The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican Communion, said he is against the teaching of creationism in schools. In a long interview published today in “The Guardian”, the first one after his election three years ago as leader of the "Church of England", Williams criticised the choice made by two protestant evangelical universities and other schools, to use the Biblical account as a history of the origins of the world. According to the Anglican leader, it is a mistake to consider the Biblical account "a theory like any other". "If creationism he said is presented as an extreme alternative to other theories, I think there is a clash of categories, creationism can risk diminishing the theory of creation instead of corroborating it”. The Anglican primate, before coming to Lambeth Palace, was a teacher of theology at Oxford and has a bright scholarly career behind him. In the United Kingdom, the debate between the supporters of Darwin’s theses and the creationists has not escalated to the proportions that in the United States have divided the religious right wing from the scientists. In the interview, Williams also speaks of the problems the Anglican Communion is going through, insisting he is determined to keep it united, despite the divisions that have come up about the ordination of gay priests.
