Christians are making things a bit difficult for people like the GOS. It's all very well having a page called "Wanker of the Week" and putting people on it who do something very silly. But what are we supposed to do when an entire faith seems to have taken leave of its senses day in, day out, week in, week out? How can they be Wankers of the Week when absolutely nothing they do makes any sense, when every time they open their collective mouths they seem determined to say the most stupid things they can think of, when they are hell-bent (and yes, we are choosing our words with care) on betraying everything they have ever stood for, when they appear to have entered a "who-can-be-the-craziest?" competition with the mad mullahs?
I mean, "Wanker of the Week" just doesn't cut it, really. Remember when Michael "Oh no I'm not at all loony" Jackson went to an awards ceremony and made a speech thanking them for making him "Entertainer of the Millenium" - which they hadn't? Perhaps we need a special "Masturbator of the Millenium" award for Christians.
Look at the papers this week.
A case we wrote about ages ago has come to fruition, and a couple called Wallbank are now bound by law to find about £500,000 to repair their local church - because a field belonging to their house was once the property of a "lay rector". The repair bill is only £200,000 but the court cases have gone on so long that they have accrued more than £200,000 in legal costs, and must also pay interest on the outstanding money. They claim it will bankrupt them and they will be forced to sell the old house in Aston Cantlow, Warwickshire - except of course no one in their right mind will want to buy it when they find its true cost. It's not as if they even bought the house - it was willed to Mr.Wallbank by his father so he didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.
The case has been all the way to the House of Lords and has provoked outrage in some unlikely quarters. The Law Society has criticised the ancient law being used by the church authorities as unjust and called for it to be repealed. There is even an entire website on the case.
It's absurd, of course, but what interests us most is the attitude of the good Christians of Aston Cantlow. The Wallbanks offered to give the field back to the church, but it was refused. After all, if you have a licence to print money, you don't give it up lightly, would you?
The church attempts to justify its extortion by arguing that they 'are charities and so, in principle, subject to the usual duty imposed by law on charities to protect their assets.' In other words, they say have no choice but to pursue lay rectors like the Wallbanks with vigour, especially as English Heritage is reluctant to offer grants to those churches which have the opportunity to extract cash from lay rectors. It's rubbish, of course. They do have a choice. They could put their hands in their own pockets, like any normal property-owner. Mrs.GOS had a new kitchen this year, so the GOS is now trying to find a legal way of making the man next door pay for it.
Some local people aren't exactly brimming over with the milk of human kindness, either. As one newspaper put it, "those connected with the church do not appear to have a great deal of sympathy for the Wallbanks' plight as they struggle to scrape together the necessary money. 'Oh, they've got the money,' one church warden told me, tight-lipped as she handed over the keys so I could see the chancel for myself".
Nice.
The Christmas season brings out the worst in religious folk, it seems. It's probably because they're so embarrassed, trying to justify the fact that they've pinched a basically pagan winter festival and forced its trappings to conform with their own beliefs. One vicar has banned his congregation from singing "Oh little town of Bethlehem" because it includes the words "How still we see thee lie" when actually Bethlehem is full of Palestinians who aren't lying still at all. This follows on the church in London that banned "Jerusalem" because "dark satanic mills" might be offensive to city-dwellers. We confidently expect the imminent publication of a new bible in which every inconsistency, every departure from actual and literal fact, will be removed. Jesus won't rise again on the third day, the Red Sea won't part, the water won't turn to wine it'll be logical, rational, politically correct and very dull indeed.
That last paragraph was supposed to be ironic, but now we find the Christians have already started: one cleric has already removed the word "virgin" from "God rest ye merry gentlemen" in case anyone is so silly as to imagine Mary could have well, you work it out Unfortunately the change has made some pretty lame poetry even worse: it now reads "To you is born a Saviour, in David's town tonight".
At the end of "Once in Royal David's city" no longer can the faithful "all in white shall wait around" in case anyone thinks it's racist. Personally we would have thought they should take out "wait around" because it might be deemed offensive to chavs and yobs whose proper rτle in life is hanging out on street corners with their homies.
And the words "O come let us adore Him" have had to go because they're sexist, and "come let us adore Her" or "come let us adore It" sound silly. And it's no good church-goers complaining that so far as they know, Jesus was neither a girl nor a hermaphrodite. He might have been a bit gay, though. That'd be much more cutting-edge. Just to be on the safe side, there's a version of "Joy to the world" doing the rounds in America that omits any mention of Jesus at all.
It's not just Anglicans who are getting dottier and dottier, though. The Catholics have their own peculiar version of insanity, which tends to manifest itself in odd ways such as the Jesus Chair which is flying off the shelves (well, not actually flying) in the shops of Guatemala.
But it's the catholics of the U.S. who really take the biscuit - no surprise there, then. They're going to erect a 700 foot high McDonald's sign (yes, it really is a golden "M") on the shores of Lake Erie. The world's tallest monument, it'll be called "The Arch of Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary". It will stand beside the Lake at Buffalo in New York State because as everyone knows this is where the Virgin Mary triumphantly entered America on December 8, 1947.
At the foot of the monument will be the International Shrine of the Holy Innocents, which will proclaim the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural death. Fair enough, you might think - until they go on to explain that it will "offer a special place of healing and reconciliation for the living victims of the worldwide scourge of abortion". As the majority of victims of abortion (if, indeed, victims is the right word) are, in a manner of speaking and on a point of actual scientific fact, dead, to describe them as "living victims" is a trifle optimistic.
But let's get back to the good old CofE, determined to brush off its dusty old image and take to the streets in a new, thrusting, cool and inclusive incarnation. At Westminster Abbey (chill, mon, chill) it may have been traditional for angels, three wise men and the baby Jesus to play a starring role in the festive season, but now Hindu snowmen, a Chinese dragon and a Jewish temple are also to be included in an attempt to make the celebrations more inclusive of Britain's diverse communities. The snowmen will be life-size, dressed in turbans with bindi dots on their foreheads.
They are intended to demonstrate that Christmas should not be exclusively for Christians. Huh! We'll believe that when they start holding special services of Holy Communion (kosher wafers, of course) at Pesach. The Rev Jane Hedges, a canon at the abbey, said that it was important to encourage people from other faiths to join in the celebrations. "Wherever you're from there should be something to celebrate at Christmas," she said, displaying a distressing amount of ignorance for someone whose job it is to pronounce and pontificate in public. Look, Jane, love, most of the multicultural people who throng the pavements of Parliament Square come from here, and they're all either trying to sell tat to the tourists, or pick their pockets.
Jane also pointed out that Muslims can appreciate the story of Christ's birth because it is included in the Koran, but we fancy many Muslims may not see it that way. They find the idea that Allah might have had a sprog pretty offensive. As opposed to the rest of us, who just find it absurd and difficult to take seriously.
Meanwhile in the diocese of Liverpool, a nativity is being staged that features a Chinese dragon and lantern procession. There's a little competition here: all the dialogue will be spoken in Scouse. Is this
(a) to mark the end of Liverpool's year as the capital of culture?
(b) because that was the language Jesus and his parents actually spoke?
(c) to make the event more accessible to members of other cultures like Hindus, Muslims and people from Rotherham?
Answers on a postcard, in green ink, please. Don't bother with a stamp, three Hail Marys will do.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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