Quel horrible surprise
I just accidentally learned, via a post of Eric’s, that George Pitcher last autumn got a job as public relations flack for the archbishop of Canterbury. I’m amazed. I’m shaken to my core. My Weltanschauung is all anyhow. I have to rethink everything I thought I knew.
One thing I thought I knew was that Rowan Williams is a scholarly, gentlemanly sort of fella, however mistaken about everything. But he can’t be, since he hired or consented to the hiring of a vulgar abusive hack like George Pitcher.
Remember him? Remember him in May of last year, when Evan Harris lost his seat?
A stranger to principle, Harris has coat-tailed some of the most vulnerable and weak people available to him to further his dogged, secularist campaign to have people of faith – any faith – swept from the public sphere…For a doctor, he supported the strange idea that terminally ill people should be helped to kill themselves…
Now he’s gone to spend more time with his NSS pamphlets and the House of Commons is better for his passing. His political demise will be mourned only by those with a strange fascination for death, those euthanasia enthusiasts whose idea of care for the elderly and infirm is a one-way ticket to Switzerland. But now Dr Death cannot bring a malign influence to bear on the legislature any longer. Bye bye, Evan.
That is the kind of writer and thinker that the archbishop is pleased to have handling public relations for him.
An important thing to remember about George Pitcher is that the man is a liar. He will knowingly spread lies about you, if he disagrees with a position you hold on philosophy or religion.
For example, last year, Pitcher wrote a piece mocking Dawkins’s apparent creation and funding of an ‘atheist camp’ for children.
Pitcher lied about Dawkins’s involvement (or lack of). It turned out to be Camp Quest, which of course Dawkins hadn’t founded at all. It was a long standing US camp. A fact easy to discover. But Pitcher had invented the story in order to discredit Dawkins somehow, because he doesn’t agree with Dawkins’s position.
This story is just one of many attempts at Yellow Journalism and lying from Pitcher.
The most jaw-dropping thing I’ve heard Pitcher say was on The Today Programme in 2009 “In Holland, for instance, there is practically no palliative care any more – at all – and that’s in a country where euthanasia has been made legal, and I think that those are intimately connected” and “It opens the floodgates to the sort of circumstance that delivers us Holland where there is no palliative care for the elderly because they’re expected to kill themselves when they become incurably ill.” (0722 slot, at about 5.32 in and 6.20).
The claim about palliative care in Holland is so easy to check and so contrary to reality that no further commentary on the moral character of George Pitcher is needed.
Yes it was a horrible surprise. Surprise to me too. I came upon it while I was reading about Colin Slee’s memo on the appointment of the Bishop of Southwark. This, in itself, is an interesting story, and it portrays the ABC in a very unflattering light. In fact, the archbish comes off looking a bit troglodyitic: anger, shouting, misstatements (not to say lies), petty in-fighting and anti-gay prejudice, and many more rather disturbing things come to light.
Colin Slee was Dean of Southwark Cathedral and a member of the CNC (Crown Nominations Commission) for the vacancy at Southwark. Jeffrey John and another gay priest were on the short list. Much of the anger and the diagreement stemmed from that fact, since the archbish was adamant that they would not be appointed, as of course they were not. But the whole process smacked of the most awful style of leadership on the archbish’s part.
Colin Slee has since died (of pancreatic cancer, I believe), though the events in the memo took place last year. You can find it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56396384/Slee-Redacted The only thing one can say in response to the whole mess is an ironical “See how these Christians love one another!” Church in-fighting can become particular nasty and brutal. As a consequence, George Pitcher should find himself right at home.
Well, a few years of muckraking at the Telegraph, hanging out with Thompson and Odone and their ilk, would demagnetize anyone’s moral compass. It’s hard to see how having Pitcher handling PR could improve the ABC’s current situation but maybe George can find a good role model in Father Federico Lombardi who has been such a great success as PR director over at RCC Inc.
I always got the feeling old Rowan only looked progressive and/or civilised because people mentally compare him to the Pope whenever they think of him. Let’s face it, next to Catholic barbarism, nearly anyone looks sophisticated.
It would be an error to mistake Williams’ manner – which ranges from scholarly to unctuous – for benign decency. His studied inaction over the Church of Uganda’s attitude towards human rights, for example, speak volumes. Closer to home, see this thread: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/the-archbishop-of-canterbury-is-a-pompous-old-gasbag-who-doesnt-understand-evolution/
Now, I have to admit, I haven’t read Darwin’s Pious Idea. But I can well see why Williams has done so. It allows him to mask his bias – what keeps him in a job – behind a thin veneer of learning. I mean, just read this from Williams, reviewing the book:“We need to recognize that, if intelligible structure, developing and ordered complexity, is the story we have to tell, if the point of genes is to carry information, then the reality of the universe as we know it is suffused with the possibility of mind.”This is wafer-thin, and it is cloaking something extremely dangerous. It is no surprise whatsoever that he has a more honest, outspoken henchman now on hand to say what he really means.
Aegis Linnear says
“Let’s face it, next to Catholic barbarism, nearly anyone looks sophisticated.”
This sentence doesn’t make sense. What are you comparing here? Is one brand of Christianity less barbaric and therefore more sophisticated than the other? Is the Archbishop of Canterbury less barbaric and therefore more sophisticated than the Pope?
There is an article on Rowan Williams’ June 09 editorial in the New Statesman at:
http://fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca/2011/06/12/community-as-god-wants-to-see-it/
If you want a short version of Cunnigham’s book, go here: http://theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/online-papers/#cunningham It is the first pdf and it is every bit as bad as you might expect.
” Is one brand of Christianity less barbaric and therefore more sophisticated than the other? Is the Archbishop of Canterbury less barbaric and therefore more sophisticated than the Pope?”
Debatable maybe, but not incoherent or impossible. Some religions really are nuttier and more hidebound than others. I think it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Not to say that I have any respect for the C of E but there’s an argument to be made that it is less reactionary than the Roman Catholic communion.
FFS Michael; is Cunningham what passes for an intellectual these days? he uses every cheap trick in the manual. Shame on any university for allowing its name to be attached to such stuff!
DA – oh sure – the Anglican church is less reactionary than the RCC. But not much. I think a hell of a lot of people do assume that it actually is a lot less reactionary, is in fact quite liberal, and it really really isn’t. Williams himself sometimes points this out – there was that time he said something like “people think I don’t believe the traditional Christian items but I do.” I don’t think he pointed out that he and it are also very socially conservative, but of course they are.
Sailor, Apologetics seems to be the new theology – if you can’t defeat science, just say science corroborates Christianity even if it means twisting the science into something unrecognizable. Some time back Biologos had a book review of Cunningham’s book and I commented – not sure exactly what I said, because Biologos wouldn’t publish it. The moderator there asked for clarification, but never responded to my reply:
I think my comment was pretty straightforward – read Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” or his PNAS paper “Darwin’s strange inversion of reasoning” or any of Dawkin’s books and then read Cunningham’s. Do you really think that Cunningham – a theologian with no biology training – has as David Bentley Hart (another theologian with no biology training) proclaims in his praise of Cunningham’s book “…in the literature of contemporary evolutionary biology (of which he provides a far better and far more probing general treatment than does, say, Richard Dawkins).” Really? I certainly wouldn’t put that on my book cover and I have a PhD in evolutionary biology. Especially if one has gotten their understanding of evolution and natural selection from Jerry Fodor and Simon Conway Morris. See for instance Massimo Pigliucci’s review of Fodor in Nature “A misguided attack on evolution.” And then Simon “humans are inevitable” Conway Morris – well I think that may be the new definition of wishful thinking – it certainly has no basis in biology. Should I go on?
Thanks Michael. Academics have slid far downhill since I was at university. I must say I sometimes resent how much time and mental effort it takes to wade through this crap only to find that it really is crap. However, at least with Ruse, I won’t need to read anymore. I still think it’s all about angling for a templeton.
The old creationists would just flat out deny scientific evidence, but the new creationists (some of whom would call themselves theistic evolutionists) realize that is a losing battle; they can’t win on science. They have shifted to challenging science on philosophical grounds. They appear to believe most scientists are not up to speed on philosophy and can be baffled by the rules of logic, but their premises are either untrue or unknowable. One of the main reasons for the incompatibility of science and religion is that science argues from evidence and religion just argues – evidence is used if it helps and discarded if it doesn’t.
Well if they hope to beat the scientists with logic that’s a non-starter. Especially with the computer scientists…….
Thanks, Michael Fugate. Nothing much to add except that I just got the soothing warmth of having my prejudice justified.
Ophelia, sure, my point isn’t that the difference is enormous. I’m just weary of what I see as knee-jerk ‘all religions are equally harmful’ type statements because, well, it’s just obviously not true. All religions are insane to one degree or another but differences in degree and kind are really all we have to work with in the end. I think some of your criticisms of Sam Harris, for example, have merit, but he’s right that Buddhism and Jainism have vastly different real world consequences from Islam. And the Archbishop is a relic, but I’d take him over the Pope any day.
Of course, we’re starting to see the really big differences between developed-world and developing-world Anglicanism, and it’s hard not to suspect the old boys would really like a return to that old tyme religion.