Koran should be read at Prince Charles' coronation says top bishop: Critics attack proposal and accuse Church of England of 'losing confidence' in its own traditions
- Lord Harries said gesture would be a ‘creative act of accommodation’
- Speaking in House of Lords claimed it would help Muslims feel ‘embraced’
- Critics attacked idea insisting 'British values stem from Christian heritage'
Prince Charles’s coronation service
should be opened with a reading from the Koran, a senior Church of
England bishop said yesterday
Prince
Charles’s coronation service should be opened with a reading from the
Koran, a senior Church of England bishop said yesterday.
The
gesture would be a ‘creative act of accommodation’ to make Muslims feel
‘embraced’ by the nation, Lord Harries of Pentregarth said.
But critics attacked the idea, accusing the Church of ‘losing confidence’ in its own institutions and traditions.
Lord
Harries, a former Bishop of Oxford and a leading CofE liberal thinker,
said he was sure Charles’s coronation would give scope to leaders of
non-Christian religions to give their blessing to the new King.
The
former Bishop of Oxford, who continues to serve as an assistant bishop
in the diocese of Southwark, made the suggestion about the Koran during a
House of Lords debate. He told peers the Church of England should take
the lead in ‘exercising its historic position in a hospitable way’.
He
said that at a civic service in Bristol Cathedral last year authorities
had agreed to a reading of the opening passage of the Koran before the
beginning of the Christian ritual. He said: ‘It was a brilliant creative
act of accommodation that made the Muslim high sheriff feel, as she
said, warmly embraced but did not alienate the core congregation.
‘That principle of hospitality can and should be reflected in many public ceremonies, including the next coronation service.’
Lord
Harries’ suggestion comes more than 20 years after the Prince first said
he would prefer to be seen as ‘Defender of Faith’ rather than be known
by the monarch’s title of ‘Defender of the Faith’.
Charles
said in 1994 he ‘always felt the Catholic subjects of the sovereign are
equally as important as the Anglican ones, as the Protestant ones’.
‘Likewise,
I think that Islamic subjects, or the Hindu subjects, or the
Zoroastrian subjects of the sovereign, are of equal and vital
importance.’ In 2006 the Prince made known that he wanted a multifaith
coronation that would be more ‘focused and telecentric’ than his
mother’s in 1953.
However traditionalist Christians condemned Lord Harries’s idea.
Lord Harries said the gesture would be a ‘creative act of accommodation’ to make Muslims feel ‘embraced’ by the nation
Simon
Calvert of the Christian Institute think-tank said: ‘Most people will
be amazed at the idea that a Christian leader would consider the use of
the Koran at a Christian service in a Christian abbey.
People are just so disappointed when senior Church of England figures lose confidence in the claims of the Christian faith.’
Andrea
Minichiello Williams, a member of the CofE’s parliament, the General
Synod, and head of the Christian Concern pressure group, said: ‘At a
time when we are looking at what British values mean, we cannot have
values in a vacuum. British values stem from our Christian heritage.
‘We cannot pretend all religions are the same, or have the same benefits and outcomes for the nation.’
Douglas
Murray, associate editor of the Spectator, said if Muslims were
included in the coronation service, there must be room to for Hindus,
Sikhs, and atheists.
He
added: ‘If there were to be a reading from the Koran at the coronation,
surely as a matter of reciprocity, all mosques in the UK should have
prayers for the King and the Armed Forces every week at Friday prayers.’
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