Now Peter Sanlon tells us that, since the Diocesan Director of Ordinands* in Southwark Diocese is a lesbian, it's likely that straight men will never be selected for ordination training. Which makes you wonder how she ever got the job in the first place. If nobody ever selects somebody of a different gender, or a different sexual orientation, why hasn't every priest always been a married man like St Peter? How did the Southwark DDO sneak in, in the first place, if that's how it works?
Or maybe Peter Sanlon is suggesting that lesbians all hate men. That would be ridiculous, to suggest he stereotypes like that. But then he has previously seemed to equate paedophilia with homosexuality. So, you know.
He also tells us the problem with bad shepherds is that they go around whitewashing things:
It is a perennial temptation for shepherds – that is ministers and lay leaders like us – to hope futilely that a lick of whitewash will cover over the fatal structural flaws we are sitting onNow I don't know about you, but I'm shocked to hear that's what shepherds do. They may use a bit of sheep dip. They used to use reddle - and maybe still do in parts of Wessex for all I know. Whitewash? While sitting on a a sheep with fatal structural flaws? What kind of shepherds are these?
It could be that Peter Sanlon has just mixed his metaphors. But best play it safe. If you're a Kentish sheep farmer and you see Peter Hanlon heading for your flock with a pot of white paint, get them safely in. That's my advice.
* Official potential vicar talent-spotter
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The problem with the Rev Salmon is that every person who doesn't agree with his narrow interpretation of scripture is a sinner and consigned to hell.
ReplyDeleteOf course, he is part of that groupie in Tonbridge WElls who are schismatic and are withholding funds from their diocesan responsibilities to ensure that they have a cushy life style. And, what a slap in the face it must have been to have a female Arch Deacon put in over them. The Ven Julie is no wilting flower and will not put up with their nonsense.
I am not equating her with the Arch Druid who deals out justice with a Cricket Bat, but rather a firm Pastoral Manner, which might be the equivalent of a Chicket bat strike in the ears.
But of course the schismatics claim that they're staying to purify the rest of us, when in fact, they don't want to give up their niche ministry to go out into the wilderness, without their Churches and well maintained vicarages and stipends and pensions and parish income from those who have been convinced that they must be on the right, not left track.
It would obviously be inaccurate to equate; by the same token it is accurate to correlate, so the problem still remains. Christopher Shell.
ReplyDelete"who are schismatic and are withholding funds from their diocesan responsibilities to ensure that they have a cushy life style."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all schismatic in relation to what, precisely? The current CofE?
[EDIT: Later, after I've composed myself after drying my eyes because of the epic giggle I've just had...]
But seriously, that's actually not why they're withholding funds from the cancerous bureaucracy of the N.I.C.E. It's because they're clever enough to understand that the only way to effectively combat the nasty outgrowth of politically-correct heterodoxy and oh-so-right-on abdication of the faith once delivered is to cut off their source of funding.
Now, of course, one congregation cutting off diocesan contribution is but a drop in the bucket. But imagine the effect if the Christians in the CofE did this en masse!
All the vicars would have to get proper jobs?
DeletePerhaps the bishops who do nothing more than warm their seats at General Synod would have to get proper jobs, eh?
DeleteAnyone who refers to the typical duties of a vicar as a "cushy lifestyle" is, I suspect, someone who has absolutely no experience of Christian ministry, and can therefore be ignored as a person who has no clue what he/she is talking about.
ReplyDeleteChurch of England vicars are the laziest people I have ever met. I asked one curate in training why he wanted to be in the Church and he said "because I only have to work 1 day a week"
ReplyDelete