Trinitarian Heresy Sunday

I had some good response to my previous comments on Young Keith's water phase-based trinitarian heresy. So much so that I realise there are a lot of people out there suffering from Bad Trinitarian Analogy Syndrome.

The first thing that happens is that the rector, superintendent minister, bishop or local archdruid looks at the church calendar some time in spring, notices that Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost again, and promptly decides a week off is called for. The Local Preacher, curate, Reader or Young Keith suddenly discovers that he/she is down to preach. If they are new to the job, they will be delighted. They will work terribly hard at getting the best possible illustrations. They will read the Early Fathers, the Middle Mothers and the Late CS Lewis. They will be extremely creative. And then they will preach their sermons. And at this point, people, they will run the risk of stumbling into some kind of heresy.

There is one way to tell if your preacher is probably being heretical this coming Sunday.

If they attempt to use any kind of analogy for the Trinity at all. 

Frankly, this is why the Athanasian Creed, in between the curses, goes to such immense trouble and uses so many words basically to set out a load of things the Trinity isn't. And leaves us none the wiser. You are all using the Athanasian on Sunday, aren't you? In full, of course? Anathemata and everything?

So the minute your preacher talks about the Trinity being just like a family, or like a laser beam, the laser and the radiation, or like the Jam, or like joy, laughter and a laugh - just walk to the front of the church, hold up your hand for silence, and present them with your "Heretical Analogy of the Trinity" card.

But don't stop there. If they imply Jesus is God - but not real God, like God the Father is - give them the card. If they claim the Holy Spirit is female because the word is female in Hebrew - give them the "Heretical Analogy of the Trinity" card. But then also give them your "Dodgy mis-use of Biblical Language Translation" card.

If they don't worry too much about what the Sunday is, and just preach the Gospel from the set texts, I reckon you're doing all right.

The Long Bright Tea-time of the Soul

It's a weird feeling for this time of a Sunday. Going down to the Moot House this morning for Pouring-out of Beakers, I found all the Beaker Folk fast asleep where I'd left them last night. When I told them to wake up, as we'd got an act of worship to perform, one of them mumbled something about "just another ten minutes Mum. And it's only R.E. first thing." So naturally I poured the beakers out over a few of them, and left them all to it.

But it's given me an odd kind of Sunday. Sure, I went off and meditated on the wind blowing the trees around - with so much less effect on them in their current, leafless state. The way trees lose their leaves before the Winter storms begin, you could almost believe in Design. But my sermon on "Mountain Top Experiences", complete with Powerpoint presentation, remains unprojected. Which is possibly just as well, as it mostly consisted of photos of people in woolly hats and warm coats, gazing hopelessly into thick fog and clinging onto cliff edges.

Yet not having preached today has left me feeling rather good. Sure, I've not enjoyed that buzz you get from rousing everybody's spirits. But on the other hand I'm not currently in that state of  spiritually coming-down that follows. For once, I'm not sat here having realised that everybody completely missed my point. I'm not recalling that I dropped an entire page of notes without anyone noticing. I'm not fretting that nobody's life was dramatically changed. I'm not panicking that all anyone said to me afterwards was "nice sermon, Archdruid."

In short, I'm not feeling washed-out and desolate, gazing out the window in a state of torpor and letting my coffee go cold.

I've just been for a walk, and recognised Drayton Parslow for the child of God that he is, instead of the menace to shipping that I normally regard him as. I asked him whether he ever feels deflated on Sunday afternoons. And he said yes, and he believed that, when that happens, it's because the Spirit, having spoken through him to others, has now left him to consider his own failings. An interesting thought. But I'll still put it down to a drop in adrenaline.

Still, the afternoon is sunny and clear, I've managed to get the ESPN licence renewed and, out in the kitchen garden, Beaker Folk refreshed after their long sleep are digging the beds ready for the early plantings. It's all bright till tea-time. What a refreshing Sunday this is.

Hearing the Call

Brethren, what a shocking morning.

In some respects, the problems started with the bloggers behind "The Church Sofa". It seems that it was they who inspired the soi-disant Archdruid next door in her evil schemes.

I now know that it was she - or one of her minions of darkness - who slipped into Bogwulf Chapel last night, and gaffer-taped a mobile phone under the pulpit. She who then waited until the time at which she knew I would be mid-way through my sermon, "The narrow road and the wide one." She then called up.

AC/DC were never my favourite rock group - even as an adolescent, as I struggled to find the resolution to the temptations of the flesh (and strength in my struggles, for no young women ever seemed tempted in return). I considered them loud, coarse and sexually over-explicit. I have never enjoyed their music, and indeed have avoided listening to it for thirty years. Until today.

For it was as I offered the congregation the alternatives - the narrow road that leads to eternal joy, or the wide one that leads us down the path to perdition - that they were offered the suggestion that "Hell ain't a bad place to be." Naturally I cleared the chapel immediately, and sent in volunteers - suitably protected with ear-muffs - to remove the offending phone. Unfortunately, given the hearing protection, it was somewhat harder to find the phone than might otherwise have been the case. But we found it eventually.

I think, brothers (but not sisters - for the moral choices I am about to put before you, you should only receive advice on from your own pastor, or a husband of suitable moral fibre) - I think that Eileen was expecting me to storm round to her House, bang the door with a noise like unto the Knell of Doom and denounce her for the scheming, insensitive trouble-maker that she is. But no.

I walked to the Great House, avoiding the man trap and branch-covered pits she had so cunningly strewn in my path, and presented her phone back to her.

"It's for you," I told her - witty, I think - "But I want you to know, I forgive you."

She looked a little confused as I left. I think I may have got this one right.

Churches Together Sunday

Oh boy, what a morning.

So I've so had to just walk out of Drayton Parslow's service this morning before I lost it. I know Eileen's always hitting him with stuff - cricket bats, mostly - and I'm starting to see why.

It was Eileen's fault. She knows Drayton doesn't do "Churches together" stuff. Drayton's idea of Christian unity is that everyone becomes a Fundamentalist Baptist. His kind of Fundamentalist Baptist. And Eileen doesn't do it either. Her post-modernism says that whatever other people want to do is fine by her, but we have decent coffee so she's not going to join with other Christians who have worse coffee.

But she wanted me to see the dark side of religion. So she talked Drayton into preaching on "Holiness, Grace and Justice" as a special favour, for me to hear it. And also preached on the same subject herself. So I got Eileen from 9 till 9.10, and the Drayton from 10 till 12 - at which point I feigned illness. He offered to rush forward and lay on hands, but I told him it was "somewhere you wouldn't want to lay on hands". At least, I hoped he wouldn't. So he looked horrified and I ran out before he could find someone who did.

So the "Holiness, Grace and Justice" comparison. If Drayton is swayed towards Justice, then it's fair to say Eileen sways towards Grace. Or, to be more accurate - if Drayton sways towards Vengeance, then Eileen tends towards Indulgence. Our readings for the day were Lev 11 (clean and unclean animals - so we had some concept of "Holiness") and Luke 15:11-32 (Prodigal Son) - so we had some idea of Grace and Vengeance. I've linked to the King James Version here, as it's the version that Drayton uses - while frankly it's pretty irrelevant what version Eileen uses as long as it's gender-neutral. The two headings below are those that strike me as the salient points of difference. They may not be what Eileen or Drayton thought they were talking about.

Does God love fluffy bunnies because they're cute, or because he loves everything?

Eileen thinks God loves bunnies, and that was the main part of her sermon all round. In fact, the whole concept of Vengeance and Grace came down to a fairly long digression on who God loves better when a fox chases a rabbit (a rabbit, because it's cuter) - and how that can be applied to fox hunting (God loves the fox better, because it's cuter than a hunter and doesn't vote Conservative). But Eileen's wishful thinking seems to be ignoring the Earless Beaker Bunny, who's so vicious that we have to equip her keepers with small bells on their turn-ups, so she's not surprised into savaging them when they come to clean her out. The Bunny, that is - not Eileen. Eileen also assured us that God loves everything else on the list, no matter how vile - because God's like that. But especially God loves cute things.

Drayton reminded us, in passing as he also savaged every other unclean animal, that bunnies in Old Testament times were unclean before the Lord, and puts this down to their love of sex. He still treats them with suspicion, although that may be due to the day that Eileen put the Beaker Bunny in through his kitchen window and it ate Marjory's slippers and then bit his leg. On poor etymology and worse folklore and religious history, Drayton associates rabbits with the goddess Eostre and thinks they are therefore pagan and accursed. I did want to point out to him that our only (and slim) source for Eostre is St Bede, who was a Catholic, but you're not supposed to butt in during Drayton's sermons. Of course, to confuse the issue the "rabbit" is actually a "hare" in the King James Version of the Bible, and so Drayton doesn't really believe that rabbits exist at all. Unlike unicorns.

Why did the Prodigal Father run to his son?

So let's move onto Grace and Justice. And the tale of the Prodigal Son revealed a new, softer side in Drayton. He's much taken with the story, and reckons he can understand how the son felt. The older son, that is. How, asks Drayton, can the father forgive the younger one and ignore the obedience of the older, better behaved one? Drayton's conclusion is that, once the party's over, the younger son gets to work digging out the drains under the instruction of theolder one - a part of the story that, to be fair, he accepts isn't in the Bible but follows logically. Why does the father run out to the son?

Eileen's idea is that it shows the graciousness of God - in that the father is doing something relatively humiliating in running out after his son. This seems a lot of reasoning on not much basis to me - but probably not compared to Drayton's suggestion that the father was out for a job, and so naturally carried on running and naturally was pleased to see his son. Eileen's main concern in the whole thing is the fatted calf - as she points out, the Eldest still lives at home, the Youngest is back in the bosom of his family - the only one that loses out is the fatted calf. He's the one not rejoicing. Apart from, presumably, Mrs Prodigal - who's going to be doing some serious cooking - and the servants, who'll probably have to wash up.

Eileen's conclusion to the whole thing was that God loves everything, and it's best to just skip over the idea of Justice and vengeance and right and wrong - light a tea light and hope it'll all be over in the end. Drayton's is something to do with fire, and lots of it. I'll like to tell you more, but it was at this point that I realised I was going to miss my dinner. I'll catch up with Kayleigh and Kylie later, and hopefully get more informed. But I suspect, whatever it is, I'm not going to like it.

So, I'm off to put the Flump suit back on. This afternoon is Flump Day for the Little Pebbles. Very hip and happening for today's kids, is a TV programme they produced in 1976. I wonder whether Flumps would be clean or unclean to eat?

A New Retention Myth

In contrast to the old, clearly-made-up Retention Myth I would like to propose the following:

People remember 55% of things they warmly agree with.
81% of the bits they violently disagree with (of which they remember about 5% accurately)
And 42% of sitting around feeling in a comfortable and safe place.
4% of what they read on notice sheets
9% of what they subsequently hear when someone reads all through the notice sheet again for them
1% of the things on a notice board
Yet, mysteriously, 75% of urban myths

Getting your sermon priorities right

It is said that people remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they see, 30% of what they do... presumably up to 100% of what they eat.

I've never seen any real research behind this claim, no trainer has ever cited his or her references to me (but see the link below), and my guess is it's codswallop, like the claim that the Americans spent millions on a space pen while the Russians just used a pencil. Burton Dasset once heard a trainer claim that the Beagle II mission was a masterpiece of project management, so that just goes to show the rubbish that people can say when power-crazed and drunk with the smell of dry-wipe marker pens.


But the claim I mentioned - the so-called "Retention Myth" - has infected the way that Beaker People engage in what more traditional, or - as you might say - "square" - churches would call "preaching".

For myself, the assumption that most people aren't paying much attention to sermons (see Burton's post from earlier today) is backed up by a natural inclination to avoid any firm doctrine in case it causes an argument. So I find it best to read spiritual-sounded verses from the Metaphysical Poets while playing a little light Enya, to the accompaniment of some vanilla-scented candles. People always say "nice sermon, Archdruid", and never feel the need to argue with my model of realised eschatology (which is just as well, as my model of realised eschatology is made of old matchsticks and wood glue).

Hnaef has bought into some of the verbal vs visual theories, so he occasionally preaches while riding a unicycle round the Moot House. I'm not saying anyone is any better-informed, but the time he did it while juggling with chain-saws, people certainly gave him 100% of their attention. And many came close to having their lives radically changed.

The other trendy sermon technique we like to use is to split people up into small groups and share their thoughts, and then get one person - the "rapporteur" is one term, although we prefer "show-off" - to summarise the group's findings to the Beaker People in plenum. We have noticed the tendency that this has to show up unusual heresies, and we treasure it as a way of developing some new ones.

Drayton, of course, when preaching over at the Funambulist Baptists, sticks rigidly to the belief that Jesus would only approve of sermons preached by a bloke in a suit. His sermons can occasionally last for an hour at a time, I am told - but if they are any longer than that, they have a break so his congregation can change ends at half time.

A long day beckons

As the sounds of the rave down the hill die away, they're replaced by the echo of the first hymn sung by Bogwulf Baptists.

They're up already this morning. Drayton having taken on this odd idea that it is in keeping with the Gospel to preach very slowly, they've kicked off very early. He reckons his sermon - always a substantial contribution to his services - could last nine hours.

I know a thousand ages in God's sight are like an evening gone. But I reckon Drayton's flock are going to see that theological point made particularly manifest today.