TIM O'BRIEN, guest anchor: For more on the sharia controversy in Britain, joining us is Jay Tolson, a senior writer at U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT. He's followed the story and written about it on his blog Faith Matters. Jay, welcome. Good to have you with us.

JAY TOLSON (Senior Writer, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT): Good to be here.

O'BRIEN: Archbishop Williams says this is an unavoidable accommodation that promotes social harmony. It hasn't promoted much harmony in the Anglican Church, has it?

Mr. TOLSON: No. There's a great deal of fury, and it seems that each attempt of his to explain it has made things only worse.

O'BRIEN: Is it an "unavoidable" accommodation?

Mr. TOLSON: It depends on what you mean by that. In some respects, the archbishop is right that it's a pumped up controversy, because technically British law already allows any third-party institution to adjudicate a matter as long as the two parties agree upon this third party. Jewish courts have handled many civil issues for centuries in England. So, in some sense, it's not controversial in that way. But, of course, there are other reasons why people are upset.

O'BRIEN: Why the uproar? Why are they?

Mr. TOLSON: Well, one of them is that simply many church people, clergy and just lay people, think that the archbishop should be more concerned with promoting Christian foundations of British law, that really talking about Islam or other religions is not his business. He has made the case though, he -- in his, I think, fourth explanation before the General Synod, which met earlier this week, he said that he thought that it was not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to speak for the concerns of other religious communities.

O'BRIEN: Yet Sharia seems quite extreme in many parts of the West, including the United States, especially given the treatment of women. How would that play out?

Mr. TOLSON: Well, that's precisely the issue, I think. I mean, he's really poked a hornet's nest with a stick. He is a very intelligent man. He knows that there is a big debate in the Islamic world itself about what Sharia means among the puritans, the conservatives, the extremists. There is -- Sharia is a very strict set of laws, a code, you might say. There are others who argue that Sharia is a very general set of principles that should inform the laws. It's not a prohibition against women going into the world without a veil, for example. So this debate is really quite sharp right now, and there have been efforts in other Western countries to introduce Sharia. Often those efforts have been beaten back by Muslims who are afraid that the more conservative or reactionary construction of Sharia will prevail.

O'BRIEN: Notwithstanding a rejection by the British government, do you think that this is an idea that in time will come to Great Britain?

Mr. TOLSON: Oh, I think it's going to be there always. I wouldn't be surprised if there are de facto Sharia courts making decisions in Birmingham and other British cities already. I think that this is already loosed in the world. But, you know, it's now sort of a question of whether it's recognized.

O'BRIEN: One quick question: do you think the controversy has put his tenure in jeopardy?

Mr. TOLSON: I don't want to predict that it has. He's obviously a man who's faced other big controversies. He will face a great big controversy that's coming -- the Lambeth conference, when the Anglican primates, as there're called, gather and deal with this touchy issue of homosexual clergy in the United States.

O'BRIEN: Well, stay tuned. Jay, thanks very much for being with us.

Mr. TOLSON: Good to be here.