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Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has weighed in on the scandal over expenses in the UK. He wrote a guest contributor comment, Enough humiliation. We must move on, in the London Times. He has taken a lot of flack over the article. Deservedly so I think. It seems to me that the prophetic role of the church to government (and the people) is to demand justice. Justice perhaps mingled with morality. Justice includes punishment for the guilty.
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The point of this scandal is not just a little corruption in high places. There is a tremendous amount of anger in United Kingdom over this. Again, deservedly so. This is not just a few people on the take. This is systematic corruption across all political boundaries. An article, Beneath a British Scandal, Deeper Furies, in the New York Times describes both the anger and the reason behind the anger.
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For the man, the scholar, and the priest that Rowan Williams is, I have great respect and admiration. For the leader I have my doubts. This despite a very favorable piece, The Velvet Reformation, I read in the Atlantic Monthly. The article is a must read for a frank discussion of the ins and outs on Rowan Williams and the gay issue. I must say I came away with a different understanding of his stand on this issue. I still don’t agree with it but I do have more sympathy for his viewpoint. It is as a prophet – in the true sense of the word – that I see his greatest failing.
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I always think of Nathan confronting King David about the bedding of Bathsheba and then killing Uriah the Hittite, her husband, when I think of being a prophetic witness to those in power.
1. The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.
2. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,
3. but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
5. David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!
6. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7. Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
8. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
9. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
10. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
2 Samuel 12 (New International Version)
I can’t imagine Rowan Williams as Nathan. Can you?