Why is church so serious?

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/01/why-is-church-so-serious.html 
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Picture: Why is church so serious? Cardinal's hat. Twelfth century CE.


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The raw materials 
Of risibility are there.
 
Middle England
In sensible brogues 
Arranging flowers by the pulpit.
 
Bearded priests in pretty dresses.
Prayers for the dead.

Why is church so serious?
Is it because God likes a good laugh?
The best churches
Contain no fewer
Than 0.00037 grams of divine truth 
Per plastic smile.

Holy Trinity Brompton has 0.00038
Spiritual excellence must be broadcast.

Why is church so serious?

Is it because 
Of the hole in the ozone layer?
Church roofs are expensive.
And Jumble Sales
Lack liturgical focus.

And confession
Is heard in coffee shops.

Why is church so serious?

Is it because
A small proportion of some sermons
Is partially true?

Is it because
A large proportion of all sermons
Is never heard?

Empty pews have no ears.
And ears have legs.

But the Bible is a good read
If you can't get Babes Mag.

Why is church so serious?

Picture: Why is church so serious? Laughing statue.

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Images for meditation

>> Go ye into all the world

>> First communion
 
>> Last communion
 
>> Healing the sick
 
>> Preaching the gospel
 
>> Feeding the widows and orphans
 
>> Clothing the widows and orphans

>> Welcoming strangers

>> Cleansing the Temple
 
>> In the world but not of it

>> The great unchurched

>> Enforcing liturgical discipline

>> Embracing interfaith dialogue

>> Remembering the Old Religion

>> Affirming the divine feminine
 
>> Denying the holocaust

>> Father Green awaits the new altar boy

>> Priestly vocation
 
>> Catechist at work

>> Opus Dei arrive for Mass

>> Sufi Master with disciples

Picture: Why is church so serious? Joking popes.

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Churchianity's take on Christianity
A promotional flyer

The theory of substitutionary atonement
An image of salvific fantasy

The Criminal History of The Papacy 1 .. 2 .. 3 
The endemic corruption which has blighted Roman Churchianity for over ten centuries. Tony Bushby writes in Nexus Magazine (2006). These three links connect to pdf files.

Dershowitz silent on absence of Holocaust proof
Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, has been challenged to provide proof that the popular Zionist narrative about Auschwitz is something other than an expedient fantasy.
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Picture: What caused the death of religion?

Picture: Perhaps pleasure is holiness
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The Theologians' Brains Trust

Sermon abuse

Men make such hopeless priests

Man-machine

Heretic unfrocked

Female bishops

General Synod agenda

These days the church

Preconceived idea

Pope terror talks

Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand!

Lent in the open ocean

Christmas metanarrative

Christmas in Keswick

Traditional school carol service

Convent girl

Maybe try Romanism?

The feast of Corpus Christi

Nothing passes

The libraries do not fool us

The mean streets

Fundamentalists' Fellowship

Fundamentalists' Bring-and-Buy

Fundamentalism is a closed room

Is God an idealist?

What caused the death of religion?

Greenbelt - the view from the Death Star

An emerging spirituality for The New Age of Aquarius

Picture: Why is church so serious? Cheery vicar.

Index of blog contents

Picture: Vicar with dog collar. You sound so sexy when you speak in French.

Religion is a terrorist behaviour

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2006/08/religion-is-terrorist-behaviour.html 
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Picture: The Art of the New Spirituality. "Terrorist" by Eugenio Merino (1).

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Can it be true?
Can it possibly be true
That religion
Is a terrorist behaviour?

Can it be true
That religion
Teaches,
Encourages
And energises
The kind of self-righteous,
Exclusive,
Spiritual fascism
Which leads to
Faith conflicts,
Crusades of slaughter
Against other religions,
God-bothered genocide,
Inquisition torture masters?

And which leads to
Settling theological quibbles
By burning books
And people
To death
On slow fires?

And which leads to
Systematic mutilation
With machetes,
And suicide bombing
Of innocent civilians
In America, Afghanistan,
Israel, Iraq,
Lebanon, England
And other less fashionable
Locations within
Human civilisation?

Can this be true?
Surely not.

Surely we must be positive
And allow for the possibility
That moderate terrorists exist,
Such as Anglicans
Who subscribe to the
Thirty Nine Articles of Religion,
And Alpha which says
That my book
Is the only book,
And all other books
Are less,
And Spring Harvest which says
That the Holy Spirit
Of spiritual fascism
Is a friend of Jesus
And must be worshipped,
And Soul Survivor which says
That its heart is to envision young people
And equip them
To move in the power of this
Sectarian Holy Spirit,
Chorleywood-style,
And Al-Qaeda which says
That Jews and Americans must die
If they don't convert on demand,
Which is a moderate position to adopt
Compared with, say,
A good, old-fashioned,
Bible-led,
Holy Spirit-led,
Torture-led
Church inquisition.

And no respectable,
Moderate,
Religious terrorist organisation,
Is training
Young terrorists,
Of course.

Let's be quite clear about that.

Can any of this possibly be true?
Don't be daft.



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I am a terrorist

Heretic unfrocked

My name is God and these are My instructions

More Norfolk koans

The unwisdom of belief

Index of blog contents

Not often discussed at Greenbelt

https://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2007/08/not-often-discussed-at-greenbelt.html
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Greenbelt is
The gleeful annual festival
Of transcendental self-congratulation
For the omnipercipient;
A sort of
Trojan horsefair
For biblecreeps,
Pewbuttocks,
And armchair dogma potatoes
Who wish to widen
The horizons
Of their tunnel vision.

Greenbelt at Cheltenham
Is a lot like
Glastonbury at Glastonbury,
Except without the mud
And the noise:
Not only the scrotums are wrinkly.

But there is a tent
For the under-fifties,
With Chorleywood
Colouring books,
Old Testament
Legobricks
By Soul Survivor,
And black and white
Play-Doh
By the African bishops:
Pink not allowed.

Not often discussed
At Greenbelt
Is the fact that
Although post-religious
Christian spirituality
Walked out of church
Decades ago
And exercised its option
Of not returning,
Churchianity at Greenbelt
Is still a
Fashion accessory
Proudly sported by
A minority
Of the spiritually insecure -
Not all of them bishops.

The trousers at Wycliffe Hall
Might object to this
On the grounds that,
In Extremis,
The evangelical God
Must go through the motions
Of noticing the energy
Of the churchbore groupmind
As part of His
Non-negotiable covenant
Of universal condescension.

But it doesn't matter much.
Apparently, Wycliffe Hall
Is only an upgraded
Second division polytechnic
Playfully maintaining
A furtive,
Semi-detached relationship
With Oxford University.

No one of absolutely
Terrific quality
Goes there any more;
No-one of absolutely
Terrific quality
Teaches there any more;
These days it's just
A toothless ghetto
Of masticating misogynists
Chewing the crud
Of Christendom past
And keen
To climax
On Calvin.
Or so it is said
Around the wide acres
Of the Cheltenham racecourse.

But we must tolerate
The new fundamentalism,
And patronise
The Talibanisation
Of Anglican Churchianity
Because it is a legitimate
Voice of dissent
Among the sex-obsessed
Death odours
Of Western religion.
Or so it is suggested,
As a discussion starter,
Before the fish course.

But at Greenbelt
It's OK to be
Vegetarian
On these issues.

Indeed, after four days
Of earnest broad-mindedness
And agenda-free enquiry,
Life itself
Begins to feel
A bit like
A stuffed aubergine.


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Greenbelt - the view from the Death Star

Disappointed at Greenbelt

Greenbelt anti-pilgrimage

Sermon abuse

Why is church so serious?

Religion is a terrorist behaviour

A new scripture shortly to be published

The Piers Stockton cycle of koans

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents