wfn.org | Episcopalians: ENS interview with Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

September 10, 2002

2002-206

Episcopalians: ENS interview with Archbishop of Canterbury 
George L. Carey

by Jan Nunley

(ENS)  Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey was in New York as 
part of the observances of the first anniversary of the 
September 11th attacks in America. ENS deputy director Jan 
Nunley talked with Carey shortly after he arrived in New York.

ENS: What do you feel, in broad terms, was the spiritual 
significance of September 11?

CAREY: Actually, I regard it as a declaration of war. I 
really would put it in terms like that. I think we've all been 
well aware for a very long time of these very dark forces in the 
world and within the Islamic societies of anger towards the 
West, and then suddenly September 11 brought it back, with that 
declaration of war on the West, its culture, its life, its 
economy, its freedom. They attacked America particularly because 
America is seen as the major place where capitalism reigns, and 
the targets such as the World Trade Center, Washington--not only 
the military base but it looked like one of the planes was going 
to hit the White House. It was devastating, and the implications 
if the President had been there and wiped out, quite 
devastating. And the mischief done by that, because who is 
behind it?

I think the President then after that initial shock has done 
extremely well in consolidating the Western position, and he got 
a broad-based consensus from China, Russia, the UK, Europe, 
throughout the world to say 'we must fight this battle against 
the al-Qaeda evil.' That's been moderately successful. I say 
'moderately successful,' because we haven't yet got Osama bin 
Laden, and that's important. We've got to carry on that war, and 
it is a war, against terrorism in every shape and form.

It's not completed yet, and we've got a long way to go. So 
that's very important.

Now the spiritual side of that, actually, I think it made 
people aware of how very fragile life is, how very vulnerable 
life is--that's going to be the theme of my sermon in Trinity 
tomorrow [September 11, 2002]. I'm going to take on two things: 
vulnerability, and our interconnectedness. The vulnerability is 
the fact that--I'm going to use the idea of the bell, John 
Donne's poem that when 'the bell tolls, it tolls for 
thee'--'every man's death diminishes me.' The other one, Donne 
is saying that we're connected, we're not an island, we're 'part 
of the main,' he says.

So those two things are very important. That's why at the 
moment it does look as though America is out of step with the 
West on Iraq. I think from the British point of view those of us 
who are raising questions at the moment are saying so, because 
we said a year ago, America sought the help and encouragement of 
its allies. It got it. Now, as we embark on what may be the 
second phase, it needs the support and affirmation of its 
allies. That I think is terribly important. As you know, I'm not 
convinced that this is right to go for a ground war yet on Iraq, 
unless we have clear evidence.

>From a Christian point of view of course we do want a 
peaceful world, and I think September 11 did actually make 
people aware not only of vulnerability and how transitory life 
is, but there are forces of good and honor and justice which 
speak to us of God and his love for us. And I think the church 
actually, your church and our church, we've actually responded 
incredibly well to that. What happened here and what happened in 
Trinity and at St. Paul's Chapel, was a remarkable witness of 
Christians, local Christians reaching out to others.

'Say our prayers for us'

ENS: Some commentators have suggested we found the limits of 
organized religion in the response to 9/11--the initial spike in 
church attendance falling off as the year went on.

CAREY: I don't think we ought to be disappointed if, for 
example, it peaks and comes down again. It is obvious that at 
moments of raw emotion, people turn to the church, and that in 
itself is saying something quite remarkable. They don't turn to 
the local football stadium, they turn to the church, and they 
say 'will you please say our prayers for us? We don't know, come 
up with the language, but we know it must be God to whom we 
turn.'

So I think we ought to be honored by that in your society, 
our society. It doesn't really matter if people revert back to 
the old habits. But we're there, we're there to help them and 
respond to their needs. And I do know in Britain of people who 
are now regular churchgoers, for whom they made a definite 
commitment because of September 11, and I'll give you two 
illustrations.

One is a mother, a mother-in-law. Her son, British, married 
to an American girl, they had a small daughter, and the 
daughter-in-law was wiped out. But it brought that mother-in-law 
and son back to God. That in itself is quite a story. And then 
quite recently I was in correspondence with a young lady who 
lost her husband, and for her it meant the same thing: a 
rediscovery of the importance of Christian faith, and what she 
said to me was that, 'I realized that God was there in my 
suffering, and therefore I'm not going to walk away from him 
now, just because I've got over the raw emotion. He was there 
for me then, so I'm going to walk with him.' And you hear that 
kind of story, and it comes from ordinary people--outside the 
church. 

Religion is not the problem

ENS: What effect has September 11 had on relations between 
Christians and Muslims?

CAREY: I don't think in my dealings with Muslims it is seen 
by moderates, a majority Muslim position, as a Christian-Muslim 
conflict. I know that there are extremists on both sides who 
might see it in those terms, and certainly my moderate Muslim 
friends tell me that the fundamentalists do. But they're not 
speaking for the main body.

I think what has happened, actually, is that September 11 has 
given a spur, a renewed urgency, to dialogue between the great 
faiths. We all assumed it was going extremely well, and so this 
has really shattered us. Let me mention two things: First of 
all, my prime minister, Tony Blair, phone me ten days after 
September 11. He said, 'We've got to do more on the 
international side,' and asked me if I would convene an 
international gathering, which I did in January--our government 
paid for it, totally paid for it, quite an unusual, unique thing 
for a government to do that. Left the organization to me, but 
took great interest, and we're repeating it next year in Qatar 
in April, and the Emir of Qatar is actually paying for that. So 
that's deepened the dialogue on the international level.

Secondly, a project that the president of the World Bank, Jim 
Wolfensohn, and I have developed called the World Faiths 
Development Dialogue. Jim was getting a lot of problems from his 
board in the World Bank. They said essentially that the World 
Bank shouldn't have any truck with religion--even the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, you see? And so they weren't prepared to back it. 
September 11 happened, the president of the World Bank phoned me 
up and said, 'George, my board are now saying to me, we were 
wrong. This is an idea whose time has come.' And I think there's 
no doubt about it--we've got to find ways of deepening that 
dialogue to show that religion is not the problem--extremism is.

If there are Muslims who believe that they've got to kill 
Christians to make a way for the Islamic faith in the West, not 
only would they be disappointed, but it will lead to conflict, 
there's no doubt about that. But we've got to find ways, however 
strong our faith is in Allah, or in our case Jesus Christ, we've 
got to find ways to live together in this very small world.

Vulnerable Christians and Muslims

ENS: How has September 11 affected Christian evangelism among 
Muslims, especially in the so-called "10/40 window" of 
least-evangelized nations, West Africa to East Asia--from 10 
degrees north to 40 degrees north of the equator, where most of 
the world's Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists live?

CAREY: I think that's a very important point. See, what has 
happened post-September 11 has made Christian minorities in 
Islamic countries far more vulnerable. Pakistan--since then, 
there've been three killings, two churches, one Christian 
hospital, where my wife Eileen visited some fifteen years ago. 
Work done by wonderful Christian people, Pakistani Christians, 
who've been killed. It made them very vulnerable indeed, and 
we've got to be aware that whatever we do in the West now has 
its effect on our brothers and sisters living in these 
countries--in Palestine, in Saudi Arabia--Christianity is banned 
 from Saudi Arabia, but there are many, many Christians there 
and throughout the Middle East.

And indeed, one is so delighted to know that, I visited the 
Gulf last November, a very flourishing Christian congregation 
there, Anglican congregations to boot, and they were trying to 
establish a new church in Qatar. And that's very exciting, 
because if we can get it going, get the agreement, it will be 
the first Christian church in the Sinai Peninsula since the 
seventh century. So that's very good indeed.

But I think we've got to be very careful, that the 
vulnerability of our minorities after September 11 is very, very 
precarious.

ENS: What about Muslims in majority-Christian nations?

CAREY: Initially, of course, they had a rough time in your 
country and my country. There were some wonderful stories over 
here, one Episcopal priest I know went out of his way to go 
along to the mosque the following day and to say, 'I'm here for 
you. I'm not blaming you.'

In my own country there've been attacks on Muslims, on their 
mosques. But they have been very few in number, and I think 
actually after that initial shock we've addressed many of these 
issues, people are living together more comfortably.

But there are many Christians who cannot understand the fact 
that we give such freedom to Muslims and the rest. In my country 
there are 1500 mosques. But we find it difficult to build 
churches and Christian schools, meeting in Pakistan and places 
like that.

ENS: Do you plan to continue working on this issue during 
your retirement?

CAREY: Oh, yes, definitely. I want to do three or four 
things, and I have worked with Jim Wolfensohn on this World 
Faiths Development Dialogue, because I know that we have got to 
try to make the faiths part of the answer, because in some 
places they're part of the problem. So helping to focus on 
development, on the poverty of so many people, that sort of 
thing.

Secondly, I'm going to be working with the World Economic 
Forum, trying to bring faith leaders into contact with 
business--very similar to the other one. 

ENS: Will that also involve conversations about corporate 
responsibility and ethics?

CAREY: Absolutely. That comes into the World Economic Forum 
part of that, is to challenge them to invest in the poorer 
world.  Africa only represents less than 4 percent of the 
world's gross productivity. And that's the problem, you see? 
Africa could fall off the back of the lorry and no one would 
notice it in world economic terms. And that's why there are such 
problems in Africa. So we've got to change a mindset and say to 
businesses, invest in those parts of Africa where there's now 
stability, where there's no conflict. I can understand they 
can't invest where there's war, but where--they can invest now 
in Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya--many places, and 
they're not doing it. And so there's a moral challenge there.

Focus on the Gospel

ENS: What are your thoughts about the Anglican Communion as 
you move closer to retirement in October?

CAREY: As a leader, what has come first has not been the 
'issues,' but the Gospel itself, and to create a confident, 
vibrant Christian church that loves God and has got a message 
worth believing in. That remains the impulse within me.

Within the Anglican Communion we have this tendency to focus 
too much on issues. One I've been passionately committed to, of 
course, is women's ministry; I believe solidly in it as a Gospel 
issue and we've found our way through that. The other 
issues--what we need to do with them, they are important, but we 
should be going not from the viewpoint of controversy, but 
actually with prayer and support for one another, spending time 
with one another, not colliding and fragmenting. 

So my plea to the Communion, and to the primates and the 
bishops in the church, is--we can do our work better, we really 
can. One of the motions I want to bring to the ACC [Anglican 
Consultative Council] when it meets in Hong Kong in ten days' 
time, I want to produce a motion, a resolution urging all 
dioceses, before they make a change that affects the faith and 
order of the Anglican Communion, that they refer it to their 
province for consideration and agreement, and the province 
refers it to the wider church so we can keep in step with one 
another. And if we could do it in that kind of way, there'd be a 
little less controversy, and hopefully we'll be able to focus on 
the bigger issue, and the others will take care of themselves.

To all Episcopalians of the American church, I'd love to say: 
Thank you for your support, thank you for your rich contribution 
to the Anglican Communion. I say this in so many parts of the 
world--you will never find me criticizing ECUSA because they are 
one of the most generous branches of the Anglican Communion, and 
I want to say to them, thank you very much and keep that support 
going.

------

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News 
Service.