Idiotic Clergyman of the Year competition hots up!

As I've said many times before, anyone who attempts to find common ground with Muslims is being idiotic. The common ground is simply not to be found: the Muslims are not here to be friendly, to be good neighbours, or to sit around taking tea with gullible vicars. They are here to conquer, and to dominate. Anyone who seeks to reach an understanding with them will become their dupe.

Not, of course, that this deters Rowan Williams. After the recent displays of idiocy from Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, for the Catholic Church, and Williams' fellow Anglican primate Dr John Sentamu, it appeared that his prospects of winning the coveted Idiotic Clergyman of the Year award for a record sixth time were looking slim. However, his chances have revived after it was revealed that he has been busily grovelling before/extending the hand of friendship to Muslims. Unfortunately, as with the recent attempt of some liberal Norwegian priests to do the same, things didn't go quite according to plan:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has suffered a serious setback in his attempts to foster Muslim-Christian dialogue after the Malaysian Government banned an interfaith conference he was due to be chairing this week.

Christian and Muslim scholars from around the world had bought air tickets, written papers and begun to pack their bags for the Building Bridges conference, the sixth in a series intended to foster dialogue between the two religions. It was cancelled with just two weeks notice.

The three-day conference was set up in the wake of September 11 and meant to be an annual get-together of Christian and Muslim academics in an attempt to find theological understandings that might help prevent future terrorist attacks.

Theological understandings? Well, I suppose that paying the jizya could be considered a form of theological understanding.

At the first conference, at Lambeth Palace in London six years ago, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, fêted Tony Blair. In return, the Prime Minister invited the Muslim and Christian scholars to a high-profile reception at Downing Street.

Since then the scholars have met in New York, Qatar and Sarajevo. This year’s seminar in Malaysia was to signal a breakthrough in Muslim-Christian relations in a region where they are particularly delicate.

By which is meant, "where Muslims routinely persecute Christians".

However, it is understood that some influential Muslims believe that Christianity is “not a heavenly religion” and therefore they frown on interreligious dialogue.

Well, fancy that. These Muslims don't like Christians. Rowan Williams appears to be quite astonished by this development, commenting that:

We must keep our bridges in good repair, the bridges for listening and sympathy, hearing the truth from one another, learning what the other’s experience is like.

Which is, like most things he says, essentially meaningless.

The point here is that the Muslims who come out openly and say that they do not like Christianity are the honest ones. They are the ones expressing the views of Muslims in Islamic countries, where Christians are generally subjected to regular violence and discrimination. The ones who come in the guise of "moderates" and profess to be keen on inter-faith harmony, etc, are, to be blunt, usually lying, and we should be especially wary of them.