Anointings and Blessings - An Anglican Overview

Tom, one of my wise young Facebook friends, recently suggested I teach upon the subject of the various “Holiness Anointings”. After all the recent fossicking around little Peter Jensen’s domain at the bottom of the world I’ve begun feeling like some sort Anglican proctologist, so given the current attention being paid to some of these “Third Wave Blessings” this seems an excellent time for us to shift our focus onto a different spiritual orifice.

Currently the best known of these movements is, of course the Holy Laughter Anointing, of which Sarah Palin is the best known practitioner, but there’s actually a whole raft of these wonderful ways of separating the theologically gullible from their money. Readers may well remember the Toronto Blessing, but sadly few within the Anglican Communion are aware of the fine example of spurious leadership established by the Golden Sword Prophesy. This marvellous tool for manipulating one’s congregation is also often referred to as the “Warrior Anointing”, and causes the recipient to begin swinging their clasped hands violently around in the air, as if they are wielding a two-edged sword, or perhaps in the mosh pit at a Limp Bizkit show. An eminently practical gift, it’s precisely what the Christians need if we’re ever going to do something in Jesus’ name about global suffering, infant mortality, or human rights.

Then again, there's also the Deborah Anointing, although whether this actually exists or was just made up by some Republican willing to say anything in order to get his fellow wingnuts to vote for McCain is debatable. Personally I suspect the latter, as it distinctly reminds of
the Bathsheba Anointing I once invented to liven up a boring party. Mind you, that worked, so one can hardly blame him for trying. And let none who ever frequented the much lamented Father Jake's forget the most satisfying Breaker Anointing

Yet while these are all primarily Pentecostal or Baptist phenomena, there also exists a multitude of distinctly Anglican equivalents. Best known of these is the Duncan Anointing, causing delusions of grandeur accompanied by the instantaneous sprouting of spectacular clumps of hair above the eyes. Lesser known, but much sought after by the young ladies of Consuella’s Latina Pole-Dancers Fellowship, as well as by the finely muscled lads attending seminary with Brother Richthofen, is the contrasting Venables Blessing, which causes body hair to disappear, leaving a sultry silky smoothness otherwise only attainable by hours of painful depilation. One must, however, be extremely careful in seeking this latter anointing; too much and a person – or even their entire diocese – can vanish forever.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.