"The manna stopped the day after..." (Joshua 5:12)

Carried ever so faintly upon the breeze this morning was a strange keening sound: the cry of a Mercedes dealer somewhere in Nigeria wailing. Turning my head in a slightly different direction brought a different lament: that of a Ugandan property developer heartbroken at learning plans for an impressive diocesan mansion and “ministry complex” had been cancelled.

In fact all through the rest of today I could hear songs of misery arising from the far-flung corners of the GAFCON empire: the kind of deep grief only heard when snouts are being wrenched from the trough, and I can’t deny than an uneasiness began developing in my wise and righteous spirit.

Finally now all has just now been revealed to me in a missive from an inmate of the charming concentration camp known as Sydney Anglicanism. It seems the world’s recent economic unpleasantries have not so much touched little Peter Jensen’s domain as beaten it about the head with a stick.

Naturally little Peter’s serfs and relatives are doing all they can to keep this a secret, but the world’s richest diocese is about to start auctioning off the silverware after losing a paltry $68 million (Yes, you read that amount correctly, and No, there’s not going to be any punch line involving somebody’s late husband and the need to confidentially transfer it out of an Ivory Coast bank) in the kind of transactions for which Lehman Brothers shall go down in history.

What’s more, the impeccably-bred evangelical investment advisor responsible for the Jensen family-firm's decision to invest heavily in such sure-things as the U.S. sub-prime market appears to have been summarily relocated to “other ministry areas”, which is normally a subtle code for work involving the mining of salt, or locating land-mines with a bicycle pump and a few lengths of elastic.

All of which means, of course, that the rain of Sydney-scented manna which has thus far fallen upon the global faithful is about to dry up for good. Little Pete’s bond-servants (or “clergy” as they’re known elsewhere) have been told to forget about any additional funding in the coming year, and to instead prepare themselves for a big increase in future franchise fees parish assessments. Meanwhile a certain former son of Sydney now causing much mischief in Canada reportedly found a recent trip to drum up funding for his forthcoming legal battle to retain parish property far less rewarding than he had hoped, and doubtless more than a few lawyers for ACNE (or whatever the new not-a-province is called) will also find the well a lot shallower than they’d been led to believe. And what’s the bet Big Pete Akinola starts spending a lot less time at the pointy end of a plane?

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.