UK: Thin, fluting voices raised in defiance of the public outcry
and the media's firestorm..."
The Archbishop of Sharia even had the nerve to crack wise with this:
"The prevailing attitude was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the speaker had not said."
Lent is no time to bear a grudge and General Synod quickly forgave Rowan Williams his sharia law gaffe.
The moment a flunkey bashed the Chamber's wall with a gavel and the Archbishop bumbled in at 3.17pm yesterday they stood as one and clapped.
Some even cheered, thin, fluting voices raised in defiance of the public outcry and the media's firestorm.
A united Church of England. Now there's a rare sight!
The ovation lasted well over a minute, the Church's ruling body giving its much-flayed high priest full gas and gaiters support. He looked genuinely embarrassed, poor lamb, and kept trying to get them to shut up.
Such is his natural air of command, they blithely disobeyed him. Palms more commonly pressed together in prayer continued to slap against one another to show the world that Rowan remained their man.
They are proud of this intellectual, soft-spoken beardie, proud that he isn't one of those shrieking fulminators you find in the yellow press, proud that he treads the shaded avenue of restraint and self-doubt rather than walking in the full sun of evangelical zealotry.
Synod is always an eccentric sight: Rural, diocesan England plonked down in the middle of Westminster.
In its inner circle of seats sat a smattering of episcopal purple.
Beyond that were the floral prints and the drip-dry shirts of the laity and junior clergy, all gathered in a domed Chamber which matches this tolerant Church's sometimes circular resolve.
Once he had got them to cease their display of affection he yielded the Chair to a big-boned nun, ambled to a microphone and gave a two-part speech.
The first part was about last week's sharia law row.
The second part was strikingly assertive about Zimbabwe, attacking the "opportunistic posturing" of some pro-Mugabe clergy.
I don't think I have ever heard him so punchy. Perhaps he has finally got the message that an Archbishop should occasionally aim for the boundary rope.
On the sharia law stuff, he opened with a quotation. "The prevailing attitude was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the speaker had not said."
He explained that this was Ronald Knox's description of a student debating society in the 1930s but "it has a certain familiarity after the last few days".
Laughter. He was never in any danger from the full House after that.
The speech was quite unlike the sort of thing we hear in our elected politics.
The sentences were long and properly formed, complete with verbs and sub-clauses.
We have become so hooked on bullet-point oratory and hard-nosed self-justification from MPs and Government ministers that it was at first rather hard to cope with a bookish, conversational style.
Being a man of God, he did not pause to milk applause. He did not emphasise buzz words - not quite his thing - and did not thrust his chin forwards in defiance. Tricks of rhetoric were absent.
He just stood there, hands clasped in front of his body, the beard moving roughly in sync with his lips. Was that a hint of lawyerlyness in one or two of the lines?
"I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity," he said. Unclarity! Love it.
There may have been a "misleading choice of words". That is not quite the same thing, m'lud, as owning up to a "choice of misleading words".
Later he accepted that the Sharia theory may have been "clumsily deployed".
Some of my inky-fingered confreres were convinced that the Williams speech bore the imprint of Downing Street. Maybe. Maybe not.
But it is hard to imagine Gordon Brown quoting from the psalter - "cleanse thou me from my secret faults" - and sounding as though he meant it.
The most interesting thing about this row may not be the contribution of the Archbishop, a kindly soul who obviously believes all that ecumenical jazz.
It may be the reaction of a British Left which has reflexively recoiled from the multi-culturalism it so long promoted and may now be taking out its self-hatred on this druidical figure in the black cassock and Elijah beard.
Daft? If you insist. But bold and eloquent, too.
And he needs to be fired from his position as primate of the Church of England.
Lent is no time to bear a grudge and General Synod quickly forgave Rowan Williams his sharia law gaffe.
The moment a flunkey bashed the Chamber's wall with a gavel and the Archbishop bumbled in at 3.17pm yesterday they stood as one and clapped.
Some even cheered, thin, fluting voices raised in defiance of the public outcry and the media's firestorm.
A united Church of England. Now there's a rare sight!
The ovation lasted well over a minute, the Church's ruling body giving its much-flayed high priest full gas and gaiters support. He looked genuinely embarrassed, poor lamb, and kept trying to get them to shut up.
Such is his natural air of command, they blithely disobeyed him. Palms more commonly pressed together in prayer continued to slap against one another to show the world that Rowan remained their man.
They are proud of this intellectual, soft-spoken beardie, proud that he isn't one of those shrieking fulminators you find in the yellow press, proud that he treads the shaded avenue of restraint and self-doubt rather than walking in the full sun of evangelical zealotry.
Synod is always an eccentric sight: Rural, diocesan England plonked down in the middle of Westminster.
In its inner circle of seats sat a smattering of episcopal purple.
Beyond that were the floral prints and the drip-dry shirts of the laity and junior clergy, all gathered in a domed Chamber which matches this tolerant Church's sometimes circular resolve.
Once he had got them to cease their display of affection he yielded the Chair to a big-boned nun, ambled to a microphone and gave a two-part speech.
The first part was about last week's sharia law row.
The second part was strikingly assertive about Zimbabwe, attacking the "opportunistic posturing" of some pro-Mugabe clergy.
I don't think I have ever heard him so punchy. Perhaps he has finally got the message that an Archbishop should occasionally aim for the boundary rope.
On the sharia law stuff, he opened with a quotation. "The prevailing attitude was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the speaker had not said."
He explained that this was Ronald Knox's description of a student debating society in the 1930s but "it has a certain familiarity after the last few days".
Laughter. He was never in any danger from the full House after that.
The speech was quite unlike the sort of thing we hear in our elected politics.
The sentences were long and properly formed, complete with verbs and sub-clauses.
We have become so hooked on bullet-point oratory and hard-nosed self-justification from MPs and Government ministers that it was at first rather hard to cope with a bookish, conversational style.
Being a man of God, he did not pause to milk applause. He did not emphasise buzz words - not quite his thing - and did not thrust his chin forwards in defiance. Tricks of rhetoric were absent.
He just stood there, hands clasped in front of his body, the beard moving roughly in sync with his lips. Was that a hint of lawyerlyness in one or two of the lines?
"I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity," he said. Unclarity! Love it.
There may have been a "misleading choice of words". That is not quite the same thing, m'lud, as owning up to a "choice of misleading words".
Later he accepted that the Sharia theory may have been "clumsily deployed".
Some of my inky-fingered confreres were convinced that the Williams speech bore the imprint of Downing Street. Maybe. Maybe not.
But it is hard to imagine Gordon Brown quoting from the psalter - "cleanse thou me from my secret faults" - and sounding as though he meant it.
The most interesting thing about this row may not be the contribution of the Archbishop, a kindly soul who obviously believes all that ecumenical jazz.
It may be the reaction of a British Left which has reflexively recoiled from the multi-culturalism it so long promoted and may now be taking out its self-hatred on this druidical figure in the black cassock and Elijah beard.
Daft? If you insist. But bold and eloquent, too.
And he needs to be fired from his position as primate of the Church of England.
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