This, and much else Rowan Williams says, makes good sense. But I see little hope in his Christian perspective, which should be consigned to history. Quoting St. Paul and Moses, indeed! who sought to impose their beliefs and morals on others with threats of violence or eternal damnation, thereby treating their fellow humans as domestic animals (despite that being what we largely are), to be trained and made obedient (to God, the Church, the state, capital) by a regime of (promised/threatened) rewards and punishments, just as we ourselves train dogs.

Infinitely more useful than a Christian perspective, is a human-evolutionary, i.e. Darwinian, one, which reveals us to be still very much what we always were, i.e. an animal primarily concerned with exploiting its environment in the continuing primordial struggle for survival, advantage and reproductive success, only now misplace and perverted in the artificial environment of human civilisation itself, where it is largely reduced to the pursuit and exercise of POWER (money, the moral high ground, social and professional status, etc.), which Rowan himself, of course, like all "successful" individuals, is vigorously engaged in, but fails to recognise, because of the human brain's prodigious capacity to rationalise everything to suit its own narrow and short-sighted self-interests.

I like Rowan Williams for some reason (partly because he seems quite sincere and well-meaning), but like all our leaders, he too is essentially blind, failing himself "to see where the roots of the problem [really] lie", which is in man's Darwinian nature and the socioeconomic order (the power structures of state, (church) and economy) it has given rise to.

Unfortunately, the very last thing the blind become aware of is their own blindness.

2nd Post (which didn't make it past the "moderation")

[guardianreeda]:

The planet is stuffed because people 'went forth and multiplied.' This isn't surprising. All species have more offspring than can be supported by the ecosystem eventually. (Call it 'God's design' if you like)

"God's design" or not, this is HOW evolution works, supernumerary procreation being essential to the mechanism of natural selection, thereby driving the struggle and competition for survival and reproductive success.

Ethnic Europeans are clearly a degenerate and inferior race, who are now succumbing to other, reproductively more successful, races. A just punishment, perhaps, for questioning and disobeying God, for pursuing knowledge (science and technology) which, together with the invention of money, gave him more POWER than he has proved capable of handling wisely.*

Instead, he has used his increasing power to continue his blind Darwinian struggle for individual advantage and "success" (we evolved as members of a "tribe"), now misplaced and perverted in the artificial environment of human society itself, where it has largely been reduced to the pursuit and exercise of ever more power (see my first post), which is what economic growth translates into, of course, and is why it is sacrosanct, despite its obvious (but still unacknowledged) non-sustainability on our finite and vulnerable planet.

* This paragraph is meant to be taken seriously, to stimulate thought, but not TOO seriously. I want to see us recognise and develop an understanding of our, and our civilization's, Darwinian nature, so that we might take enlightened and rational control of our own destiny, instead of having it decided for us, as usual, by a blind and ruthless Mother Nature.