When I first read about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech on English jurisprudence, a speech from a highly respected scholar and theologian, to legal scholars, I thought to myself – he’s right.

Soon after that — very soon — I started to see the reaction. There was dismay from the mainstream press, rabid screaming from Evangelical/Fundamentalist ™ Christians, and the requisite calls for resignation, flogging, and the comfy chair.

For those so inclined – who really want to understand what occurred and the content of the Archbishop’s speech – I highly recommend three pieces from the Faith and Theology blog:

• On sharia and hysteria: or, why Rowan Williams is right
• Mike Higton on Rowan Williams and sharia
• Rowan Williams and sharia: time for some satire (note the link to why St. Paul should resign – a great piece by Kim Fabricius)

Like the allowance for other forms of jurisprudence, such as the Jewish Batei Din (per Wikipedia, Israel allows for religiously established courts with authority over those religions’ adherents), the allowance for Sharia among Muslims is just the sort of right a pluralistic society must accept, and as Mike Higton explains, a means to bring religious discourse into a conversation focused on a faith community’s public accountability, public discourse, public explanation, and public scrutiny.

In Poland, the Jewish population (pre-1793) was granted broad authority in managing its own affairs. This extended so far as to allow for an entirely parallel system of government. The Jewish population had its own parliament (a hybrid between the old Sanhedrin and the modern Knesset) and civil courts were only involved in matters where Jews and non-Jews were in conflict. This sort of system was representative of the pluralistic society Poland encompassed.

For an excellent recap of religious freedom and pluralism in Poland see Poland’s 1997 Constitution in Its Historical Context from which I excerpt:

Jews had been in Poland at least since the ninth century (predating the introduction of Catholicism), establishing separate communities alongside Polish cities and villages. By a law of 1367, these Jewish communities, called kahały were given substantial autonomy to establish their own organizations and tribunals. By the sixteenth century some 150 thousand Jews lived in Poland, mostly in and around the larger cities, and they were self-governed by Jewish parliaments known as waady. Jewish liberties in Poland were not absolute, however. Aside from the continual, unofficial intolerance they suffered from burghers and peasants, Jews were also legally prohibited from owning land, taking out tenancies, leasing state revenues, and trading in royal cities. Nevertheless, Jews did own land, take out tenancies, and even refused to pay taxes under protection of the nobility.

The nobility —cultivated a special relationship— with Jewish communities for reasons that were largely economic. Unlike most other European countries, Poland allowed Jews to establish businesses and engage in various trades; they were not restricted to money-lending. Because Poland’s Jews could become debtors as well as creditors, the nobles who lent Jews money to start businesses or trades were incented to ensure their well-being. Consequently, when the King abandoned his legal responsibility to protect the Jews, the nobility became, first, their de facto protectors and, later, their new legal protectors (under laws enacted in 1539 and 1549). Under the nobility’s auspices, Jewish tradesmen were able to circumvent cumbersome town-guild regulations, and Jewish financiers were able to loan money at favorable interest rates set by the Sejm. And, like other minority groups in Poland, Jews were able to lobby the Sejm to protect their rights; they contributed to officials and attended meetings of Parliament.

In sum, in the sixteenth century, while Jews were being expelled from whole regions of Germany, Austria, and Bohemia, they lived in Poland in relative peace and prosperity. With the exception of the —Catholic elite,— their situation in Poland differed little from that of any other group. Indeed, they were not the only minority group to prosper under the political reign of the nobility. The szlachta became the guarantors of religious liberty for all parties in Poland throughout the Renaissance and into the Counter-Reformation.

Every law the Sejm enacted which protected religious or civil liberty had its roots in the nobility’s struggle to retain its own political rights. And the szlachta resisted every call for religious persecution out of fear that legally sanctioned intolerance might result in increased royal authority at their expense. But their motivations were not only political and economic; a real streak of libertarianism runs through their writings. For example, Jan Zamoyski, Chancellor of the Polish Crown in the sixteenth century (during the reign of King Stefan Batory), wrote, —I would give half my life if those who have abandoned the Roman Catholic Church should voluntarily return to its pale; but I would prefer giving all my life than to suffer anybody to be constrained to do it, for I would rather die than witness such an oppression.— Even the King, Zygmunt August (the last of the Jagiellonian dynasty), reflected the religious tolerance of his time when he wrote, —’I am not king of your consciences, I wish to be monarch equally of the sheep and of the goats, I am afraid of tearing wheat as well as tares.’—

Poland had been officially Catholic since the tenth century, but while other Catholic countries were persecuting their religious minorities and executing dissidents (especially during the Reformation), Poland consistently permitted its minorities and dissidents to pursue their own religious beliefs and practices unhindered. In the eighteenth century, the French Catholic Rulhiere wrote of sixteenth-century Poland: —’This country, which in our day we have seen divided on the pretext of religion, is the first state in Europe that exemplified tolerance. In this state, mosques arose between churches and synagogues.— Indeed, in 1616 there were more than 100 mosques in Poland.

Religious toleration was not only official policy in sixteenth-century Poland; it was the law, codified in the 1573 Warsaw Confederation, reputed to be the first document in European history to constitutionalize religious toleration…

Countries claim broad mandates for freedom and tolerance. Their citizenry has a right to know – to what extent freedom, to what extent tolerance, to what extent do we live together in mutual respect? Multiculturalism and pluralism are concepts bandied about – but rarely put into practice — just try to ignore the Jones next door. May a citizen be who he or she wishes to be? A good question. A question Christians must consider because we owe allegiance to no man, to no country, only to God. Does our government allow for that? Can we say that freely? Are we willing to enter into a broad dialog with society over what we believe? Are we willing to face public accountability, public discourse, public explanation, and public scrutiny? This would not be a problem if we who claim belief, who have a faith built on natural reason, are willing to take that faith and belief into the fray.

Allowing for Sharia is not all that far from allowing for Holy Mass, private confession, and most especially the preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel is supposed to be our guiding life principal, encompassing the way we live, act, and interact from day-to-day.