The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

I am not yet confirmed, but I have come to think of myself again – after a 55 year break – as a member of the Church of England. As far as my local church is concerned, that’s fine. I feel rather differently, however, about the leadership of the church overall.

In his recent sermon in Chiswick, the Rt Rev & Rt Hon The Lord Chartres GCVO, former Bishop of London, said:

The Church of England is frequently highly credible locally even while it is often incredible nationally.

With that, I could not agree more. However he also said that:

Despair in the Christian world view is a sin. We can be realistic about the dangers but not immobilised by fear. Progress toward a rich and creative human community always stems from a heart open to others; an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.

So this is more complicated than if I had a problem with my employer’s or political party’s leadership. It’s not just a question of put up, shut up or leave. Firstly the current Archbishop of Canterbury is neither my boss nor my party leader. I didn’t join the church to follow her but (as she’s no doubt trying to do herself) to follow Christ. Secondly, our differences are not theological. We serve the same God, profess the same creed and worship in the same way.

So what’s my issue with Archbishop Sarah? In my opinion, she made serious and dangerous errors during her recent visit to the Holy Land. In particular she’s been naive (at best) in failing to confront Islamic extremism while ignoring the real oppression of Christians in Muslim lands – including in Gaza under Hamas.

She visited members of the Palestinian Church and I can understand her need to sympathise with their suffering during the recent war. Why did she choose not to visit, however, any of the victims of the October 7th pogrom? Worse, she facilitated violent Palestinian narratives by associating with people with known ties to designated terror groups.

Specifically she visited the home of (and expressed support for) Palestinian Christian Layan Nasir, who was formerly detained by order of an Israeli court. Nasir was active in the leadership of a student organisation called the Democratic Progressive Student Pole (DPSP), which is the student arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at Birzeit University on the West Bank.

The PFLP pioneered armed aircraft-hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. More recently, the group has participated in the ongoing Gaza war alongside Hamas. It has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union. It was involved in the atrocities of 7th October 2023.

The Archbishop was photographed in Nasir’s home in front of a portrait of family member Kamal Nasser. He was a leader of the PLO and one of the masterminds of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. On the same trip she was also photographed in front of a photograph of Yasser Arafat himself. As General Synod member Iain Paul comments in this article:

Our archbishop has managed to be photographed in front of, not one, but two notorious terrorist leaders within the space of a couple of days—quite an achievement! 

A local vicar can, perhaps, be a bit naive and unworldly. I might even find that charming. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, leads our church. I don’t want her to behave or think like a politician, but she does need enough nous to avoid being duped by terrorists. There is surely a balance to be struck between being Machiavellian and a total naif. As things stand, Archbishop Sarah is giving every appearance of being a low-wattage diversity hire. I pray that impression is unfair.