400 today and still groovy

It has been a busy day at Bogwulf Funambulist Baptists. In preparation for our celebration of 400 Years of the King James Version we had strung a banner across between two of the sycamore trees - "400 today and still groovy". We thought a hip, modern, catchy slogan like that would help to attract some new and vibrant followers - ideally from other nearby Protestant churches, as these take less trouble to convert into proper Christians.

Unfortunately the self-styled "Archdruid" in the big house saw the banner and assumed we were having a sly jollity at her expense . She has always been a little tetchy and some would say inclined to over-react. Where others might have knocked at the door of the manse and requested - and received - the innocent and godly explanation, Eileen borrowed a chain saw, cut down the trees and burnt both them and the banner. She is not a woman to think before acting.

However, we had spent the first part of the day in fasting and preparation. So with our state of godliness secure, we were able to forgive her. Although only sporadically, as she was chasing some of my followers around with her cricket bat, reminding them that, as good Christians, if she hit any of them they were required to turn the other cheek.

Eventually Eileen went off to her own community, who looked like they were staging another of their battle re-enactments on her lawn. And we were able to get onto the important business of our three-hour Authorizathon. Combining the most beautifully-written of the passages with meditations of my own on the way in which heathen darkness had reigned from the 1st century all the way through until the glorious day in 1611 when true light finally shone on the English-speaking peoples.

And consider the power that is at our fingertips. For part way through the readings the answer to our benighted brother Robinson's musings on life expectancy were actually read out! For the years of a man are threescore and ten, or fourscore if we have the strength. There is no point in Simon wondering how things would be otherwise - there could be no otherwise.

Halfway through the readings, a thought struck me that I am sure I never had before. It was, I believe, prophetic. If the King James Bible - 400 years old today, in case you were unaware - is the perfect Word of God as we believe, what happens to those who are unable to read it? What about those African and Asian billions who, speaking only their own languages, have never had the opportunity to learn Jacobean English? Must they struggle by reading only sub-standard versions in their own tongues - or even in the original languages, defective as clearly they must be? (I exclude the French from this, of course. With typical Gallic arrogance, they simply refuse to speak any kind of English, despite the fact that we all know they can do it).

And so, spontaneously, I implored my Funambulist brethren. "Think, my brothers (and suitably instructed sisters)," I said to them. "Think of those living in darkness, unable to learn the simplest passage because they do not speak English - and think of those who do speak modern English, but are confused by the total changes in the meaning of words such as "prevent". We cannot leave this to the confused efforts of those who would translate the Scriptures into these people's native tongues. We must start a great new work that will send missionaries into the whole world -  missionaries whose job it is to teach the language of Jacobean English to the nations that live in darkness, so they may read God's word, repent and be saved.

Brothers (I will not address our sisters here, as I am about to mention filthy lucre) - Brethren, I say, after my appeal the Bogwulf Baptists right there and then held a heap offering unto the Lord. And the £4.55 we raised is but the mustard seed that will become a great oak tree of the forest. We will go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to all nations, and we will do it in King James English!