CHURCH of England bishops, during their House of Bishops meeting, contradicted the claim made last week by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, that British Muslims were creating no-go areas (News, 11 January).
On Tuesday, the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, said that at the meeting “their view was that there were not any no-go areas in our country. These were Bishops such as the Bishops of Burnley, Lancaster, and Blackburn. They are in touch with the grass-roots in their areas, and their view was that there are not no-go areas.”
Bishop Pritchard also rejected fears that plans to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer from the Central Mosque in Oxford were signs of an Islamic bid to conquer Britain for fundamentalist Islam. Earlier, he had told the Oxford Mail that he was “very happy” with Muslims in Oxford’s Central Mosque who were considering seeking planning permission to issue the call to prayer.
Bishop Pritchard said on Tuesday that extreme Muslim groups in some areas could make life uncomfortable for others; but the same was true of white Anglo-Saxons.
He emphasised that part of his vocation as a bishop was to enable the country to become more Christian. Christians were there to show hospitality, grace, and friendship to others. A pluralist and tolerant society should accept the religious signs and convictions of other faiths, he said. He wanted Islamic societies abroad to reciprocate this openness.
“Moderates should come out and own their agenda. There are extreme groups who are pressing for shariah law across the world. But our own job is to encourage moderation. We want to encourage moderates in all communities to make their voices heard and to eschew extremism.”
But Trevor Phillips, who chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said on Today on Radio 4 last week that “white flight” — the departure of white people from cities — was accelerating. “There is a phenomenon we have to deal with, and I think that the Bishop of Rochester was right to raise this.”
Last month (News, 14 December), Dr Nazir-Ali told a meeting in London that the ideology of Islamic extremists was filling the vacuum left by the loss of Christian faith and the fall of Communism. Muslim children, spending hours in extra religious instruction after school, were being discouraged from integrating, he said. |
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