Tuesday 11 November 2008

Darwinism v my daughter


I just had a chat with Cat (my daughter) about some of the differences between America and England. I said that in England, everyone has a right to be baptised, married and buried in the Church of England. That's because it's the Established Church. I'm an antidisestablishmentarianist. The Established Church concept is very good - in theory. But as I've heard many times - and now understand and even affirm: England do things only by halves.

And sadly the half that works tends to favour the 'haves'.

I said to Cat that it would be far better if the Church of England were government-funded, like the National Health Service and all other Parliament-regulated Public Services. Thus, everyone in England would still have the civil right to hatch, match and despatch services by their local vicar in his venue. But if the CofE were also State-funded, even poor, nominal Anglicans could have those basic Christian 'civil rites' at no additional cost. Call it the new National Religion Service (NRS). It works in Germany!

I also explained to Cat that people in America once had to buy fire insurance if they wanted the fire brigade to respond if their house was on fire. Nowadays, fire bridages are part of necessary public services like police and education. Of course in Texas many home owners consider themselves more qualified to protect their property than the local police, and arm themselves and act accordingly. But those are the same sort of people who despise the concept of health care as a basic human right. The unemployed are lazy and deserve to die or else go bankrupt.

I told Catherine frankly that if we moved back to Texas, we could only afford go into hospital if I had a job and thus (possibly) company-provided health insurance. She couldn't quite understand the connection, poor child. Bless her! That's because she lives in a society that considers health care a basic need and hence a basic human right, versus a commodity that is only available to those who can afford it.

So if I am forced to return to America, we might well be unable to go into hospital if one of becomes seriously ill, since many hospitals refuse to admit patients without private health insurance. I'm not worried about me since I've got life insurance. The worst thing that happens to me is that I ignore medical symptoms and die, leaving my family a windfall versus bankruptcy.

But Catherine is only a child - our only child. Surely she deserves better than old-fashioned American dog-eat-dog Darwinism.

On the upside, I did have a job interview yesterday for a post in the parish where some of Charles Darwin's descendants are residents themselves. Very ironic! And the NHS in that part of London is splendid.

Saturday 8 November 2008

I'm Dreaming of a White Winter Festival?


VATICAN CITY, NOV. 3, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A decision by the Oxford City Council to abolish all references to Christmas in the name of being more "inclusive" is the next step in erasing history and Christian identity, says a Vatican official.

I don't know who is more annoyed by all this Universalist, Liberal nonsense, John Henry Cardinal Newman or Harry Lillis Bing Crosby.

I think the term is hokier-than-thou. So if you find all these policies about 'tolerance and inclusion' to be a bit beyond you, then think again.

It's not beyond you - it's beneath you.

Funny how one could almost see this sort of militantly indifferent secularism as a species of iconoclasm. What the English Reformers failed to achieve in the 16th century, and the Puritans in the 17th, their intellectual heirs the Secularists are tidying up in the 21st.

I am also reminded of Fundamentalist sects who observe 'Fall Fun Festivals' instead of the Eve of All Saints.

The logical connection between radical Protestantism and Secularism is more striking day by day.

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Bishop Keith Ackerman escapes Deposition by retiring.

Randy Melton at 02:53 on 30 October.
Very interesting...Good for Keith! I'm sure that this is driving Squid Lady crazy. She'll no doubt try to maneuver him out of his pension some how. Her think tank is working on this now I'm sure.
FrDarryl Jordan at 05:10 on 30 October.
'Thank tank'? Hmm. So it's gone public now.

And why not really? Who can resist the iron grasp of the Presiding Bishop's Pluriform Post-Modernity Program (PB-PPMP)?

Of course, Katharine's Inclusive, Compulsory Anglican Secularization Scheme is still a covert op under 815.

They can tell you all about. But then they'd have to kill ... Read moreyou (kill your soul that is - with 'pluriformity').
FrDarryl Jordan at 05:33 on 30 October.
Sorry, Father. I left off a word:

Presiding Bishop's Pluriform TRUTHS Post-Modernity Program (PB-PTPMP)

Their jingle just don't work without it!

PB PT PMP.
PB PT PMP.
Truth is pluriform you see!
PB PT PMP.

PB PT PMP.
PB PT PMP.
Compelling inclusivity!
PB PT PMP.

PB PT PMP.
PB PT PMP.
Killing Catholicity!
PB PT PMP.

PB PT PMP.
PB PT PMP
Orthodoxy's enemy!
PB PT PMP.

PB PT PMP.
PB PT PMP.
I am you and you are me!
PB PT PMP.

Friday 19 September 2008

TECCON won a battle, but will TECCOR win the war?

Alas: Anglican Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh is deposed.

Tragic news for the TEC Confessing Orthodox Remnant (TECCOR). And now their sworn enemy TECCON is langourously preening and sharpening her talons - erm, polishing her nails - after a bitter but successful battle in
Katharine's Inclusive Compulsory Anglican Secularisation Scheme (KICASS).

TECCON, who once gleefully ripped apart screaming squids with her bare claws - erm, hands - has now attempted to rend the ministry of a holy Bishop from his See, and that at the behest of her Orcine minions in Pittsburgh, PA.

But rejoice for Bishop Duncan! He's following his conscience, and thus his salvation seems secure - if not his full pension.

Not to worry. One of the TECCOR faithful even offered him a house!

Like St John Chrysostom's enemy Eudoxia - 'good opinion', what delicious irony - an evil empress has exiled a successor to the Holy Apostles who dares to be faithful to the Depositum Fidei. But we know the end of the story. John Chrysostom was canonised. The heresiarch empress? Her name only endures in infamy.

I just wish like the Dickens TECCOR had stuck with attacking squids instead of Bishops.

A battle was lost, but the war is won.

15
[Jesus] said to [His disciples], "But who do you say that I am?"
16
11 Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
17
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood 12 has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
18
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
19
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Matthew 16 (NAB)

I don't think our Lord will mind if his faithful servant has the last word:

'This is a great new day.'
Bishop Robert Duncan
(Interview with Anglican Mainstream)

Wednesday 27 August 2008

It's not the Economy, stupid; it's the Religion - or lack thereof.

Shame on Britain for emulating the US and its turbo-Capitalism:
Britain's "dog eat dog" society, which is a poor copy of the United States, was blamed for the conclusion that this country is the worst developed nation in the world to grow up in (sic).

Fans of Will Hutton will realise he's been saying just this sort of thing for a long time. He said it recently to the Pope.

So back to religion, this blog's point and my profession and hence the domain about which I can comment most intelligently - if not always intelligibly!

Most indigenous American Christian ecclesial communities have effectively canonised its own neo-Darwinian, evangelical, least-common-denominator creed:
I believe in Jesus so we have a personal relationship; everything else is just man-made religion.
It's why I gringe every time I read the notices of vacancies for turbo-Evangelical parishes in the CofE.

I saw one this week about having a 'heart for the lost in the community'. I'd like to say that applies to non-Christians. But what of those normal people in the community Christened by their local vicar? Are they - erm - lost? I wonder what being amongst 'the saved' means - the likely complement to 'the lost' - in real, human terms.

Thankfully Catholics, by affirming that nominal Christianity isn't optimal but is still Christianity, avoid that species of Pelagianism that says salvation is based on making personal decisions, the worst tradition of men to infest the Church since, well, Pelagianism. Nor does Calvin's 'Augustine minus sacraments' position fare any better on the catholicity scale.

Salvation is always God's doing: by grace through the gift of faith given in Baptism - not the individual's. Ephesians is an entire book, not just two verses.

Individualism is quite the American model for nearly everything, whether man-made religion or self-made men. That includes all those home-grown, upstart, entrepreneurial, evangelical ecclesial communities. Based on my reading of the Holy Scriptures as canonised and interpreted by Holy Tradition, there is only one Church as such, i.e., founded not by a mere man but by the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who became the God-man. In the Councils that defined the Canon of Scripture and the Creeds, that Church is one and it's called the 'Catholic and Apostolic - or the authorised abbreviated form: Catholic - Church'.

Wednesday 30 July 2008

No Creed but Christ


In post-mediaeval times, English Christians boldly blazed a via media, or 'middle way', between Catholic Creedalism and Protestant Confessionalism. That way was deceptively - erm - delightfully simple, being both comprehensive (or in the modern idiom, 'inclusive') and perspicacious (or in the modern idiom, 'pluriform').

In a word, Anglicans bequeated to Christendom - to coin a label -
Christomonauteparchism, a concatenation.
  • Christomonism (Greek:Christos|English:Christ + Greek:monos|English:alone; cmp. Latin solus Christus, Martin Luther: 'By Christ alone'). Christ alone is Anglicanism's tacit theology.
  • Auteparchism (Greek:autos|English:self + Greek:eparchia|English:province; cmp. Latin:sui iuris). Provincial autonomy is Anglicanism's tacit modality.
Yet in these post-modern times, the Lambeth Conference, a halcyon event indeed, is now talking about something completely different: Anglican 'Covenantalism'.

That vexes me a mite. 'Covenant' sounds, well, not to put too fine a point on it, rather binding. For as the Rev'd Frederick Quinn avers,
Covenants just aren't Anglican, any more than Creeds are Baptist. What in the world happened to the Open Evangelical Anglican summary of the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth:

Believe in me and you may believe whatever you like.

'But what about the Trinity? Isn't the Trinity a dogma?' you might be tempted to ask. Well, speaking in my official capacity as a licensed Christomonauteparchist, i.e., a politically correct Anglican clergyman, I may only say what our secularised society expects of me.
Like all so-called dogmas, the Conciliar Decrees defining the Trinity are merely doctrines of men. Men. I mean that literally. Males. Alone. Male Bishops alone debated and defined the Trinity at the so-called First and Second General Councils (325 and 381, respectively) . Rather suspect don't you think? After all, 'General councils may err' (Article XXI). Well they must have done if only men were allowed a voice and vote!
But still, it doesn't really matter. According to Christomonism, Anglicans must only believe that Christ (or Christa) is our personal Saviour (or Sophia). Depending on your brand of Evangelicalism (i.e., permutations of Bible Christianity), He (or She) may also be your Lord (or Lady, an uncontested title since Evangelicals will not grant it to the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'Mother of Jesus' [sic])

So if you're an orthodox (i.e., Christomonist) Anglican, and you wish further to believe in the uncivil, gynophobic doctrine of the Trinity, you certainly may, or at least for the moment.
Gynophobic religious language is not yet a statutory offense in England, nor does Parliament have immediate plans to authorise a new Book of Common Prayer.

I'll just carry on with my politically corrected form of modalism:
In the name of Gaia: Source, Sophia and Wellspring [sic, sic et sic]
in keeping with our
Anglican socially constructed form of modality (i.e., Auteparchism).

Tuesday 22 July 2008

It's Politics All the Way Down


Anglicanism was, is and ever shall be a political religion. As such, Anglicanism is ideally the most 'politically correct' religion. Civility, in all its sundry social permutions, is Anglicanism's sole criterion of authenticity. Therefore it can comprehend all popular beliefs.

What it cannot comprehend is any particular belief.

That's a real problem for some Christians, from some Christian Churches and ecclesial communities, who hold particular beliefs. Those bodies, individual and ecclesial, will doubtlessly have creeds, confessions, catechisms, or some other type of binding teaching.

Even were Lambeth2008 to produce a 'Covenant', its content would be necessarily confined to contentions, i.e. conflict resolutions, in the necessarily political sense. There shall be no other resolutions, nor shall said promulgated 'conflict resolutions' be binding in any adjudicatory sense on any Anglican province. Suchlike, again, just isn't Anglican.

But as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, that's really not a problem for Anglicans: world without end.

Because it's politics all the way down.