Joan of Arc

Today we are celebrating St Joan's Day. We realise this might not be universally approved of. Not because of Joan's Catholicism - we, after all, welcome people of all faiths and none. But because she was undeniably French. However we do believe that as a cross-dressing freedom fighter and victim of a shocking miscarriage of justice she is worthy of anyone's respect.

We note that many rationalist theories as to the origins of Joan's visions have been put forward. And we reject them on the grounds, firstly, that they all appear to be hogwash. And secondly because this rationalist view of things is the sort of either/or attitude to life that we regard as unnecessarily divisive, in life as in society and in spirituality. It puts boring blokes in anoraks on one side and ranty, swivel-eyed blokes with odd moustaches and ranty leaflets containing apocalyptic fantasies on the other. We look across from the various "sceptical" and anti-religious movements, to the wide-eyed fundies on the other and say - a non-fatal, benign but hopefully slightly humanising plague on both your houses. We will stay with our Acts 17:28 based belief (a Pagan aphorism, brought into a Christian context) "In him we live and move and have our being." If the Divine Will determined that Joan could act as a channel of the Holy Spirit, through straightforward old-fashioned visions, through epilepsy, through tuberculosis (were they ever serious in suggesting this?) or through any other unprovable (and undisprovable) theories - that's fine by us. God can even speak through Drayton Parslow occasionally, so what more miracle do you need?

So Joan - young, innocent, inspired and brave. We salute you. And we rejoice that there's no way that Mel Gibson will ever be able to play you in a history-distorting film - "They may take away our baguettes - but they're never take away our Freedom!"

We note that the technical offence for which Joan was convicted was heresy, on account of her dressing as a man (Deut 22:5). I feel that if nothing else, it should make us careful about the way we look after nesting birds, anxious never to ignore wandering oxen, and careful in our sewing of tassels onto the corners of our clothing. Or possibly it should warn us to be more intelligent in the way we read Old Testament law codes.



[Late edit: In reference to Ray's comments, below - this was all part of OMD's charm. I have pleasure in attaching a rather marvellous Guardian review, in which Andy McCluskey is described as "the last uncle standing on the wedding disco dancefloor". It also has this stunning quote, which describes the 80s to those of us who were there: "testament... to an odder era of pop when you could follow up a perky single about Joan of Arc with a gloomy dirge about Joan of Arc and make the top 10 with both of them." That we had anything like OMD's creativity today.

Banning

For once, not burning but banning.  But we know how swiftly one can turn into another.

The news that And Tango Makes Three is the most-banned book resulted in a Beaker Person asking whether we have ever banned books from the library.  Naturally we need to ensure that no Beaker Person reads anything that they may find disturbing to their faith in any way.  We can't build a religion on feeling good and thin air by letting people get worried at the drop of a hat.   And Tango Makes Three has cute penguins and a feel-good attitude, so we're fine with that.

So here is a list of books which aren't particularly banned but aren't particularly... well, welcome.  Let's put it that way.

Hardy's Jude the Obscure - too depressing.

The Epistle to the Romans  - too exclusivist

Autobiographies by current or former Man Utd footballers.  Obviously.  Apart from Giggsy.  Whoever he is.

Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods - even Beaker People aren't that gullible.

The Revelation of John - everyone's dead by the end.

Ladybird Book 1A Play with us (with Peter and Jane).  In these troubled times you can't be too careful.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic - for its analysis of why women might claim divine inspiration.

Richard Dawkins, The Bod Delusion - A book all about how a 1970s cartoon character doesn't exist - is that really necessary?  It's particularly scathing about Aunt Flo.

Jane Austen - Emma - for obscenity

Karl Barth - Kirchliche Dogmatik.  We don't approve of this kind of lightweight theology.

Anything by Jordan.

The Left Behind series - Christians have enough trouble with other people claiming they're dim, without actually going out and proving it.

To save everyone the trouble of pretending, we've got Hawkins's A Brief History of Time in the library, but only the first 20 pages.  We figured we'd get more use from the rest of them by giving them to the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby to use for bedding.