ANGLICAN APOLOGY

So, part-time Druid and full time Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has APOLOGISED to the descendents of a slave plantation that the Church owned in Barbados almost 200 years ago. Bizarrely,he urged the current members of his Church to share in the "shame and sinfulness of our predecessors".

Where do you start? For a start, didn't Anglican reformers help ABOLISH the same slave trade he wants to apologise for? Wasn't that a tangible and meaningful example of real Christianity in action? Where is the shame in that? The vogue for these centuries old retro-apologia seems to set liberal hearts a-racing - as Blair and Clinton demonstrated with their ludicrous apologies for the Irish potato famine and the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom respectively- but I see it as entirely pointless. The people concerned died centuries ago, and the particularities of their individual deaths are completely unknown to Williams, so in effect he was apologising for no good reason, but it makes him FEEL GOOD and that is the main thing.

Williams. let us recall, declared that Anglican missionaries had "sinned" by imposing Hymns Ancient and Modern on Africa. He is a hopeless apostate and evidence of how fallen the Anglican Church has become.

Comments

[Sean Fear]

Quite. If *you* do something wrong, then the right thing to do is make amends, including making an apology.

Apologising for something others have done is a meaningless gesture.

[Hugh Green]

How about if someone else does it in your name and you have benefitted directly from it?

[Sean Fear]

Yes, if you are in some way responsible for their action.

[james orr]

Could someone take a legal action against this eejit on the basis of Trade Descriptions? "The Archbishop of Canterbury" doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin.

There are still some sound people in the pews of (English) Anglicanism but their Archbishop is a balloon

[Ross]

May I just take this opportunity to apologise for the extinction of the Neanderthals.

[DST]

When are we going to get these jokers disestablished?

[EU Serf]

As Sean says, apologising for something over which you have no responsibility is absurd.

Its like a hypothetical Prime Minister, saying sorry for cartoons printed by the free press in his jurisdiction.

[Gary Monro]

I saw this - posted on it actually.

Here we have people not responsible for the slave trade apologising to people who weren't hurt by it.

Is it any wonder the concept of personal responsibility is in tatters?

[John Hustings]

And they wonder why they have no congregations left?

[Colm]

Can I just say to everyone at ATW that I would like to humbly and sincerely apologise.

Phew! that makes me feel better!

[Madradin Ruad]

Having apologised Colm , you have admitted liability - I want Compensation!

[Sean Fear]

The parallel between the Church of England and the Conservative Party is obvious and ominous.

[Madradin Ruad]

Did you see Bell's cartoon today ?
I'm sure even David will set aside his dislike for the Grauniad and have a grin LOL

flipflop

[Aileen]

Colm are you aplogising for something you have done, something that someone else has done or something that you intend to do? ;o)

Surely fellow blacks, and arabs, were responsible for enslaving these people: and selling them on to a third party - doesn't make it right, just factually right - although I realise it would be much too un-PC to mention this.

[John Palubiski]

I feel very, very sorry for sincere Anglicans who still practice their faith.

They have no one to turn to and the Anglican leadership gives them nothing that they can feel proud of; in fact, they don't even get a sense of coherence

Why associate/equate Anglicanism with little else than a litany of colonialist sins?

The Arabo/muslim world still practices slavery, so what does the good "Arch" say about that?

And the Barbadians present at Rowan's apology probably frowned, cocked their heads sideways and said; "what the fuck is that white sucker goin' on about"?

Does the good "Arch" seriously think a single inhabitant of the isle would give it up and return to Africa for life under....say... Mugabe?

The man is a silly guilt-ridden buffoon.

[Colm]

While we can mock the hand wringing apologies handed out by Anglican church leaders, I for one am still glad we have a church establishment as toleranr and mild as we do - a darn sight more preferal than any intolerant fundamentalist religous culture such as that we have witnessed in Muslim lands.

[ch in texas]

Colm, I somewhat disagree. Even though he's not burning down buildings, he's still taking an approach that Western Man and Civilisation is bad and must be apoligized for. If he were really sorry for slavery, he'd not take the easy Clinton "I feel your pain" PC approach. He would take the Bush approach and denounce sex slavery from the rostrum of the UN or the pulpit in Canterbury, or do battle with Arabs still taking slaves in Sudan.

[Colm]

CH

I am not defending the apology which I agree is ludicrous - I am just saying that the meek and mild religous establishments we tend to have in the Christian west is a lot better than irrational brook no opposition fundamentalism which has caused much much brutality and suffering in history and continues to do in parts of the world today.

[ch in texas]

Colm, I agree with that!

[Alan McDonald]

CH,

I agree with you that we should all fight modern day slavery and the trafficking in human beings. Do you support the anti-slavery stance of Amnesty International, for example, which has attacked slavery in countries like Sudan and Mauretania?

[ch in texas]

Alan, I read the entire press release from AI, and find nothing in it that I oppose, other than the new convention adding yet more bureacratic layers to the law. Surely all of the EU states and the US have laws on the books that make human slavery illegal? But I'm not of the mind that JUST b/c AI says it, it can't be true. Now, if the left would just apply this maxim to Mr.
Bush.......

[Garfield]

Didn't the same Anglican Church ban black people from its churches not five decades ago?

[Garfield]

In London that is.

[Alan McDonald]

CH,

I'll be more inclined to believe what Bush says after he is removed from office. I already tend to believe "Brownie."