Thou shall not speak truth to power

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interesting sermon during the service at St. Paul's Cathedral marking Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. The theme was service to God and country. As befitting the occasion and the audience, Archbishop Rowan Williams touched on the importance of focusing on the common good and avoiding the temptations of greed. You can find the full text of that sermon here.

What is fascinating is to see how the sermon was covered by the media. The BBC and Guardian  focused on the Archbishop's discussion of how the Queen's service to country brought joy to her subjects as well as herself. The naughty bits were just ignored.

For example, the Archbishop defined honor as serving others rather than self.

‘Outdo one another in showing honour’, says St Paul. Compete with each other only in the generous respect you show to one and all; because in learning that respect you will find delight in one another. You will begin to discover that the other person is a source of nourishment, excitement, pleasure, growth and challenge. And if we broaden this out to an entire community, a nation, a commonwealth, it means discovering that it is always in an ever-widening set of relations that we become properly ourselves. Dedication to the service of a community certainly involves that biblical sense of an absolute purge of selfish goals, but it is also the opening of a door into shared riches.

He also touched on the common ills as a counterpoint to the common good.

Moralists (archbishops included) can thunder away as much as they like; but they’ll make no difference unless and until people see that there is something transforming and exhilarating about the prospect of a whole community rejoicing together – being glad of each other’s happiness and safety. This alone is what will save us from the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal – and many more things that we see far too much of, around us and within us.

The Daily Mail, by contrast, highlighted those passages and accused the Archbishop of "hijacking the ceremony to preach a sermon on city greed, the environment, and immigration." Nothing could be further from the truth, but the mere mention of these issues is taboo in some circles. Dr. Williams was doing his job. There is no shortage of scripture that condemns greed and commands compassion "for the unsuccessful and marginal" in the words of the Archbishop and "for the least of my brethren" in the words of Jesus. Likewise, people of faith have been calling for responsible stewardship and care for God's creation instead of reckless environmental exploitation. 

The Archbishop dared speak truth to power. Whether the powerful will heed the call remains to be seen. However, the media is certainly taking a stand to marginalize the message by either ignoring or condemning it. That leaves the public deaf, dumb, and unlikely to demand more from their leaders.