Clerical claptrap from Anglican Archbishop

[Photo of Rowan Williams from here]

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke recently to a group of about 1,000 people at the Southwark Cathedral in London.

His lecture was titled, "The Climate Crisis: A Christian Response." In this lecture, the Williams said that the crises humanity faces today (including the crisis of climate change) derive from a "loss of sense of what life is." This "sense of life" refers to a "web of interactions, mutual givings and receivings" that should define who we are as humans.

But, we've lost that sense of what life is. "We are disconnected and we need to be reintroduced to life."

So far, so good, I think. He's really talking about how we abuse the earth and each other and how we need to realize anew that all people are interconnected and share responsibility for the earth and its inhabitants.


But then, the good Archbishop, having been taught that all things a priest says must somehow be confirmed by the Bible, resorted to the tall tale of Noah and the Great Flood from the book of Genesis.

Also, being a cleric, he spoke in riddles. The story of Noah, saith Williams, shows a humanity "that can never be itself without taking on the care and protection of the life of which it's a part." Okay, but why not speak plain English? Why not say that to be our best as humans we have to assume some responsibility for each other and our planet? And why do we need the story of Noah?

Wait, Williams is going to tell us. And so he does, going on to say that one of the great things about Noah is that he brought in all the animals and thus becomes responsible for "what we could call an ecosystem." Huh? In the story, Noah fights God tooth and nail and it is clear he didn't give a rat's ass about an "ecosystem." What he wanted to do was get drunk and so he did!


But, here's the kicker, from the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

"God is committed to life, to the continuance of life on earth, and whatever happens he will not let life disappear."


To which I can only respond with a loud "BULLSHIT!"

This is clerical claptrap, whether it comes from an Archbishop or a lowly deacon. According to the story, God was so pissed off at what he had created that he decided to destroy all of life...oh, yeah, except for Noah and his worthless sons and two or seven of each kind of animal, etc., depending on which verses you think are correct.

God murdered everyone and everything on earth because he became angry at how sinful his creation had become!

Now, you can't smooth talk your way around that by claiming that he was gracious enough to save a few miserable humans and a few sad little creatures!

And you also can't dance around the face that being omniscient God knew from before the creation that humans were going to be bunch of assholes and that he was going to kill them all!


The story of Noah is, of course, fiction. There is no historicity to it whatsoever. It's an ancient tale (similar to the ancient tales of people all over the world) that the Hebrews adopted and adapted for their own purposes.

So, please Mr. Archbishop, sir, DO NOT use it to try to bolster what might be a fine theory about the need for humans to care about each other and the earth. We desperately do need to do something about Climate Change and we desperately do need to get people to work cooperatively to accomplish this.

But Noah and his god have nothing to do with it. By spewing this clerical claptrap you make yourself look like an idiot and demean the whole process. Furthermore, you play right into the hands of the christianist wingnuts who tell us not to worry about global warming because their god up in heaven will never let the earth be destroyed - until, of course, the end-times, when he'll purposely murder everyone who doesn't believe that Jesus died on the cross to save them from their sins!

Yikes!