A voice of sanity

It seems that the Anglican Church has a new Archbishop and he is a man with some stones... The Times Online has the story:

Multiculturalism has betrayed the English, Archbishop says
St George's Day should be celebrated and the English should reclaim their national identity and culture, Dr John Sentamu says, a week before his enthronement in YorkBritain�s first black Archbishop has made a powerful attack on multiculturalism, urging English people to reclaim their national identity.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said that too many people were embarrassed about being English. "Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains," he said.

He said that the failure of England to rediscover its culture afresh would lead only to greater political extremism.

The new Archbishop also strongly criticised the Terrorism Bill, showing that he is likely to be even more robust in his criticism of the Government than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Very cool -- not only does he have a clear head on his shoulders, he is not afraid to criticize the government. A bit more:

He called for the English to rediscover their cultural identity by properly marking celebrations such as St George�s Day on April 23. "I speak as a foreigner really. The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done. They have done some terrible things but not all the Empire was a bad idea. Because the Empire has gone there is almost the sense in which there is not a big idea that drives this nation."

The Ugandan-born Archbishop, who fled Idi Amin�s regime in 1974, said he would not be where he was today were it not for the British Empire and the English teachers and missionaries who worked in Africa.

And one last quote from the article:

He disliked the word �tolerance� when used in reference, for example, to people of different cultures. �It seems to be the word tolerance is bad because it just means putting up with it,� he said. �I was raised in the spirit of magnanimity. That is a better word than tolerance. If you are magnanimous in your judgments on other people, there is a chance that I will recognise that you will help me in my struggle.�

He described English culture as rooted in Christianity and, in spite of attempts by secularists to marginalise it, the Church still had a central role to play. �I think the Church in many ways has to be like a midwife, bringing to birth possibilities of what is authentically very good in the English mind.�

And compare this to this little bit of moral bankruptcy: Hat tip to Charles at LGF for this link.

The misguided church
The Church of England's latest opinion on Middle Eastern affairs ranks among its most bankrupt.

A recent report commissioned by the church's bishops endorsed apologizing to Muslim leaders for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

That invasion removed a sadistic tyrant who bragged publicly about paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers - who intimidated his people by tossing them into shredders, allowing his sons to rape their choice of women and gassing entire villages.

Yet to the authors of the report, "Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11," none of that matters.

"We do believe that the church has a visionary role for reconciliation beyond that of any government," one of the authors, Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford, told BBC Radio.

That role involves what the report called "truth and reconciliation" meetings with Muslim leaders that would give Christian counterparts the opportunity to perform a "public act of institutional penance" for the West's "long litany of errors" in dealing with Iraq, including the 2003 war.

Beyond the obvious betrayal of British troops in the field, the report symbolizes two more substantial, disturbing tendencies among liberal Christian intellectuals: profound ignorance of Islam and a virulent pacifism that embraces appeasement.

Disgusting in its lack of historical perspective...