Boris Johnson and Rowan Williams on religious social activity

Sometimes we love the way the Archbishop of Canterbury provides deeply thoughtful commentary from a Christian perspective on some of the biggest issues of the day. This week he gave a talk for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation on faith and development. He acknowledged that many were suspicious of faith organisations who engaged in social action, fearing aid would be used as a 'cloak for proselytism'.

The Archbishop's commentary was thoughtful and accurate, calling for greater understanding on all sides to allow faith groups to do their work more effectively. However, sometimes a part of the Mouse wishes that Rowan was just a little bit more like Boris Johnson.

Boris addressed the Street Pastors conference this week, and simply said it how it is.

Faith groups who want to slip in the odd coded message in favour of salvation, I have absolutely no problem with that and why not!

That’s one of the things that I think has been going wrong in the last few years. We have got a slightly politically correct super-sensitivity to anything that can be remotely classed as religious advocacy. And frankly I’ve got no difficulty with it whatsoever.

Boris admitted that red tape was making it 'too difficult to do good' for some Christian organisations.