A sampling of delusions on a Sunday, by way of cricket, angry Sydney Anglicans and Pellist pagans ...

It's dull days at the angry Sydney Anglicans, as a quick glance at the current front page  will prove - though we can all thank the long absent lord the days of the dark, gloomy proselytising front page are a distant memory, even to pond dwellers who hold a grudge...

Searchers after the bizarre will no doubt be satisfied by Michael Jensen's tortured analogies between cricket and missionaries, indulged in at unseemly length in It's not cricket: an Anglican Theology of Mission.

Not once does Jensen mention the way Sydney Anglicans have supported gay and women's rights bashing fundamentalists in assorted African churches, but then it's no doubt important that theory bear absolutely no relationship to actual practice.

Better to head back to Cranmer, in the sixteenth century, or Dr Grace, or be as modern as Ramsay in 1936, when all the pond needs to do is head back to 2005:

In the face of it, it's an unlikely meeting of minds. The Anglican Church of Uganda and the diocese of Sydney may be part of the Anglican communion which claims 77 million members worldwide but they are, after all, of disparate culture and heritage, and at opposite ends of the world. 
Yet their mutual fidelity to orthodox biblical teachings has placed them at the centre of conservative resistance to the US church's stand on homosexuality and made them leaders of what is now being termed Anglicanism's New Reformation. 
Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, Anglican primate of Uganda, prefers the word partnership to alliance when speaking of his new friendship with the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen. 
In Australia as a guest of the Sydney diocese, he is so impressed with Moore Theological College, Newtown, he is discussing the possibility of sending postgraduate seminarians for study, as well as conducting joint missions with Sydney parishes in Uganda. (African Anglicans flex their conservative muscle)

Henry Luke Orombi? Gone now, thank the long absent lord, but in his day, ready to plead for the enacting of Uganda's anti-homosexuality law to prevent an "attack on the Bible and the institution of marriage":

The clerics also appealed to all the churches in the country “to remain steadfast in opposing the phenomena of homosexuality, lesbianism and same-sex union”. (Bishops want shelved anti-gay Bill dusted).

Giving Orombi a tour of the college did about as much for gay rights as giving Dr. Bernhard Rust a tour would have done for Jewish rights.

Oh okay here's three shekels for the Godwin's Law swear jar, but it's almost as satisfying as delivering - after the first two tests in England - to Jensen the famous, if mythical, old Edward G. Robinson line, where is your god now?

The other featured item was another Jensenist, Phillip, praying for the election synod.

But as any modern African leader can tell you - just ask Robert Mugabe - there's not much point in prayer, not when you can fix it so the long absent lord isn't needed,  not needed at all. That's how we learn in Sydney Anglicans to choose new archbishop:

“The same principles of glorifying Christ and trusting in him and bringing the Gospel to a needy world is part of the Jensen-Goodhew-Robinson-Loane tradition and at that level you’ll see no real difference (with the election of a new Archbishop)” said Bishop Davies. “So, views on the ordination of women, gay marriage - they are not going to change.” (Sydney Anglicans to choose new Archbishop)

You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house full of angry Sydney Anglicans
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful gay community or happy feminist collective
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down 
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground 
Into the blue again, after the money's gone 
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground 
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was 
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was

Oh okay, pretty feeble, but still arguably much more interesting than cricket, or the angry Sydney Anglicans determined in their fundamentalist way to be the same as they ever were, and persecute the innocent while relentlessly blathering about the persecution of Christ and Christians ...

How long ago was it that Archbishop Carnley was quoted as saying:

The former Australian primate, Archbishop Peter Carnley, who retired in 2005, criticised "Sydney Anglicans" for "empty moralizing" and questioned if the Bible condemns homosexuality in a statement: The exact meaning to be read from these texts and whether they can rightly be made to provide a neat pre-packaged answer to our contemporary questions is what is at issue. Anybody brave enough to claim to know the inner mind of God on the basis of a personal claim to be privy to the only conceivable interpretation of some biblical texts is guilty of self-delusion. (here)

Let's leave them to their (self) delusions ...

Meanwhile, what joy over at the Pellist conspiracy, for that which has been lost has been found, and the Pellist columns for the Sunday Terror to be restored to their rightful free place outside the News +-> paywall, here.

The downside? Well the columns are unremittingly tedious, and the only pleasure to be found in WYD 2013 in Rio De Janeiro is news of the Pellists indulging in Pagan Rituals:

The Maronites (Lebanese Australians), mostly women, built a soccer field in record time, finishing a day early. The Australian Catholic University students constructed a small, sturdy, brick chapel, where we celebrated the first Mass, with the local Bishop and parish priest, after smashing a suspended bottle of champagne with a hammer to celebrate the opening.

Oh yes, the assorted cults and sects were terribly busy but it reminded the pond that the tradition of busting a bottle of champers, or similar,  over a boat or a chapel goes way, way back:

Bubbly wasn’t always the liquid of choice for christening a boat. The Babylonians sacrificed oxen, the Ottomans sacrificed sheep and the Vikings purportedly offered human sacrifices when it was necessary to appease the Gods of the treacherous north seas. In later centuries the Vikings settled for libations of blood whereas the ancient Greeks sensibly sipped amphorae of wine while dousing their new boats with water. (here)

Pell as Erik the Red ...

But was there any blood? There ought to be blood.

Let's hope they also had a barbecue, with lashings of bright red sauce, to placate the gods ...

And now it wouldn't be a Sunday without a comedy item, and surely this header is a contender: Piece of Jesus' Cross Found? Archaeologists Discover 'Holy Thing' In Balatlar Church in Turkey.

Holy Thing?

You there, Bunter, stop sniggering.

It reminded the pond of the many comical, hoax-laden searches for Noak's Ark, which amazingly enough can now fill a wiki entry to some length, as you can discover here.

The eccentric ways of fundamentalist Christians even manage to hog pages in allegedly respectable journals, as with this 2010 Nat Geo story, Noah's Ark Found in Turkey? You'd expect this sort of tosh in this sort of story at this sort of website, as in Shocking Discovery: Noah's Ark Found!

The superstitions designed to prey on the credulous about the true cross are just as common, and have also earned a lengthy wiki, here, no matter that the yarns have as much credibility and scientific rigour as a Steven Spielberg film about a lost ark.

Naturally it's the Catholics - closet pagans, and public trinket and relic lovers - who've done the most for this sort of superstition, and naturally this sort of story is a shoo-in for the tabloids, with the NYDaily News also giving the story an outing, in Biblical find? Piece of Christ's cross claimed found during Turkey archeology dig.

Holy Thing! But at least the News has the class to link to its very own story, Is that Jesus on this dog's rear end?

Holy cow, or should that be holy dog's rear end, Batman ...