THE MIDNIGHT JUKEBOXST. PATRICK'S DAY SPECIAL

You have to search hard to find authentic, Irish folk music. Most of what is touted as Irish folk music is just tourist music - the same song played over and over again. Irish folk has also been criminally linked to getting drunk and falling over when, in reality, most real Irish folk music is about a lot more serious things than that. To demonstrate what I mean, here is the real McCoy from piano accordion player, Jimmy Keane, and his extremely talented band, Bohola.

IF IT HAS TO BE AN EVANGELICAL THIS TIME PLEASE, LORD, LET IT BE JAMES

Thanks to Susan Russell for putting this up on FaceBook.

BABELICIOUSNESS RULES UK, OK!

Being right about everything all the time is a burden. It's a burden I carry with great humility and grace. Like Saint Paul, I am not a boastful person. But, also like Saint Paul, I am always willing to take every opportunity to point out to those I serve, all the things I could boast about if I was a boastful person.

Today I have such an opportunity as I have just received a Facebook nudge from a good friend of mine from the Diocese of Wenchoster, drawing my attention to a new petition that has been posted on the CHANGE.ORG website. This, sure to be universally approved, petition is addressed to "The Crown Nominations Commission and Britain’s Prime Minister" and it demands "That Geraldine Granger be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by the Queen."

This is not just a bit of fun. There are some very serious reasons given for the rightness of Geraldine's preferment. The following is a quote from the organisers:

"The time has come to move from bearded and bushy to the "babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom". Bring back joy and laughter to being a Christian - no no no no no no yes?!"

Now, if this is not OCICBW...'s Babelicious Bishops campaign made manifest I am a monkey's uncle.

Oh, I took such stick when I launched the Babelicious Bishops campaign almost six years ago now. I was even accused of sexism and poor taste. But I was always certain that what the people of God really wanted was something gorgeous to look at when the bishop visited their parish as opposed to having to stare at someone who reminds them of their slightly crazy maths teacher from back when they were in senior school.

Yes, my friends, we are entering a new age, the Age of Aquarius, in which looking good and wearing immaculately applied make up will be the new religion. Let the sun shine in!

THE CATHOLIC MORAL HIGHGROUND

This is simply amazing. It's a screen shot of a comment on a TELEGRAPH blog attacking David Cameron for championing same sex marriage. The claim that 2 out of every 100 priests (that's one in every 50 churches) being child abusers is insignificant has to be the most vile attempt at spin I've ever come across.

DON'T BLAME MADPRIEST, BLAME JANIS

THE RETURN OFF BIG PETE AKINOLA

MEANWHILE AT THE STARTING GATE

WE HAVE A FRONTRUNNER

It's just a few hours after the announcement that Rowan Williams is to retire as the Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the year and The BBC has already decided that John Sentamu is his most likely successor. Although the Archbishop of York is diplomatically keeping stum today, and will no doubt remain silent about the issue until the new boss is announced, locals in Bishopthorpe have told newsmen that Sentamu has, in the past when asked directly, said he might get the Canterbury job eventually. He is almost certainly not averse to the idea.

I find the thought of Sentamu as Archbishop of Canterbury a very boring concept. His would be a crowdpleasing (as in the Daily Mail crowd) but intellectually embarrassing reign. However, he might make the Church of England a more attractive proposition for those who want certainty and to be told what to think. He might even slow down the church's rapid decline in membership. The evangelicals would see him as a good thing and the charismatics would probably get their bongos out and start dancing in the street. I doubt that the Anglo-Catholics would have too much of a problem with them (their prejudice is against women not black people - in fact, Anglo-Catholics have done more than any other group in the Church of England to fight against racism throughout the world). It will be the liberals and the easily embarrassed broad church parties that will find Sentamu living at Lambeth a bit of a problem. I feel particularly sorry for the liberals' predicament. Sentamu was once the British Government's favourite black Englishman and his role on commissions tackling racism in my country was extremely great. He was a liberal hero and they would flock to see him whenever he gave a lecture in town. Unfortunately, like far too many people who have suffered oppression Sentamu has problems seeing the oppression of other groups of people. He is also very African in his view of life. So the liberals have a big problem. Do they support him because he is black and his appointment would be a huge step forward in their bid to get equality of opportunity for all people in Britain, or do they condemn him as a homophobe and risk being accused of racism or, at the least, hypocrisy (failing to practice what they preach).

Personally, at this moment in time the appointment of Sentamu as Archbishop of Canterbury does not scare me. It will only scare the crap out of me if the remaining dioceses vote in favour of the Anglican Covenant. If this instrument of control is not adopted than it doesn't matter too much who is at the top as the synodical processes of the Church of England will continue as they are now and change can happen with or without the Archbishop of Canterbury's support, they can happen even if the Archbishop is set against them. But if the Covenant is adopted, change will only ever stand a chance of happening if the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time wants it to happen. This is because the quangoesque committees and suchlike at the top of the Anglican Communion will pretty much be in control of everything except the most mundane local decisions.

So, don't panic, yet. Don't pack your bags and buy one way tickets to the USA until we get all the results of the Covenant vote in at the end of April. And do be careful. If the Covenant is accepted by the majority of the dioceses, don't get crushed in the rush of "thinking Anglicans" leaving the sinking ship.

NO - YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME

The only people who can speak on my behalf are those who I have given permission to do so. Sometimes this is explicit and sometimes I give the right to speak on my behalf through participating in an election. Sometimes, as in the case of my membership of the Church of England, I give an organisation the right to speak on my behalf. But when I do that I do so expecting the organisation to follow its own rules. I do not hand my permission to speak on my behalf over to some invisible entity that decides what I'm supposed to think without any consultation of the people who represent the mind of the membership of the Church in its synodical processes.

What I want to know is what the feck (who the feck) this Church of England is that keeps "officially" telling the government what the Church of England believes about this and that matter? For example:

Allowing same-sex couples to marry will create few new rights for homosexuals but it will spell legal confusion for the rest of society as the definition of marriage will have to change for everyone, the Church of England said last night. (THE TELEGRAPH)

I can't remember this being discussed at any synodical level of the Church of England. And, anyway, it can't be right because I'm not in the slightest bit confused (and believe me, I am very easily confused).

So please Church of England, whoever you are, stop it!

But if you absolutely have to say something on my behalf, please tell the truth.

MADPRIEST'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I love the Bible, I truly do.
But I love it for what it is not for what I want it to be.

STAND BY YOUR DAD (2)

Actually, I think I prefer this one.

STAND BY YOUR DAD

I am a loyal son and cannot allow my dad to suffer the disapprobation of the entire female population of the world alone. So, I shall stand in front of the firing squad alongside him.

FROM THE DAILY PROPHET

I think this one deserves a re-up today.

As I said, we didn't know what he would do to try and persuade the remaining dioceses to vote for the covenant. We do now.

THE RACE IS ON

From THE BBC:

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has announced he is to stand down in December.

He is stepping down and will take the position of Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge from January 2013, his website says.

The Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) will consider "in due course" the selection of a successor.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said he had received the news "with great sadness".

"The last decade has been a challenging time for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Thankfully, Archbishop Rowan is a remarkable and gifted leader who has strengthened the bonds of affection. Despite his courageous, tireless and holy endeavour, he has been much maligned by people who should have known better. For my part he has been God's apostle for our time."" he said in a statement.

Oh, dear. I think he probably means us. Slapped wrists everybody.

Don't bother trying to get through to Rowan Williams' website. It has crashed.

OCICBW... has been appointed the official bookmaker for the succession race and I will be posting the odds for the main contenders shortly.  However, if you want to put money on me, Jeffrey John or Gurdur from the Heathen Blog, you can do so now and name your own odds.

DON'T BLAME MADPRIEST, BLAME MAD DAD

Has MadDad gone too far this time?

My wife and I went to the Devon County Show and one of the first exhibits we stopped at was the breeding bulls. We went up to the first pen and there was a sign attached that said, "THIS BULL MATED 50 TIMES LAST YEAR."


My wife playfully nudged me in the ribs ... Smiled and said, "He mated 50 times last year, that's almost once a week."


We walked to the second pen which had a sign attached that said, "THIS BULL MATED 150 TIMES LAST YEAR."


My wife gave me another healthy jab in the ribs and said, "Wow! That's more than twice! a week! You could learn a lot from him."


We walked to the third pen and it had a sign attached that said, in capital letters, "THIS BULL MATED 365 TIMES LAST YEAR."


My wife was so excited that her elbow nearly broke my ribs, and said, "That's once a day. You REALLY COULD learn something from this one.'


I looked at her and said, "Go over and ask him if it was with the same cow."


My condition has been upgraded from critical to stable and I should eventually make a full recovery.

GOD BOTHERING - FRIDAY 16TH. MARCH 2012

Today's prayer list is now up at SAINT LAIKA'S

If you have a moment, please pop over there and join in our prayers. Please light a virtual candle as it shows those we are praying for that we do care. 

If you have a prayer request you want including on Monday's prayer list, please let me know in the comments to this post, go to St. Laika's and leave it on the Our Prayers forum or drop me an email at madpriestx@sky.com.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

MAD DAD PROVIDES THE PICTURESMADPRIEST PROVIDES THE WORDS

GUMBY OF THE DAY

A well deserved Gumby Of The Day accolade is hereby presented to Urs Schwaller of the Swiss Christian Democratic Party who, in an attempt to derail the government's plans to allow gay couples to adopt said that, while he did not doubt that gay and lesbian people could take of children as well as heterosexuals, there was in his view no need to give them rights to adopt.

D'oh! What?

REDHEADS - FEELING THE COLDEXCEPT WHEN IT'S CHILLI

In the U.S. and England, only about 4% of the population are natural redheads; in Germany, it's 2%; and in Asia, Africa and South America even less. Scotland has the most redheads: 14 of every 100 people are “gingers.” Ireland, also known for its high number of redheads, has 10%. So redheads are not only rare, they also stand out – and they have genetic differences that set them apart from people with other hair colours. International scientists have shown that five variants of the MC1R gene lead to red hair. Another, HCL2 on chromosome 4, also appears to play a role but too little is as yet known about it. Because of the rarity of the “red gene,” some scientists believe there will no longer be any redheads in the world by 2060.

Jeffrey Mogil at McGill University in Montreal has shown that mice and red-haired people with MC1R gene variant experience pain differently than dark-haired people. Mogil and other scientists have also shown that red-haired women are more sensitive to cold and heat. They are also more sensitive to a certain kind of painkiller but less sensitive to narcotics. A team working with Lars Arendt-Nielsen of the International Association for the Study of Pain, that also conducts research at Aalborg University in Denmark, wanted to find out more about red heads’ reaction to pain. They conducted research on 20, pale-skinned women with red hair, and 20 women with dark or blonde hair. They applied a cream containing chili pepper on their skin and left it for a half hour. All the subjects reacted identically. In a second round of the experiment, the researchers irritated the women’s skin mechanically: and here, red heads turned out to be a lot less sensitive to the pain. Arendt-Nielsen and his team reached the conclusion that redheads are less sensitive to certain types of pain such as needle pricks or applied pressure. It seems that the pain resulting from exposure to cold or heat is processed differently by the body than pressure, pricks and scratches. Redheads are less sensitive to the latter, and more to the former.

Well, there you have it. If you're a complete prick, don't despair.  Find yourself a redhead to love. They won't care - well, at least, not so much.

Full story at DIE WELT.

MARCH MADNESS

German immigration authorities sent an eight-month old Serbian baby a letter demanding it leaves the country within a week otherwise it would be forced to go.

Full story at THE LOCAL (Germany).

***

A buxom Swedish blonde blogger "lost a breast" after a rough-and-tumble reality show mud wrestling match dislodged one of her silicone implants.

Ouch!

Full story at THE LOCAL (Sweden).

***

A German TV cameraman had one of the worst days of his career on Wednesday - while filming a unique no-eared rabbit, he stepped on it, killing it instantly.

The no-eared bunny called Til (after actor Til Schweiger) of Limbach-Oberfrohna Tierpark in Saxony was being groomed for stardom, with the zoo hoping he would hop in the paw-steps of Berlin's Knut polar bear and Leipzig's crossed-eyed opossum Heidi.

Full story at THE LOCAL (Germany).

***

Fundamentalist Christians threw dog dirt in the face of a top theatre boss in Nancy on Thursday, in protest against a controversial play on religion.

"I was leaving the national opera when a couple of fundamentalists, a man and a woman I believe, rushed towards me, tore my hat off and threw a container full of dog poo at me..." said Jean-Michel Ribes after the attack on Tuesday evening.

Full story at THE LOCAL (France)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Sheila, over at the GOOD NEWS IN THE WILDERNESS blog, has posted an open letter to "Churches Seeking New Members." It contains some great advice such as this:

No stalking – please don’t run out of the church and down the street chasing after us to tell us you were glad to see us (and, yes, that really happened). When you act like it’s a miracle of God that you have visitors, it freaks us out. We may or may not fill out an information card, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like you, it may just mean we found everything we needed on your website.

GOD BOTHERING - THURSDAY 15TH. MARCH 2012

Today's prayer list is now up at SAINT LAIKA'S. If you have a moment, please pop over there and join in our prayers. Please light a virtual candle as it shows those we are praying for that we do care. If you have a prayer request you want including on tomorrow's prayer list, please let me know in the comments to this post, go to St. Laika's and leave it on the Our Prayers forum or drop me an email at madpriestx@sky.com.

METHOD IN MY MADNESS

Even though the Common Lectionary gives three readings for every, main Eucharistic service on Sundays, in my liturgical resource, "New Words For Holy Communion," everything relates to the gospel reading only. There is a reason for this. Some churches only have one reading plus the gospel at their Sunday service. This often happens in churches where the vicar is summarily lynched on his own sanctuary screen if the service takes even just one second more than exactly sixty minutes. If I related my prayers and what have you to all three readings a lot of them wouldn't make sense in such churches.

Secondly, in England, at least, and especially in non-Anglo-Catholic churches, the priest will use the Sunday readings for weekday services. At these services it is unusual for all three readings to be spoken.

So, there you have it. Another reason why you should purchase "New Words for Holy Communion," and use them as part of eucharistic worship on any day of the week that you like.

NEW WORDS FOR HOLY COMMUNION:

A monthly resource of all new prayers, intercessions, acclamations, biddings and blessings for use in the Eucharist on each Sunday and principal feast of the church year.

For a sample

CLICK HERE

Available by monthly subscription at a cost of just £2.49 (slightly less than $4.00 U.S.) per issue. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. Click on the button below to order. You do not need your own PayPal account to do so.

For a single copy (also priced at £2.49) use this widget:

NOW AVAILABLE IN KINDLE FORMAT

For those of you who are technologically advanced this format is ideal for church services as it reduces the paperwork you have to carry around in church to zero.

For the US edition CLICK HERE.



For the UK edition CLICK HERE.



It should also be available on other Amazon sites. Just go to the Kindle section and type "New Words For Holy Communion" in the search box.

MORE DETAILS AT SAINTLAIKA.COM

THE MIDDAY JUKEBOX

I love me some bluegrass. But I'm very fussy.
Basically it has to sound like this album, released back in 2003 but still available from Amazon and elsewhere in both CD and MP3 formats.



MARK'S WEBSITE

PURCHASE FROM AMAZON USA

PURCHASE FROM AMAZON UK

ENDORSED BY MADPRIEST

Dear Jonathan, Should MPs be accepting financial support from charities that sponsor "gay cure" conferences? Phillip Dawson from Enfield thinks not -- so when he discovered a Christian charity that sponsored a conference discussing "Therapeutic approaches to same-sex attraction" and "Mentoring the sexually broken" had also since funded interns for 17 MPs, including his own, he was shocked. Now Phillip has started a petition on Change.org calling for all MPs to sever ties with Care (Christian Action Research and Education).  Until three weeks ago David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, was receiving interns from Care but as a consequence of Phillip’s campaign, he stated that he will no longer do so. Now Phillip needs more people to join his campaign so that the 17 other MPs publicly distance themselves from the organisation. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that talking about homosexuality as a disease "creates a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish". Phillip believes that MPs should be fighting homophobia wherever it occurs but by associating themselves with Care they are actually helping to fuel it. Phillip wants to make it clear that it’s no longer acceptable for homosexuality to be presented as a 'disease' -- and elected figures must not accept financial support from organisations that promote such views.  Click here to join Phillip’s campaign and tell the 17 MPs to sever ties with Care. Thanks for being part of this, - Katharine and the Change.org team PS - Please note that the charity involved is the Christian charity Care (Christian Action Research and Education) which is not associated in any way with the charity CARE International.

DON'T BLAME MADPRIEST, BLAME MAD DAD

IT'S TOUGH AT THE TOP BUT IT'S ADAMN SIGHT TOUGHER AT THE BOTTOM

I am not suggesting for one moment that those who end up with the top jobs in my country, who come from privileged backgrounds, are not qualified for the posts they hold. The prime minister of the UK, David Cameron, went to the same school as the present bishop of Durham and, although I am an unreconstructed socialist and do not agree with his capitalist ideology, I happen to believe he is the greatest prime minister of my country in my lifetime. I believe that he is eminently qualified for the job. I have the same view (so far, as it's early days) in respect of my present bishop. It is unlikely that I would agree with many of his theological beliefs but he seems competent enough for the post and may well turn out to be one of our best (although he does have Bishop Jenkins as a spectre hovering behind his shoulder and David is a tough act to follow, especially by somebody personally connected through much of his life to the capitalist venture).

The problem is this, the greasy poles of the various hierarchies of my society are far, far greasier at the bottom than they are at the top. Therefore, people who are already half way up the pole because of the accidental privileges of their parentage, have an incredible advantage over those people, who are equally qualified, but whose parents couldn't afford to send them to a posh school or had been born on the wrong side of the British class system tracks.

However, the privileged who attain high office do have a problem, especially if they have a normal human conscience. They have to live with the fact that bolshie oiks like me will automatically assume they got their job because of who they know and who they went to school with. That must be both frustrating and annoying for those private school / Oxbridge educated occupiers of high office who actually worked hard and deserve their position.

A lot of rich and powerful people are either devoid of empathy for those they rule it over or have justified their privilege to themselves in such a way that makes it bearable. But that can't be true for all of them. It is obvious from Cameron's attempts to be seen as "of the people" that his background embarrasses him to some extent, and Bishop Welby's enthusiasm to get his hands dirty preaching the good news in some really nasty places of extreme poverty, shows that he has tried to distance himself from the spoiled rich.

The question I am left asking is this: can people like David Cameron and Justin Welby ever escape the destiny of their position in our class system? Justin's rise through the church hierarchy has been meteoric by normal standards and I very much doubt that this was due to his own politicking or playing the old school tie card. It is my guess that it had a lot to do with the expectations of those around him with the authority to offer him preferment. I don't think the English have ever got over their medieval deference to the fighting estate and the lords of the manor. The journalist's comments in the newspaper clip at the top of this post pretty much sum up the attitude of most English peasants. The Bishop of Durham went to Eton and was something big in the oil industry, therefore, he is an obvious choice to be the next (or subsequent) Archbishop of Canterbury. The journalist obviously believes there is nothing he or she can do about that, it's the way things are. It is also obvious that the journalist believes there is nothing Justin can do about it either.

Some are born great; the rest of us have to knife our colleagues in the back and have the Machiavellian indifference to other human beings of Vlad the Impaler, in order to achieve the same greatness.

GOD BOTHERING - WEDNESDAY 14TH. MARCH 2012

Today's prayer list is now up at SAINT LAIKA'S. If you have a moment, please pop over there and join in our prayers. Please light a virtual candle as it shows those we are praying for that we do care. If you have a prayer request you want including on Monday's prayer list, please let me know in the comments to this post, go to St. Laika's and leave it on the Our Prayers forum or drop me an email at madpriestx@sky.com.

THE MIDDAY JUKEBOX

Here's some beautiful, English folk music from a young bonnie lass who hails from Derbyshire.



LUCY'S WEBSITE

PURCHASE FROM AMAZON USA

PURCHASE FROM AMAZON UK

SLOWLY, SLOWLY CATCHIE MONKEY

Jeffrey John has claimed that the Church’s mishandling of the gay issue was at the root of an increasingly secular society.

“Exactly the same love and commitment are possible between two people of the same sex as between two people of different sexes, and it is not immediately clear why the Church should regard such a relationship as ethically or spiritually inferior to a heterosexual marriage. The fact that fifty years on [after the decriminalisation of homosexuality] the Church is seen as enemy No 1 of gay people is a disaster, both for our own morale and for our mission to the country. We have become the last refuge of prejudice.”

Full story at THE TELEGRAPH.

SKATING AWAY ON THE THIN ICEOF A NEW COVENANT

As most of you will know by now (well, those of you who give a toss will know), six English dioceses voted on the proposed Anglican Covenant over the weekend. Ripon and Leeds, Southwark, Worcester and  Bath and Wells voted against it and Carlisle and Coventry voted for it. This brings the running total to seventeen against and ten in favour.

There is quiet confidence within the anti-covenant camp but they are not counting their chickens yet. There are plenty more results to come in and it could still go either way. The pro-covenanters have the propaganda machinery of the church at their disposal and we saw in Williams' recent video appeal on YouTube that they are not adverse to taking full advantage of it. We do not know what lengths the Archbishop of Canterbury will go to to make this issue personal and persuade the dioceses yet to vote that voting against the covenant would be an attack on his leadership and personal integrity.

One thing is certain, however the vote now progresses, there is no overwhelming mandate within the Church of England for the Anglican Covenant. I very much doubt that the percentage in favour, even if the ayes win it, will be anywhere near the percentage required by General Synod to pass the ordination of women legislation and it would be totally wrong to allow the adoption of a binding covenant on a vote less demanding of a substantial majority than that one was.

If the result is no to the covenant, nobody is going to leave the Church of England because of it. If the result is yes to the covenant, although I don't foresee a mass exodus, I do foresee a decisive and antagonistic splitting of the church into its present two main factions, evangelicals and everybody else. Carlisle is an extremely evangelical diocese, very protestant in its ethos. It's almost a no go area for non-evangelical priests. Coventry, although once a bastion of enlightened, socially concerned thinking and practice, is now under the thumb of a Fulcrum bishop with a loyal retinue of evangelical priests now in place in the diocese. There is no doubt that, although it is not complete, one of the main splits in regard to attitudes towards the covenant is between the evangelical party and the broad church party within the Church of England. This warring between these two parties has been going on for centuries. At times one party has had the upper hand over the other but neither has been allowed to completely dominate the governance of the church because of the way we make our appointments and do our politics. But the covenant is heavily biased towards only allowing change approved by evangelical provinces within the Anglican Communion. Its adoption would give the evangelical party in England far more power than any party has ever enjoyed. They would get to call the shots until the provinces of GAFCON see the light, and that may never happen. This dominance of the English church by evangelicals will gradually wear down the loyalty to the church in everyone who is not evangelical and the demise of the Church of England as a catholic (small c) church will be certain and quick.

The other split on the vote is (again) obviously between the bishops and the rest of the church membership. In those diocese which have no definite party allegiance but have voted yes it has been the forceful rhetoric of the bishops that has swung the vote in favour of the covenant. If the bishops were to continue to insist on the adoption of the covenant without an overwhelming mandate to do so, this split will become problematical for both the church membership and the bishops themselves. At the moment most commentators are blaming the bishops' almost unanimous support of the covenant on their sense of collegiality and, more so, their loyalty to Rowan Williams. Most diocesans dream of becoming an archbishop and I doubt if they would wish to lessen the authority that archbishops enjoy just in case they do end up with the job. But, if they persist in their support of the covenant even when half of the church membership does not want it, then other explanations of their attitude may become popular. Chief of these will be the belief that the covenant is a way of giving the top of the church hierarchy far more power than they enjoy at present. I would bet my bottom dollar that, if the covenant is adopted, it won't be long before decisions regarding what changes can happen in the Church will be made in the "instruments of communion" and decision making bodies inhabited by primates and bishops alone. When that happens, General Synod will lose virtually all its legislative power as motions coming up from the grass roots will be vetoed by the house of bishops if the proposed changes do not suit them. All the bishops will have to do is quote the covenant. Maybe General Synod will still get to vote on what type of biscuits are served with their mid-morning coffee, but that will be about all they will be allowed to do. The antagonism that this will create between the episcopacy and the rest of the church will hasten the demise of the Church of England as a protestant (small p) church.

So, if the movers and shakers of the Church of England want the church in which they get to be in charge of stuff to survive so they can carry on being in charge of stuff, I strongly suggest that they now start preparing the ground for a graceful dumping of the covenant altogether, whatever the final vote may be. The anti-covenanters have come up with the "No to the covenant, yes to communion" slogan and it seems to me that they have provided Rowan Williams and his loyal supporters with a way out of this communion damaging situation they have created without losing too much face. Then we can all go back to bickering with each other without tyranny.

JUST YOUR BOG STANDARD POVERTY

I have been unemployed for over 18 months now. After a while you sort of get used to not going out and searching the supermarket shelves for out of date mark downs. But today I am feeling down about it.

I have not bought a single item of new clothing since August 2010. Bit by bit my wardrobe is getting emptier as I throw worn out clothes in the bin. This morning I noticed a hole in the front of my favourite pullover. Tonight, I will throw it out.

It's little things like this that drain the happiness out of your life when you are unemployed. You begin to feel self-conscious when you are in public. I only have one belt now. It's brown but I have to wear it with any colour trousers I own. The same goes for shoes. I have one reasonable pair left and they are brown. I hate wearing shoes that don't match my clothes.

I'm not a greedy person and have never tried to gain great wealth or even earn more than I need to live on and have a good time occasionally. But it would be nice to be able to buy a replacement sweater when I need one. I am depressed because, as far as I can see, this will not happen before I die. The fact that I am certainly not alone in my developed world poverty just makes me more depressed.

Being unemployed is like living on death row. A boss who removes a worker's livelihood is stealing that person's life away and it is time that can never be replaced.

There is a budget coming up in England soon. The main arguments going on at the moment concern the taxation of the rich at a higher rate than the poor. Over and over again the defenders of unrestricted capitalism tell you that if you don't let bosses earn loads of money then there will be no wealth creation and no jobs for everyone else. But why should this be so? Is it really true that people are only inspired to create wealth if that wealth is going to go mainly to themselves?

There was a time in England when great men and women devoted their lives to enriching as many people as possible. I'm thinking of the Cooperative movement and the rich entrepreneurs who gave their wealth away because they believed that they wouldn't go to heaven if they died rich whilst others starved. This wasn't that long ago. We still have the public libraries built by philanthropists and the houses built by Cadbury for his workers in Bourneville still stand.

They say that if there wasn't a God, human beings would invent one. I truly believe that the killing of God in the last fifty years or so, has led to a world where there is no reason for generosity and communal endeavour. At the end of the day, no matter how much the atheists talk about godless morality, it does appear from empirical evidence that the only thing that compels the rich to give to the poor is the image of that proverbial camel trying to squeeze its great bulk through the eye of a needle. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but they are few and the atheists who do pursue a truly benevolent way of life tend to be pretty damn poor themselves.

GOD BOTHERING - TUESDAY 13TH. MARCH 2012

Today's prayer list is now up at 
SAINT LAIKA'S.

Like yesterday, there are quite a few, very important prayer requests today so, if you have a moment, please pop over there and do light a virtual candle as it shows those we are praying for that we do care.

If you have a prayer request you want including on Monday's prayer list, please let me know in the comments to this post, go to St. Laika's and leave it on the Our Prayers forum or drop me an email at madpriestx@sky.com.

A MADPRIEST LOLSPARROW

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

On the road from rural North Carolina to the Boston suburbs, Sam Taylor has worn the shoes of a native son, student, soldier, and now, a young woman and religious leader.

“In some ways, I don’t see it as much of a change [but] as a continuation,” said Taylor, who is a transgender woman.

That’s not to say the road has been easy.

Read the full story at THE CHAPEL HILL NEWS. And, if you are an American Episcopalian, give yourself a pat on the back. You lot have changed the world into a better place.

DON'T BLAME MADPRIEST, BLAME ELLIE

Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning having gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, sheer guts plus arrogance; it's Yiddish and, as Leo Rosten writes, no other word, and no other language, can do it justice.

A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner for a dollar each.

Every day a young man would leave his office building at lunch time and as he passed the pretzel stand he would leave her a dollar, but never take a pretzel.

This offering went on for more than 3 years. The two of them never spoke. 

One day as the young man passed the old lady's stand and left his dollar as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him for the first time in over 3 years. Without blinking an eye she said: "They're a dollar and a quarter now."

WORSHIP AT ST. LAIKA'S (DELAYED)

The server that hosts my audio files crashed yesterday so I was not able to post the Sunday service. It has only just been fixed. This is incredibly annoying as it takes hours to cobble together a service and so last week's work was pretty much wasted. However, some of you may like to listen to the service even though it's past its sell by date, if only for the music, so I'm posting it anyway.

A SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION
THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

All are welcome to join me in taking communion.
There are no exceptions.

The order of service is posted beneath the audio file so that you can join in with the service. The words in bold type are the ones we say together.

If you want to physically partake of communion you will require a small piece of bread and a small amount of drink (preferably made from grapes and containing alcohol).  How you view the nature of this part of the service is completely up to you.

Click on the arrow on the player to stream.

Download via the MP3 icon below the player.

Download podcast via iTUNES.

MP3 File

CLICK HERE for order of service and credits.

A service like this costs me about £15.00 to put together. As my internet ministry is my only source of income I invite you, if you have enjoyed it or found it useful, to make a small donation to allow me to continue this work. I would suggest £1.00 ($1.50) as being appropriate, but more or less is okay with me. In fact, nothing at all is okay with me. I'd rather you listened than didn't listen because you are unable or unwilling to donate anything at this time.

Another way to help Jonathan is to buy Amazon products via his Amazon shop. Details of how to do this can be found on the right hand sidebar.

WOULDN'T IT BE NICE...

... if it was "about" rather than "but"?

ARCHBISHOP YELLOWBELLY STRIKES AGAIN

From THE TELEGRAPH:

Wearing a cross is just a “religious decoration” for many people and not an essential part of Christianity, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said. He said it had become something “which religious people make and hang on to” as a substitute for true faith.

"The cross itself has become a religious decoration.”

He made his comments on the day it emerged that the Government is to argue in the European Court that Christians do not have the “right” to wear a cross as a visible manifestation of faith.

I am sure there are many non-Christians who wear a cross purely for secular decorative purposes but that can never be the case for a believer. Once you are aware of the symbolism involved in an object the wearing of it becomes a public statement concerning that symbolism.

I rarely wear anything that sets me apart as a Christian anymore. But when I was a priest in the Church of England I used to wear my clerical shirt with dog collar whenever I was on work time. I was insulted in the street because of this but I was also approached in the street by people actively looking for God and my dog collar made the statement that I was willing to help them and that I was not ashamed to be identified as a Christian.

Back when I was at senior school I used to wear a badge declaring my love of God. No way was that a fashion statement because my school was not the sort of place that you advertised the fact that you were a Christian if you didn't want to be bullied and excluded. I was making the statement that I would rather be thumped than deny my faith.

This belittling by the Archbishop of Canterbury of ordinary, working class Christians who live and work in the real world and not behind the protecting walls of Lambeth Palace, is yet another example of how distant he is from the people he is supposed to serve. If he had spent a bit more time walking round the streets of a parish talking to people instead of hiding in stuffy libraries and diocesan offices all his priestly life, Rowan Williams would have a better understanding of what working people actually think about stuff and he wouldn't be so patronising and plain wrong.

KISS OF DEATH FOR WOULD-BE BISHOP

The Episcopal Church in the United States, as part of their, so far unsuccessful, attempt to completely dominate the Lambeth Conferences and, very successful, attempt to get a mention every day on the Anglican Communion's prayer list, has created a diocese for every five members of their denomination. This is just the official church. When you factor in all the schismatic, Anglican churches, the figure is nearer one diocese per two members of the laity. Therefore, over my six years of blogging at America I have witnessed, at a distance, an innumerable number of episcopal elections. At the moment there seems to be, at least, one a week being announced.

I don't pay much attention to them because I don't like the X-Factor nature of them. But I did once give my full backing to one candidate - a nice man called Mark, who never stood any chance of winning the mitre for the simple reasons that, well, he is a nice man and most of his friends are in exceedingly low places rather than the high places normally demanded of bishops' friends in the Anglican Communion.

Today, is an exceedingly sad day because I am going to completely scupper the chances of another nice man, fully competent for the task, of getting the nod to the Rhode Island episcopal throne. The poor man, who really doesn't deserve this kiss of death, is the Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Phoenix, Arizona. I like him because he buys my book every month. I am giving him OCICBW...'s full backing because, if he gets the bishop's job, he'll probably have no need to buy my book anymore, and I don't want that.

To make absolutely certain that Nick doesn't get a look in, Grandmere Mimi is also backing him with a hearty "Go Nick!" on the barely legal, anarchist blog, WOUNDED BIRD.

Poor Nick, he doesn't stand a chance. It's so unfair.

The big day itself is Saturday, 2nd. June.

So, at least, Nick has a few months in which distance himself from his multitude of unsuitable fans.

ALLAH HATES EMOS

This is a very scary development in the already terrifying world of Islamic homophobia.

From THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS:

Over 50 Iraqi youths, loosely described as "emos", have been shot or beaten to death by the country's conservative militia in recent months, human rights activists have reported. The killings are in response to Iraq's interior ministry's declaration that regards the term "emo" as an indication of devil worship and homosexuality. Most of those being targeted are male.

Militias in the Iraqi capital Baghdad's conservative Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City have distributed leaflets with the names of 20 young people that they say should be punished for being "emo".

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Posted by IT at FRIENDS OF JAKE:

Those of you who have been around for a while have followed the journey of my wife BP to the Episcopal church from her Roman Catholic roots. After a brief stint as acolyte, she next joined the elite corps of Cathedral thurifers, and then was invited to become a sub-verger (verger in training). The culmination was tonight at Evensong, when she was formally commissioned as a Verger of St Paul's Cathedral, San Diego! Congratulations, beloved! I am so proud of you and so happy you have found your home!

And we are proud of BP as well. Very proud.

We now await IT's preferment to the See of Canterbury.

Posted by pmPilgrim at
WANDERINGS OF A POST-MODERN PILGRIM:

Nine years ago today I did the first introductory post of this blog. Here we are nearly 4500 posts later. I still haven't grown tired of it.

And I, for one, still haven't grown tired of you, pmPilgrim. Well done, old friend!

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

GOD BOTHERING

Today's prayer list is now up at SAINT LAIKA'S. There are quite a few, very important prayer requests today so, if you have a moment, please pop over there and do light a virtual candle as it shows those we are praying for that we do care.

If you have a prayer request you want including on Monday's prayer list, please let me know in the comments to this post, go to St. Laika's and leave it on the Our Prayers forum or drop me an email at madpriestx@sky.com.

THERE'S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN