In which the pond deals with fraught matters of hospitality, vestments and the Sydney Anglicans ...

(Above: a text dealing with the issue of frocks way back when).

With Cardinal Pell dominating climate science, mixing theology, mythology and Monckton, the Sydney Anglicans almost escaped their Sunday notice, but really who could overlook Phillip Jensen's fine offering Hospitality for Heretics.

You see, the good Dean, confronted with conflicting messages in the bible, goes right for the jugular.

Sure God's commands in the New Testament might be unambiguous, urging hospitality and philoxenia - who knows, you might end up sheltering angels - but there has to be limits, lines drawn in the sand on this sort of do gooder nonsense, as John noted in his second letter:

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works (2 John 10-11).

In short, if say the heretic Cardinal Pell was to turn up at the Sydney Anglicans looking for a nice hot buttered scone and a cup of tea, perhaps even a lamington heaped with desiccated coconut, sad to say, he shouldn't be received, or given a greeting, because that would only be taking part in his wicked works. And we don't even include his mangling of climate science!

You should remember that Catholics are in grievous error, have no authority, and the lot of the Sydney Anglicans is to be in a permanent state of protest about this rabble and their misunderstandings in relation to the bible:

... we protest against Roman Catholic claims to authority. We object to the Pope claiming to be the Vicar of Christ. We reject all claims to authority that imply the insufficiency of scripture. We reject any implication that Jesus's work on the cross was insufficient or is received by more than faith or requires some other mediator.

This protest against Roman Catholicism is no small complaint. It goes to the very heart of God's central message to mankind - the way of salvation. The 39 articles of the Anglican Church state "the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith". (Church of Rome hath erred ...)

Yes, this is what we want on a Sunday, internecine disputation, and warfare at ten paces, thoroughly in keeping with John's message.

Hospitality? Bah humbug. Keep at 'em Dean...

That sentence was written in the 16th century. Since then the Roman Catholic Church has added to its errors - the Immaculate Conception (1854), the Infallibility of the Pope (1870), and the bodily Assumption of Mary (1950). There is nothing in modern Roman Catholicism that reduces our need to protest.

Why they're as quirky and as weird as a bunch of Mormons.

Sadly, the worthy Dean squibbed it back when he was scribbling that tirade, on the basis that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and the damned secularists, heathens and atheists were clucking about government spending a pretty penny on World Youth Day and the papal parade.

But it seems these days the Dean is hardening the fug up (as Norman Mailer might say), so he spends a considerable amount of time boxing the ears of the Rev. C. H. Dodd, who dared to suggest that John might have being a little bit harsh, and so proposed the notion that his advice on hospitality was only to be followed in moments of extreme danger for the church.

It would follow that the Papal visit must not have been a moment of extreme danger, because the good Jensen found it in his heart to urge hospitality on Australians:

It is ... to the credit of our city that we are willing to be hospitable not only to people with whom we agree but also to those with whom we disagree.

Of course our hospitality is expensive. That is the nature of hospitality. Compared to the amount of tax our Roman Catholic neighbours contribute it is as nothing.

Hang on, hang on, now the pond is thoroughly confused.

It seems Catholics are thoroughly reprehensible heretics, fitting into John's explicit, written instructions as wretches deserving no hospitality whatsoever, and yet there was the good Jensen doing a Dodds - in a Fairfax rag no less - and urging governments and the public to be hospitable to them.

Please, clarification, please, explain:

Christians must be hospitable, but not naïve. We are not to let false teachers abuse our hospitality to promote false gospels. The creation of purported historical scenarios to re-contextualise the clear teaching of scripture is a false method that evangelicals must avoid. An evangelical is not one who professes belief in the Bible as the word of God, but one who, without twisting it, lives by what it says.

Uh huh. Yet we were hospitable to that damned heretic, false teacher, and promoter of false gospels, the alleged vicar of christ, the pope (some even hint that he might be the anti-Christ).

Guess that means the next time a Sydney Anglican bumps into a Catholic, or a Jensen into a Pell, the Jensenists will box the Pellists ears and send him, her, the lot of 'em on their way.

The alternative would be to lapse into fatal, false Doddsian error:

This method of dealing with politically incorrect scriptures enables people to maintain some degree of orthodox Christian standing while disagreeing with Bible. Yet this is exactly the kind of problem that 2 John is dealing with, people who come in the name of Jesus but teach a gospel different and even contradictory to his. A generation after C.H.Dodd argued against John’s boycott, British establishment scholars and churchmen published the scandalous books Honest to God and The Myth of God Incarnate. They were scandalous not only because they denied the very heart of Christianity, but also because they were written by men who were paid to profess the faith, not undermine it.

Indeed, not just scandalous but shocking, perhaps even outrageous, and we confess to be shocked and scandalised that Dean Jensen should urge hospitality to heretics one year, while pointing out how wrong hospitality might be in giving comfort to heretics another year ...

And at this point we must turn from hospitality to consider the vexing and vexatious issue of vestments.

Are they a matter of adiaphora, or res indifferentes (things indifferent), or are they, as the learned John Hooper argued on his return from Zurich in 1548 (where Zwingle and Bullinger and Calvin got on like a raging protestant fire), a matter of concern:

Hooper maintains that priestly garb distinguishing clergy from laity is not indicated by scripture; there is no mention of it in the New Testament as being in use in the early church, and the use of priestly clothing in the Old Testament is a Hebrew practice, a type or foreshadowing that finds its antitype in Christ, who abolishes the old order and recognises the spiritual equality, or priesthood, of all Christians. The historicity of these claims is further supported by Hooper with a reference to Polydore Vergil's De Inventoribus Rerum.

Well we could go on for hours about learned theologians counting the number of angels on a pin (and whether angels are more Catholic than Anglican), and arguing over the heated issue of vestments - an argument that continued down through the ages, to the point where my mother, when she turned up at a Catholic bash, would marvel at the frocks, and think about returning to her protestant roots.

But enough of memory lane, we're trying to work our way quickly to a conclusion, which is to propose that perhaps the good Dean urged hospitality on the Papists because he too is in scriptural error.

You see there's some evidence that Sydney Anglicans are keen to participate in a frock contest, a knock down fight in the octagon to see who will reign supreme.

Well we routinely feature a Pellist frock festival on a Sunday, frill and train city Catholic style, so it's time for some Brunswick street black and red (you can wear it in North Fitzroy, Carlton and Glebe too):

And when you take the fight up to the international champ'een contest, it can get quite heated.

For what it's worth, the pond fancies the black. It's chic in a subdued, stylish way, and what we recommend for Newtown in winter (and perhaps Unley). Though what we need as a capper is a nice pair of the pond's favourite Christian Louboutin shoes (with matching bag and accessories of course):

Oh the red and the black, and oh dear, once again the pond has moved away from theological niceties and gone quite silly ...

But it is a Sunday, and we always like to feature frocks on a Sunday, mindful that if one of our TG friends should land on site, we're always keen to streeetch the concept of gender just a little further ...

I guess the bottom line - trying to decipher the conclusions to be drawn from Sydney Anglican deeds as well as words - is that we should berate Dodds, but also remember to be hospitable in the Doddsian way, perhaps with cheese and cucumber sandwiches, like a traditional English Anglican vicar ...

And never mind that it doesn't say anything about vestments in the bible, we should argue strongly in favour of the right of Australian footballers, clerics and any other dinki di Oz man so inclined to wear frocks, provided they exhibit a sense of style and elegance ...

Above all, don't worry too much about theological hair splitting over the implications of the bible or else you might end up saying:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity...
...I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
That high heel which is broken cannot be fixed; and that argument about hospitality and its biblical meaning might lead to a punch up at the barbeque ... so share the chops and sausages around ...

And remember, you can never go wrong with black (unless you're Phillip Adams), especially if you mix it with a touch of red.

Go frocks: