Category Archives: Humour

Homicidal pews

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An old friend of mine, Martin Jackson, is a vicar in the north of England, and blogs about life in his parish. This is in the diocese of Durham, so he recently had the honour of having his photo taken with the diocesan bishop N.T. Wright.

Today Martin has blogged on Dealing with homicidal pews. This sounds an improbable subject, but he reports the following exchange as genuinely overheard:

… an example of congregational nostalgia, implicit in an objection raised to the removal of a church pew: “Someone died in that pew.” To which the parish priest had replied, “Then it had better go before it kills someone else.” At which another priest leapt to her feet and shouted, “Let me have it – I can put it to good use in my parish….”

I’m glad that my church‘s building, dating from 1971, has never had pews. The mediaeval parish church (which is by the way where Lorenza and I are to be married – the date is now set for 24th October) had pews when I worshipped there, nearly 25 years ago now, but they were taken out and replaced with nice chairs about ten years ago.

John 21: Peter as Jesus' friend

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Bill Heroman has just concluded a heroic series of twelve posts in just over a week putting forward A New Take on John 21 (this link is to the final summary post; the individual posts are preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10). I am not convinced by some of this, such as his argument that this encounter by the beach took place at Tiberias and that Jesus and Peter actually spoke in Greek (actually that was in an earlier post by Bill). But I do find his main conclusion about their conversation rather persuasive, even if I have to say that it was crafted into its surviving Greek form by John rather than being a precise record of Greek words spoken by Jesus and Peter.

I have heard two main lines of interpretation of the conversation about love, and why in the Greek text Jesus uses agapao in his first two questions to Peter, and phileo only in his third, whereas Peter always answers with phileo. One interpretation is that agapao is a strong word for “love” and phileo is a weak word, and so Peter is committing himself only to a lower level of love than Jesus is looking for. The other interpretation is that no distinction is to be made between agapao and phileo, that this is merely stylistic variation.

Into this debate rides Bill Heroman with a radically new proposal, based on pre-Christian Greek usage, that in this context (before the Christian concept of agape love was fully developed, on his hypothesis) phileo is the strong word for “love”, the committed love between friends, and agapao is the weak word, referring to doing favours. More specifically, Jesus’ first two questions “Do you love me?” (agapao) would have been understood as “Will you do something for me?”, whereas Peter’s reply “I love you” (phileo) would have meant “I am your friend”, alluding back to John 15:14-15 and implying “Of course, I will do anything for you, my friend”. Then Jesus’ continuing questioning, especially the final question “Do you love me?” (phileo), would have been his probing of the genuineness and depth of Peter’s friendship.

This seems quite convincing to me. It also implies an interesting take on the call to Christian discipleship, on whether we who call ourselves friends of God (John 15:14-15, cf. James 2:23) are actually prepared to do what he asks us to do. Does anyone have any constructive, or other, criticism of this proposal?

Bill also recently told this wonderful joke, especially for maths geeks like him and me:

One day Jesus began teaching The Kingdom of Heaven is like 3x squared plus 8x minus 9.

The disciples began to wonder about this until Peter said, I’ll bet this is another one of his parabolas.

N.T. Wrong is also alive!

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Sorry for a long break in my activity here. My life has been getting busy in directions not connected with blogging. This also means that I have stopped keeping up with developments on the Todd Bentley story.

There has been one interesting area of ongoing activity on this blog: the comment thread on my post Jesus is alive! Last year the pseudonymous pseudo-bishop N.T. Wrong amused the biblioblog world for several months with his blog, and he was interviewed by Jim West as Blogger of the Month for February 2009.  But then in that same month his blog abruptly disappeared, or more precisely became “protected” and so inaccessible.

At the time Wrong’s resurrection or parousia was predicted. What bibliobloggers have predicted as in a glass darkly, I now openly proclaim to you: N.T. Wrong is alive! He has appeared here at Gentle Wisdom, not just once but in no less than six comments. True to form and showing that this really is the Wrong we know and love, he has been arguing against my contention that Jesus is alive. But at least he has demonstrated one thing: that N.T. Wrong is alive.

By the way, for anyone still interested in his identity, Wrong is still using a UK e-mail address, but is currently commenting from an IP address neither in Illinois nor in Australia, as previously reported, but in Los Angeles.

The substance of my conversation with Wrong has been interesting. I started by suggesting that the only people who continued to deny the resurrection of Jesus, after examining the evidence thoroughly, were those who held philosophical presuppositions that resurrection was impossible. Wrong objected to this, claiming that he had no such presuppositions but still rejected the resurrection. The grounds he gave for doing so were that he rejected the gospel accounts of the resurrection as much later additions.

At this point I shifted my position a little. I allowed that while he might not personally presuppose that the resurrection could not happen he was relying on the work of scholars, such as those of the Jesus Seminar, who base their rejection of the gospel accounts on this very presupposition. At first Wrong seemed to accept this. But then he objected when I wrote:

I do not accept that there are good arguments for the general unreliability of the gospel traditions, only weak arguments like those of the Jesus Seminar which are based on presuppositions that miracles cannot happen.

Wrong objected to this, citing as evidence a claim that he himself does not rely on presuppositions. Wrong! Or possibly not. Here is my latest, somewhat ironic, comment on this claim to be free of presuppositions:

N.T., I don’t say that you personally rely on presuppositions. But I do say you give credence to arguments for the unreliability of the gospel accounts which depend on the work of people with presuppositions. Well, of course we all have presuppositions and often rely on them, except of course for one honourable exception being yourself. I suppose a made-up online persona might just be able to be free from what is common to all humanity, even our sinless Lord Jesus.

But since there is no one else whose arguments you can trust, I presume you do all your work from primary sources and first principles. I look forward to your presupposition-free (and bibliography-free) magnum opus proving the unreliability of the gospels and the falsity of the resurrection accounts. Until I read and am convinced I will continue to believe in the gospels and the resurrection.

Twitter Church

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Elder Eric of Tominthebox News Network reports on the world’s first Twitter Church, inevitably based in Southern California. The pastor has never met any of his congregation, but keeps in touch with them only through Twitter updates – which, for those of us not already in the know, seems to be the latest fad which has taken over from blogging and Facebook. The pastor says:

I now share with people all the time. I update my Twitter status at least 4 times per hour. Sundays are when things really get special. I now have a group of people that all watch and read as I update my status repeatedly on Sundays from 11 AM to noon. During that hour, I send hymns and sermon notes via Twitter. We also text on our cells during that time. Last week one person even got saved. Although I don’t know who he is or where he lives exactly, I’m thrilled to add one more to the Kingdom.

April Fool? It’s always 1st April at TBNN. But, as a commenter predicts, very likely there will be such a church soon if there isn’t already. Indeed some of my blogging and Facebook friends are already using Twitter updates (which I receive only through Facebook) to report important news in the Christian world. Is a Twitter church the logical next step? Could this be a valid expression of church? I wonder!

Following 7,000

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The irrepressible David Ker, in a post simply entitled 7000, has tried to start up an outrageous meme which has the potential of overrunning the whole Internet with mindless drivel, if the people he tags do what he asks them to do. In the spirit of brotherly love, and since the world might be a better place if the Internet collapses, I will obey his instructions to the letter. Indeed I am copying his whole post just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. 😉

Lingamish has reached a milestone of 7,000 comments on this blog. Gone are the days of badinage and flapdoodle. Hyperbole has given way to humdrum. But 7K is a pretty good sized number.

In honor of this momentous event I’ve decided to make the technorati rank of all my commenters who have blogs soar into the stratosphere. This is like a chain letter. You musn’t break it or we will all get mad at you. I have arbitrarily chosen ten of the most recent commenters on my blog and shown them below. Each of them must copy this entire list into a post on their own blog and add then more of their own commenters. The result is going to be huge amounts of link love.

  1. http://benbyerly.wordpress.com/
  2. http://qaya.org/blog/
  3. truthinministry.org
  4. oliverstegen.net
  5. heissufficient.com
  6. discipuluscripturae.wordpress.com/
  7. http://jwest.wordpress.com/
  8. evepheso.wordpress.com
  9. catchingbeauty.wordpress.com
  10. ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com

OK, everybody, include this list in your post and tag ten other commenters on your blog. What better way to thank all these nice people that make us feel so happy by leaving comments on our blogs?

P.S. The last time I did this someone broke the chain after two weeks and the very next day was torn limb from limb by hyenas. I kid you not. So don’t risk it. Instead let the blessings flow…

Or am I doing this because I am afraid of the hyenas? There aren’t too many here in England, but I’ll stay well away from Mozambique just in case.

Note that I do not endorse the blogs listed above, some of which I have not read and some of which I have read too much of. Here is my list of ten blogs of those recently commenting on my posts – again, I am not endorsing these sites, some of which I don’t know well, but I am omitting some which I prefer not to link to, or which are Lingamish:

  1. Rahab’s Place
  2. Obscene Beauty
  3. The Road to “Elder” ado
  4. iamhealed.net
  5. Friends’ Meeting House
  6. The Sundry Times
  7. This I do…
  8. New Epistles
  9. Seeking His Face
  10. jon sidnell

Interestingly few of these are among the regular circle of bibliobloggers and Anglican and Methodist pastors whose blogs I read regularly. Not all blog regularly, but there are some gems to be found here.

Meanwhile, please comment here! I am just 55 comments short of Lingamish’s 7,000 mark, that’s counting approved comments only (are you counting the same, David?). That’s 6,945 comments on 690 posts (I’m sure Lingamish has more posts than that). Just one more push, perhaps another outrageous post about Todd Bentley, and I can ease past him!

The Father Chaplin brothers?

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My readers are surely familiar with Father Doug Chaplin who blogs at Metacatholic (but has just hinted that he might stop – please don’t, Doug, your blog is great!). They may not be quite so familiar with Father Vsevolod Chaplin, although he has been described as a “heavyweight” in his own church. These two are brothers in the priesthood (even if they don’t officially recognise this), the first in the Church of England and of the Anglo-Catholic variety (hence “Father”), the second in the Russian Orthodox Church.

One looks inoffensive, the other scary. Which is which, do you think? But perhaps it is just because in Russia, unlike in the west, it is not traditional to smile during formal photos. Friends have joked that this is because in England and North America we say “cheese” when our photos are taken, which makes us smile, but in Russia they say “syr”, with the same meaning, which can be pronounced properly only with a face like the one on the right above.

I thank Vara for bringing to my attention the second Fr Chaplin, in comments at Voice of Stefan starting here. See also the discussion in the following comments. Vara has blogged about Fr Vsevolod several times, most recently here, and it is her picture of him I have included above. His first name means “Ruler of all” in old Russian, but presumably this is not intended as a blasphemous claim; rather he was named after several ancient Russian rulers.

As Vara commented at Voice of Stefan, the Russian Chaplin doesn’t seem to be scary in real life, as he is quite a humorist. Like Vara I loved his commandments of post-christian paganism, despite the less than perfect translation and the same scary photo provided by the renowned Interfax news agency. And like Esteban I laughed at his jokes, especially this one which could give a glimpse at the eternal destiny of the other Fr Chaplin:

An Anglican bishop, a righteous man, dies. St. Peter greets him in Paradise and shows him around the Hell.
– Here we have murderers, blasphemers, here are robbers. Here are those who sinned against their confession. Here are Orthodox who did not observe their fasts, here are Catholics who criticized the Pope, here are Baptists who did not read the Bible.
– Do you have any Anglicans?
– Yes, we have one…
– What did he do? (Anglicans are known for their liberal treatment of dogmas and church practice.)
– He did not know how to hold a knife and a fork in the right way.

(Updated 09/03/2011 with a new photo of Doug Chaplin because the old one had disappeared.)

Another Kirk on the church

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Not long ago I quoted Andrew Kirk on Mission Under Scrutiny. Now I will quote another namesake; ASBO Jesus puts these words in the mouth of Captain Kirk of Star Trek on arriving in a church:

What is… this… alien place… with it’s… strange… customs… and ways?

Follow the link to see his crew’s responses, starting of course with:

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it. …

Tominthebox gives news of Todd Bentley

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Tominthebox News Network announces in its usual satirical style that Todd Bentley is returning to revival ministry, but using a “Probationary Podium” to keep his feet on the ground!

One thing in this report does seem to be true: the Lakeland Outpouring has officially ended, just over six months after it started in April. Ignited Church in Lakeland kept the nightly meetings going in their own building even after Todd left in August. But their website now says:

Welcome to the Ignited Church, the epicenter of the Lakeland Outpouring. It began April 2, 2008, and continued through October 12, 2008.

The Live Parrot Sketch

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Anyone of my age here in England will certainly remember the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, starring Michael Palin and John Cleese. If you have never seen it, you really must. You can find it on YouTube: Dead Parrot Sketch – there is more of it in this version than I had remembered.

Today (thanks to Matt Wardman and David Keen‘s sidebar for the link) John Cleese appears in a new sketch, in fact more of an interview, this time about a live parrot. As there were problems with Matt’s attempt to embed this, here is a link to YouTube: Live Parrot Sketch. This is in fact John Cleese’s take on the other Palin, Sarah. Among other things he says:

I used to think Michael Palin was the funniest Palin ever …

She’s basically learned certain speeches. And she does them very well, she’s got a very good memory. But it’s like a nice looking parrot, because the parrot speaks beautifully, and kind of says “Aw, shucks” every now and again, but doesn’t really have any understanding of the meaning of the words that it is producing, even though it’s producing them very accurately …

And the truth is that Sarah Palin is no way good enough … [In Europe] you probably wouldn’t find 5% who think she is good enough to run the United States. And she’s running as the partner of a 72-year-old cancer survivor. I mean, Monty Python could have written it.

By the way, Cleese is not politically naive: he has been a long term supporter of the Liberal Democrats (the party I am a member of) here in the UK.

Now I am not sure that the media have been fair to Sarah Palin. I stand by my initial impression of her as a small town politician with integrity and a genuine Christian faith.

I think Sarah Palin was right to insist that an allegedly violent state trooper, accused of

using a Taser on his stepson, drinking beer in his patrol car, illegally shooting a moose and threatening his former father-in-law

should have been fired, if the allegations were true. It was quite wrong and morally reprehensible for Walter Monegan to rely on the argument

He didn’t do anything under my watch to result in termination

to wash his hands of the fact that what Trooper Wooten allegedly did when off duty should have led to him being fired. The way in which Palin intervened was of course unwise, but this is the way things are done in small towns.

Nevertheless I agree with John Cleese that “Sarah Palin is no way good enough … to run the United States”. Experience of running a small town is just not relevant. McCain may have thought he was making a smart move, but it looks like it has backfired on him.