Questions for the Bishop of Rochester?

Picture courtesy of The Daily Mail

The Bishop of Rochester's latest take on Muslim presence in the UK receives the attention it does because of his status as a Bishop, his personal identity of Pakistani origin, and his role in inter-faith work at a national level. See a selection of coverage here

One would have hoped in the interests of the Church and the country that his views would therefore be so informed as to come across with real authority.

I take it as read that he sincerely believes what he has said, and that he has been accurately reported by the Sunday Telegraph. If either where not the case then he has had ample opportunity in other media to refute the published words. 

Sadly what it does is raise is fundamental questions about his intentions, his sources and his perspectives.

It is important to read what he actually wrote for the paper, rather than the summaries, so that it is possible to get a feel for the nuances of what he wrote- read here.

1. It is the tone of the article which raises the first important question - "who" is the Bishop writing for - for this is the first and fundamental question of any episcopal contribution to a national paper. Did he think that it would have a positive impact on Muslim leadership? Is it aimed at the many Christian readers of the Sunday Telegraph who might gain encouragement from his views on Christianity? Is it a predominately "political" target audience trying to influence political decisions and progress.

Plainly no-one other than the Bishop and his immediate advisers can answer that - but it would interesting to know whether they feel they have achieved their objectives?

In practice it does seem to have gained support from the kind of xenophobic views which are the staple diet of the Mail and its right wing competitors. Does the Bishop regard it as a success that he gains support like this or this which are the more unequivocal responses to his words?

2. Much attention has been focused on his implicit claim that Muslim "no-go areas" exist - but this raises the question about where these no-go areas are other than in the Bishop's fearful perception. If they exists as he claims then he should say where they are and define what he means by the term no-go area. Is he talking about very localised streets, local neighbourhoods, ward sized areas or what. It is this claim that appears to provoke the strongest negative response from people living and working in the cities which CMS's Richard Sudworth among others neatly and very charitably sums up here.

3. The generalisations of the comment (even allowing for the brevity of a newspaper article) cause me to ask other questions - how much contact and real experience does the Bishop have with Muslim communities here in the UK. From his own CV it seems to be very limited which raises the question of how qualified he is to speak about British Muslim experience, given the very limited time he has lived here in the UK and the nature of his employment here which have been pretty rarified to say the least?

4. When he writes about the lost era of "Christian" Britain it frankly sounds like a wishful longing for a state of the nation which never really existed - but it does raise the question whether he regards it as a "way forward". What does his Christian Britain of the future really look like - does it have any place for people of other faiths and their contribution to the good of society.

5. When the Bishop writes of the changing nature of chaplaincies does he not yet realise that the call for a neutral "multi-faith" approach comes more from a secular " all faiths are the same" type approach rather than from Muslim calls for distinctiveness - indeed such practices work against the distinctiveness of all the faiths as they are lumped to together. To that extent Muslims are the allies of Christians not the opponents.

6. The most telling question comes from a friend and Muslim leader and theologian - a third generation Lancastrian British Muslim who is deeply fearful that the Bishop represents the kind of "Pakistan based thinking" that some Mosques are working so hard to rid their own leadership of. It is precisely this lack of British understanding which the Bishop is re-enforcing. That for me raises questions about whether the Church of England and the Bench of Bishops has offered undue credence to the Bishop and his views because he is "from" Pakistan ("and understands these things") when in fact Muslim experience is moving away from the perspective precisely because people "from" Pakistan struggle to understand what is happening here. Ahaz puts the question sharply like this "Is it inconsistent to demand British born and educated Imams so that they can understand and work within the culture, but at the same time give credence to the views of a 1/2 generation British/Pakistani Bishop". I would ask whether the Bishops particular background may lead to a Pakistani perspective on Islam which is fundamentally unhelpful when trying to understand British Islam - furthermore does this extend to his understanding of Christianity in Britain?

Can I finish by highlighting a sad irony: the story was launched on the Feast Day of the Epiphany when Matthew records that it was strangers of the east that reveal The Manifestation of Christ. Moreover he records that it was " the whole of Jerusalem" and not just Herod that was "troubled" by this - but he nevertheless points out that it was these strangers who were the first to worship and recognise "God with us" in the infant Jesus. The danger is that the Bishop's views as expressed or exploited, fuel a fear of the stranger, while contributing nothing to resolving the real issues that do exist for British Muslims such as challenging fundamentalism, for inter-faith understanding, or the Christian concern for prophetic justice of which the Bishop writes.

Has the article raised important questions that take forward our understanding of our Muslim neighbours? I fear not.

Comments

[Richard Sudworth]

Tom: excellent observations; helpful and wise. Thankyou

[Madine]

Thank you for your questions which I think are pertinent to a wider question of how the Church "sees" other faiths in the UK - your previous post on Church schools and the advantages to Anglicans and Roman Catholics is in many ways related. For me as a Muslim married to an Anglican (with the full support of my family I must add!)the real issues is not whether the Church of England should be established - but what the Church does with being "established" - does it use it to offer faith and justice or does it use it to feather its own nest and live on a diet of its own importance? Thank you for your post, and bless you in your new role.

[NoPCthoughts]

As you chose to back link to my blog (as some sort of extreme example of xenophobic views), I feel free to openly comment on your posting.

Firstly, what makes you an authority on what opinions, other than your own, are “informed” or come across “with real authority.”? From what heights of arrogance do you feel able to impugn the motives of a Bishop of your church, or any other of the thousands of people who don’t agree with you?

I ask because, although my take on the world is not yours, and certainly not “Christian”, as you apparently define the term, at least I accept that my views are not infallible and are solely my own. When you bandy about the term ‘xenophobic’ as a term of insult, are you maybe suggesting that I am against all ‘foreigners’, or would you accept that personally I have nothing against Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Atheists, Poles, and other East Europeans, and yes even some C of E? Nor do I discriminate on colour.

Oops that’s not very xenophobic is it, so maybe I should qualify this statement to ensure I fit your idea of the “Mail and its Rightwing competitors readership” profile? So in short, what I dislike is groups who refuse to integrate or offer any accommodation, those who insist that their world view is the only world view, those who would see my hard won freedoms altered to fit their opinion of the superiority of their creed, in short Islam and its radical exponents.

You seem happy to co-operate with a religion that considers yours to be nothing more than idolatry, "The God will say: 'Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind 'Worship me and my mother as gods besides God?' 'Glory to You, 'he will answer, 'how could I ever say that to which I have no right?" (Surah 5:114), and that should be destroyed “The only true faith in God's sight is Islam." (Surah 3:19), but happy to denounce a Bishop of your creed, and of course those daily mail readers (and their fellow travellers in the rest of the UK’s right wing press), who agree with him.

The Bishop is, from my own and others experiences correct in his assertion there are pockets of Islamic separatism in the sea of our society, where they offer a threat to the non believer. This in practical terms, may not be much different from our other violent estates, except that it’s often expressly done on racial / religious pretext, rather than just the Chav thuggery that sadly we a have had to grow used to. These pockets don’t just exist in some very small block of localised streets, local neighbourhoods; ward sized areas in Bradford or Oldham etc, but also in the minds.

The parallel ‘multicultural’ worlds that now exist in the UK, where an entire culture is lived tucked with in our own, neither acknowledging nor accepting our value system, is not healthy for us as a wider society, nor for them as group. The news today, included the story about the inquest on yet another Muslim Asian girl who had been found murdered, after apparently resisting an arranged marriage. As good an example of the non integration of Islam, as any I could make up in my xenophobia.

My experiences of the phenomena of Islam in the Inner Cities may be somewhat different from yours, but I lived in inner city Manchester for twenty years, so your experiences in Bradford can’t be so much more “Informed” than mine, just interpreted differently.

Secondly, I don’t find it so surprising that you choose to categorise everyone whose experience doesn’t conform to your world view as, ‘xenophobic’, and ‘rightwing’, because the very terms used indicate that you equate Left wing (Socialist) and Christian as the only acceptable viewpoint.

But by completely dismissing the many first hand accounts, illustrating the problems many non Muslims have experienced in Muslim majority areas, are you saying that they are invalid because you don’t approve of them? You’re a clergy man working in areas where the BNP have influence, why, could it be because people like you, refused to treat non Muslims concerns over some issues as invalid because they were just ‘xenophobic’ or ‘rightwing’ ?

Still as an active representative of a church that’s both in physical and numeric decline, presumably you held many fruitful meetings with the Imams in Bradford, and you have asked about the killings of your Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Pakistan and other areas, where they are killed simply for being “Crusaders”. Or maybe you asked about the fairly open sale in the Islamic book shops of the Bradford and Leeds area, of books, DVD’s and tapes promoting, extolling and showing Jihadi suicide attacks on non Muslims across the globe? Or maybe not.

Although all religions have violent passages, there is not one other religion that exhorts its followers to armed struggle in the House of war, or one where the interpretations of these violent passages made in the 12th century, are cast in stone, and thus still valid when used to justify suicide bombings, murder, lying, rape and even slavery.

Possibly you asked your scholarly friend about the many Sura in the Koran that mention Jews, and Christians, and not in a positive manner. For example, the Koran dictates: “O (Muslim) believers! Don't make friends with the Jews or Christians! They (the Jews and Christians) are friends of each other. Whoever makes friends with them is one of them (Maida, Verse 51).”

Finally you posed the question “What does his (the Bishop of Rochester’s) Christian Britain of the future really look like - does it have any place for people of other faiths and their contribution to the good of society?”

This about sums up all that’s wrong with your approach to the Bishops comments, or anyone who agrees with him. His article is clearly aimed at certain Islamic groups, not even all Muslims, and certainly not any other religions or faiths. For you to drag all other faiths and beliefs into the debate, and then question whether they have a future here in the Bishops Britain, is just a cheap debating trick, worthy only of any ten cent lawyer.

[Tom Allen]

I chose the noPCthoughts link at random from several that appeared in a google search - the subsequent comment above rather endorses the point of the choice in its anecdotal illustrations, repeated overuse of vague adjectives such as "many" and the un-persuasive link between New Labour and the Muslim no-go areas.

Other readers will have noted that:

I do not refer to the link as xenophobic that is reference in the previous sentence to the Daily Mail and its competitors. For something to be xenophobic it not only has to be ill-informed (which applies to the link) but also have the power to influence others.(which I would question)

I specifically say that I accept that the Bishop writes sincerely - ie I absolutely don't question his motives.

I ask for some definition of what he means by "no-go" areas. The link is an illustration of the consequences of this failure since this ill-defined phrase can then be used to make vague statements such as that there are "many" no-go areas or facilitate a long list of places were they exist - but what are they?

I don't dismiss first hand accounts - I do I admit tend to be a little sceptical of second hand stories from barstaff etc.

Are the current Bishop' loosing their way - well ironically it was one of Bishop Michaels predecessors Bishop Claughton in the late 19th century who (far from condemning Islam as a heathen religion) was one of the first to call for productive dialogue with the sailors of Muslim faith in the Medway ports

I know little first hand about the views of Bradfords imams since I have never lived or worked there.Through the work of the Barnabas Trust and many other groups I am of aware of persecution of Christian in other countries. My Muslim friends and colleagues would share my condemnation of it and are embarrassed by it.

I live in the constituency of those dreadful stereotypical Labour MPs - the problems for the stereotype is that she often challenges Muslim views or has campaigned against the unacceptable practices of the different community groups and particularly about rights for young women.

A December survey of Muslim bookshops in West Yorkshire (following the widely discredited C4 survey) was unable to find any text or DVD which advocated Jihad (other than in the historic texts)nor they were provided with any on request.

My friend Ahaz would of course be familiar with the highly selective passages routinely quoted and repeated in the link - and could (if was not a wise and forgiving man) respond with quotes from the Bible - he would prefer to explain again with great patience Muslim practice of contemporary interpretation - and the social cultural context of the originals.

Does the appropriateness of the link in the context of my post appears to stand some validity - readers will form their own opinion I am sure.

Tom

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