In which the pond enjoys the season of the witch ...

The pond mainly celebrates Halloween as the day when, if any young men or women dare to have sex, they'll be slashed to death, in the American way ...

Straight to Hell, for you, you damned, and even worse, young and attractive fornicators ...

But these days, Sydney's inner west has gone full gothic lolly-extorting and gorging ritual, and it took the pond back to the golden days, when the angry Sydney Anglicans and other fundamentalists were agitated about the pagan festival.

The pond dates the peak fear and loathing to around 2009.

Back then a blog posting by the immortal Michael Jensen - how the official website has declined since the angry Jensenists went into exile - attracted a flurry of comments, including one Philip Griffin, reporting with shock, horror and fear ...

You raise a good point Michael. There are other signs people are just not interested in Anglicanism as such. Very few people are interested in discussing liturgical reform and church practice- even though our archbishop highlighted the need for us to debate and discuss this in his presedential address. Many just don't see the need to worry about this. Being distinctively Anglican is not seen as important anymore. 
There may be a second reason as to why there is little interest in all this. Even within our own diocese there are some sometimes bizzare church activities that do not seem to be condemned. Only last Sunday a worried parishioner gave me a flyer from a church in Sydney advertising a halloween Gothic Mass, involving corpse candles, and where in the flyer one reads 'all human beings dead or alive are encouraged to express themselves creatively and joyfully.' This parishioner could not believe denominational authorities would not stop this. 

Indeed, indeed. It's shocking and horrifying to think of anyone expressing themselves creatively and joyfully, and whenever it's spotted, it certainly should be stopped.

The Anglicans and their complimentary women have done an enormous amount of quash any signs of creativity and joy:

 I know I've used an extreme case, but when people observe the distinctives of Anglicanism, even within our own diocese, being flouted to the point that what is being done is blatantly heretical, and nothing is done about it, they are even less likely to be concerned about holding onto our valuable heritage.

Indeed, indeed, and a second commenter dragged the full, horrifying details from a Facebook page, to expose the shocking horror ...

RECLAIMING HALLOWEEN WITH THE GOTH n ROLL RECTOR AND THE FESTIVAL OF ALL THINGS DARKLY BEAUTIFUL 
As Halloween takes hold in Australia as a commercial celebration, there is one suburb where the authentic experience will take over the streets. Meet Gwilym, the renegade Rector of St Lukes, Enmore who brought the first ever Gothic Mass to Australia for last year's Under the Blue Moon Festival. 
This year Gwilym takes us back to the controversial tradition of All Hallows Eve, where the souls of those in limbo are said to be released through the prayers of their loved ones. Gwilym reignites this tradition, reclaiming Halloween as directly related to Christ's passion, death and resurrection bringing light to darkness and new life for the dead.
This will be a most unusual event with a gothic dj on decks playing Dead Can Dance, Sisters of Mercy and Nick Cave tracks, as well as the historic and one of a kind 1883 Wordsworth and Maskell organ getting a work out with gothic and dramatic pieces. The atmosphere will be gothick ambience with candlelit procession and service, and Soul Cakes. Soul Cakes hark back to medieval times and are the origin of the modern "Trick or Treat". 
Corpse Candles will be given out for the finale candlelit procession as the 1883 organ heralds us out with soul stirring music.
Like last year's Gothic Mass, The All Hallows Eve Mass will be intensely visual and evocative, the right kind of spooky with reverance. Fittingly it is in Enmore, the suburb of Sydney where all human beings dead or alive are encouraged to express themselves creatively and joyfully.

Sadly the link to the renegade radical rector's post no longer works, and his heresy has turned to dust, in the way rust never sleeps and time works its magic.

It was also in 2009 that the Fairfaxians ran a fairly standard beat-up, Hell of a row as kids buy into imported Halloween rituals ...

It kicked all the usual cans a little further down the road.

The Vatican issuing a warning about Halloween as a great Satanic ritual, occult and anti-Christian, local Anglicans ducked the bullet and noted it was something a bit American - easier to blame the Yanks than carry on like a fundamentalist - dear old Nathan Rees (briefly impersonating a NSW Labor premier) thought it great for community-building, and Tanya Plibersek was boycotting it because of lollies and junk food ...

Well Puritanism takes many forms - now child eat your greens, and greenies too, if you like - and as we all know, any form of pleasure-taking will lead to a damned good slashing and straight to Hell ...

But these days, at least in certain areas of Sydney, the battle has been lost.

The pond was pleased to see that the Anglican League blog did its bit by recycling the Presbyterians ...

Indeed, indeed, damned Yanks with their imported darkness.

Society is the worst for it, all the more so that for some reason, the main celebrations seem to have taken place yesterday, or at a pinch today, making it a long weekend of satanic rituals, as opposed to the tradition of it taking place on October 31st.

This is a bit like making Christmas day start early in the week just to suit a holiday weekend - hey pagan Santa can you come on the 23rd with the pressies - or demand that the pagan bunny deliver the chocolates on Friday night for a weekend of binge eating ...

Well anyone interested can get the PMG's John Wilson's message here, which poignantly ends ...

Celebrate the light, live in the light, stay focused on the light. 

That sent the pond off into a kind of Star Wars reverie. Feel the light Luke, stay focussed on the light:

Luther’s pastoral warning for the church at Wittenberg, is our warning: “We here in Wittenberg have acquired the form of a Christian church … the Word is taught purely, the sacraments are used properly, there are exhortations and prayers … everything is moving along well. But some fanatic could stop this blessed progress of the gospel in a hurry, and in one moment could overturn everything that we have built up.”

Indeed, indeed, fanatics are everywhere - damn you complimentary women and your wicked Eve-ish ways - but these days, the radical rector in Enmore seems to have moved on...

However, the pond was delighted to see that cannibalism remains a feature of the local Anglican church just up the road from the pond, almost within lolly-throwing distance ...

We worship in the style which is sometimes called Anglo-Catholic or High Church. This means we use symbol and ceremony, candles, holy water, incense and colourful vestments. We love processions and singing and as many people as possible taking leadership roles in the worship. Above all, we delight to gather in a circle around the altar to bless the bread and wine which is for us the body and blood of Christ, and to share it together. (here).

Munching on actual human flesh and actual human blood!

Why even Tanya Plibersek would have to acknowledge that this isn't junk food, it's healthy, body-building stuff ...

Sadly, not everyone is in to cannibalism, and some of the activities scheduled by deviant Anglicans sounded quite tame ...

Sadly the pond missed the festivities this year - after all, what sort of heretic would schedule Halloween for 29th October? - but thanks Phil, because if rotating ghost robots and open heart lolly surgery is all the go (please Tanya, don't reel back in horror), can full-on cannibalism be far behind? 

Then every Anglican Sunday can be Halloween ...