I have only read reports of the Archibishop’s lecture and if anyone could provide a link to the original, please do so. [See top item of Media Watch on this site. Ed.]

In the US, there is also widespread ignorance and denial, quite shrill in some parts, of the foundations of civil law in Judeo-Christian beliefs and the living faiths which shaped American history. It is symptomatic of a greater ignorance of the specific influences of Christianity and Judaism on Western civilization.

It does appear that the next wave of totalitarianisms in the West are ones we welcome with open arms via ideological dudgeon, particularly towards Christianity. Sort of like claiming that everything British is imperialistic. We would be fragile creatures if we became entrapped by mistakes, unable to leaven our future with accomplishments of hope, inspiration or beauty, not to mention for Christians, divine intent for humanity.

I too believe that one sure way to lose civil freedoms is to have no enduring, positive content for them, of the kind that Christianity has provided for millenia.

If Prof. Knight is correct that the Archbishop’s lecture challenged Christian nations to renewed vigilance against what passes for received wisdom of the day, I applaud and thank the Archbishop for doing so. Please continue, Archbishop. I am listening.

There are other forums where we can facilitate and unveil the illusions of consensus. Academic institutions are an excellent example. Only yesterday, I was able to discuss Dr Rowan’s statement from a very objective manner with my students. The response was phenomenal and everyone participated with assertive and yet very valuable insights.

In conclusion it is highly important to facilitate an honest debate about issues that can or may have been inhibiting integration within our communities.

Let us not shoot the messenger but discuss the content of the message. Dr Rowan’s statement has exposed the tip of the ice berg of a very important area that needs further exploration and discussion.

The press headline was ‘Archbishop says Sharia ‘inevitable’’ is what we expect from our press. They consider the Church easy meat, as indeed it is as long as we have no basic ecclesiology. It would be a pity if Christians around the world were unable to read our headlines of our media without any critical hermeneutic. When see the media stoning a Christian, you conclude that he must have done something wrong? Did you learn nothing from Regensburg?

My Archbishop said that more formal recognition of the range of jurisdictions is ‘unavoidable’. Because there is a range of jurisdictions, so for example, two participants to a dispute are sometimes able to choose which tribunal they wish their (civil) case to be examined under. This is takes place now, has always taken place and is very basic to English common law. The only strange thing is that governments have been in denial about this in recent decades. This is part of a decay of civil society that is consequent on understanding our relationships to each other only in terms of rights (and never responsibilities) and understanding governments as service-providers and ourselves as consumers of their products. The result of this is that we believe that governments are to do everything and we are to nothing: over the long term this makes for totalitarianism - and it is no less totalitarian because we are complicit in it.

The Archbishop believes it is ‘unavoidable’ that this denial, of civil society, by governments and people, should come to an end. He is right that it should come to an end, and I hope he is right that its end is ‘unavoidable’. But if this sort of intelligent, and Christian, contribution to the public square is so vehemently jeered off by the media (BBC is no different from the Murdoch press in this) a smaller, stupider public square in which no one dare say anything intelligent (never mind anything Christian) is the only ‘unavoidable’ thing here. Like any Christian, an Archbishop can take a lot of flack from opponents of the Church, and it is his priestly calling to do so.

To achieve it, I appreciate Trevor Phillips’ call for a wider and appropriate spread of cultrually diverse input into the forming of British law.

I still say Muslims are warmly welcome to live in Britain with the proviso they embrace the law of the land (along with every other ethnic and religious group).

When Christians, and other non-Muslims, have similar rights in the Muslim world, we can revisit this issue with more credibility.