Tuesday 2 November 2010

The Beaker Covenant - a Rejection

Like all the other members of the Beaker Folk I've been asked by "Archdruid " Eileen to sign the Beaker Covenant. I have rejected and I'd like to explain why.

In the first place, I'd like to make it clear that it's not that I have any theological objections to the Covenant itself. This is unsurprising, as technically there is no theological content to it. And that is my first objection. I have proposed instead the following Reformed Beaker Covenant. And note that I have used numbers instead of the letters that Eileen proposed. That's the kind of straight-talking, evidence-based dogmatism you get in the Beaker Baptists.

We the People Called Beaker accept the following truths to be self-evident:

  1. The verbal inerrancy of the Bible. Not the "original" scripts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, as we suspect they may have been tampered with and there's too many variants. And once you get variants you get uncertainty as to which is the right reading. And then people start having their own opinions. And then where are you? Brighton, that's where. So we believe in the processes of divine inspiration that, via numerous imperfect versions of the scripture, produced the one perfect version in 1611 in Jacobean English.
  2. We believe that the original prophets and apostles who composed the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts wrote exactly what God told them. Any confusion between this statement and (1) is a shame. We believe the Textus Receptus to be the perfect mode of transmission between what the Apostles wrote and the New Testament produced in 1611.  
  3. When we say "The Bible" we mean the 66 Protestant books of the Bible. We know that the Authorized Bible project also included the Apocrypha, but they were just showing off and didn't mean it.
  4. If anyone adds to or removes the previous paragraphs, they might as well say they're a fan of Stephen Fry and be done with it.
  5. Women should be seen and not heard. Except for Eileen who, like the Queen in the Church of England, enjoys special status that we have very cunning arguments for supporting. 
  6. Point (5) is not unconnected with her carrying that cricket bat.

As you see, my proposed Covenant is not unlike Eileen's document, and indeed has one very similar point.

Secondly I have trouble with the proposed Appendix 1 - Issue Resolution Procedure. Eileen's idea is that in the case of disagreement, as point 1 of the dispute resolution, the opposed parties should "have a nice cup of tea". Her directives for the manner in which the disagreements should then be resolved include the injunction to "play nicely" and asks "why not just pretend you agree, like we normally do?" Clearly this is no way to run the Beaker Community.
I met with Eileen and told her my issues. In issue resolution I agreed with her that every man has his own interpretation of the Bible (and most women have their husbands or fathers to ask). So I suggested that, for the purposes of theological neutrality, all disputes be referred to an independent adviser from a Fundamentalist Baptist Church, but Eileen just laughed at me. Then she offered me a cup of tea and suggested I "play nicely". And said that she was sure we were just violently agreeing with one another.

7 comments :

  1. Wonderful!
    An inspiration to all of us to write our own covenant!

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  2. Thanks, Rev.

    Very thoughtful.

    And, for a change on a serious note (just in case this reaches Fr Gary): I am impressed you actually know about this stuff. Not many do. You made my day a bit brighter. Thanks.

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  3. You must drink your tea. If you do not, I will be very cross. I shall be forced, in the end, to write you a letter telling you how cross I am, and how very un beaker like it was not to drink up your tea which, may I point out, you could always have poured over a rubber plant if you didn't want.

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  4. I feel the need to offer a corrective to the Bishop. You may pour your tea over a rubber plant, but only if it is one of the 39 plants in the articles of Botany that were stipulated in the c16

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  5. :-) thanks Rev'd...

    and Holger, even I know about this stuff, and I'm a Methodist :-) (in case you'd forgotten :-) )

    ReplyDelete

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