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A Brexit breakfast at Lambeth Palace What’s on the menu when bishops gather for a Brexit breakfast at Lambeth Palace following Britain’s historic vote to leave the European Union? Egg on face. Mitres in sanctimonious sermon sauce. Burnt reputations on French toast. Honeyed Brussels rhetorical waffle. Side dish for guest invitee Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church—haggis with a dash of hogwash. Breakfast includes two archbishops’ specials: a Sentamu special—sausages stuffed with pious platitudes and a Welby special: Eton mess.
– Rev. Jules Gomes, pastor of St Augustine’s Church, Douglas, on the Isle of Man.
I strongly recommend this article to our readers, for not only is it intermittently hilarious, it is totally on the money.
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That is just magnificent! 😀 Talking about putting the ecclesiastical boot in!
I’ve just learned that Boris isn’t standing. Please, please, please God, let him become Foreign Secretary.
And it is a splendid denunciation. Nothing like a Rev for putting the boot into bishops. As I may have observed before:
Is the Gospel so widely followed in this realm that the Lords Spiritual can spare the time to waffle on about matters about which they are no better informed than the average middle manager? “The harvest is plenteous but the labourers few.” Yea verily, and the few we have can’t be with us at the moment because they are discussing sustainable energy, or the Ghanaian agricultural subsidy regime, or whether Jacksonian nationalism is a good influence on American foreign policy.
Jesus wept, if that didn’t teach him the virtues of the Leave campaign, nothing would.
Excellent piece, the good Reverend is in the See of the Bishop of Sodor and Man, but perhaps he should himself be consecrated as the Bishop of Sod’em and Man.
A dear old retired vicar of traditional views used to say that splendid, short service, the Litany,
regularly. It is not often heard now. He told me that he always used to add mentally
“From batty bishops, potty parsons and silly synods,
GOOD LORD, DELIVER US”
It might take a few hours for Jesus to get to Lambeth.
More likely because the f*cking train conductors of Southern Rail have gone on strike and mass sickness, again.
Meanwhile MSN is running a computer campaign saying things such as “will Brexit put your job at risk?”
The lies and propaganda continue.
By the way – I am glad that some in the Church of England are standing up against the political “gospel” of the David Cameron appointed Archbishops.
In a church with 20,440 ordained ministers where on an average Sunday there are fewer than 1,000,000 parishioners – average age 58. Meanwhile 4 million Muslims are on their knees (5) times a day and 60% of the English never step foot in any kind of church.
https://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/facts-stats.aspx
Then again 1,440,000 Brits are at soccer games each weekend so that is good.
http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm
Meanwhile in the US 40% or 120 million attend church weekly, but then again we were founded by religious believers who were kicked out of the Motherland and first fled to Holland.
I pray you all in the UK rediscover your Christianity before it disappears for good.
“I pray you all in the UK rediscover your Christianity before it disappears for good.”
Yes, because the answer to the problem of religion is obviously more religion.
Gentlemen what has been forgotten is why Britain was admitted to the E.U.
Er, no. I would have to agree with Stonyground. And when it comes to a fight, I would rather have 1.4 million British football supporters on my side.
@ regional
Please explain why Britain was admitted to the EU.
Your comment sheds no light on the matter.
I quite like the story about the way that the IOM TT races got started. The British government were aghast when motorcycle enthusiasts requested that they could have some roads temporarily closed so that they could race motorcycles on them. The bikers were then at a loss until someone pointed out that the IOM was outside those spoilsports’ area of influence. So the IOM authorities were asked the same question and replied ‘yeah, why not’ and the IOM TT races were born.
I believe that the IOM was the last place in the British Isles where you could have your bottom beaten if you broke the law.
They lusted after our roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, mushy peas and Spitfire ale! Had we not left, those rascals would have taken it all!
@Mr Ed,
Are you sure that he isn’t the Bishop of Mordor and San?
Nowadays, I wouldn’t be the least surprised …
PhilB,
Well he might have taken the place of the ‘traditional’ Bishop of London who, if I heard him correctly this evening, at a service to commemorate the Somme, railed against those who sow division, which I took to be a refeerence to Brexit.
Can we at the very least dis-establish the CofE and rid the House of Lords of those flatulent priests?
James Strong,
To subsidise France’s peasant farmers. I remember those times.
I had a Philly cheese steak sandwich today, with 2 eggs fried over easy. God it was good.
Darrly,
You Seppos don’t put beetroot or pineapple rings on your hamburgers.
Let us consider the tale of Sir Boris, the feckless twit…
Brave Sir Boris ran away
Bravely ran away away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Boris turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Boris!
rid the House of Lords of those flatulent priests?
Sounds very Edward IIish.
Are you trying to kill poor Herr Juncker?
stonyground
The answer to people in other tribes beating the crap out of you is to tighten up your own tribe. Mythology has nothing to do with it.
Mythology/religion has everything to do with everything.
You think belief in human-caused global warming or Keynesianism is anything but religious faith?
Whites’ below-replacement level birth rates are partly attributable to a lack of religious faith. Research shows that religiosity is correlated with higher birth rate. And if you think the West isn’t under a demographic threat from Muslim immigrants, well:
les gens obtiennent du gouvernement qu’ils méritent
I vote leave because I “believe” in England. I “believe” in Man United. I “believe” Royal Anglian Regiment. I “believe” an English breakfast needs both mushroom and fried bread. I’ve got no need of religion but I “believe” in lots of stuff.
“I vote leave because I “believe” in England. I “believe” in Man United. I “believe” Royal Anglian Regiment. I “believe” an English breakfast needs both mushroom and fried bread.”
That’s a religious myth called patriotism.
Religous faith should stand on its own merits, not with regard to whether it has – or what people attribute to it as having – socially desirable results. The idea that we need religion in order to have birth rates above replacement rates is repugnant both to me as an individualist atheist, and would no doubt also be to someone serious about their faith and what it means.
Perry: “when it comes to a fight I’d rather have 1.4 million British football supporters on my side”, yet not so long ago plenty more than that would’ve known the words to Abide With Me.
R Dawes: I wholeheartedly agree that religious faith must stand on its merits, but I’d extend the principle to all philosophies, and I’d also find it impossible to exclude outcomes from merits. Repugnant feelz don’t make a particularly convincing argument; do you see any connection between the notion of the individualist atheist and family?
“the current cadre of bishops cannot exegete their way out of a paper bag.” That gave me a good chuckle.
Nemo: You are correct to pick me up on repugnancy. My use of that kind of wording was totally wrong, and I shot myself in the foot with it. It is not legitimate to consider as disproven a key point in another’s metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics, on the grounds that it has social or political consequences one finds undesirable.
You are also correct to note that what I said applies to all philosophies (it goes further as well). What you are not correct on is the inclusion of outcomes in all areas, and also in the application of it in those areas where outcomes are a legitimate consideration.
The desirability (to whom?) of humman-level travel times between the stars does not change the truth or falsehood of the physics behind say the Alcubierre drive or any other theory for potential high-speed space travel that may be posited in the future. Likewise, the desirability (again, to whom?) of birth rates just above two-point-one per female and the implied claim that a lack of faith causes actual birth rates to fall below that has no bearing whatever on the question of whether faith is a valid epistemological procedure.
Concern for outcomes and the desirability thereof is _partially_ proper in consideration of ethics. The point of ethics is to answer the question: “What should I do?” One of the subsidiary questions to that is: “What is the appropriate standard of value by which to judge the merits of a given potential course of action?” Another is: “Who should be the beneficiary of my actions?” Answer questions like that and then you can make a start on the issue of desirability to whom.
Note again, though that this does NOT mean that a given potentially desirable outcome from application of an ethical idea in contention alters the validity of that idea, not when central to those questions is itself the determination of what is or is not legitimate to hold as the standard of value! And before you can even begin to touch these and other ethical questions, determination of how to get the right answers on ANY question must first be made, and that includes settling the issue of the merit of faith. It is not legitimate to start with social and political ideals first and then try to rig up ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical support for them.
Whether or not a lack of faith actually causes birth rates to fall specifically below replacement rates is itself contentious. At best, it can be seen that a lack of faith does lead to lower birthrates, but the extent of how far the lowering goes that can be attributed to factors surrounding the lack of faith is another question.
The instant a connection between faith and birth rates is made in an approving fashion, what is being said is: “Earth needs Moms, so you should unquestioningly believe all the claims in These Books I tell you to read.” This is what I had in mind in reference to those who take their faith seriously: you insult them by making faith a mere front for tribalism.
It also in effect puts up the dichotomy of “Reason and Liberty versus Two-Point-One” (and yes, I hold that reason and faith are mutually incompatible, for reasons and in practical ways that are even more OT than the present discussion). If a lack of faith necessarily causes below-replacement birth rates, that the correlations seen today are not also the product of other factors whose influence rise as the actual birth rates near the replacement rate, then as a species Homo sapiens is screwed:
A: If reason and liberty are banned by faith then two-point-one cannot and does not have any legitimate moral value from the social perspective and would instead be put into the service of evil.
B: If two-point-one is not achievable, by there not being enough reasoning individuals personally finding legitimate moral value in the prospect of joyful parenthood, then reason and liberty will eventually fall to barbarity in one way or another.
My advice: reason and liberty first, then let the chips fall where they may, because no other philosophical procedure is justifiable intellectually, and in turn not ethically either because my life is MINE and your life is yours. And if the individual chips socially fall such that this dichotomy is unavoidable, then either way misery and death will follow at some point in the future, and the only question left is what we as individuals should do with our remaining time. But, of course, in valid ethics the question has never been otherwise.
R. Dawes, have you ever studied of the encyclical Fides et Ratio by Pope Saint John Paul II?
Cristina:
No, I have not,
I have since downloaded the Vatican’s own English translation, had a brief look and will explore it in depth later, and,
No, I’m not going to say anything here. Perry can correct me, but I doubt he wants that topic discussed on Samizdata, and it certainly does not belong in the commentary of this post.