Archbishop of Canterbury Claims Karl Marx Correct in His Analysis of Capitalism, Warns Britian to Learn Lessons From Nazi Germany in Current Recession

Here we go again. Another "man of God" has ventured into dangerous territory. Well, Dr. Rowan Williams, the senior most cleric in the Church of England, in an article in "The Daily Telegraph," claimed Germany in the 1930s pursued a principle that worked consistently but only on the basis that "quite a lot of people that you might have thought mattered as human beings actually didn't." Yeah, this so-called epiphany has sparked controversy because of the comparison Williams made between Prime Minister Gordon Brown's response to the economic downturn and the Third Reich. Is this man really sane or just another nutjob in the guise of a senior cleric?

Dr Williams then appears to draw a parallel between the Nazis and the UK Government's policies for tackling the downturn, which he says fails to take account of the "particular human costs" to the most vulnerable in society.

"What about the unique concerns and crises of the pensioner whose savings have disappeared, the Woolworth's employee, the hopeful young executive, let alone the helpless producer of goods in some Third-world environment where prices are determined thousands of miles away?" he asks. In an apparent reference to the Prime Minister, who has claimed to be guided by a moral compass, the Archbishop also observes "without these anxieties about the specific costs, we've lost the essential moral compass".

It follows a disagreement with the Prime Minister last week in which the Archbishop likened Government policy on spending to "an addict returning to a drug". This prompted Mr Brown to allude to the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan by claiming he could not "walk by on the other side" as people suffered. The Prime Minister has pledged to spend his way out of the economic downturn, increasing public borrowing to a record £200m a day. The Government has pledged £500 billion of taxpayers' money to bail out the banking system, and cut VAT by 2.5 per cent to get consumers spending again. Source: UK Telegraph

It seems that Archbishop Williams has come down with a case of amnesia. Only this summer, the Archbishop invited the Prime Minister to speak at a rally by Anglican bishops and hailed his commitment to ending world poverty. But he turned on Brown shortly after the collapse of banks worldwide in September. He called for governments to increase regulation of the financial sector and claimed that Karl Marx was correct in his analysis of the dangers of capitalism.

He denounced Mr Brown's plans to increase debt, saying: "I worry about that because it seems a little bit like the addict returning to the drug. "When the Bible uses the word 'repentance', it doesn't just mean beating your breast, it means getting a new perspective, and that is perhaps what we are shrinking away from."

In his article he warns of the dangers of "unconditional loyalty to a system" that turned into a "nightmare" in Germany under Hitler, in which only certain groups and ideas were valued, while others were deemed dispensable and suffering was ignored. He cites the lectures given by Karl Barth, a theologian who was driven into exile by Hitler, who had claimed that one of the benefits of Christianity is that believers are able to live without the "principles" that drive politics. Source: UK Telegraph

The Archbishop ends his rant by saying that the message of the Christmas story is one of unconditional love, and the idea that every human life must be valued. Geez, that's the only thing he said that I agree with. Why is it that these religious leaders have to get involved in politics? To compare Gordon Brown to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and those words should not be uttered by anyone, especially a man of God. I fully expect to ruffle some feathers with this article, but really people, saying that Britain could learn lessons from Nazi Germany to cope with the recession is simply unChristianlike and really in poor taste. The Bible didn't instruct us to divide one another and use inflammatory language. The last person I expected to hear such vitriol from was certainly not a religious leader, especially an archbishop.