Saturday, July 25, 2009

Bishop Tom Or N. T.?


Adrian at Pluralist Speaks has another wonderful post on Bishop Tom, or Bishop N. T. depending on the audience for whom he writes. It's a thing of beauty, and all is good, because I haven't made a fool of myself in the comments...yet.

I'll quote a few snippets to entice you to visit Adrian's website to read the whole thing.

CN (Interviewer from "Christianity Now"): Bishop Tom. Well let's start there. You are back from yet another trip from the United States.

NTW: I have just been spending some subsequent nights in the same bed as my wife, being safely heterosexual as I am, and I was just reflecting on all the travel I do as a much travelled author with friends around the world. And she is so sweet, saying, as she does to me, "G'night Mr. Tom," because she likes to call me that, as I say, "Goodnight Maggie Thatcher," because of course I need to get some sleep when home - because of all the travel I do - and that thought puts me to sleep.

CN: And combining that with being a diocesan bishop.

NTW: I am just back from America, and I love the American people. They queue up for me to sign the books they buy and they are always so friendly and put their hands deep into their pockets. If I told you everything I said to the people asking me to sign the books I would have to write a book. There is such an enormous amount to give thanks for and for the opportunity that Christianity gives me to travel around the world, and my first love becomes the United States and the American people and their rich and leading traditions of doing theology - thinking of all the great centres and universities where I have never been.


The question below refers to Resolutions D025 and C056 which were passed by both houses of the Episcopal Church at GC2009:

CN: Have they got no case at all: is there not the movement of, er, the Holy Spirit - say?

NTW: I'm a scholar of the Bible, right? Look at it, and the Holy Spirit isn't going to contradict his Bible. It is clear in there: one man, one woman, lifelong, and that's where you do the nookie. You ask the Muslims; ask the Jews. They don't go in for all this variation and postmodern invention, and you ask that Winchester woman because gays aren't even gays anymore, like that chap who was my predecessor. Muhammad, take him: he had only one wife; and Jesus kept himself close to his mum and that other woman. The Jews, they worship their women they do. You don't get David playing cushee with Moshe do you? So where else do you get lots of women using the old tickling stick with other women? Witches round the cauldron, that's where. Paganism. That's where you get all that. All these bloggers you get these days too, from over there, all stirring the heretical brew. Paul saw it, you know, and said they had to stop. It was idolatry, like images and saints and too much holy smoke in amongst all the statues and columns and altars. All that Matthew Fox so-called theology and that Pagan woman, what's she called - Hawkstar. Only in America could you get theology like that, which is why I have to make such an effort to sell them my books. You have to occupy the fulcrum. The Episcopal Church doesn't: it is one big Pagan ethic and a Coven has replaced the Covenant we were all preparing and they've just thrown a brick at it.


Those words appear alongside the picture below. I'm puzzled by the picture. Could the gentleman in the picture be our beloved Prior? And who is the woman? Is this some cherchez la femme kind of joke? Adrian is so very learned and clever, that I don't always "get" his references, which is when I tend to make a fool of myself in his comments.


Please help me solve the puzzle, if you can.

24 comments:

  1. Some day, as I stroll through the portrait gallery of a prestigious museum I will nod toward a sketch and say, "I knew this mysterious women when...." And I will, of course, be the envy of all present.

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  2. Paul, Paul, I hope that you read the parody. Isn't the drawing wonderful? I am quite honored. The poor Prior will never recover his reputation.

    Caminante, I confess that I hinted to Adrian that I'd like him to do a drawing of me, and he was kind enough to oblige.

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  3. Reading this "interview" makes me think that some bishops believe they are infallible.

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  4. Марко, Susan beat me to it.

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  5. Congratulations Grandmere! I hope GP is not jealous!

    Are you really a heretic, into idolatry, a pagan AND a follower of Matthew Fox? Way to go Grandmere!! I never would have guessed....

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  6. I expect to see this image on your gravestone, Mimi.

    Bravo, Adrian. Brava, Mimi.

    You are an official member of the Anglican Roge's Gallery.

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  7. Margaret, if NTW says so, then it must be true. I dare not contradict NT.

    Elizabeth, I'm ordering my own gravestone on Monday, in the event that my family might have other ideas and not follow through on my explicit instructions.

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  8. This interview reads like something dreamed up by Nostradamus. But the artwork/illustrations are superb.

    I recognize the Prior from other real photos. The cauldron stirrer pictured with him rings a bell with me, too, but exactly which ding-a-ling I know not for certain.

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  9. Crapaud, could Adrian be a reincarnation of Nostradamus?

    Two Auntees, not more than I love it.

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  10. I just wondered. Did you take the full size image or the lesser blog entry presented one? So I clicked on your image and it is the same size. Remember, on mine, the original is larger: if you click on it first, it 'goes through' to the larger one and then take that one. For making thumbnails, it is better to use something like Irfan View to resample the size down first and in process to allow it to thicken up the lines, perhaps to sharpen a little afterwards. Otherwise lines can 'fragment' more as a smaller size is made by such as the blogging software.

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  11. If you read the originals from NTW, there is in some places a combination of academic lines and throwaway common speech, and then if you read his more popular and media pieces, the throwaway speech gets more violent, and some of his points just don't stand up to any scrutiny. Plus he seems dazzled by postmodernism of any sort.

    The other suggestion was Nazir-Ali, and he is even more complicated, in that some places he writes like a social scientist and others like a demagogue, and the danger of parody is that of racism as he is of Pakistani origin telling the English to look after their culture.

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  12. Mimi - for some reason, I have been getting your comments. The strange thing is that it asks me to publish them. I did note an option to unsubscribe, so I did.

    I confess I don't know what happened. I just hope it stops.

    BTW - this happened once before - at "Fr. Jake's". Maybe its an occasional fluke with Blogspot?

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  13. Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.


    I'd prefer to be a Pagan, than a Purple shirt!!

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  14. Adrian, when I click on the picture at your blog, I can see the large view, but I had a time of it to load any size of it into my computer. Then, when I wanted it to go into my Picasa collection to crop it for the avatar, I had another time of it. It involved having to email the pic to myself as an attachment. I don't even remember what I did to finally get things to work out. I'm not very knowledgeable about fixes when things don't go smoothly on the computer. I just keep trying stuff until something works - or not.

    I've only read articles by Wright, no books. His writing style seems inconsistent. I believe he gets confused as to whether he's Tom or N. T. The recent article in the Times after TEC's GC09 was nonsense and seemed to have been written in a temper tantrum.

    We had one series of his on DVD during our adult Sunday school class, and it was OK. Then, in the next series, his lectures were interspersed with silent movie scenes of Jesus dancing at Cana and hanging out with disreputable types. Wright spoke on and on about Jesus' inclusiveness, and that was too much for me, knowing his views on gays and lesbians, so I dropped out of the class.

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  15. Elizabeth, I can't imagine why you were getting my comments. I didn't sign you up. I suppose that unsubscribing was the right thing to do.

    David G., I wouldn't make a good purple shirt, even though I like to wear the color purple.

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  16. Mimi, Adrian's satires are stunningly brilliant. And +Dunelm lends himself to satire as he's become rather a joke on both sides of the pond, which is really rather sad. Still, for me the high point was you and the good prior.

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  17. And our picture is right alongside the nookie and tickling stick stuff. As I said, the good Prior will never recover his reputation.

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  18. Oh, and thank you, Paul.

    I showed the caricature around after church today.

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  19. You mean the Prior had a reputation BEFORE meeting you? Spill! LOL

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  20. Prior Aelred has a history of hanging out at Fr Jake's community, which attracted all manner of undesirables, and he's an Atriot, which means that he once hung out at Atrios' blog. I don't know if he still does, since I never read the comments there, which often run 400 to a post.

    Here we are talking about the prior, while he's not around. I emailed him about the drawing, but I haven't heard back.

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