I was considering rushing past my morning blog and straight off to the beach, but the children are still dead asleep. Our Monopoly Extravaganza was too much for them. We didn’t even finish the game. We played until 10:30 and had to just stop when it was finally becoming interesting. The two youngest girls, in a wild frenzy, started selling off all their best properties, and everyone else, including Matt, swooped in like vultures. I quietly bought houses and hotels while no one was looking and then pointed out the time. Part two, I imagine, will resume sometime this evening. Hope the neighbors don’t call anyone about the voluble and heated negotiations.
It is Friday, as you may have noticed, but I can’t come around to seven whole takes. Instead, here is this very depressing article about the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It starts out this way:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has backed transgender students amid a series of free speech rows at universities. In his first intervention on the subject, the Most Rev Justin Welby said that vice-chancellors should face funding cuts if they allow minority students to be insulted. His comments came months after students at the University of Oxford tried to block Prof Kathleen Stock, the gender critical scholar, from speaking at its debating society because of her belief that trans women are not women. While the Archbishop said there was no right not to be offended on campus, he added that universities that allow students to be “abused, insulted and excluded” should face serious consequences. He said institutions should be subject to a “carrot and stick” approach in protecting minorities such as trans and Jewish students, while those who are “courageous” should be rewarded.
I did see the dust-up about Professor Stock and watched an interview with her. It is absolutely appalling that there was even a question about her being allowed to speak, so that’s one thing. But the other thing is that the Archbishop of Canterbury is, as seems to be his increasing habit, on the wrong side of the “debate,” if that’s what this can even be called.
It shouldn’t be that a person has to have a “belief” that trans women are not women. That’s not a matter of personal conviction. It’s a matter of objective truth. In general, I think that people who purport to be leaders of churches should always come down on the side of objective truth, and be able to say, without shuddering, that men are not women. Anyway, I guess let’s keep going:
Speaking at an event hosted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, the Archbishop reiterated his personal commitment to tackling anti-Semitism, as well as the duty of care that universities have to protect their students.
Do you know what might also be nice for him to do? Preach the gospel. Crack open ye olde Bible to see what it has to say about anything. I am for sure not on the side of anti-semitism, and obviously, free speech is a big deal these days, but I cannot imagine, at this stage of the game, what someone like Justin Welby, who doesn’t know what his job is or why his office even exists, can have to say about the matter. Let me see, let’s skip down a bit:
Prof Stock, a former philosophy scholar, resigned from her post at the University of Sussex in 2021 after a campaign of intimidation by trans rights activists. In May, she was interviewed at an Oxford Union event where police had to remove a protester who had glued their hand to the floor. At the University of Edinburgh, screenings of Adult Human Female, the controversial documentary which challenges transgender ideology and examines opposition to it in the UK, has been cancelled twice because of opposition from pro-trans campaigners. The Archbishop said that universities had to be a place where “no one is entitled not to be offended”. However, he added that “they have every right not to be abused, insulted and excluded – whoever they are”. He said: “And the carrot has to be that when universities are courageous in dealing with these issues properly that they do get some benefit. It’s no use just having the stick. You’ve got to have the carrot as well.” The Archbishop is known for commenting on political and social issues, including the Government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, which he described as “morally unacceptable”. His comments at Wednesday’s event were welcomed by charities supporting trans people.
The problem, for those of us who are dropping into yet another news story without all the necessary and helpful context, is that—and I got this from some Twitter people I follow—the question of whether men can be women is being collapsed into the question of racial prejudice. There is one big thing on one side, anti-semitism and racism, and then on the other side, there are people who are claiming that men can actually be women. Instead of litigating one question and then the other, the two are being made into the same issue, which is an enormous disservice to anyone suffering any injury. But even more wretchedly, observe how the university has become the place of arbitration, with the church flapping and fluttering around the margins, bleating that hate has no home here. Except that it very much does have a home. Hate has set up a nice little shack and is planting a garden. The very nature of the human person is being eaten away by the spiritual forces that rebel against God, and the Archbishop decides to weigh in and make a speech. He could be teaching people about how God created all people by his Word, how he made them, male and female, in his image, how he redeemed them by the blood of Jesus—I could go on but I’m probably wasting my breath at this point. Anyway, one person at least noticed that the Archbishop isn’t as helpful as he himself believes:
Maya Forstater, the founder of the Sex Matters campaign group, said: “The Archbishop’s comments are concerning. The students who protested against Kathleen Stock at Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge, and against other gender-critical speakers at Edinburgh, Essex and UCL, thought they were being courageous and standing up for trans students.
If you read the whole thing, you’ll find a horrid litany of all kinds of ugly harassment Jewish students are having to endure. And then it peters out, and so the long internet day wears on.
I just happen to be in the middle of 2 Samuel, in my long, drawn-out, pathetic efforts to catch up on my Bible reading plan, something I recommend the Archbishop of Canterbury to consider doing sometime, and I’m to the horrible part of the unraveling of David’s kingdom. He stops going to war and sits at home, and then he takes up with Bathsheba, and then there’s the horrible narration of the rape of Tamar by Amnon and Absolem’s revenge and then flight. And the thing that strikes me almost every time is how the text dwells on David being so grieved about Absolem. And, surely, that is ok for a while. His son, Amnon is dead, and the baby died, and Absolem has run away. David, it seems, is losing everything. But one name sticks out by its not being mentioned. Tamar. Tamar is the only one in the whole mess who follows the law, who does what she ought. I think the author—God himself—means for us to hear and feel the haunting and tragic note that David does nothing about it.
When things are falling apart—like in Numbers, where the people refuse their inheritance and have to go back into the wilderness, or at the end of Judges as the land is subsumed by war in the aftermath of the violation and death of the Levite’s concubine—the pattern unfurls of the people who ought to be able to see clearly suddenly becoming blind. And in their blindness, they collapse their categories, they are unable to make sound judgments, they think they are being good but they are bad, their grief and lamentation go in the wrong direction. And yet, one must also observe that God is God. Tamar isn’t actually lost because God sees her and ultimately, all her ruin is caught up by Christ himself at the cross. It’s not like modern-day church leaders failing in their most basic obligations—to know what time it is and preach the word of God—are more shockingly bad than at any other time in human history. Rather, it is yet another good time to beg for God’s mercy, which he will always have for those who turn to him.
Also, men can’t be women, so, anyway, have a nice day!
This Archbishop of Canterbury never fails to disappoint me. In addition to his usual wrongness and cluelessness, there is one other thing I noted:
It seems particularly tone-deaf of him to mention "carrots and sticks" whilst lecturing people about male-to-female transgenders.
Your description of the Archbishop is similar to my take on the now former Stated Clerk of the mainline P&R denomination, except in COE's unofficial leadership settlement regarding the two historic wings, he is purportedly Evangelical, whereas the former Stated Clerk clearly is not. Still, the similarities are striking. The former Stated Clerk was always quick to take the leftist line on name your issue; utter a milquetoast line when he needed to criticize both the left and right, quickly followed by a strong denunciation of the right to prove that his previous comment really didn't mean anything; and rarely preached the actual gospel. While I trust that his early departure isn't due to health, I am also glad to say as they always say, "Don't let the door hit you on the but on the way out.".