What's worse on a Sunday? A hearty dose of Sydney Anglicans or a tablespoon of cod liver oil and the IPA's Chris Berg?

(Above: A Sydney Anglican cartoon found here).

For a treat the pond planned to spend a little Sunday time with the Sydney Anglicans, but it seems that the silly secularists are at it again, ruining things, and the result is an important mission statement ...

2. Unmasking the lies of secularism

‘When God rules, humanity flourishes.’ So Peter Jensen summarised Genesis 2. Noting the false promises of ‘freedom’ trumpeted by contemporary secularism Peter commented, ‘Secular ideology is an attack on humanity and our flourishing.

Secularism attacks the flourishing of Sydney Anglicans, and is an attack on humanity? And that's the message of Genesis 2? Adam and Eve, and nakedness is no shame?

On the fourth day, God created stars, to divide the light from the darkness. He was almost finished when He looked at His cell phone and realized that it was almost nine-thirty.
“Fuck,” He said. “Kate’s going to kill me.” (here)

Is that the same as keeping women out of power in the church? Because a rib's only a rib? And standing idly by in Africa while attacks on gays flourish? Because they're the wrong bones?

What to do, what to do?

'We must out-think, out-love and out-live our secular contemporaries.’ (A cracking inspiration)

What, like Mother Teresa outliving Christopher Hitchens? Sydney Anglicans won't be happy until retirement homes are full of worshippers who outlived the secularists because of a healthy fruit and vegetable diet?

But shouldn't they be eager to head off to paradise licketty split? Is out-living the secularists a way of avoiding death, and dodging a meeting with god in paradise for all eternity? Shame on them, and their anti-god ways ...

Oh you mean it's 'out-live' in the other sense? Sydney Anglicans are going to show secularists how to live, with sex, drugs, rock and roll, and wild party times, with cocktail mixing 101 instead of evangelical theology classes?

Pull the other one ...

Never mind, it seems that if the secularists of Sydney are too tough a set of walnuts to crack, the thing to do is to head off overseas on an international gig:

In a world of gospel need, from Sydney to Slovenia, are we as Sydney evangelicals too Sydney-centric? (Open doors - will we walk through?)

Sydney Anglicans rulez, and with a bit of luck, the whole tribe might just pack up and head off to Slovenia ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, the pond was astonished to read Chris Berg's all-out assault on his commentariat colleagues in Repeat after me: all tyranny is evil and wrong.

There is a long history of right-wing intellectuals apologising for the worst excesses of so-called capitalist democracies. And it's always been less about the people they've venerated, and more about the intellectuals themselves: their deep, unshakable dislike of inner urban elites, and their belief that Western war-making results in wondrous democratic make-overs.

Astonishingly Berg assaults war criminals George W. Bush and Tony Blair, moans about the uselessness of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (where violence continues to bloom), and attacks the worst excesses of consumerist indulgence, and in particular the willingness of the commentariat to encourage an indulgence in tobacco and alcohol and gambling, especially by way of mind-numbing, ruinous poker machines, as opiates for the people, while at the very same time said commentariat refuse to accept the current state of climate science and the need to do something about it.

It seems Berg is particularly affronted by the cult worship of billionaires like Rupert Murdoch.

Perhaps many Western writers are so desperate to blame communism for the world's problems that they're willing to forgive, even support, non-communist tyranny. And News of the World ...

Hang on, hang on, the telegram boy has just arrived at the front door with an urgent message.

What's that?

Berg will be attacking the right wing in next week's column - yet to be written - and these quotes have been made up by some malicious person wanting to mislead the pond.

It seems this week's column is an easy attack on the left wing, involving cheap out of context shots at worshippers of North Korea, socialists like Charlie Chaplin, and so on and so forth and such like ...

Now repeat after me, all tyranny is evil and wrong, except when it comes to giant multi-nationals peddling tobacco, grog and gaming, and digging up third world countries and fucking them over. That's merely freedom of choice and sound business ...

If you want more on the IPA and smoking, why not head off to Media Watch: Smoking Out The Spin, and if you want more about the contradictions of the ABC in relation to the IPA, why not head off here, and if you want more about the IPA in relation to climate science why not head off here.

Now it might be just that Chris Berg is a patsy and a stooge, who believes it's only fair tobacco companies should be able to kill people in the style of a North Korean dictator, but remember it's easier to adopt tricky North Korean tactics if you provide a smokescreen by writing columns deploring tricky North Korean tactics ...

And what better way to spread the word than to take over that socialist arm of government, the ABC, and use that to peddle your propaganda, propaganda which bears a distinct methodology and heritage, as if adapted from communist techniques ...

(more here).

Ah you have to thank the long absent lord for Sunday. Such a mellow time for meaningful reflection, and the cultivation of self-awareness ...

(Below: now make sure you get your IPA T-shirt and wear it with pride. Alternative wording - George W. Bush, open the gate to peace by ending US international colonial military adventurism, Barack Obama tear down Guantanamo Bay - will be available thanks to the even-handed attitude of the IPA, but has been held up at the printers, and orders should be filled by the IPA no later than 2060).