Religions will be heard when they stop fighting for power

It's a very powerful soundbite, is that. Puts me in mind of the idea I heard once that religions ought to compete to see who could produce the most holy, merciful and beneficent followers. Of course the problem then gets down to whose definitions prevail. I liked the Williams soundbite for what it suggests positively. But the problem comes when you start to flesh it out. He went on to say:

They cannot be committed to violent struggle to prevail at all costs, because that would suggest a lack of faith in the God who has called them. They cannot be committed to a policy of coercion and oppression, because that would again seek to put the power of the human believer or the religious institution in the sovereign place that only God’s reality can occupy.

Having just been reading Kenneth Cragg's Muhammed and the Christian, I am very aware of how Christian this is and how different it looks from at least some, if not most, Muslim perspectives. The intriguing thing is, though, that it does make an appeal to a real Islamic sensibility about the sovereignty of God and God being 'greater' and avoiding shirk. It's as if Rowan has put a wedge into a small crack between standard Muslim views about the use of state violence/coercion and the radical exalting of God that, frankly, is the most powerful emotional attraction of Islam for me. Intriguing. I'd love to see Muslims sign up to it.
Church Times - ‘Religions will be heard when they stop fighting for power’: