Here I am complaining about a spot of winter drizzle while the British Isles have been receiving a pummeling from the weather gods. English weather has long been the subject of general hilarity in the rest of the world, but there's nothing even faintly funny about people losing their homes and even lives.
We all know what Spanky and Six-pack Gerry will say about such calamities: God is teaching the godless a well-deserved lesson. The Big Bloke in the Great Beyond has a short fuse, and every now and then the temperamental old sod lets fly with a hissy-fit. Flood, famine, tsunami, itchy boils... the god of Big Dave and the Herbal pretenders is anything but subtle.
Surprising then that a bishop in ye olde Church of England is prattling about the same thing. Under the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, reputed to be a hyper-conservative Evangelical, the bishoprics of the land were filled with card-carrying members of the so-called "evangelical" wing of the C of E., which is a large part of the reason the current archbishop, looking thoroughly frazzled, made the cover of Time a week or so back. Perhaps the former incumbent thought a theologically stiff upper lip might arrest the decline in attendance. If so, he was dead wrong.
In any case "the Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle," (the frocked fellow in the photo) has entered the fray with a word of divine consolation for the sodden citizenry worthy of Monty Python, as reported by the Telegraph.
"This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way," he said. "We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."
How Meredithesque!
"We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate," he said.
"In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as 'the beast', which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want," he said, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws highlighted its determination to undermine marriage.
"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."
The Telegraph reporter notes that the bishop is "a leading evangelical." Well, whatayaknow! Dow even goes on to compare the wicked world of today to the Roman Empire: "people should heed the stories of the Bible, which described the downfall of the Roman empire as a result of its immorality."
Well, shucks, where did I put that Ambassador College booklet The Modern Romans?
But here's my constructive suggestion. If the troglodyte bishops of Britain are going to steal COGdoms finest ideas, it's only fair if Rod, Gerry, Dave and the boys steal the Anglican regalia. Can't you just see Rod in a dress holding his staff with manly firmness? Or Gerry with a Roman collar and silly hat?
We might have to modify those religious titles though, "Right Reverend" just won't cut it in our tradition. How about "Right Rabid" instead?
6 comments:
Gavin said: "We might have to modify those religious titles though, "Right Reverend" just won't cut it in our tradition. How about "Right Rabid" instead?"
I'd go for "Right Wrong," myself :)
Been in the noonday sun, has he?
Amos 3:7 springs to mind, "Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."
It would be much more credible if the left out right whatever had loudly announced and proclaimed specifics of the wrath of God to come, but now that it has happened [or apparently so], the modern Pharisee is quick to judge the "acts of God" as being some sort of vague judgments against the wicked, rather than the normal fundamental processes of the planet. One wonders whether the frocked one recycles or drives an SUV getting mileage in the single digits. It would help the planet in a small way if he planted trees and pressed to reduce ethane emissions by insisting that his congregation become vegetarians to lower the number of cattle producing the obnoxious effluence causing global warming. Besides that, kill off all those evil gay sheep after gathering wool from them.
It's again, draw the curve and pick the points to match to prove your point. Something happens and you declare that it is punishment from God for something the wicked people have done in rising up to play, rather than sitting around listening to irrelevant boring sermons from those blathering on about things they truly don't understand and probably aren't even true.
At least the mainstream can't be accused of being false prophets because they are little more than opportunists, unlike the false prophets springing from the sprung and unhinged Radio Church of God, although we must assume that at the very least the CoE [not to be confused with the UCG Council of Evil] agrees with the sentiments of British Israelism to glorify the Empire of which they are so much a part.
This reminds one of Saturday Night Live's "Deep Thoughts" wherein the commentator took his nephew for an outing. "What is rain?" the nephew asks. "It is God crying" the uncle declares. "Why is God crying?" the nephew asks. The uncle answers, "Because of something you did!".
Here's another thought from Jack Handey. Don't ask me how it fits, it just does:
"Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have."
Gavin, what a luscious eye for irony. This is really a good one. Nearly missed it.
The Revolutionary Graham Dow conveniently ignores that the Church of England was founded by King Henry the Eighth because the Catholic Church would not grant him a divorce and wanted to commit what the RCC declared as adultery [ah, no mention lads of bowing down to graven images, please!].
So you have a church steeped in and founded by immorality claiming that the country is being buffeted about by Acts of God through the expediency of judgment brought on by a wrathful Deity because of lads with lads -- even though it was OK for the King to commit indecent acts and kill off the Archbishop as collateral damage.
The Roman Emperors did the same thing, so the analogy is complete: It took centuries after the immoral acts of the Romans for the Empire to fall. Thus it is that it has been taking centuries for the British Empire to fall because of their King's brash immorality. The big difference is that the Romans worshiped false gods as opposed to the British worshiping the Three in One True God.
I always found Sam Kineston's screaming at the Sudanese, standing in knee deep sand, high wind with empty food baskets on their heads as they looked for their crops, to mooooooooooooooove!
He also said they didnt need aid sent to them, they needed luggage!
Aside from Biblical superstition and a total lack of the knowledge of how the planet works and that humans are not the center of it all, weather is just weather and not related to the anger of any Deity.
Carrying this silly notion over into modern times is a useful ignornace for motivating people with non-prophecies which lead to non-events for the participants.
"Boy did it rain hard last night..."
"Man, it's really hot...in summer"
"Whew, Tornadoes in the Midwest...in Spring."
"Holy Cow, those rocks slipped and what a big wave..."
"Charlotte has a record cold Spring day..."
"Man of Man...terrible lightening in Darwin..."
"Oi veh..bees dying (perhaps GM crops problem for the bees which would be rather man made.)
"Massive solar storms..never before observed..."
You can sure tell Jesus is about to return...
It's manipulative superstition at it's worst but making bucks off the eternal carrot of the second coming, 3-5 years max, at it's best.
Douglas Becker said...This reminds one of Saturday Night Live's "Deep Thoughts" wherein the commentator took his nephew for an outing. "What is rain?" the nephew asks. "It is God crying" the uncle declares. "Why is God crying?" the nephew asks. The uncle answers, "Because of something you did!".
If I recall correctly, the "something" had something to do with spanking monkeys. That's the Catholic way of giving young men lots of guilt. You make God cry when you do it.
The WCG way to guilt was to listen to Rod Merrydeath go into excruciating detail on that "perversion". At AC they said 98% of young men do it, and the other 2% lie about it.
If you were lucky you weren't old enough to understand the archaic terminology some of the preachers used. "Yeah whatever that is, it must be bad!" But why would anyone want to go night crawler fishing with a slave owner?
The poor young lads that knew melted through the rented brown metal chairs in poorly ventilated rented church halls, thinking they are the only one in the crowd he's speaking to.
More than one kid prayed to God for some demon possessed nut to create a ruckus that day and get people's mind on something else. "Oh God oh please have mercy! Don't let them see my red face!"
Nothing like a full court press by a posse of deacons on an schizophrenic for Saturday entertainment!
"God told me The End is Near!" oh what..that's not the nut in the crowd, that's the one on stage!
Like any of us knew what HWA's "spooning" was? 23 skidoo and all that too!
What's worse, Catholics telling young men they made Jesus cry, or HWA telling the Church Jesus didn't come back because they weren't ready? The bride of Christ wasn't clean? SAY WHAT???
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