Listen to the way this man talks: a courtier's listing of clerical and legal honorary titles, an empty snob’s dropping of exclusive names and places associated with England’s historic and current power elite—all delivered in the aristocratic sociolect of the English upper class. Meet the priest of the Knights Templar’s historic church in London’s fashionable legal district: Sir Robin Griffith-Jones.
The day after our February visit to England’s political prisoner, Tommy Robinson—who had been granted a couple of hours outside his solitary confinement to meet us behind bars in Woodhill Prison—we happened, during a spare moment, to visit Temple Church in London. The church was built in the Middle Ages by the Knights Templar, who once defended Christendom against Islam and protected Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. The church proudly boasts, that it was here Prince John was allegedly persuaded to support the Magna Carta of 1215—where the state promised its subjects fair, reasonable, and apolitical law enforcement.
The church was clearly proud of this tradition of liberty—though that tradition holds no real value anymore—and the propagandistic praise of Magna Carta, English freedom, and Habeas Corpus struck us as absurd and surreal, coming as it did the day after our prison visit to Tommy Robinson.
On a table in the church, some books by the priest—who bears the ridiculous title “Valiant Master of the Temple”—were on display. One of them, Islam and English Law – Rights, Responsibilities and the Place of Sharia, by Robin Griffith-Jones, is about how the church, the legal system, and English society can—and should—adapt to Sharia. The book is, of course, written as a clerical courtier’s defense of his boss, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who in 2008 triggered a self-inflicted media storm by suggesting that England ought to accommodate aspects of Sharia law—something the Archbishop described as “unavoidable.”
Now, together with a group of bishops and leading church figures, His Highness and Bishop Emeritus Rowan Williams has signed an open letter condemning Tommy Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration in London on Saturday, September 13th. According to Williams and his circle of clerical dignitaries, the peaceful and democratic use of assembly and freedom of speech by the English working class was nothing more than an expression of “racist, anti-Muslim, and far-right elements.”
And, naturally, the penguins of the Church of England distance themselves from the use by young men of Christian symbols during the demonstration—such as Christian crosses. For Rowan Williams and the clerical elite, this is simply a “misuse of Christianity.” The self-righteous pastoral letter could not have more clearly revealed the contempt of an out-of-touch elite for England’s ordinary people and their well-founded concerns.
If today the apostles of Christ were to arrive on the shores of England, they would be denied entry. Probably, they’d be arrested by the police and denounced by bishops and the media as “far-right extremists.”
And only Judas would be let ashore.
Firstly, because he has thirty silver coins. And secondly, because he can find employment in the authoritarian judicial system of that country.
Or as a bishop?
Or as ... “Valiant Master of the Temple”?
