From the burnt wreckage of a church, a sign of hope in one Islamic nation
The Times
December 08, 2005
Rowan Williams

LAST MONTH the longstanding tensions between Christians and Muslims in the Punjab erupted yet again into violence. The small rural community of Sangla Hills witnessed the burning of churches and Bibles and the terrorising of the (mostly Catholic) Christian population. The village’s name is on everyone’s lips in Pakistan.

In itself the violence was not as bad as some other incidents in recent years, when there have been savage killings — though it was probably only a matter of chance (or providence?) that things did not get further out of hand. What has made it exceptional is not the level of brutality but the significance it has acquired at a sensitive moment in Pakistan’s history. The rest

Ruth Gledhill Commentary: Here
Blessed are the peacemakers
Excerpt: "When Rowan Williams first came to the attention of the world's media as the most likely candidate for Archbishop of Canterbury, the image that most captured international imagination was that of the bearded peacenik, stopping to talk to and dole out cash to the homeless on the streets of Oxford and Cambridge. Although graphically Christ-like in its self-humbling embracing of poverty and low-status lifestyle, the thought of such a man sitting in the ancient throne of St Augustine at Canterbury was not something that met with totally unmitigated joy in some of the more elevated echelons of the established Church. Yet now the early promise shows by Dr Williams is being fulfilled. Nowhere was this better witnessed than in the extroardinary success of his visit to Pakistan. He has written about it in The Times oped columns today.Call me hopelessly optimistic, but could we have a future Nobel peace prize winner heading the Church here? "