviously hasn’t thought this through.  But, then, we get:

The Archbishop preceded his speech with an interview in which he said people should grow food on their own allotments to end imports of ‘unsustainable’ air-freighted vegetables from countries like Kenya.

He said that it was a mistake for Kenyans to rely on an economy based on unsustainable exports and that Britons who grew food on allotments would reconnect with nature.

So Anglicans and other people in Kenya should just starve?  They’re delighted to be able to grow this food for export.  It has no market in Kenya.  They make a living.  Their spending on local goods and services help stimulate their own economy.  What is the problem? 

But Ruth Lea, economist at the Arbuthnot Banking Group and a Anglican churchgoer, said: ‘It says it all that he would stop imports from Kenya. It is all right for us to talk about stopping economic growth, but what about people across southern Asian and in Africa who live in excruciating poverty?

‘How are they to get a faintly acceptable standard of life without growth?’

Just so, Ms Lea — thank you. 

Notice there is never any mention of Jesus, the importance of faith, a return to the Gospel, transformative Anglican teachings and values — nothing.  Williams puts his faith in mankind and mankind’s creations only.  Very sad.  No wonder his churches are empty.  And little surprise that the Pope has just invited 70m Anglicans to Rome!  Well, someone’s got to show leadership.