Seven years ago an Anglican bishop was saying that laws against “apostasy” are a bad thing.
One of the Church of England’s most senior bishops is warning that people will die unless Muslim leaders in Britain speak out in defence of the right to change faith.
Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, whose father converted from Islam to Christianity in Pakistan, says he is looking to Muslim leaders in Britain to ‘uphold basic civil liberties, including the right for people to believe what they wish to believe and to even change their beliefs if they wish to do so’.
Even change their beliefs, yes imagine that. Beliefs aren’t like friendship or marriage; you’re allowed to leave and loyalty isn’t necessarily a virtue.
Ali, who some see as a potential Archbishop of Canterbury, has told Channel 4’s Dispatches programme of his fears about the safety of the estimated 3,000 Muslims who have converted to other faiths in Britain.
‘It is very common in the world today, including in this country, for people who have changed their faith, particularly from being Muslim to being Christian, to be ostracised, to lose their job, for their marriages to be dissolved, for children to be taken away,’ Ali said. ‘And this is why some leadership is necessary from Muslim leaders themselves to say that this is not what Islam teaches.’
In the long run, it would be better to say it’s the wrong thing to teach, period. Never mind whether “Islam teaches” it or not. Reform. Reform whether Islam says ok or not. Let Islam catch up, if that’s what it takes.
The bishop warns that Muslims who switch faiths in Britain could be killed if the current climate continues. ‘We have seen honour killings have happened, and there is no reason why this kind of thing cannot happen.’
In 2004, Prince Charles asked British Muslim leaders to renounce laws of apostasy and the death sentence for converts in Islamic countries, but no public statement was ever made.
Well good for Priss Choss; that may be the one useful thing he’s ever done. But how pathetic that it sank like a stone.
I disagree with that, actually. I’d say rather that some leadership is necessary from our, y’know, leaders, our government, to make it clear that whether that’s what Islam teaches or not, that’s not how we do things here. That you don’t just take someone’s children away or fire them without good, legal reasons, decided by a real court, not some “voluntary” Allah-botherers court they made up. It’s the tolerance of the existence this culture-within-a-culture that’s the problem here. It’s up to us, the civilised majority, to protect those who choose to leave these barbarian cultures behind, and to punish, severely, anyone seeking to perpetuate this kind of backward practice.
sonofrojblake:
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Well said. The best defence against bullshit, religious or otherwise, is reason. Likewise, the best defence against quackery is critique of quackery; anti-quackery if you will.
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BUT believing the religious doctrine, or at least going along and not criticising it, is the means to belonging. And belonging to a group wider than one’s own immediate family is a very widespread and common human need. Clerics however, being professional Muslims, Christians or whatever have a somewhat different role to play from that of ordinary people, though they ARE like politicians.
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“One of the Church of England’s most senior bishops is warning that people will die unless Muslim leaders in Britain speak out in defence of the right to change faith.”
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At a guess I would say that more people change from Islam to some other faith like that offered by the Church of England that the other way around. Clearly, like all clerics, the bishop is not in the business of urging members of his own flock to leave and join another congregation: switch say, from Anglicanism to Islam. In this case it would appear that the subtext of the invitation is for Muslims to become Anglicans, or at least Christians.
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Islamic, Christian or whatever, the cleric’s flock is the cleric’s living. Nothing threatens a cleric more than a dwindling congregation. That is why the ban on apostasy exists in the first place.
Christian clerics tolerate apostasy because they have to. But for Islamic clerics, the law in their countries of origin says they don’t have to. And surprise, surprise: that is the law they prefer.
And, of course, honor killings do not just ‘happen.’ These are CRIMES, plotted and committed by people, in service of ideas and beliefs. The passive language is a stealth accommodation to the outrage.
An idea I’ve seen and like is to refuse to refer to such crimes as “honour killings”. Call them what they are: “vanity murders”.
Islamic, Christian or whatever, the cleric’s flock is the cleric’s living. Nothing threatens a cleric more than a dwindling congregation. That is why the ban on apostasy exists in the first place.
Christian clerics tolerate apostasy because they have to. But for Islamic clerics, the law in their countries of origin says they don’t have to. And surprise, surprise: that is the law they prefer.
You’re right save for one point.
The clerics Nazir refers to live in the UK. and their country of origin, in some cases, IS the UK. And the laws of the UK call for freedom of conscience.
In any case, all four schools of islamic jurisprudence call for the death penalty for apostasy. Yusuf Qaradawi, one of the world’s foremost islamic clerics, has stated that were it not for death penalty for apostasy, Islam might have died out a long time ago.
And for a good number of Muslims, be their clerics or not, secular laws mean absolutely nothing.