HOW TO MOUNT A COUP

In his post titled "How to mount a successful coup in Anglicanism" at Not the Same Stream Paul Bagshaw reminds us that there have always been theological conflicts in the church. I offer 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 as an example of an early controversy amongst Christians:

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

We Christians quarreled amongst ourselves from earliest days. We quarreled throughout our history over two thousand years. In the midst of our present Anglican controversies, Paul reminds us that it was ever thus.

Along with being ever-present, church conflicts are complicated. In five sections and a conclusion, Paul explores both the distinctive and the common characteristics of church conflicts as related to the present controversy in the Anglican Communion.

Since Paul's words on the second characteristic of staging a coup struck me with force, I quote them here.

Second, select your focal point
Because of this complexity, the occasion of conflict is often a relatively small matter, perhaps the actions or teaching of a particular individual. Conflicts take the form of synecdoche in which small matters encapsulate and represent much greater underlying differences.

Homosexuality is a synecdoche for the big things in conflict. It was deliberately chosen (at least in the UK) as a battle ground because it united conservatives, and especially evangelical conservatives, who had been deeply divided over the ordination of women. It is an emblematic issue of the US's culture wars.

I'm not just now learning of the complexity of conflicts and that what we see on the surface does not tell the whole story, but I had an "Ah ha!" moment when I read Paul's words. The strands came together in my mind in relation to the Anglican conflicts as they had not previously, and I said, "Oh yes!".

Now please read the post in its entirety.

HATE SPEECH OUT OF ARKANSAS

From Max Brantley at the Arkansas Blog in the Arkansas Times:

A timely announcement from the U.S. Education Department yesterday. It says school districts that fail to protect gay students can lose federal dollars.

The letter said schools “must take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment and its effects, and prevent the harassment from recurring.”

I'd hope that the Midland, Ark. School District would conclude that "eliminating any hostile environment" would include an explanation/apology from School Board member Clint McCance, whose Facebook page wished death to gay kids and who vowed to run off any gay kids in "his vicinity." Also called for would be a rejection of such a view by other members of the School Board and an assurance from the school superintendent that such a hostile view isn't tolerated in the schools. I should add that if it develops that McCance's words and feelings are exactly as they seem to have been expressed, of course he should resign from the School Board.

Exactly! A school board member who would post such a hateful language must go, and the sooner, the better.

UPDATE: I reached McCance on his cell phone this morning. "I really can't comment right now," he said. He said he planned a meeting with a lawyer this morning and didn't want to say anything further until he'd had that meeting. He did comment that the matter had "been blown out of proportion." He said he'd received several hundred phone calls. Did he regret the comments on the Facebook page? "I can't comment on that right now." He promised an update after the meeting with a lawyer. "I have a family to consider," he said.

Too bad McCance didn't think of his family before posting such venom on his Facebook site. Before he writes or says anything further, he needs expert legal advice or the affair will be further "blown out of proportion". Hate speech is hate speech.

From WYNT:

"The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and is dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook," the department said.

Thanks to Arkansas Hillbilly for sending the link.

REMEMBER HOLLYWOOD SQUARES?

Speaking of Paul Lynde, whom Counterlight mentioned in the comments to my post below on Ernie and Bert:

Q. Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?
A. Paul Lynde: Loneliness!
(The audience laughed so long and so hard it took up almost 15 minutes of the show!)

Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A. Rose Marie: No wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q. In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say 'I Love You'?
A. Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.

Q. What are 'Do It,' 'I Can Help,' and 'I Can't Get Enough'?
A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next apartment.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.

Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A.. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

I posted only half of the Q&As because of the short attention spans of a great many of my readers. More to come, courtesy of Ann Fontaine.

ERNIE AND BERT ARE NOT GAY

So say the producers of "Sesame Street". Cathy and I thought y'all would want to know.

From PinkNews:

Rumours have circulated for years that Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie are in a relationship and now Bert has hinted at it on Twitter.

Bert, who shares a bed with Ernie, wrote on the Sesame Street Twitter feed during Pride season that his hair was “mo” – a slang word for gay.

Comparing his trademark mohawk to that of A-Team character Mr. T, Bert said: “The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.’”
....

However, show producers poured cold water on hopes of a puppet gay icon.

Oh, and I love this:

In 1994, Reverend Joseph Chambers, a Pentecostal minister from North Carolina, tried to have Bert and Ernie banned under state sodomy laws.

“Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom,” he railed. “They share clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics.”

Puppets banned under sodomy laws? Seems a stretch to me.

I haven't watched "Sesame Street" in a while, but I seem to remember Ernie and Bert sleeping in twin beds. Of course, I could be wrong.

Image from Wikipedia.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RANT

My American readers, just in case you don't know, election time approaches. Yesterday, I linked to Doxy's rant. Today I give you Allison Hantschel's rant in Siren Magazine:

I am sending the entire U.S. electorate and all its politicians to bed without supper.

I mean it this time. No more counting to three, no more giving time-outs and believing promises from voters that they’ll be really, really good this time and not hit their sisters. I am down to my last nerve, and you’re all getting on it. So keep it up if you want to miss Chicken Strip/Pizza Night and be hungry until breakfast. Don’t test me. I’m in no mood.
....

The stupidity seems to be spreading. Breeding. Like mold. Democrats have decided that since they’re going to lose seats in the House anyway, they might as well do it in the most cowardly fashion possible, and they’re running away from the president and their own party as fast as they can. Because that worked so well in 1994. And 1996. And 1998. And 2000. I was in high school in the 1990s and my political instincts then told me it was unwise to dump your friends the minute the cool kids decided those friends weren’t cool. Not only does it not make the cool kids like you, but pretty much everybody thinks you’re a gutless asshole, and now you don’t have any friends. Nevertheless, Democrats persist in thinking voters will love them, if only they protest that they’re not really Democrats.
....

In case everybody hasn’t noticed while they’re busy attending to their personal traumas, the earth is caving in. Unemployment is above 9 percent. We’re still fighting two wars. Large numbers of homes are in foreclosure, food is only getting more expensive, it’s about to get cold when more families than ever are homeless, the eggs are full of salmonella, and Johnny Knoxville is getting paid to make movies. This is no time to hand over the reins of government to batshit crazy people who hear voices from God telling them to run things. This is no time to take politics so lightly that we can acquiesce to being run by Tea Party nutbars who think the Black Panthers are about to take over the world.

Go Allison! Of course, Allison (aka Athenae, ranter-in-chief at First Draft) doesn't need my goading to launch into a Class I rant. The woman just has it in her.

Blue Dog Democrats are the only kind who are ever elected in my Gret Stet of Loosiana, and it drives me crazy. Sadly, a good many Democrats in the rest of the country seem to be following their lead in campaigning under the name of Democrat, while distancing themselves from the president and the Democratic Party. Might it not be better to have an honest Republican holding office? Then we'd know whom to blame or praise.

JESUS AND MO - WHY?

As usual, click on the strip for the larger view.

From Jesus and Mo.

PRAY FOR HAITI THAT CHOLERA DOES NOT SPREAD

From Reuters:

The rate of deaths in Haiti's cholera epidemic slowed on Monday as a multinational medical operation scaled up to limit the spread of an outbreak that has killed 259 people in the earthquake-hit country.

Despite initial encouraging signs of a decrease in the week-old outbreak's lethality, Haitian and international health authorities warned they were still preparing for the deadly diarrheal disease to extend further before it was controlled.

"A nationwide outbreak with tens of thousands of cases is a real possibility," the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement.
....

After several days in which fatalities had numbered dozens each day, only six cholera deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours in the main outbreak region of Artibonite in central Haiti, bringing total deaths to 259. Confirmed cases rose to 3,342, compared with 3,015 a day ago, health authorities said.

Pray that the cholera epidemic does not spread further, especially to the tent cities in and around Port-au-Prince, where those who lost their homes in the earthquake are living.

A Prayer for Haiti

by Josh Thomas

O Father of the poor and Mother of the oppressed: Enfold in your arms the suffering people of Haiti. Comfort those in mourning; relieve those in pain; give shelter to the homeless and hope to those in despair. Feed your people, O God, with bread both earthly and divine, and give them your water and wine. Help them bury the dead, nurse the sick and wounded, and raise their faith and dignity, for they are some of your dearest children. Proclaim your truth that this vibrant, creative nation still shines as a beacon of freedom throughout the Americas. And help the people of Haiti, with the nations of the world, to rebuild their colorful land in the image of your Son Jesus Christ, who knows our suffering because he took our mortal pain into his body on the Cross, then rose again to live and reign with you and the Holy Comforter. Amen.

From The Daily Office.

UPDATE: Please consider giving to your favorite charity to help the people of Haiti. If you have no favorite, I suggest Episcopal Relief and Development. The organization provides excellent aid in Haiti and operates on very low overhead, so that nearly all of your donation goes toward actual help for those who are in need.

UPDATE 2: From the comments, Caminante adds:

Anyone wanting to contribute to this for now can send a cheque made out to the DFMS (Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church) with Haitian Initiative in the memo line.

Also Pure Water for the World, a 501 c 3 foundation run by a member of the congregation I serve has been working madly in Haiti to get inexpensive but good water filters out.

PLEASE PRAY FOR JCF AND HIS FRIEND CATHY

From JCF:

First and foremost, for my friend Cathy (Stage 4 Lung Cancer, been fighting for 2 years). She's not doing well, and her indomitable spirit seems to be dimming. Please pray she is comforted (strengthened!).

(A distant) second: Yours Truly has a

{believe it or not!}

job interview on Thursday (it's at 8:30AM, so please pray Night Owl JCF is fully awake, and ready to impress the nice people at the {SPL} what a good, ridiculously over-educated, grunge-worker I can be. It's grunge-work that COULD turn into something much better, however, so I don't just see this as a survival job.) Prayers mucho appreciated!

Thanks,
JCF

From OCICBW.

ZOMBIES ARE COMING

Q. How do you know a zombie is tired?
A. He's dead on his feet.

Q. What do little zombies play?
A. Corpses and Robbers.

Q. What did the zombie get a medal for?
A. Deadication.

Q. What's a zombie say when he gets a letter from his girlfriend?
A. It's a dead-letter day.

Q. Where do zombies go for cruises?
A. The Deaditerranean Sea.

Q. What did the zombie's friend say when he introduced him to his girlfriend?
A. Good grief! Where did you dig her up from?

Q. What do you call a zombie in a belfry?
A. A dead ringer.

Are these groaners so bad that they're good?

If not, don't blame me. Blame Doug.

RIGHTEOUS RAGE

Doxy expresses Righteous Rage, and I don't blame her. I become frustrated and angry at the same injustices.

I am angry about people who promise the moon and have no intention of delivering. I am particularly angry about people who do this while asking for my money and my time/vote.

I am angry about a society that puts profits before people, and actually rewards the robbers while it throws people out of their homes into the streets. I am angry at the selfishness of those who "have"--determined to deny their fellow citizens a decent standard of living and some security because it might mean they have to give up some frills in their lives.

I am furious with people who have the power to help others--and refuse to do it.

Do read the rest of Doxy's post, which serves as a mirror for us to see ourselves and what we have become in these sorry times.