My Dear Flock
The main ingredient today is based around a fantastic pope. Add generous amounts of the poor, invisible and indispensable. The sort of people who are certainly not invited on Thought For The Day.
Sprinkle with just a hint of blessing, inter-dependence, care and kindness.
Add a generous dressing of reality, repentance, justice and forgiveness.
Serve on a bed of relationship, dignity and value, in our households, our neighbourhoods, our cities and our regions, our nation and the world.
Add a side of hope, wonder, love and gratitude with the gift of creation (but carefully remove the creation of viruses first).
And that is my diverse and beautiful word salad for you this morning. Join me at half past eight for an extended list of absolutely gorgeous words in this otherwise wicked, secular, hedonistic radio programme.
Platitude of the Day 
Nailed it, Rev Peter.
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Indeed! Nothing to add.
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What selfish stupidity and what a sickening contrast … the Arch of Cant with all his ostentatious lurid in your face finery and dangerous but useless hospital chaplaining speaks of the invisible but essential hospital workers. Why does he have to go into his local hospital and poke his conk in when he should be staying well away so not to risk contaminating the place? He really should stay away. His presence there is not necessary at all. Indeed he is putting the invisible at risk. And when he goes back to Lambeth palace he may well spread the virus to his staff. Blithering idiot. And why does he feel the need to tell us all of his ‘unasked for voluntary hospital chaplaincy work’. What am I to think? “Oh well done Justin you have just cross infected dozens of people, some of who are the invisible front line, just to get some media exposure for yourself”. I would have some respect for the fool if he did something of real import like making a financial donation for the supply of PPE … lets say a sum of GBP10EE6. A sum of money that the CoE could easily afford. Or set up PPE manufacturing facilities in a few churches. Now that would be really useful and bring a lot of publicity for the CoE and Welby personally. Good grief. He could roll up at the manufacturing sites and bless each box of face masks with a photographer in tow.
What an idiot. And all this from a man who openly admits that he sometimes finds it hard to maintain his belief in god. Credulous fool. The unspeakable compromising the essential. The grim reaper in a dog collar.
And he has to broadcast his stupidity to the nation. The man is out of touch and should be harshly and publicly admonished. He should go and do something useful like eradicating child rapists from his church and doing something positive about the racism deeply rooted in his organisation.
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Like all other self-important religious moralists, Justin Welby never, ever tells us exactly what we have to do to promote ‘equality’, ‘respect’, ‘justice’, and all the other components of the word-salad that the Rev Dr has lampooned so accurately. I would have more respect for him if he actually set out some practical things we should be doing, even if I didn’t agree with them. On the other hand, he is never reluctant to tell us all that we must repent, seek and offer forgiveness, and resolve to make our lives better – usually by being grateful to his IMF and abasing ourselves before it.
I’m all for doing things differently, but I’m damned if I’m going to put on the sackcloth and ashes that he wants to thrust at us all. And of course it’s not a one-off: if you call yourself a Christian, even a born-again one, you have to repent, grovel and plead for forgiveness over and over again, for the rest of your life. The whole cult is an insult to human dignity and self-respect.
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Exactly. There were a lot of concepts Christians like to think they invented, but nothing about what people would do in practice.
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A hedonistic radio programme eh? Welby might think that assertion to be true. But here is the thing.
A hedonistic person is committed to seeking sensual pleasure — the type of guy you might find in a massage parlor or at an all-you-can-eat buffet … or even someone who says he believes in a patently absent godly absurdity and who openly states that everyone else should too. And claims that all those that dont will not receive salvation nor be rewarded with some ill defined everlasting nice post death existence. To me that is someone who likes to indulge in his fantasies and who gets a extreme pleasure in telling others to do the same. Add to that a pecadillo for trying to control the sex lives of others, claiming that sex is sinful unless between opposite sex couples shackled together at a ceremony led by him or one of his clerics. Then on top of all that add a sinister desire to dress up in the most questionable ostentatious finery replete with silly hat, over embellished crozier in hand and enormous cross around the neck. And administering ceremonies to credulous, albeit dwindling, groups of admiring adherents. I think I can argue that the Arch of Cant is more than a little hedonistic. I mean. He cant be in it for the money can he? He could earn a stack more as an oil executive. No, Welby loves what he does and loves the adulation, access to the establishment and the recognition. He loves the free passes into places where he can ponce about at will even if it means putting the lives of others at risk. In that respect I put him on a par with the incorrigable and egregious Mr D Cummings except of course that Cummings would love to be unseen in the background unlike Welby who is not happy unless he is basking in the warm glow of public attention and easy publicity.
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This was no ordinary word salad – this was an ABofC word salad.
Mmm, what a divine, luscious, enticing sales pitch – how can you resist?
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What do religious people mean when they say the word hedonistic? My guess is that is how they would describe anyone who was just living life to the full. To the rest of us it means the unbridled pursuit of pleasure, probably involving a certain amount of debauchery. You really do only get one go at life. All religious talk about the afterlife is just an empty fantasy. I think that you have a duty to make it the best life that you can and to help those around you to do the same.
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