The Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was a sin to teach the world our hymns.
You’re an ass, your Grace. Most people enjoy a good sing-song, and if it helps your missionaries, why not use it? Or would you rather we used the methods of the Middle Ages? As for developing their own songs, have you any idea how hard it is to write a good one?
And ‘cultural captives’? Umm… has it ever occured to you that Western culture is actually superior to some other cultures. You know, that ethos of tolerance, fair play, mercy, charity, etc?
So, how is it a sin to spread religious songs to other cultures… but not a sin to spread the religion to other cultures? From what I can tell, he seems to have no problem with that…
It seems like a vaguely reasonable argument to me. While I wouldn’t call it a sin (I wouldn’t call anything a sin, I suppose), I do agree that it’s unfortunate that a religion would promote the loss of cultural diversity. Yes, making new songs is hard, but that’s the point. Should the builders of Notre Dame have just looked at the Athenian Parthenon and said, “architecture is hard, let’s copy this!”
Yeah, but what’s the larger component of a culture? The culture’s religiously themed songs, or the culture’s actual religion? I wouldn’t really have a problem with this guy if he were complaining about forcing Christianity on other cultures as a whole, but his complaint is that we’re not allowing the former heathens to write their own songs glorifying Jesus. Seems he’s totally missing the larger issue, here, as regards cultural imperialism.
The Archbishop as got something going…I think it is a sin to export such Christian trash music like Switchfoot and Creed on an unexpecting world. What a horrible thing to do to the poor world.
“Your Grace” is the correct title, since the Archbishop of Canterbury is styled “The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury”.
I suspect that if you do a bit more research on Rowan Williams you’ll find that he’s probably not all that keen on missionaries either. He’s a controversial theologian with a boatload of views which have caused considerable disquiet amongst more conservative religious.
He has, for example, objected to the anti-gay bias of the Church and to the war in Iraq, as well as holding some contentious views on doctrine.
Indeed. And of course, these qualities are so notably absent from any other cultures, current or past? As an Australian, knowing the child mortality rate and life expectancy of Australia’s indigenous people, not to mention the two pieces of current legislation about to be passed in Parliament, I, for one, wouldn’t be so smug about Western Culture’s “superiority”.
And truly, given the serious and thoughtful nature of The Archbishop of Canterbury’s intellectual attainments, I suspect that an idea this insular and ignorant quite possibly hasn’t occurred to him. I commend to you his example.
Good to know, but it was fushjoomang who was confused by his title, not I.
That’s nice, but I wasn’t under the impression that he was an arch-conservative. I’d pretty much assumed he was a liberal, what with the whole “cultural imperialism” thing he was working. I just think this is a rather stupid angle of attack on that particular issue. But, all I know about the man and his beliefs are the ones gleaned from the OP’s link, which I’m more than willing to believe are incomplete. There may be a context in which his statements about hymns have some relevancy, but that context is not readily apparent.