Subject: Tories appropriating Xtianity and Lamby the NZ sheep Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 11:18:00 +0100 > I'm a bit partial to the "Can I be a Christian environmentalist?" bit > myself. (For those blissfully unaware, the answer is apparently "no".) That bit was truly great - what do they have as bumper stickers? "Emissions missionaries for Jesus"? > There seems to be a burgeoning movement online to portray the King James > Version as the only true anglais translation of the christian bible - > there's many virulent attacks that I've seen targeted against any other > version - especially my favorite one (the New Revised Standard Version), > since it has the goddamn audacity to use gender neutral language where > the original hebrew, aramaic, and greek uses such nonspecific terms. I hadn't realised - the NRSV seems to be used here by most anglicans, don't know about the catholics. I'm not really fussed about the King James Version - years ago though when I was in church with my first [Irish catholic] girl friend, I used to like the mass in Latin, and I get quite nostalgic about that. I had to go to some university quality assurance meeting in Gloucester the other day - got there early and wandered round the cathedral. The tour guides were doing the big effigies and the obvious stuff [William the Conqueror's son is entombed there for eg], but the thing I found most moving was a little plaque from about 1600 tacked onto a wall which started "Siste Gradum" - Cease your step - then urged the travellor to read , and went on in heart-rending prose to bewail the loss of this bloke's wife at 24 years of age. "I could have borne it if you'd died old and we'd had time together" was the theme. Sounded great in Latin - quite poetic and a real lament. Pity only a few dozen a year read it, I guess. > I'll trade you your diocese for our Southern Baptists. Please? They've > now taken to converting every other religious group via special outreach > programs. Particularly jewish folk. I kid you not. > > joshua h > http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com This site is great - I love the bit on The Avebury Stones matching some rocks on Mars. Last time I was in Avebury standing by the stones, I felt strangely drawn to gaze into the sky - damn Lucifer! More seriously, the Tory party here is attempting to annex the nicer forms of Xtianity. There are lots of successful community projects being run by churches here, which tend to be grass roots things. The Tories are claiming now that "we can learn" from these projects, which I take to mean probably cut welfare and/or bureaucratise independent initiatives and try to take credit. They've been talking to your Xtian Republicans but are aware that there isn't the fundie vote in large enough quantities here. Andy
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