The Parable of the Parking Lot

My regular correspondent "Anonymous" has moved to America! From where s/he reports on a church with a car park so big they have to name the sub-car-parks after the books of the Bible.

Which makes me muse. My immediate reaction to this was the one it always is to modern Church doings - how did we get from the way Jesus lived to bumper stickers/tea-lights 'n' pebbles/jumble sales/Keble College chapel? But on this occasion a chord was struck - after all, didn't Jesus on a similar occasion create enough food to feed 5,000 plus women and children? He effectively had his own mega-church for a while

So I'd like you to come with me here, and imagine that, on his return, Jesus decides to put off the smiting, Rapture, plagues and judgement for a year or two to give everyone a final last chance to repent. And takes a job as visiting Pastor in an American super-church.

And the Assistant Pastors come to him and said, "Lord, what shall we do? For there are so many who have flocked to see you from within a two-hour drive-time. Yea, for many have journeyed long along the desert roads - where bloweth the tumbleweed, and the deer and the antelope play, and one has to change the Eagles CD even unto three or four times to reach civilisation."

And Jesus replied to them and said, "Enough with the King James talk, already. OK, so if they have travelled a day's journey - as it were from LA to San Jose - or from El Paso to Amarillo - then they must be hungry. Bring me five bagels and two small Gefilterfisch."

And they replied unto to him saying, "Lord - what need have they of loaves and fishes? For the Chrysolite Chapel has in-house restaurants, pop-corn sellers and free potato chips that fall even from the ceiling like manna from heaven. No - the problem is the car parking lot. For its sub-lots are full even from Genesis unto Malachi, and Matthew unto Revelation."

"You guys have a strange way of arranging the Hebrew Bible," replied Jesus, "but we'll skip that for now. Instead - can the church not buy more land for its parking lot?"

"Indeed not, Lord. For unto the East it borders McDonalds' lot. To the West it borders Taco Bell. To the north, we adjoin the lot of Krusty's Krematorium Donut Stall - and to the South it adjoins the area that the Ol' Ponderosa Rib-Fantasia allocates for its customers' parking. Surely, the lots have fallen for us in good places."

"Then I have another suggestion," replied the Lord. "For yours is truly a church of Baby-boomer Empty-nesters. And though you drive in cars as big as bars, each only carries one or maybe two sitting in the front seat. So why doesn't the one with spare seats offer to another a lift to Church on Sunday? You'll fit twice as many people in and still half the parking lot will be free. Or maybe some of you could try cycling? Bikes take up barely any space."

"Lord, saith they unto him, are you some kinda commie?"

The United States of Eccentricity

You know, it's kind of ironic, the way the English have always had the reputation for eccentricity.

Clearly, the occasional English person is a certifiable eccentric. There was my uncle Charlie, for example - Aunt Deidre had constantly to intervene to stop him ironing the shar pei, on the grounds that it was "all creased". In his more eccentric moments he used to send the butler out to  drill the squirrels, apparently under the illusion that they were a division of the Anglian Regiment. And of course he spent the last six years of his life convinced he was a parking meter in the Caledonian Road. Which was awkward. Especially for the traffic wardens, when he requested they collect the day's takings. But I digress.

When you consider the religious movements they engender, the people of the USA are clearly miles ahead of us. I can barely think of a decent act of religious daftness in England since the End of Days mania that surrounded the last days of John Mason. Oh sure, there was that rector in Northamptonshire that used to keep goats, but he was hardly trying to be eccentric in the great scheme of things.

Whereas in the States you can barely throw a brick in some built-up areas without hitting a bloke who's got his own theory on the end of the world - or some strange concept of how many wifes, or indeed goats, a man is entitled to. And you can barely shake a tree without a couple of survivalists falling out of it and looking suspiciously at you in case you're the Dark One, a commie or homosexual - or all three.

I'm pleased to say that Hnaef is a calm character, who will not be spending his time across the Pond shaking trees or throwing bricks. Instead, as the time passes until he realises I may not have been quite so altrustic in insisting he took his trip "before the ash gets here", he is watching and observing. And I think he may have found the answer to why here in England we barely get past a bit of an ironic comment on each other's religious traditions, and some devout ministers barely believe in God at all - while in the States there's a new date for Armageddon held by every Christian.

Tea.

Isn't it obvious? The English had the Reformation, burning of Protestants, the torture and judicial murder of Catholics as traitors, the Civil War, John Mason, the Popish Plot - and then we "borrowed" India for a while and started drinking tea. Whereas the Americans think tea is for chucking in harbours (or harbors, for our trans-Atlantic cousins). But they have access to South America, and drink coffee.

Tea it was that brought, in England, a peaceful Enlightenment. Indeed, judging by most church coffee, the ministers and church committees, instinctively realising the danger that coffee can cause, have gone out of their way to encourage people to drink anything other than coffee. Faced with church coffee, who's not going to drink tea?
Whereas the French, maddened by strong coffee and Gauloises, chopped their king's head off and renamed the months of the year. And the Yanks opened Starbucks and invented Nirvana and Friends.  How are the Americans, consuming coffee as it seems on every corner, ever going to keep a clear head and stop discovering new theories of the End of the World?

So, my friends - if you want to calm down the Americans, have them adopt fewer doomsday cults and a more restrained line in clerical vestments - encourage them to drink tea. And make sure they don't put the milk in first. Ugh.

An artificial community of people wanting an ideal life

Fascinated by this article on the murder  and suicide in Celebration, Fla - the "perfect small town" created by Disney. And a couple of deaths in violent circumstances in a fairly long period of time doesn't seem so bad.

But it did leave me wondering. Where do the people of Celebration go when they want that idyllic holiday? Luton?

Thanksgiving

First of all, I'd like to thank Bernie for serving up such a fantastic Thanksgiving Dinner for us. As a community we are happy to embrace people of all cultures and none. And who would have thought we had so much pumpkin left over from Halloween?.

And normally on this day we give thanks for all the people without a sense of irony having left these shores in the 17th century.

But this year, our thanksgiving was constrained by the evidence from a number of directions that Good King Charles's Dad, the Martyr, didn't scare them all off.

So today we remembered all the people with no sense of humour that still populate this green and pleasant land. And we started to build a little boat that we like to call "Mayflower II". I'm sure you can all think of someone you'd like to put in it.

And in these humourless times, I would like to make it quite clear that if you're an American, we're not necessarily saying you're all without a sense of irony. While reflecting that, if you're the kind of American that has a sense of irony, you'll know that already.

Enough already. I'm off to go through Harriet Harman's Little Book of Terms you Shouldn't Use. I notice that "ginger" isn't in there, though. Who would have thought?

And to say a little prayer that, when Sarah Palin becomes president, somebody else is actually looking after the missiles.



Sarah Palin available through Wikimedia Commons - t toes.

Good news from America

I have spent the last 24 hours on my knees, praying for the results of the American election. And it was only in the last ten minutes that I discovered from Eileen that in fact all the results were in by yesterday morning. However Eileen consoled me that my prayers were not wasted. As long as I did not know what the results were,  Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means that my prayers were effective retrospectively.  What a lesson this is to us - never stop praying, and do your best not to know what it is going on in the world.

So now the dust has settled, what do we see? A far more acceptable American political scene, in my opinion.  And therefore, I hasten to add, in the Lord's. A 12% increase in congressmen that believe trilobites are just overgrown woodlice that died in the Great Flood. A giant jump backwards (in other words - to the fundamental truth). Power given to people who see all scientists for the atheist enemies of faith that they are - demanding evidence and consistency as if they ever achieved anything.

Surely the US of A, as I believe it is technically called, is seeing growing numbers of people across that great country who either shoot moose or play the banjo.In other words, the godly.  Before long Creation Science will be taught in all schools and snake-handling will be compulsory at American council meetings. People who think the end of the world might be a good thing, are once again closer to the Big Red Button. It's good to see America on its way to being great once again.

I include below my personal analysis of American voting patterns. I think you'll agree that it shows a clear swing from the Democrats to the people who believe that unicorns died out when they missed the boat with Noah.

Fairytales of New York

Totally underwhelmed by the not-very-surprising news that American atheists know more about religion than American believers*.

After all, unlike most British folk atheists, standing in long traditions of couldn't-care-less-ness, most American atheists probably rejected religion and so are well informed about it. Also in an overwhelmingly Christian country like America, you'd normally assume that the atheists are more intelligent - not because they're right, but because intelligent people like to buck the trend. Which in the States would mean they're likely to be more liberal, more interested in the world at large.  And Americans generally seem to have a degree of parochiality more extreme than a frog stuck down a well. So you're not going to be competing with much.
For example, fewer than half knew that the Dalai Lama was a Buddhist. Well, if you're a Fundamentalist Baptist, you like to keep the surplus information to a minimum to save memory space. To these people, since Buddhism is of the Devil, who cares who actually is a Buddhist? Likewise the 50% of Protestants who did not know that Luther was the driving force behind the Reformation - why would they care? He lived neither in the 1st nor 21st Centuries.  And he was a German, which is a very dull European country: white Americans only claim to be descended only from the Irish and the Italians. And Luther lived 250 years before anyone invented their country. All in all, he's not very important is he?
But I'm curious about this statement: "Almost half of Catholics surveyed did not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion actually become the body and blood of Christ." and would just want to know - did the survey get the wrong answer because the Catholics didn't "know"? Or because the question was so badly nuanced that only an atheist or extreme Protestant would get the "right" answer? Indeed, the Telegraph's nerdy blogger didn't understand the "when and where", let alone the "what" when he tried to comment on it.

* There's an interesting slant in the Telegraph's reporting, when it says that atheists know more about "religion". What doesn't come across from there (in fact they seem mysteriously to be trying to indicate the opposite), but does on the Pewforum site, is that it's actually Mormons and Evangelicals that know more about "Christianity" than anyone else, including atheists and agnostics. Again, they're a parochial lot. In my experience a Clearwater cat going missing is worth more airtime in Tampa Bay than a mudslide in Bangladesh.

It won't be Cricket

More concern over American goings-on.

This time at the thought of them trying their hands at cricket.

To be fair, after decades of American Mormons (sic) coming over here trying and failing to evangelise us it's about time we introduced them to our religion. But let's consider:

• The classic version of the game is Test Match cricket. A 5-day sporting event at the end of which there may well not be a winner. 
• A typical county attendance is four old geezers with blankets on their knees. 
• The umpires don't get to throw hankies on the pitch at every opportunity. 
• Instead of blokes with exciting names like Travis Perkins or Chad Ochocinco, a typical cricketer is called something like Ryan Sidebottom.
• The average cricket cheerleader would probably be an 83-year-old bloke.
• If Blowers started shouting around like an American wrestling commentator, he'd probably have a seizure. And in any case, everyone would wonder what the fuss was about.
• The Americans have no concept of the traditions to do with cake, red buses passing the ground, or commentating for twenty minutes on the activities of pigeons in the outfield.

 So I suggest the following changes to make the game more interesting and Yank-relevant:

• All that boring grass could be replaced with astroturf, and used as prime space for advertising.  
• Even with advertising, there's far too much outfield. And the concept of an "oval" is so complex. In order to make the scores higher, and to save the need for new stadia, play the game on a pitch the size of an American Football pitch and ban singles.
• Everyone - not just the batsmen and fielders in "silly" positions - to wear helmets and shoulder pads. And baseball catching mitts.
• Umpires to wear giant foam hands so they can be seen better on the outfield.
• Wicket Keepers to wear those chest protectors you see in Ice Hockey, as more valuable advertising space.
• It's very exciting for an English spectator when a fast bowler knocks a stump out of the ground - but imagine the excitement of Monty Panesar taking a wicket if the stumps were wired to a series of rockets positioned in the sight-screen.
• Batsmen's pads to be banned to reduce the chance of those boring LBW appeals. In fact the whole concept of LBW - complex, tedious and unncessary - could be removed if the options were hit the ball with the bat, or get very hurt.
• Even 20-20 is a bit long for Americans. So play 10 overs aside, and reduce the players to 9 per team.
• All games to be played at night, with fluorescent strips and a glowing ball.
• Hurdles at either side of the wicket, which batsmen must jump when running (2s and up).

Who knows, with these changes the game could soon be our most popular cultural export since Robbie Williams!

American Spirituality

We followed Ekklesia  to this report of America's spirituality and its increasingly mixed-up beliefs.
In particular we were thrilled to see, at this time of apparently declining religious attendance and community breakdown, that the percentage of people reporting they had mystical or religious experiences has doubled - proof, in our opinion, that it's not what you believe that matters, it's how you feel about it.

Further interest came in their Venn diagram detailing the overlaps between Protestant belief, attendance at Catholic mass and belief in astrology.  The overlap between all three is small but definitely there.  We'd love to meet these people.  Presumably we'd have to hang out in a Catholic church, looking for someone with a tambourine reading the "Mystic Meg" column.

Anniversary of the American Entry into World War 2

To celebrate the anniversary of the Americans joining in World War 2, we're going to be holding a ceremony in the Dining Room.  It starts at 3pm, so in the spirit of the event please can you make sure you're all there prompt by 3.30.

Rift? What rift?

I should like to calm everyone down over the so-called "rift" in the Beaker Fellowship.

When the Beaker Folk of America appointed an Archdruid who was not only a man, but also married, clearly I had to take swift action.  I wrote a strongly-worded letter explaining that this was just the kind of thing they had promised they probably wouldn't do.
In response I got a very friendly letter, with a picture of them enjoying themselves at something they called the "Boston Tea Light Party".  It was on very high-quality paper, with the watermark "1776" running across it.  I suspect there is some kind of a subliminal message in all this, but I don't know what it is.
I've asked other Beaker leaders around the world what to do about it, but they've mostly suggested beating the Americans with sticks to drive out the demons.  I'm not sure that's going to work in these circumstances. Not least because, Americans being Americans, it could lead to some kind of military strike on Husborne Crawley.
So for now, I guess what we can all do is pray.