At last, the Church of England finally makes a stand

Readers of this blog know that organised religion and I parted company quite some time ago. I like to think of myself as an agnostic bordering on the atheist (still not quite ready to make the final jump.

Whatever I or other agnostics / atheists think about organised religion, we do need to respect other peoples beliefs and views, even if we think they are wrong. What I often find surprising is how quiet the church can be over some of the big issues that face us such as global warming.

Therefore I was pleasantly surprised to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams making some very valid points about American foreign policy and Christain fundementalism. To quote from an interview he gave to the Muslim magazine Emel.

• "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British empire did - in India, for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together - Iraq, for example."
• He had told his interviewer that he found Christian Zionism "not at all easy to accept", adding that it was connected with the "chosen national myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God's purpose for humanity".

Surely this what the church should be doing - standing up and saying what it thinks rather than worrying what people think it should say.

The Guardian has more Archbishop thrown into row over US Middle East policy