tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32246713396600116522024-02-20T22:26:54.539-08:00GAFCONGod and Father Christian: Obscuring NothingThe Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.comBlogger628125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-75380731594842730092017-01-11T16:12:00.002-08:002017-01-11T16:12:27.264-08:00A Gilded Clarification<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik21Ox8d_DQI1M13Nft0V1hiPqZhVsaFCfZErCin7klwS-4D1VJSiWFcTOgnhAAUfNWoKMkhVWgjl_cYCwJuV1cRjfwrVt6o_oOCt83Ciw1LnGe_C-KDOXBbcVwEVH6VJG92qpOp72WN4/s1600/canstockphoto2809138.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik21Ox8d_DQI1M13Nft0V1hiPqZhVsaFCfZErCin7klwS-4D1VJSiWFcTOgnhAAUfNWoKMkhVWgjl_cYCwJuV1cRjfwrVt6o_oOCt83Ciw1LnGe_C-KDOXBbcVwEVH6VJG92qpOp72WN4/s320/canstockphoto2809138.jpg" width="213" height="320" /></a></div>
I’m afraid the prurient godless liberal media have been at it again, publishing <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/golden-shower-gate-latest-russia-has-audio-video-donald-trumps-alleged-sex-acts-2474008">Slavic mistruths</a> about the people’s Dear Leader. Normally when confronted with such lewd filth I simply turn my back on it, preferring to concentrate on matters more profitable to My Ministry. But this time, Beloved Sinners, for the sake of your spiritual well-being I’m forced to respond without delay.
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The Bible has, like most things, a great deal to say about urination: by My count there are five references (Google them for yourselves – your colleagues and the good-for-nothings in the IT dept. deserve the ensuing mirth when they discover your browser’s history). Although the Scriptural context primarily concerns the act of relieving oneself against a wall, and how the ability to do so without requiring the flexibility of a fairground contortionist defines an individual as male, and thus appropriately equipped to be either (a) slaughtered (should said urethral furnishings be constructed of an opposing nation’s DNA); or (b) eligible for ordination to the Priesthood and Prelacy. Undoubtedly as the result of an oversight on god’s part the Holy Writings don’t devote as much column space to activities involving hookers and a Moscow hotel room as modern Exegetical Preachers would like. Although given the Evangelical predilection for lavishly illustrated “Children’s Bibles” that’s probably not such a bad thing.
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As in all things, however, the truth is mundane. While in this instance it might not set you free, it could well make you gag a little, and I fully understand the sentiments of those finding this whole issue distasteful. Thought in the interests of scientific accuracy Bishop Quinine would like me to mention the extent of this largely depends upon what participating parties have previosuly been eating and drinking – there’s a reason some folk can’t abide asparagus, and I’m told it’s got nothing to do with the vegetable’s morphology.
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No, as little Donnie’s closest Spiritual Adviser and Confidante I can assure you there’s absolutely nothing sexual behind this whole uproar. The simple fact is that an aspiring dictator’s got to do what an aspiring dictator’s got to do. And how else do you think Dear Trump is able to preserve the distinctive bright hue of his cranial follicular matter? Or maintain his skin’s lovely orange glow?
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
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janecat</a></i></span></span></div>The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-68683797278797779972017-01-10T20:50:00.000-08:002017-01-10T20:50:09.791-08:00Goodbye 2016. Hello ????
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Not, of course, that this year looks like being much better than the last. Granted there are not that many rock stars left to be taken, so things should be cheerier on that front. Yet when I heard Charon had taken Prince for a row across the Styx it was clear we’re no longer dealing with Death as we’ve always understood him; creepy and unrelenting sure, but not in any way that two weeks’ vacation tanning in Bermuda couldn’t resolve. No; it looks awfully like the Maitre d’ of Darkness has finally let power go to his head, and snatching Leonard Cohen while leaving Ted Nugent makes me think the Aztec theology might have been on to something with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaloc">Tlaloc</a>.
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All of which is a fitting lead up to Dear Leader’s looming inauguration. <a href="http://time.com/4630675/robert-f-kennedy-jr-donald-trump-vaccines/">The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.</a> to chair a commission on vaccination reminds me to ask that PLEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEE nobody mention Aztec religious practices in his little orange presence. Here at the trough historical knowledge of history is an unknown commodity, but if anyone were to raise the notion of seeking divine blessing by means of sacrificially torturing children there’ll be no stopping the idea from catching on. (And to think we’d hitherto always thought of “liturgical death” as referring to an evangelical dance presentation of “Shine Jesus Shine” at the 10am family service).
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Which is not to say everything’s bad here at transition headquarters. Sure there was the little misunderstanding with China concerning an alleged call to the Taiwanese President, but the truth is little Donnie just thought he was ordering takeaway. Naturally I put a marvellous spin on things and fooled <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-taiwan-call-wasnt-a-blunder-it-was-brilliant/2016/12/05/d10169a2-bb00-11e6-ac85-094a21c44abc_story.html?utm_term=.d23382dd9c5d%E2%80%9D">the simpler ends of mainstream media</a>, but between you and Me, Dear Sinners, I certainly hope you realise our beloved leader doesn’t actually think there are countries run by <i>women</i>. Which, given his preferred means of greeting members of the non-male gender, is probably just as well.
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Currently the real excitement is that it’s only a matter of days before we’ll all get to see what really went on at Roswell. Although I can’t help sharing Bishop Quinine’s suspicion that the first thing to happen when the door marked “X Files – Presidential Eyes Ony” gets opened and we all meet ET and his little bug-eyed posse is that a certain orange latex mask gets peeled back, and some creepy cockroach/lizard hybrid starts beeping dirty jokes in Venusian.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-77798533612082877092016-11-22T18:23:00.000-08:002016-11-22T20:42:46.157-08:00The Work Begins...<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Things are getting busier, My Beloved Sinners. Not a moment
passes but a new face doesn’t join us at The Trough. As this happy snap shows, life's a laugh a minute as some of the finest men ever to have evaded prosecution gather together to wallow in preparation for the momentously profitable task of making America grate again.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet in your foolish </span>naivety please don't forget My Work here is first and foremost about <i>Ministry</i>. Many of you at Facebook have been asking about my role at President-Elect-For-Life Trump's upcoming inauguration, and you will all be delighted to know that I am at last in a position to reveal a few of the exciting details.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">You see, My Poor Unbelievers, that the separation of Church and state comprises a cornerstone of the Holy U.S. Constitution, which was given to our Christian Nation <i>directly</i> by God. Consequently it is <i>impossible </i>to over-emphasize the importance Religion plays in this most sacred of event. Christmas, Holy Week, The Super Bowl - certainly all these traditional amusements of the liturgical calendar have their place, but Inauguration Day is when Believers can truly stand tall and give thanks for that which We are about to receive. And to Me - yes, to your Wise Father-in-the-Faith Rev. Dr. Troll - has fallen the immeasurable honor of preparing little Donny for his Day of Anointing.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Between you and Me, however, I must say that this is proving to be a far from straightforward task. Far be it from Me to call Our Dear Leader a spiritual ignoramus, but let's just say that preparing a room of gibbons for their First Communion would be an easier task. It's not as if Donny isn't religious in his own way, and there's nothing wrong with using prayer as an opportunity to enjoy delivering a twenty minute uninterrupted monologue about oneself (after all - isn't that what Evangelicals have <i>always</i> done?), but opening one's devotions with "Oh Holy and Everlasting Me" hasn't really had much theological traction since Jim Jones starting stockpiling kool-aid.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Which is not to say Donny isn't excited about the ceremony. Certainly he was disappointed there wouldn't be an execution, and we've quietly canned the bikini parade, but once he was promised there'd be no shortage of people to grab by the genitalia once the boring stuff is over he settled down again and lost interest. Although having Bishop Quinine wave something shiny and sparkling in the corner of the room helped - it's a trick I believe more moderate members of the GOP (now there's an expression you haven't heard for a long time!) are already using regularly.</span></div>
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As with any hyper-active narcissistic sociopath. teaching - like maintaining good bowel health - involves <i>regularity</i>. The emphasis has to be on crumbs of information being repetitively provided on a regular basis. To this end I'm proud to say the President-Elect-For-Life has been starting every day with My leading him through a short Bible study. (I'd planned on registering this program as a whole new incorporated entity called "Morning Glory Ministries" but found there's already a group in Florida by this name. Who seem very nice, even if they are living proof that there still are Christians living in an irony-free zone.) So far it's not going too badly, just as long as we stay away from any passages involving smiting, and I always give him some crayons and a picture of himself to color in.</div>
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Although I am getting worried: there's a passage on Solomon coming up soon in the Lectionary, and I'm not sure the House will be too impressed when Air Force One is seconded to start importing another 699 wives and 300 concubines.</div>
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The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-89376247091054288122016-11-15T19:07:00.003-08:002016-11-17T16:16:56.370-08:00"Let's be careful out there."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Those of you who can remember a time when everyone's biggest fear was Reagan should also be able to recall an NBC program by the name of <i>Hill Street Blues</i>. Set in a fictional inner-city police precinct, it was strangely enjoyable despite featuring an array of <i>foreigners</i> who avoided gratuitous violence and consistently declined to shoot persons of color for no valid reason. And each episode of the first 3½ seasons opened with an address from veteran cop Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) which ended like this:</div>
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And so why, My Beloved Sinners, am I sharing this with you? Let's put it this way: whilst I love our President-Elect-For-Life as much as everyone else (albeit a little <i>differently</i>, and with less desperation, than whichever Ukrainian aspiring super-model he happens to be "interviewing" this week) there's no denying a lot of my new best friends and colleagues at the trough are - how shall I put it? - a little <i>unstable</i>. In fact a lot of them are batshit crazy, <i>and</i> they're nazis. And they have a strange compensatory fixation upon firearms.<br />
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Which is all fine and dandy, I can hear you say: it's not as if you encounter anything different every time you visit your local Walmart or monster-truck competition. But this time there's a difference - they're now about to start giving orders to the police. And the military. And the Department of Homeland security. And all those strange-looking nervous types you see in movies cracking computer codes and hacking emails. Not of course that any high-level email servers have ever been breached for personal and/or political profit in real life - but you never know.<br />
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Consequently My Wise old Pastoral Heart can't help sharing a little advice with you, My precious young and foolish flock. After all, I didn't make millions selling Siberian wastelands I didn't own to dear little Joe Stalin back in the late 20s in order that he might build gulags by being <i>careless</i>. And when I convinced jittery young Adolf to purchase a Berlin bunker in which <i>"no harm will ever be able to come to you here, mein Führer" </i>you'd better believe I was watching every step. Success in ministry involves caution in ministry - just ask any Rector who has led public prayers for the immediate & painful passing of <i>that person</i> on their Parish Council.<br />
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That's why if you look closely you may well find my homilies and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/revchristiantroll">Facebook edification</a> Facebook edification being posted via servers in places as diverse as the Netherlands, Corfu, or the Chatham Islands. Because in times like these a little preventative caution can go a long way if and when a knock on the door should mistakenly come in the night. Call me overly-dramatic if you wish, but when Papa Doc's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonton_Macoute">Tonton Macoute</a> </i>called by the Haitian resort at which I was ministering in '64 it wasn't my tanning butter that was spilled. In fact the machetes never touched so much as a parasol in any of my complimentary drinks. But that's because I was <i>careful</i>.<br />
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My advice, dear sinners, is for you to do likewise. Just because you're going to spend an eternity in Hell is hardly reason enough to let someone with an imported Taser and a "Buy American or Leave!" bumper sticker give you a foretaste now. Just sayin'.<br />
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-24925442323860903742016-11-14T22:51:00.002-08:002016-11-14T22:52:39.849-08:00If you don't fight, you lose.As all My Dearly Beloved Sinful <a href="https://www.facebook.com/revchristiantroll">Friends on Facebook</a> know, the golden age of carpetbaggery is once more upon us. Only this time the greenback road leads north to Washington, and everywhere you look campaigners against taxation and government spending like Myself are rushing to ensure themselves a prime position at the trough when the milk of federal pork-barreling trumps forth.<br />
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But please don't ever for one moment think Our Righteous Privilege is something to be taken for granted. My less righteous brethren who have thoughtfully bared this breast upon which we are about to sup - and I'm thinking here <i>especially</i> of My Evangelical Admirers, of which there are too many to bother counting once the polls closed - need to be eternally vigilant lest the manna which has been rightfully showered upon their superiors be taken away.<br />
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Which is why instead of My planned homily I'm diverting to urge you all to take action <i>immediately</i>! That's right, instead of wasting your time doing something which brings you joy and comfort, like gazing adoringly at My picture, or beating your dachshund while dressing up like James Dobson, I need you all to <i>act</i>.<br />
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You see, as I'm sure those of you who can read - even the women - are well aware Our Dear Leader President-Elect-For-Life Donny has just appointed little Stephen Bannon to a permanent White House play-date. Which means the whiskery round white-supremacist, anti-semitic, misogynist alt-right pinup pictured below shall soon not only be clogging the Oval Office plumbing if and when he ever decides to partake of a little facial debridement, but we'll all be paying him for the privilege.<br />
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"And why not?" I hear you as christians (albeit very immature and faithless ones) ask. To which I can in My wisdom only reply "Why not indeed!" But we have a problem. Liberals, Homosexualists, Womon who don't know their place, as well as those who foolishly thing Jesus and the Gospels have something to do with Christianity, are threatening to spoil thing for the Klan's Krazy Komrade.</div>
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In fact, I know for a fact that people haven't forgotten Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood; Bill Clinton's two AG appointments who were made to withdraw for failing to pay Social Security taxes. And thanks to this memory they're also impertinent enough to assume Banner's fist-class ticket to the racism's big rock candy mountain isn't a done deal.</div>
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That's right - they've been <i>organising</i>. (Forgive My using profanity, but when you come to Me you get Bible Teaching straighter than Liberace in a steam-bath.) Quite shamelessly, I've heard people who don't understand the importance of key roles being gratuitously given to bigoted Princes-of-Ugly are:</div>
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<li> Calling all their Representatives and Senators and telling them this is unacceptable.</li>
<li> Preventing Paul Ryan from feigning ignorance by calling his office at (202) 225-3031 and letting him know that this is not ok. </li>
<li>Same with Majority Leader McConnell, (202) 224-2541. </li>
<li>Call out media when they report the Bannon appointment as a straight news story or refer to him as a "Breitbart executive" or a "provocateur," but don't call him what he is: a white supremacist, anti-semite, misogynist.</li>
<li>Where protests are ongoing, they make this the focus, with signs, chants, etc. Next week they'll focus attention on other things, but for now their focusing like lasers on this one fact. </li>
<li> Getting so-called religious groups on board along with mainstream business organisations like the Chamber of Commerce (202-659-6000). </li>
<li>Contacting other people of influence - College presidents, high-profile coaches and anyone else who has a public megaphone.</li>
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So, My Beloved Sinners, I'm calling on you to all do the opposite. Call Paul Ryan and tell him your proud he's supporting a supremacist carpetbagger. Thank your representative for getting behind a money-sucking Nazi, and reassure them you'll be letting everyone know of their support. Print pictures of Bannon with Hitler, so nobody can confuse the two. Carry banners of him in a Klan Klown suit, so everyone can see how handsomely it suits him.</div>
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In every way possible, let's beat the godless at their own game. I've no doubt Representatives and Senators everywhere will be delighted know you support them - especially those who are female and/or Jewish and call themselves a Republican. (Don't worry - they'll soon be purged just as long as Bannon isn't stopped.)</div>
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Meanwhile please nobody try and tell me that Jesus wouldn't have built a wall or picked on people who don't speak American - the language the Bible was written in. Sure he was the Son of God and stuff, but we all know what happened to Him. And he didn't even have a LeerJet!</div>
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.</div>
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-34621924803715694172016-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:002016-11-11T16:12:33.557-08:00Back to Make America Grate Again!<h2 style="text-align: center;">
HELLO MY BELOVED SINNERS!!!!!</h2>
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That's right My Faithful Evildoers - I'm Back!!!</h3>
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Of course those of you who truly are Bible-Believing Christians will know that as a result of a small inconsequential mistake Bishop Quinine and I have spent the past few years in witness protection, but by the grace of all that is precious in holy scripture <b><i>those days are over!!!</i></b></div>
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That's right! Naturally the godless liberal media didn't report this (probably on account of them all being terrified of their imminent imprisonment and public execution), but the most important thing discussed yesterday between so-called president obama and President-Elect-For-Life Trump (or as Consuella's former colleagues know him professionally, "Little Donny") was the clearance of all the silly misunderstandings which led to My undergoing a slight detour in the nature of My Ministry.</div>
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What's more, thanks to Little Donny stopping government waste and wanton spending I've received a federal grant large enough to keep a TV evangelist in cocaine and lady-boys for <i>centuries</i> - purely for the purpose of upgrading my ministry and internet presence. Naturally my first priority is to blow a large slab of this on upgrading the old St. Onuphrius Rectory (when little Donny and whatever-her-name-is-this-week drop buy you can't really expect them to perform their ablutions in an ensuite that isn't gold-plated, can you?), but as soon as this is sorted there'll be more than a few crumbs coming your way to edify your pathetic godless existences. And believe me, we're all gonna have a party in the process!</div>
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible!</div>
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-76902593316982394802014-06-19T20:38:00.000-07:002014-06-20T03:27:22.090-07:00Bob Duncan: Only Quitters Quit.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"They're not eyebrows - they're antennae of orthodoxy."</span></b></i> </div>
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As I write these Words of inestimable wisdom, My Beloved Sinners, the Anglican Church of North America (“ACNA” or, as Bible-believing Conservative Leaders like Myself refer to it in technical theological terminology, “Little Bobby Duncan’s Sect”) is gathering to fulfill its sacred duty of picking someone to take the next turn at wearing their funny faux <i>capo di tutti capi</i> hat.
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Obviously I have a great many opinions as to who should succeed our boy with the ‘brows, but before we come to that let us together dwell upon how deeply disappointing it is to see little Bobby quitting. After all, you don’t see god stepping down just because he’d like to get in a little more golf and spend Friday nights playing swing low sweet chariot with his pole-dancers’ fellowship. So whatever gave the world’s funniest pretend-prelate the idea that it’s ok for him??!! Or have you ever heard Jesus whining that someone else needs to have a turn at being lord and savior! No Sir! Being an Orthodox Biblical Leader is like being a dictator, or maybe the spokesman for an association of pro-gun wingnuts: having once scaled the dizzy heights to which one has been called you stay there until they prize whatever it is you’re grasping from your cold dead hands.
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No, My Dearly Beloved Evildoers, there’s no denying that I’m disappointed in Bobby Duncan. I know he’s gained his sect full recognition as an Anglican province, brought every man, woman, and child, in the entire U.S.A. into a personal loving relationship with the heavenly father who will torture them for eternity, <i>and</i> set straight every man who’s ever thought <i>Glee</i> is “kinda fun”, but when you attain My degree of spiritual maturity (which you won’t, for the perfectly obvious reason that god loves Me more) you’ll realize that sort of thing is just part of doing one’s job.
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Real Conservative Leadership involves holding onto power no matter who tries to snatch it away, and I’m afraid that in quitting Bobby has shown himself to be at heart just another Liberal. Although, to be fair, I have heard that there’s only so many knives a man can take in his back before taking on a kind of waxy appearance. At least we can all take heart in the fact that Bobby’s successor won’t be democratically elected by means of any fair and transparent process in which representatives of all church members (including, god forbid <i>laymen</i>) are entitled to vote, but will rather be “discerned” by the multitude of ACNA “bishops”.* Which I’ll admit, certainlys show ACNA’s relevance: nothing says “21st century Conservatism” like oligarchy.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
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*<span style="font-size: x-small;">In retrosp I may have at this point failed to take into account ACNA’s core doctrine of the Prelacy of all believers. Given this and their consequent enthusiasm for consecrating Bishops I’m not sure if they actually even have any members not entitled to parade in purple and a pectoral cross.</span>The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-32677810010329442032014-06-17T20:40:00.001-07:002014-06-17T20:42:23.786-07:00How I've Spent My Sabbatical.I’m well aware, My Beloved Sinners, that it has indeed been a <i>terribly</i> long time since I last Blessed any of you with My vitally important Words of Wisdom. Even so, I’m sure that even those of you home-schooled by Evangelicals will have been able to discern that I have been <i>incredibly</i> busy with matters far more important than the tedious task of ministering to those with whose care I have been entrusted by god.
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Indeed, even the most fleeting of glances at the many recent public-relations victories of the Archbishop of Canterbury, little Justin Welby, reveals the crucial advisory capacity I have been undertaking at Anglicanism’s highest echelons. That’s right: after <a href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10206098/Justin-Welbys-Wonga-revelation.html>foolishly attacking an upright and perfectly-ethical business</a> in which his church just happened to have invested a paltry £75,000 (that’s about $127,215.00 in Christian money: an amount so small it wouldn’t even keep <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Iker#mediaviewer/File:JackIkerGoldHat.jpg>Layman Jack Iker</a> in man-lace for a season – which sheds some perspective as to what a tornado-in-a-teacup the godless liberals raised over this) Little Justin’s minders came to My Rectory Door on bended knees, much to the delight of Bishop Quinine, who as a Prelate cannot help but inevitably misread the intentions of others.
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Naturally My first inclination was to turn them away: it seems like only yesterday that young <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket>Thomas a’Beckett</a> showed Me all too well how incompetent Archbishops are when it comes to heeding My counsel. Still, when His Grace’s envoys revealed the plain brown paper bags of used unmarked currency accompanying them as an indication of their integrity the quiet still voice of the spirit began sounding more like a cross between Grover Norquist and the homeless alcoholic who stands outside our local mall every Saturday morning and screams something about shape-shifting spiders stealing his last bottle of Thunderbird. And so obviously as a Man of Faith I had no option but to accept their pleas for help.
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Of course you all know by now that my piece of first advice to the most morally-consistent Etononian since Guy Burgess and Lord Lucan was followed to the letter. Little Tory Baucum – an ACNA luminary even the folks at <a href=http://standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/31354>Viagraville</a> couldn’t bring themselves to trust completely - was appointed to sit in a beautifully-upholstered chair at Canterbury Cathedral. In a moment <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/31066>Godless Liberals</a> and <a href=http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/progressive-episcopalians-write-ab.html>their traditional sparring-partners</a> were united in a way not seen since the time I restored order to a Vestry Meeting by firing up a chainsaw and severing several Wardens’ limbs.
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<a href=http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/welby-explains-gays-and-violence-in-africa-remarks>More recent media outings</a> have seen My boy abandon the concise logic which in the business world enabled him to buy a charming holiday house in France (scroll to the bottom of the page <a href=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231115/Justin-Welby-Archbishop-blindfolded-rebels-Kalashnikovs-jungle-mercy-mission.html>here</a> for the sort of rambling confusion only an Archbishop can deliver. Words can’t convey the pride I felt when JW (tell me it’s only coincidence that his initials are the same as those of a notoriously anti-intellectual cult) answered the question “<i>You've said the issue of same-sex marriage is a complex one that you wrestle with every day and often in the middle of the night…”</i> with “<b>I have about a million questions. I think really I've said as much as I want to on that subject</b>” (<a href=http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/welby-explains-gays-and-violence-in-africa-remarks>source</a>)
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Exactly as Jesus would have put it. Or maybe not.<br><br>
I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-52276237824334248472014-01-06T15:57:00.000-08:002014-01-06T16:06:22.249-08:00The Epiphany - an Exegetical Exposition.The Feat of the Epiphany is a puzzling time, My Beloved Sinners, even for One as Learned and Righteous as Myself. Nor all does this terrible cold weather help things: chilblains serve little benefit when it comes to addressing the great mysteries of Biblical Theology, and whilst there is no denying a good snow blower will always be an integral part of any exegetically-sound sermon preparation kit, sometimes one can’t help noticing that those churches with the most altar-bling are concentrated near the equator. Where the only salt you’ll ever find spread on the road got there as result of someone’s hands getting shaky while making one too many margaritas.
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Still, a Clergyman has got to serve where he’s been called irrespective of the weather (at least until he gets lucky in his search for somewhere better), and helping you all understand what was going on when Jesus’ parents permitted <i>foreigners</i> with a penchant for astrology to offer their child such a mixed array of gifts isn’t going to be made any easier by My complaining about the cold. So without further ado I’ve instructed My Ministry Team to venture outside and fetch more wood for the fireplace while I address the Greatest Problem affecting Contemporary Christianity today: what <i>was</i> going when Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar came to pay their respects?
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The first thing we need to ask is “What’s with their choice of presents?” Gold is obvious: even if the price has recently weakened a little, at $1,238.40 an ounce we can all understand why that particular star-gazing sand-pilgrim wasn’t immediately thrown out on his ear. But frankincense? Myrrh? Who gives new-born babies that kind of gloop? If they’d been serious about wanting Our Lord to smell better while simultaneously casting a nice oily sheen upon all those around Him the least they could have given is Old Spice and a jar of tanning butter. But <i>myrrh</i> doesn’t even have a vowel in its name – what possible good would that have been to poor Mary? And have you ever tried taking frankincense back to Walmart without a receipt? I have, and let Me tell you it wasn’t a “save money, live better” experience. Although being a Christian company they do sell firearms, so in the end we were able to negotiate an exchange instead of a refund, and at least I was as a sportsman able to go home with something capable of killing people for purely recreational purposes.
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The key to understanding what happened here in Bethlehem lays in the fact that the Bible specifically doesn’t tell us what Joseph was up to at the time. Which forces us to ask what kind of man would be out of the house/manger while three foreign men (who almost certainly all had <i>beards</i>) traipsed around over the avocado & harvest gold shag-pile, sycophantically paying their obeisances to his teenage bride and her infant? That’s right – <i>one who knows he’s not the father</i>! What the Bible is really telling us here is that Joseph was wise to the fact that the "Y" portion of Baby Jesus' incarnate chromosomes came from God!
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As everyone knows caring for someone else’s children is a wonderful thing on account of all the child support payments you can spend. But when that child’s father is God – owner of the cattle on a thousand hills etc. – Joseph was in line for a serious check heading his way each month. He wasn’t just looking at the usual windfall guys in his position can score, like enough to pick up some sweet wheels on eBay for the ’74 Mustang II that’s been sitting on blocks in the yard for the past three years while he gets around to restoring it. No sir, Joseph knew he was looking at the real thing – say a ’68 Dodge Charger just like the one Bo and Luke drove in <i>The Dukes of Hazard</i>. Except with the 8-track upgraded into something that allows you to play music illegally downloaded from the internet.
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Once you understand who Jesus’ real father was the whole event we celebrate today as the Epiphany makes perfect sense. Joseph, like any man in his position, was out celebrating his good fortune with his buddies, and freelance religious fringe-dwellers were doing what they’ve always done: offering inappropriate gifts in the course of their search for God. Jesus and His Mother’s next visitor may just have been trying to sell discount aluminum cladding (“Ever thought of giving this manger a <i>real</i> face-lift you can be proud of?”) but you’d better believe the one after that was someone wanting to complain about how the weird foreign guys were lowering the tone of the whole neighborhood (“And another thing: those camels they tied up outside have kicked down my letterbox, not to mention how bad all that yellow snow is going to smell when things start warming up again!”). But what could anyone expect? Pretty much the next thing we hear of the Holy Family is that they’ve become refugees, which possibly means the three wise men’s presents weren’t that impractical after all. Because carrying something more age-appropriate and essential like a Hoppy-Days Baby Bouncer is kind of hard when you’re fleeing for your life.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-44505882737484445332014-01-02T20:27:00.001-08:002014-01-03T04:56:37.681-08:00Consider our hands washed.In the light of <a href= http://gafcon.blogspot.com/2014/01/happy-new-year.html>all <del>Reverend</del> layman Howler has taught Beloved Sinners everywhere</a> about the terrible plight facing tertiary-educated white Consevative-Christians in Uganda – namely that not only is global attention being diverted away from all the wonderful good they have done for that fine nation by encouraging native churchgoers to hate homosexualists, but that the world is now going so far as to hold them responsible for circumstances which have led to the passing of a piffling little law which will see people sentenced to life-long imprisonment for wickedly living as God sinfully chose to make them – I’ve been doing quite a bit of research into that wonderful nation.
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Listening to what Ugandan born and educated Andrew Mwenda has to say seemed a good place to start. I fully realize that as one of Uganda’s most respected journalists, and founder of Uganda's premier current affairs news magazine <a href=http://www.independent.co.ug/><i>The Independent</i></a>, Mr. Mwenda can’t possibly speak as authoritatively about Ugandan affairs as a young fellow with very nice teeth (for an Englishman) and a whole <i>two year’s experience</i> lecturing in a Conservative Anglican Seminary in Kampala. Still, as you all know, I am a profoundly <i>balanced</i> man, and always willing to hear from as wide a range of evil-doers as possible, including those with opinions differing to My own - even though they are by definition always wrong. So it is with this in mind that I urge you to observe the following:
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lUlQHZlM2yI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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You’ll note that just after the three minute mark Mr. Mwenda unabashedly states: <blockquote>“<i><b>This issue of hostility towards homosexuality is not African. The idea of criminalizing homosexuality did not exist in African culture. It was introduced here by Victorian laws imported and imposed on this country by British colonial isolation.</b></i>”</blockquote>
Now I don’t know what further credentials this courageous journalist has beyond having been published by the world’s most prestigious newspapers and winning the <a href=http://cpj.org/awards/2008/mwenda.php>2008 Internation Press Freedom Award</a>, but this clearly contradicts <del>Rev.</del> layman Howler’s analysis. And since <del>Rev.</del> layman Howler is officially approved by Dobby Ould – a Trained Theolgian®™ holding an undergraduate degree from an institution overseen by someone who lost $160 million of his parishioner’s assets – there’s <i>absolutely no way</i> he could be anything but <i>absolutely right</i>. Which means there’s no need for anyone to give what Andrew Mwenda says a moment’s further consideration. Even if his track record does prove him to be as a brave a man as any of us can ever hope to encounter.
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Consequently I then looked elsewhere in the Ugandan media, and began reading another Kampala newspaper: the <a href=http://www.monitor.co.ug/><i>Daily Monitor</i></a>. However this resulted in significant disturbance to the St. Onuphrius’ Ministry Team: looking over My shoulder Bishop Quinine learned from the concluding paragraphs of this <a href= http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1140310/-/c2sydtz/-/>informative article</a> that “recruitment of gays was rampant” at a major Ugandan university, and that men were being paid 800,000 Ugandan Shillings a month for switching their interest in smelly bits to the type that (mostly) dangle.
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Honestly, with that kind of money on offer our Personal Prelate had already booked his flight and was in the process of packing his bags (you can’t imagine how difficult it is to fit a Mitre in a suitcase in such a way that it doesn’t come out resembling a gold-trimmed whoopee cushion). No matter how hard we tried it was impossible to make him see reason, and it wasn’t until I gently explained that what sounded to him like a fortune was in fact only about US$315 that he settled down.
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Helping me restore unity to My team was the next article, headed “<a href=http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Iganga-school-expels-22-students-over-lesbianism/-/688334/2128792/-/11nihxyz/-/index.html>Iganga school expels 22 students over lesbianism</a>”. A powerful piece, it outlined a terrible scenario in which students “had been found in possession of numerous sex toys, including artificial penises” – definitive proof if ever one saw it of shameless female homosexualism. But it was the comments to this article that really helped illustrate how the Anti-Gay Bill has absolutely nothing to do with western religious influence: the very first one read in full:
<blockquote>“<i><b>As if our country doesn't have enough problems, now our nation is gradually resembling 'sodom and gomorrah'. God pleaseeeeeeee, save our country!!!!</b></i>”</blockquote>
See? Not so much as a single mention of anything to do with Christianity! And since the phrase “sodom and gomorrah” is so obviously a reference to some kind of darkly ignorant traditional African cultural belief or practice I can’t for the life imagine how anyone could <i>even begin</i> to discern the influence of Conservative Biblical Evangelicals.
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The same is equally true of the next comment, which quite correctly follows the plainly traditional African custom of laying all the blame at the feet of western liberals:
<blockquote><i><b>“Oh, you want to know sources of those toys? They are the numerous well facilitated NGOs including some religious sects and Embassies from Western countries mostly, based in Uganda. Probably, they already there in our pharmacies as well. They probably recruit mules in our society to disseminate such. Do you also check those students who for one reason or the other are given permission during school term to come out and return back to your school? Some parents delegate relatives or neighbors to visit their children at school. These could be the mules. This is yet another heinous war the ulta-liberals in the western decadent world are launching on us.”</b></i></blockquote>
Yet the smoking gun I needed came in the comments of another article (“<a href=http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/British-university-cuts-ties-Victoria-University-gay-bill/-/688334/1660658/-/h2g23mz/-/index.html>British university cuts ties with Victoria University over gay bill</a>”)
<blockquote>“<i><b>IF YOU CANT RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE THEN YOU OUGHT NOT BE RESPECTED -laughable!!! … THIS IS WHEN YOU WISH The late Field Marshal AMIN WAS AROUND- I bet he would make a physical statement</b></i>”</blockquote>
Just as we knew all along: Idi Amin was a Muslim (kind of), so obviously it’s Muslim missionaries who have been behind all the traditional African superstitions worming their way into the 100% Orthodox Christianity sweeping through Uganda. And since the exact number of his fellow citizens he killed “<a href=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/18/guardianobituaries>will never be accurately known</a>” (never a promising epitaph, I’ll admit), it’s perfectly understandable that plenty of people remember him fondly enough to cite him when leaving comments in Uganda’s most popular newspaper. From which it’s only a short step to blaming him and his religion for what Andrew Mwenda calls “a primitive law”. Besides, isn’t it comforting to know that in doing so we can completely absolve ourselves from any responsibility for the bloodbath looming just around the corner?
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible. The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-70209102464335900942014-01-01T21:56:00.000-08:002014-01-01T22:09:50.452-08:00Happy New YearLet Me start My first important homily of 2014 by wishing Beloved Sinners ever where a Happy New Year! Wherever you are, whether like Me glorifying god in a Christian nation in which socio-economically challenged families have better access to firearms than medical care, or living in abject socialist depravity under one of those godless regimes which can’t boast of having the industrial world’s highest <a href=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-has-highest-first-day-infant-mortality-out-of-industrialized-world-group-reports>first-day infant mortality rate</a>, My heart-felt prayer is that the coming year will for you be one of abundant joy, health, and prosperity.
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Indeed, you should all be assured this will be a good year, for 2014 has already begun in one of the most propitious of ways: this morning saw the arrival of an email which was not so much spittle-flecked as positively marinated in drool. Trust Me, Beloved Sinners, it was covered in more slobber than a St. Bernard’s favorite squeaky-toy, and epitomized the firm-yet-psychotic style of communication used only by Conservative Evangelicals and the criminally insane.
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Driving My correspondent’s impressive spray were recent comments he (why is this kind of nut <i>never</i> female?) perceived
Me as making concerning little <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Ntagali>Stanley
Ntagali</a> and the far-sighted nation of Uganda’s recent passing of the <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill>Anti-Homosexuality Bill</a>. Impudently and obviously ignorantly claiming I have no knowledge such matters (in reality I was an expert on all matters missionary when this kid’s father was still striving to pray away the “impure thoughts”
which ultimately led to his unfortunate conception), the boy suggested I should instead first read <a href=http://namugongolife.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/homophobia-in-uganda-is-christianity-the-problem-or-the-solution/>a
piece by the Rev. Chris Howles</a>, a young Englishman teaching aspiring Clergy at the Uganda Martyr's Seminary, Kampala.
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Naturally My first reaction was heed the spirit’s plainly discernable call to track down the boy via his email’s headers, and thence lovingly administer the appropriate correction called for by such rudeness with clear Biblical exegesis, a commercial quantity of wasabi, and a pair of very sharp pinking shears. Further consideration, however, reminded me that this wasn’t the first young man to confuse an excess of testosterone with Christian zeal, and there can be no denying that something about his impotent rage was strangely exciting in a purely Biblical way. So instead I clicked over to see what someone with a whole
two years experience with everyday Ugandan life had to say. After all, who could possibly have a better understanding of African society than a white tertiary-educated westerner peering through the windows of a seminary?
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Like any True Conservative, before reading something I always first want to see who likes it. That way I can know whether what I’m about to read is good or bad, and whether it will be in My best interest to be seen as either praising or condemning it. So you can quite naturally appreciate my delight at seeing the <a href=http://namugongolife.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/homophobia-in-uganda-is-christianity-the-problem-or-the-solution/#comment-48>second-from-the
top comment</a> came from none other than a euphoric little David Ould. As even the most Wicked of you understand, anything receiving accolades from a man so trustworthy worked as an accountant and can still find nothing reprehensible about the Jensens’ financial shenanigans has got to be good.
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Sadly though, I’m afraid to say Rev. Howles’ essay failed to live up to the high expectations engendered by such irresistible titillation. In fact the young and <a href="http://namugongolife.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/cropped-2012_122401141.jpg">evangelicaly
toothy</a> pedagogue’s thesis can be reduced into just one delightfully racist premise: that western Christians aren’t responsible for the natives’ hatred of homos – this act of the Ugandan parliament is actually just a hang-over from the dark days before missionaries came, when the people of Uganda were merely ignorant heathens.
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That Howlers fails to mention that the three major proponents of the bill - <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=120746516">“Family” member</a> and western-educated politician, <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bahati>David Bahati</a>; Californian writer and certifiable whack-job <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lively>Scott Lively</a>; and my dear old friend and <a href=http://gafcon.blogspot.com/2010/06/eat-da-email-martin-ssempa-me.html>correspondent</a> Martin “Eat da Poo-poo” Ssempa – all enjoyed extensive western educations and are about as deeply immersed in traditional African culture as the Klan surely should in no way be seen as detracting from his argument.
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Or at least not detracting too much.
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Maybe.
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Besides, he does get around to touching on these three wise monkeys way down in <a href=http://namugongolife.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/homophobia-in-uganda-is-christianity-the-problem-or-the-solution/#comment-59>comment #59</a>, although going on to say that his argument stands because “only one of them is a westerner” (while ignoring their educational backgrounds and financial supporters) probably doesn’t really add the air of probity to his work that he’s clearly convinced it enjoys.
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Still, there’s always a bright side. Knowing that the next wave of Ugandan religious leaders are being trained in reasoning just as corrupt and morally bankrupt as the current regime, under the guidance of teachers just as specious as those who delivered us <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Luke_Orombi>Orombi</a> <i>et al</i>, shows spouting homophobia will remain a fast track to a Bishop’s hat (albeit one of dubious authenticity) for many years to come. And in the meantime anyone in Uganda who’s ever felt so much as the slightest yearning to dance on the other side of the hall would be wise think about taking an extended international trip.
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Now.
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Please.
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Call me old-fashioned, but when <a href=http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/uganda/report-2013>Amnesty International starts getting worried about your safety</a> it’s always a good time to move on. Or else the coming year might not be so great after all. No matter how many idiots send you an email on January 1.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-56137580595886383752013-12-27T21:04:00.001-08:002013-12-27T21:42:39.956-08:00Stanley Ngtali - GAFCON Priorities in the Pulpit.Since the day New Hampshire realized how good Bishop Gene looks in purple I’ve been telling people over and over again that the current rifts within Anglican Communion have <i>nothing</i> to do with homosexualism. Indeed, <i>anyone</i> prepared to look at the things exactly as I tell them to can plainly see for themselves that personal insecurities about dearly held patriarchal understandings of sexuality, power and what happens to excite clergymen’s wieners when they think nobody’s watching play <i>absolutely no part whatsoever</i> in the choice of Conservative Bible-Believers such as Myself to inconsistently interpret a few Scriptures literally.
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Which is why my heart rejoiced when, while perusing Uganda’s <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Anti-gays-Bill--repentance-top-Xmas-sermons/-/688334/2126136/-/10rwlfz/-/index.html"><i>Daily Monitor</i></a>, I saw that the recently-passed Ugandan anti-gay legislation took a primary place in Kampala’s Christmas sermons. Christmas is, after all, a time when preaching must above all else focus on The Bible. While I can concede there might be a time for nonBiblical issues like human rights and social justice to be mentioned from pulpits in passing (generally in the context of pointing out all the stupid things liberals consider important), that time is not, and never has been, when more pressing issues are at hand – like the crucial gospel priority for all those present who are not normally part of one’s congregation to understand how much the Baby Jesus hates them for not having attended faithfully throughout the preceding year.
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Once again Anglicans still canonically resident in the godless west should hang their heads in shame before those to whom Our Church’s future has been <br />
<del>sold</del>entrusted. Pause in awe, My Beloved Sinners, before this published excerpt of Ugandan Archbishop little Stanley Ntgali’s Christmas homily:
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">“In Uganda, there are so many injustices like child sacrifice, domestic violence, drug abuse which are now a big issue in our schools... I want to thank Parliament for passing the Anti-homosexuality Bill. I want the world to understand what we are saying.” </span></b></blockquote>
The world - at least that to which Jesus referred when using the expression we translate as “world” - understands you perfectly, little Stanley. If children, women, and school students, are suffering why shouldn’t wealthy and powerful men like you celebrate the Savior's birth by giving thanks that yet another minority group has joined them in their persecution? It's those for whom the Incarnate God means something more than a just means by which to control others that find you incomprehensible.<br />
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-80600774412769172072013-12-26T15:15:00.002-08:002013-12-26T15:24:27.035-08:00ACNA - Now Bigger than Rome!Just to show We have absolutely no hard feelings towards the godless baptists who alerted the Dept. of Homeland Security to our Mission to Afghan/Iraqi Farmers in Need of Quality Superphosphates, the St. Onuphrius’ Ministry Team have followed Christmas Day with a wonderful concert outside their front lawn. I played a moving rendition of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on the alpenhorn, which was followed by Bishop Quinine on his flesh-colored clarinet – an instrument he rarely plays but polishes on a daily basis. As I write this Brother Richtofen and His Friends from Seminary have just begun playing a nine-hour set of Mariachi/Techno/Death-Metal especially mixed to show our heretic neighbours how much we love them, and how we’ve forgiven them even though Our Loving Father in Heaven has fore-ordained them to an eternity of indescribable agony.
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Even so, as much as I love young-people’s music when wearing industrial-strength hearing protection, it felt appropriate for Me to discern the spirit’s call to leave the celebrations prior to any further visits by the National Guard, and begin the challenging task of catching up on all the astonishing events which occurred during my absence. Undoubtedly one of the most amazing was young Pope Benny Ratsfinger announcing his resignation on account of “advancing years”.
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Now you can call me old fashioned, but I’ve always said a man’s only as old as the person he’s feeling. And given Benny’s got Romans around the world positively <i>aching</i> to kiss his ring things simply don’t make sense. Especially when you consider His Popishness has a collection of man-lace big enough to keep that obsessive nut from Rhode Island who <i>still</i> leaves comments on everyone’s blogs fascinated for life.
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No; you don’t have to be Alex Jones to recognize a conspiracy when it hits you in the chasuble. My Personal Belief is Benny was embarrassed at the way his franchise has been overtaken in global importance by <a href=http://anglicanchurch.net/>little Bobby Duncan’s sect</a>. Granted it’s been a while since I saw any actual <i>figures</i> {has anyone?), but who can forget all the hoopla a few years back, so by now they’ve obviously delivered on all the predictions of success made back then. Besides, it’s not as if the Apostate Heretics in the Vatican have their <a href=http://anglicanchurch.net/?/store/items>own online store</a> (featuring not just one but <i>two!!!</i> different styles of lapel pin - Traditional <i>and</i> Contemporary), so obviously I'm right.
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Besides, there can be no denying that The Archbishop of Canterbury’s meeting with Bobby earlier this year is tantamount to full recognition, which means there’s no longer anything dishonest about claiming ACNA claiming status as an Anglican Province. Although I do have to admit that by this logic Rome became an Anglican province way back in 1966, when Ramsay++ dropped by Paul VI’s house for donuts and a quick game of “I won’t mention Cranmer if you don’t mention Campion.” At which point you’ll have to excuse me: I’ve just received an email from someone born in Beijing, which means I’ve got to update our parish roll to include all 1.351 billion citizens of China.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-68386166491908425132013-12-25T12:35:00.000-08:002013-12-26T15:23:11.477-08:00God's Christmas Gift to You: ME!Wicked as you are, My Beloved Sinners, the federal order preventing Me and anyone associated with My Ministry from accessing the internet has been lifted in what is undoubtedly the Most Wonderful Christmas Blessing of all time.
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Indeed, at this time of year, when the Curse of Rampant Liberalism is stripping this most sacred of seasons of all Christian greeting-card manufacturers call holy, and an Army of Politically-Correct Apostates fight to prevent Bible-Believers from celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus by pressing each other up against the Xerox machine for a round of tonsil-hockey at the office Christmas party, this miracle proves that a wise and wily Clergyman can still redeem the darkest of situations.
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Before we go any further, however, let it be categorically clear that there was <i>absolutely no</i> substance to the <del>criminal charges</del> alleged allegations which lead to this appalling persecution of the Gospel. Indeed, those of you not sufficiently filled with the holy spirit to believe everything I say without question may even have problems comprehending the extent to which such pernicious apostate liberal conspiracies exist in a nation where rich people can convince the poor that it’s in their interest to preserve medical insurance corporation profits at the expense of their own health. Yet, as anyone who’s ever skimmed the “Favorites” file on little David Ould’s browser can tell you, the Evil rampant in the hearts and minds of seemingly normal-albeit-rather-ugly apostate enemies of Biblical Christianity knows no bounds.
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Mind you, the whole situation escalated so quickly that even a Christian as wisely perceptive as Me was hard-pressed keeping up with things. When the Rectory was first locked down I was still far away in Merrie Olde England, consoling My Grief at the passing of dear St. Baroness Thatcher by ministering to a couple of most enterprising young Christians whom I met in a small theatre in Soho. (Who could have possibly guessed that the fall of immoral Communism would result in the relocation of so many creative liturgical dancers to London?) I had just delivered My moving eulogy at Saint Maggie’s funeral, in which I focused not so much upon how much her personal family values accomplished for communities in the north of the country, where she is undoubtedly loved and missed most, as I did on the bold manner in which she squandered the Britain’s North Sea oil wealth in pursuit of an ideological obsession. After which I reminisced about <a href=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-jimmy-saviles-close-friendship-with-margaret-thatcher-8432351.html>her close personal friendship with the equally lamented young people’s entertainer Jimmy Saville</a>, as well as <a href=http://tobacco.cleartheair.org.hk/?p=7147>her tireless work on behalf of the Eastern European cancer industry</a>.
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So you can well imagine My amazement at finding upon My return to Ichabod Springs that the innovative and profitable Ministry I’d established just prior to leaving had fallen foul of a Godless piece of legislation called “The Patriot Act” - obviously something introduced by Obama and is cabal of Israel-loving Muslims. Who could have ever believed that something as innocent as a Biblically-sound initiative transhipping superphosphates to tribesmen in Afghanistan and Iraq (at a charitable 150% mark-up) would one day be considered treason? Here we were, helping ignorant heathens develop chemically-driven agriculture in the fervent prayer that one day their children would be able to enjoy the same tasteless tomatoes as we do, when suddenly the Perverted Atheists who control Washington were accusing us of supporting the manufacture of explosives in so-called-nations opposed to everything Jesus stood for – such lower taxes and an end to welfare for single mothers.
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Unfortunately My protestations that the people we were assisting weren’t enemies at all (on account of them also not liking women in leadership or homosexualists) weren’t helped by Bishop Quinine explaining that this particular Parish Ministry had absolutely nothing to do with trade in armaments and explosives, which are handled by an entirely different Mission registered in the Seychelles and operating out of Lichtenstein. In fact for a while things were looking quite dark indeed for the light on the hill which is St. Onuphrius’.
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But it takes more than the world's greatest superpower to keep this Doctrinal Warrior from Proclaiming the gospel, and during the course of a friendly interrogation session the senior investigator let slip the fact that he was himself the child of a Manse, and had some experience of the ways in which a Parish operates. At which point I realized he’d believe me implicitly if I blamed <i>everything</i> on My miserable excuse for a Curate, Evangelical Eric.
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Sure enough, My plan worked! The investigator really had been raised the son of a Rector, for he fully understood the truth of My explanation that <i>whatever</i> goes wrong in a Church – be it, big, small, or cataclysmic and involving nipple clamps and the entire Altar Guild – <b>IT’S ALWAYS THE CURATE’S FAULT!!!</b>
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And so, after Evangelical Eric obediently confirmed his guilt while being independently water-boarded by officers serving one of The Land of the Free’s dearest allies in the War on Terror, the St. Onuphrius’ Ministry Team are once more able to browse the intertubes in a faithful commitment to expose the evil lurking in men’s loins. Which is, I know you will all appreciate, the Greatest Christmas Present the World has ever received. Except, perhaps, for some small insignificant event a couple of thousand years ago involving a manger and a baby of dubious legitimacy. Whom I and the Conservatives who imitate Me promise to keep doing Our best to help everyone forget about.
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-18695281863125616282013-09-09T20:48:00.000-07:002013-09-09T20:48:56.788-07:009-11 2013: No Show Today.As you’ve probably guessed, Father Troll has been very much pushed to the sidelines of my life during the past year. In fact there have been times when I’ve seriously considered killing him off altogether; perhaps by being accidentally shot by while addressing an enthusiastic NRA rally, or as a result of some terrible explosion occurring while he and Bishop Quinine launch themselves into space aboard a home-made rocket in an attempt to become the first missionaries to <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_universe_of_Avatar>Pandora</a>. (How could those two <i>not</i> find themselves obsessing about physically gorgeous nine-foot tall blue people who’ve apparently never heard of the importance of misogyny and homophobia to spirituality? And since Avatar was produced by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch they’d have no problem convincing themselves it's not fiction: “I ask you, My Beloved Sinners, would the fine Christian who owns the Fox Network and The Sun <i>ever</i> present something which isn’t true?”).
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Partly these feelings have been exacerbated by the passing of the golden age of blogging: there really isn’t the same amount of material to riff on that there was a few years ago. More so, however, they result from a number of changes in my personal life: with a number of projects of which I’m immensely proud growing apace finding 45 minutes to transcribe the rantings of a demented old parody has become harder and harder. It’s one thing to make those around me laugh by slipping into Father Christian’s voice and denouncing whatever has just caught my attention, but very much another to translate that into a few hundred pithy words which will both offend and amuse the appropriate people - who are themselves spread across a number of very different continents, cultures, generations, sexualities, and genders.
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More importantly, the circumstances which gave birth to Father Christian have greatly changed. Akinola has retired to enjoy his sumptious retirement gifts, and his replacement has mercifully failed to sustain the buffoonery on a global scale. Jensen has stepped down to do whatever it is fundamentalist archbishops do once they’ve bankrupted their diocese, and even Venables is more in the category of “whatever happened to…” than he is a figure of influence in the church we love. Despite ludicrous predictions to the contrary, Duncan’s new “province” remains as much a part of the Anglican Communion as Scientology, and in terms of current growth only marginally more successful. All of which has often found me wondering if there’s still any need for Father Christian and his retinue? Perhaps having served their purpose it’s better for them to join those upon whom they were based into a well-deserved (albeit long-overdue) slide into obscurity.
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Yet the reality is that fundamentalism is far from dead. To forget this is to risk forgetting lessons etched in both the blood of those killed 12 years ago, and the tears shed afterwards by all those who loved them. Bin Laden might be dead, and closer to home sites like <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/><i>Stand Firm</i></a> might now be a pastiche of what it was five years ago (that there really does exist people who can keep a straight face while reading Fischler’s <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/30735><i>Facebook: Purveyor of Hate</i></a> or Ould’s <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/30574><i>Sex and Jihad – the Failure of Modern Hermeneutics</i></a> is beyond doubt, but I defy anyone to produce more than a handful who have finished elementary school and are not males with an emotional age of less than 25), but the evil old refrain continues regardless. People continue to reject and persecute others, and deny them basic human rights, because of a conviction that god says they’re wrong. Old men continue to grow in wealth and power by manipulating these convictions, and young men – for fundamentalism is above all else primarily a disease of young and immature men – continue throwing away their lives in attempt to find acceptance in the eyes of those whom they seek to follow.
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In response to my last 9/11 post a young fellow from Sydney (why was I not surprised to learn of his location?) left a comment here expressing outrage at what he considered to be my unwitting concatenation of Wahhabist Islam with contemporary Evangelicalism and medieval Catholicism. He never responded to my explanation that there was nothing unwitting in the slightest about my having drawn a link between what are actually just different manifestations of the same obnoxious cocktail of insecurity, poor-education, ambition, fear, and pride. The theological minutiae of what the consumer then sticks down the front of his underpants is a most an after-thought: a gnat with which to garnish one’s camel.
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As I said, the young man to whom my response was directed discontinued the dialogue, but I didn’t expect otherwise. Yet he has remained very much in my thoughts, as well as my prayers, and not least because I’m old enough to appreciate his earnest enthusiasm and to grieve at what becomes of his kind when the well of his energy has been drained by those who purport to lead him. And so it’s for his sake, as much as for those whom shared a chuckle from the other side of the aisle, that the terrible Father Christian Troll will live on. Probably not with the same frequency he once did, but hopefully once the chaos of the next few months’ deadlines have passed with more vigour than he’s displayed in the past year.
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That’s because young men like him thrive on arguments, and in any case reason and logic have never played any part in the construct of their beliefs (regardless of how much they claim to the contrary). One can at best hope to rattle the cage of delusions a little, and then be there on the ground to support them when the bright shining future once promised by their golden calf of certainty has left them used up and alone. And Father Christian is one of the most effective means by which I’ve ever been able to rattle cage bars.
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So until we next meet here, please take care to love those around you. Give thanks when those dearest to you come home from wherever they have been for the day, and make a place in your heart for those whom were on this day – or any other day – not so blessed. And remember that the God who makes the sun shine upon us all has no need for a faith which would leave others in the dark.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-29124923022462415822013-04-08T21:23:00.003-07:002013-04-08T21:30:48.840-07:00In a time of sorrow I bring you comfort...My deepest and sincerest condolences go to My Beloved Grief-stricken British Sinners, whom I know are all devastated at the untimely demise of young Baroness Margaret Thatcher. No doubt the overwhelming burden of sorrow is particularly great for those of you living north of Leicester, or in Wales, although I believe the people of Brixton, who have nothing but fond memories for all she did for them, have also <a href=http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-04-08/anti-thatcher-protesters-rearrange-brixtons-ritzy-cinema-lettering/>made no secret their heartfelt mourning</a>.
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As you all might expect, I was throughout her years of power a close and personal <i>confidant</i> of the woman who <i>single-handedly</i> destroyed communism with the help of Ronald Reagan. It is with great affection I recall the wonderful winter-evenings we shared by her fireplace in No. 10 Downing Street, laughing as we mused upon those dying from cold on account of an inability to pay heating bills vastly inflated through privatization. Or the way she’d softly smile as I suggested it would only be a matter of time before every man, woman, and child in Yorkshire, Liverpool, and Greater Manchester could be rounded up, processed, and sold in Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire as pet food...
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But it wasn’t all fun and games, not at all. There was also hard work, not least the interminable pastoral visits to families of those killed in the Falklands war. Try as I might, <i>none</i> were ever able to appreciate the honor of having the life of their beloved son, husband, or brother thrown away in a pointless squabble over some rocks in the far south Atlantic, the sole purpose of which was to provide a grandstand upon which a politician could promenade to ensure her successful re-election. Not even later, when in a brave blow against godless big government dear sweet Margaret introduced the poll tax, did I hear any of these still-grieving families (who really should have by then pulled their socks up and got on with life instead of moping about the consequences of their dead loved one’s lifestyle decision to get killed on an island of which nobody had ever previously heard) express their gratitude. Even though she had so thoughtfully saved them from the evils of big-taxing socialism by imposing a new tax significantly greater than that which it replaced. All of which just goes to show how wickedly hard Sinners’ hearts can be.
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Yet in this, our time of loss and tears, let’s not forget that dear little Margaret would be the last one wanting to anyone to display anything as pointless as compassion or emotion. No indeed; we can all be certain she’d all want us to continue without wavering towards the utopian beacon of economic rationalism (aka “slavery”) which burns before us just as brightly as it did when she lit its golden flames. Even if these days there is now a statutory charge for gazing upon it, and the plinth on which it stands bears advertising for products proven to cause cancer, and which are now illegal in countries where the media is not controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
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Consequently I’d like to ask that you to all wipe away your tears in honor of one who did so much to the people of Britain. Rather than crying, I urge you to join Me in sharing a piece of wholesome family epitomising everything Baroness Thatcher stood for. Sing along as little people are joyfully dominated by big ones, and once again lose yourself in the illusion of a wonderful yellow brick road. Although it’s probably better to not allow yourself to be reminded that the golden pathway along which the young woman singing here journeyed led ultimately to divorce, drug and alcohol dependence, and premature death. Much like yellow brick road along which the woman for whom no more than 40% British citizens voted forced her nation to march...
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-53341183045867192642013-03-29T20:38:00.000-07:002013-03-29T20:38:53.969-07:00As if I wasn't already busy enough...Since it’s Holy Week I suppose I read had better take a moment to generously deliver you all an appropriately edificational biblical homily. Although, to be perfectly honest, this is a time of year in which I can never help feeling annoyed with Our almighty lord on account of all the extra work his undeniably poor scheduling creates for christian Leaders like Myself.
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After all; as if things weren’t busy enough with all that’s been associated with My Courageous stance for the Sacred Right of Bible-believers to purchase Firearms unimpeded by any form of check or qualification whatsoever other than, of course, an assurance that the purchaser does indeed know Jesus as their Personal lord and savior, and is prepared to categorically deny having ever felt anything unwholesome stirring in his loins while watching a John Wayne movie. Especially when thinking about the fact that the Duke’s real name was “Marion”.
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And then on top of that little Benny Ratsfinger had to go and quit, forcing me to drop everything and fly to the Vatican <i>post-haste</i> in order to profit from the biggest market for man-lace since Bobby Duncan invented ACNA and the Prelacy of All Believers. The last time everyone attended a papal resignation was in 1415, and while I know the cardinals you all saw on TV looked pretty old, you can trust me when I say that not even <i>they</i> had appropriate vestments left over from then hanging around in the back of their closets. Although something tells me that for most of them that’s about all not in there…
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All of which just goes to show that if our omniscient and gracious father had shown just <i>the merest skerrick</i> of foresight he’d have had had the courtesy to give us all a bit of a breather between Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Granted, I can well understand that after lovingly making his son to die in agony for something he didn’t do god was eager to patch things up as quickly as possible before some atheist feminist at the Child Protection Services got wind of the whole affair, but unless government agencies in 1st century Palestine were a whole lot better funded than they are nowadays waiting a couple of weeks before moving on to the resurrection stage of things would have hardly been enough time for matters to progress to the stage where a caseworker has time to start investigating.
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That way none of us would have to get up early on Good Friday morning after conducting late night services on Maundy Thursday, and our good-for-nothing Curates wouldn’t be so useless on account of having been made to stay up all night for the Vigil. Then by scheduling the resurrection on a Tuesday two weeks later (but <i>definitely not</i> on a Monday, on account of that being the Vicar’s day off) we’d all be refreshed and ready for another day of serious liturgical festivities. Plus, since things would be business as usual on what is now taken up by Easter Sunday, we would gain an extra offertory on Easter-fortnight Tuesday.
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Then again, this kind of disorganization is exactly what we can expect to find when the Bible isn’t taken seriously. I’ve no doubt god is continuously grateful for Teachers like Me who are dedicated to correcting the liberal heresies of the past: you’d better believe that if as disciples had been as suitably prepared as men like Myself and the fine, well balanced, individuals commenting on this matter at <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/30294>Viagraville</a> always are, and carrying concealed firearms under their apostolic robey-things, none of this whole crucifixion thing would have happened. As if any servant of the Sanhedrin could have dragged away <i>my</i> saviour after we’d pumped them full of three dozen rounds purchased in Walmart’s Easter Spring sales.
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And now lastly: today marks 400 years since the date John Donne commemorated in <a href=http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/goodfriday.htm>Good-Friday, 1613, Riding Westward</a> - a piece which a number of notorious characters to whom I faithfully minister find quite influential. Personally it’s a work I consider <i>vastly</i> overrated (I always say that if Donne and T. S. Elliot were that good they’d have been working for Hallmark instead of churning out all that meaningless egg-headed stuff), and I’m always pleased to find most young evangelicals I meet have never heard of it, while the next generation of Anglo-Catholics are more interested in gazing at their navels while pondering a possible call to the Ordinariate than they are embracing that to which their heritage points towards. Still, as way of seeing just how far we’ve come I’d urge those of you unfamiliar with the poem to <a href=http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/goodfriday.htm>read it today</a>. At very least it’ll give you an appreciation of why I’m so confident that in another 400 years the Liberal Immorality of the past will be well and truly forgotten, while the words of Conservative Leaders like Myself and <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/>My Imitators</a> shall stand firm for a thousand years.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-33433100673353127992013-02-08T15:16:00.001-08:002013-02-08T15:16:45.505-08:00From my cold, dead hands...Contrary to what we can all be certain my Liberal nemeses have been claiming, the reason for My absence from the inter-tubes over the past six weeks has <i>not</i> involved court orders. Nor were any of the terms of My current parole from prison ministry revoked. No, My Beloved Sinners, so great is the Wickedness prevailing in these Apostate days that I’ve been utterly, utterly absorbed in something which I know will strike cold hard fear into the hearts of young clergy everywhere – that’s right: I’ve been so involved in the flesh and blood lives of my community that there hasn’t been so much as a single <i>second</i> to devote to the expenditure of electrons and bandwidth.
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That’s because the Christian World is currently facing its darkest hour since the heresy of congregationalism birthed the hideous notion of Priests being in some way answerable to those to whom they’ve been called to instruct. A threat so dark that it’s no exaggeration to say that if I don’t devote every molecule of my Doctrinally-pure breath to fighting it, our omnipotent god and saviour face eternal oblivion as America succumbs to Obama’s abominable vision of Socialist godlessness. A future which, as I was only telling god in prayer this morning, could well become reality but for the Strength, Breadth, and Insight of My Courageous opposition.
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Were you all sufficiently valuable to god to have been blessed with the privilege of living here in Ichabod Springs, and able to spend Sundays physically gathered beneath the St. Onuphrias’ pulpit, where little flecks of My Spittle shower the faithful fallen with golden droplets of edification, there would of course be no need for Me to name this threat. But so great is Scourge of Ignorance which has befallen creation that for most of you the identity of this Diabolical Juggernaut poised to destroy faith forever is unknown. While at any moment all the cherished values of our ancient creeds – things as crucial to our faith as denigrating women and homosexualists, or bickering about Pauline minutia while children die from preventable diseases – will be cast asunder by the most terrible Satanic Strategy to have ever confronted the Kingdom of God. One even worse than Romanism, Presbyterianism, and the idea that those not contributing to the offertory with sufficient generosity can’t be publically shamed and/or beaten. Something so evil that our lord Jesus specifically failed to mention it when writing the gospels on account of its obscenity:
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<b>Gun Control.</b>
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There; it's said. I trust those of you in the habit of reading my homilies to children (as I know many of you do) had the good sense to not voice that dreadful phrase aloud. Nor, I pray, were they uttered within earshot of animals: the beasts of the fields may not have souls (as any faithful evangelical with a dog is duty-bound to testify), but that doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain. Just the other day My foolish Curate inadvertently gave sound to this blasphemous expression , and not minutes later the entire contents of our office fish-tank was twitching belly-northwards at the surface. Although to be fair, a small vial of something medicinal Bishop Quinine purchased on the internet had also just gone missing, and tropical fish can be so <i>dreadfully</i> sensitive.
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Over the course of My next few Important homilies I shall be telling you all of the fearless stand we’ve made in the fight to preserve Christians’ right to freely possess - unhindered by any socialist prying into one’s criminal history, mental health, and sexual fascination with <i>Soldier of Fortune</i> magazine - a collection of semi-automatic assault weapons for the godly purposes of self-defence, hunting gophers, or vaporizing the heads of any neighbors who might look funny. Or who disrespect one’s pick-up on a day when things are just a bit more tense than usual. I’m confident that the light of My example, accompanied by unparalleled Biblical exposition illustrating the important role mass killings have played in salvation history, will inspire you all to join Me in Christendom’s greatest crusade since medieval foreigners decided to once and for all bring the peace to the Holy Land.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-7763639136140042342012-12-25T15:39:00.000-08:002012-12-25T15:41:14.239-08:00Ho, ho, ho.It’s Christmas, and the season of good will to all. Which is why I’ve been <i>dreadfully</i> busy neglecting my customary Advent duties - ensuring My Parishioners purchase me lavish presents as an indication of their Biblical Maturity – for something even more important: preserving the American right to purchase and possess semi-automatic firearms with magazines large enough to kill entire crowds of our fellow citizens.
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If the truth be told, however, these past few weeks have been witness to an epic struggle between myself and the wicked, godless, irresponsible, child-of-perdition whom is honoured with the privilege of channelling My Words on this blog. I realize Faithful Sinners will all find this hard to believe, but upon learning of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the foolish liberal actually had the nerve to threaten me to my metaphoric virtual face, saying that there was no longer anything funny about sharing headspace with a Conservative parody of my magnitude.
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Indeed, when <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-god-didnt-stop-ct-school-shooting-because-hes-gentleman-who-doesnt-go-where-he-not-w">Bryan Fischer aired what might be flatteringly described as his "thoughts"</a> my wicked scribe even went so far as to say there was no longer any need for a Rev. Dr. Father Troll – reality had rendered my schtick redundant. With <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/huckabee_blames_gays_for_the_newtown_massacre/">Mike Huckabee</a> picking up the refrain, and even <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/james_dobson_blames_gays_abortion_for_shootings/">James Dobson</a> taking a break from <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5081246">beating his dachshund</a> (<i>Sit down</i> Dr. Freud!! Nobody here finds the symbolism as amusing as you do.) to jump on board the bandwagon, the world no longer needed My Ministry.
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Not even reasoning helped: trying to calmly put the murder of twenty-six children and six teachers into perspective against the far bigger risk of finding oneself unarmed in the face of an attack by 18th century British soldiers did nothing to shift My Mutinous Secretary’s stubborn conviction. Explanations that this was only the sixth mass shooting this year meant there was hardly justification for approaching the issue of gun control with undue haste simply fell on deaf ears. And inspired a tirade in which the word “idiot” was used more than even my opposition to universal health care could justify.
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Appealing to facts was no more successful. <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_19.pdf">Government statistics</a> show that in 2007 firearms were responsible for a mere <i>31,224</i> deaths (see page 11 of the previous link) – which when compared with the truly shocking figure of 23 ,199 alcohol related deaths <i>completely</i> justifies the priorities of my Baptist imitators. Yet the only response of My Disrespectful Typist was to repeat an irrelevant refrain – “The slaughter has to stop.”
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Explanations that the Newtown incident would never have occurred if each of those children had been equipped with a .223-caliber Bushmaster assault rifle of their own met with similar disrespect: how can one even begin to engage in meaningful dialogue with someone who refuses to believe that Sylvester Stallone/Clint Eastwood movies accurately depict the reality of a firefight?
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Which brings us to where we are today: the anniversary of Christ Jesus’ birth. The terrible troublemaker responsible for bringing you My Words has at last relented, and in honor of today’s significance agreed to let me once again bless the intertubes with My Presence. Yet – although it pains me to admit this – perhaps I am closer to My Scribe than I care to believe. For in closing the only words I can find are these:
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Have a wonderful Christmas, and thank you for dropping by here during the year. Amidst the laughter and joy of today spare a thought for those families whose child is no longer present to enjoy the excitement anticipated a lifetime ago, before December 14 – or before any other of countless horrors which have torn us apart in these shadowlands. Never forget that God’s intervention into our confusion and bitterness has meant the darkness shall never win, and that Love is greater than all – including the so-called “right” to own instruments of death.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Take time today to value those around you. Tell them you love them, for you never know hard it might be to do so tomorrow. Turn off the television, shut down the computer for a few minutes, and remember the feeling of the breeze on your face. Sing for joy in the Saviour’s birth, and gasp with amazement at the One God who walks beside you, irrespective of who, where, or what you are. Light candles and eat and drink richly of the courage which comes from the truth that we shall not always see through a glass darkly.</b></span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">L'amour est plus fort que la mort.
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The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-67168044821588505942012-11-16T14:35:00.000-08:002012-11-16T17:02:21.581-08:00Father Christian's modest proposal.As I write these words Palestinians are blowing the beAllah out of Israelis, who are in return blowing the beAdonai out of Palestinians. My Curate, Evangelical Eric, holds Obama responsible, and insists the President could fix everything by blowing the beJesus out of Iran. Although since my Curate also blames Obama for the infected hair follicle preventing him from crossing his legs without wincing it’s understandable the White House hasn’t been responding to the boy’s unsolicited letters of advice. Meanwhile My Biblically Traditional Brethren everywhere remain paralysed with grief over last week’s electoral tragedy, leaving me to boldly carve a way forward alone through these terrible days.
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Indeed, at times like these even the most god-forsaken Liberal is forced to admit that a Teacher of My Calibre is more than just a pretty face draped in man-lace every Sunday. That’s because the situation we now face is one of <i>fact</i> - the dreadful reality that the Sacred Principle of democracy has been forever perverted by the election of a candidate not approved of by White Conservative Men. In response only those who embrace <i>facts</i> like Jonah’s survival for three days in a fish's gastrointestinal tract, or that human linguistic variations result from the attempted construct of a tower in the ancient near east, can possibly have what it takes to invent the facts required to lead Sinners through the coming apocalypse of affordable healthcare and improved public education.
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Hence my advice to Sinners trembling with fear of the scythe of socialism about to fall upon their unblemished necks is to <i>not</i> do anything foolish, such as trying to understand what socialism actually <i>is</i> before throwing the term around like confetti at a mafia wedding. Instead everyone should simply be quiet and listen to <i>me</i>. Because unlike My Imitators, not all my research involves visiting web sites asking for a valid card number, and I have discovered something Very Important of which you need to be aware. Look at this:
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The table above is a list of the ten U.S. states with the highest incarceration rates in the country - imprisonment figures so impressive that these places <i>actually lead the world</i> when it comes to locking people up. And behold the election result - <i>90% of these states voted the way god told Me his people must vote!</i>
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But on the other hand, look at the result in those states failing to realize that Liberty depends upon keeping as many as possible under lock and key:
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These are the states with the lowest incarceration rates per 100 000 citizens and the tragic result is undeniable - now we’re looking at <i>70%</i> of votes being cast <i>exactly</i> as directed from the pit of hell! Godless Socialist Liberals can whine all they like about babies born in countries like Malaysia, Cuba, Lithuania, and Poland having <a href=http://theweek.com/article/index/218803/infant-mortality-why-does-america-lag-behind>a better chance of survival than those born in the United States</a>, but there’s no argument about the facts - the number of people a community imprisons is <i>directly proportional</i> to number of votes for the freedom that lets fine American Businessmen like Bernie Madoff, or Exemplars of Family Values like Donald Trump, do what they do best!
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Thanks to My Enlightened Exegetical Teaching you will now see that unless Americans immediately begin imprisoning as many of their fellow citizens as possible the Nation cannot hope to survive. My recommendation is that we begin with known Communists and trouble makers, such as those admitting to own recordings by R.E.M., or who know what <i>Born in the U.S.A.</i> <a href= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_the_U.S.A._(song)>is really about</a>. And <i>foreigners</i> of course, along with everyone who doesn’t think Churches have a natural right to tax-exemption. Simply locking up these deviant members of our society will of itself ensure a electoral disaster of the kind with which Unfaithful Americans have just been chastised is never happens again. Then later on, to be certain about National Security, we can jail those elements exerting a more subtle influence for evil, such as everybody with the letter “e” in their name.
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The Scriptures don’t call America “The Home of the Brave” without good reason, but we need to prove that bravery with the blood of as many young people as possible. And those whom we can’t render limbless and emotionally-cored by PTSD need to be jailed, along with anyone else daring to hope for a society not run by plutocrats. Only when chain-gangs line every roadway, and privately-owned prisons can manufacture consumer goods at a price and under conditions which make <a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/17/foxconn-children-14-factory-china>Foxconn</a> jealous, will America truly be The Land of the Free.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-23126809206367116802012-11-13T16:16:00.000-08:002012-11-13T16:16:53.917-08:00Known by the company you keep…One of the most enjoyable things about being an Authentically Biblical Traditionalist is the knowledge that you stand in your conviction alongside so many truly wonderful people. Over the years I’ve introduced My Beloved Sinners to far too many to name here: certainly the lovely Davids Virtue and Ould deserve a mention, as does Colorado Springs’ (and CANA’s) epitome of integrity, <a href=http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2011/02/25/armstrong-avoids-jail-time-must-pay-99247-in-restitution>Donny Armstrong</a>, who is currently on probation and quite appropriately not feeling he owes any apology for having misappropriated close to one hundred thousand of his church’s hard-earned. Nor can I omit the nut-job on Facebook who accuses me of being anti-family, and then posts this Valentine’s Day message of marital devotion:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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But it is with thanks to <a href=http://goptears.tumblr.com/>Republican Tears</a> - essential reading for anyone with an inclination to sail the subtle seas of schadenfreude – that I’ve come across someone who rises above even these great names in the mighty world of Contemporary Christian Misogyny: the author of the timeless <a href= http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ke79kuqgy_wJ:cmd-n.org/2012/11/06/what-the-right-doesnt-get-about-elections/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>What the Right Doesn’t Get About Elections</a>.
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Be warned, however, before you rush to click that link and wallow in the trough of what you will find there: if you think folks can’t get any nastier than the fun-loving throng at <a href= http://www.standfirminfaith.com/>Viagraville</a> you’re in for a <i>very</i> big shock. In fact tis piece is so outstandingly Conservative that the response generated frightened the courageous author into removing it (hence my link is to Google’s cached version) and closing down his site, the ironically named “<a href= http://cmd-n.org/>Christian Men’s Defense Network</a>” (How can anyone not love the neo-nazi styling of his title font? Although why would someone wanting to style themselves as a “defender” want to align themselves with one of the most comprehensively defeated military regimes in history – one with a leader so brave that rather than face the consequences of defeat he preferred to shoot his dog and wife before turning the gun on himself? Or are the answers to such mysteries self-evident?)
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And now before closing I’d like to assure everyone devastated by the success of the Liberal Plot to prevent my appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury to do their very best to keep their chins up. Many have found that sending me a large and expensive gift by way of consolation helps with their grief, and I’d encourage each one of to prayerfully consider this as a means of helping you find solace in these sad times. Meanwhile – and since this concerns a matter of a highly confidential nature I’m not at liberty to discuss it further – I have already been <a href= http://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/11/12/obama-begins-search-for-new-cia-director/UF7xguzWQqSjHqytEQovuL/story.html>approached in regard to a different appointment</a> even more suited to a Man of My Experience. And you’d better believe when I’m the one sending sexy emails from that office those responsible for overlooking My Obvious Vocation to lead the Anglican Communion will find themselves framed quicker than you can say “Rosenberg”.
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-71886556683295515012012-11-08T17:19:00.001-08:002012-11-08T17:36:50.593-08:00"A fool's mouth is his ruin... " (Proverps 18:7)<blockquote>
“<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The constitution is toast. A second term guarantees Obama imposes Soviet style rule.</span></i>”<br />
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<a href="http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/29642"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Little Greg Griffiths - <i>Viagraville</i></span></a></div>
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In a postscript to <a href="http://gafcon.blogspot.com/2012/11/dont-be-happy-worry.html">My Previous Important Homily</a> I introduced My Beloved Sinners to a boy whom <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/live-coverage#sha=acf627424">The New York Times</a> quoted as describing President Obama as “an arrogant Communist.”
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Now to be fair to this young fellow, he was attending what he had doubtless expected would be the biggest party since Grover Norquist first learned how to play pup-tent with a pin-up of Ayn Rand, and things had undoubtedly turned a little tired and emotional by the time someone from all the news that’s fit to print arrived for a soundbite. Although one would think a resident of Florida would have before now met someone with a little first hand experience of life under regimes which really do think Marx’s crazy café-table jottings offer an improvement on the political structure of the nation which gave the world electric guitars, Jack Daniels, and the freedom to grow a ZZ Top beard if that’s what you’ve got your heart set on. At which point I’m sure this person would have been more than happy to explain that however much you might dislike the democratically elected President of the U.S.A., describing him as a “communist” is taking things <i>just a tad</i> too far.
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Still, as a Romney supporter this boy is by definition also a True Christian, so he quite understandably wouldn’t have wanted engage in dialogue with someone almost certainly a <i>foreigner</i> lest doing so lead him into sin and away from the one who is quite obviously incapable of keeping us from falling. Quite correctly he has chosen to leave the thinking up to Infallible Bible Teachers like Myself, or, in a pinch, little Greg Griffiths when it comes to reality. Which is a Good Thing, because when it comes to identifying Communists we know everything.
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In the case of little Greg – who is, I must explain, known around the intertubes by those familiar with his fine and balanced style of histrionics as “Melanie” – this is because he, <a href="http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/29642">by his own admission</a> watched a few Soviet movies while he was at college. So there can be no doubting his credentials as an expert on all things to the left of Rush Limbaugh. Whereas my uncannily accurate ability to identify godless Leninist Marxists whenever they might subversively choose to participate in the electoral processes of unabashedly capitalist economies comes from personal missionary experience in these unprincipled realms of concrete and very bad dentistry.
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That’s right, My Beloved Sinners: as someone who not infrequently was called by the spirit to sojourn in Berlin during the halcyon days when there were fortunes to be made selling Beatles records, bubble-gum and blue jeans to the poor unfortunates trapped on the eastern side of the wall thoughtfully erected to ensure black-market prices stayed high, I have had no small degree of personal experience with the horrors Soviet dictators are capable of inflicting. And not just in East Germany – during another sequence of visits to Moscow in the time of Brezhnev, when I was bravely pioneering the industry which was to become known today as “Russian Bride Scams” (sadly my bold Trump-like entrepreneurship failed to reap the rewards to which I was entitled on account of the internet not yet having been invented – although I can with modest pride take comfort in having generously paved the way for countless other Orthodox Christian Capitalists now getting around in expensive non-American cars) I quickly became aware of Communism’s <i>terrible</i> consequences. So impressive was the price which could be obtained for a few dog-eared copies of <i>Playboy</i> that it simply broke one’s heart to think of the way Christians at the time took the Times Square grindhouse district for granted.
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All of which means that when I say Melanie isn’t exaggerating you can be sure I know what I’m talking about. And that you can be sure everything else the boy says is every bit as well thought aout and based in fact. What began as Obama’s socialist conspiracy to save American auto industry jobs from moving to Japan where they rightfully belong (has anyone <i>ever</i> heard of something so unpatriotic?) has progressed to a shamelessly Marxist determination to lower the nation’s infant mortality rate by ensuring affordable health care for those babies so foolish as to be born to parents unable to pay for the care to which white Christians like the those to whom Melanie’s site is directed are entitled. Mark my words, now that we can expect another four years of Obamacare I wouldn’t be surprised if America’s neo-natal death rate falls to the extent where we are no longer proudly behind such great nations as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate">Cuba, Croatia, and Cyprus</a> when it comes to caring for our littlest ones’ well-being. Although someone really ought to tell the folks at <a href="http://www.standfirminfaith.com/">Viagraville</a> that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead"><i>The Fountainhead</i> </a> is not normally considered one of the synoptic gospels.
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In closing let me just invite everyone experiencing something of the rage being felt not only by Melanie and his cohorts, but also by bastions of traditional marriage like <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229109/Election-2012-Donald-Trump-tweets-anger-following-disgusting-injustice-Obamas-election.html">Donald Trump</a>, and pillars of unbiased reportage like <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/07/karl_rove_on_fox_news_the_five_stages_of_conservative_grief.html">Karl Rove and Fox</a>, to share in a little hymn folks here at St. Onuphrius’ have been singing in the wake of Obama’s tragic re-election. Listen to the words and it just might help explain what happens when minorities start working together in the way that Jesus calls them to..
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I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-86204518933465829662012-11-06T23:50:00.001-08:002012-11-06T23:50:46.668-08:00Don't be happy: worry.As all of My Regular Readers will testify, <a href="http://gafcon.blogspot.com/2012/11/dont-worry-vote-happy.html">I’ve <i>always</i> said</a> the “church” of Mormon is a dangerous cult, and about as far removed from the faith of Orthodox Bible-Believers as it’s possible to get without donning saffron robes whilst offering prayers to the neighbor’s cow. That some foolish apostates can claim all the mumbo-jumbo about additional scriptures and magic underwear doesn’t <i>automatically</i> preclude Mitt Romney’s terrible sect from <i>ever</i> being considered as Christian just goes to show the appalling dearth of Sound Biblical Doctrine in these wicked liberal times.
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Indeed, I know for a fact that some misguided teachers were in the past few days going so far as to claim a belief in Joseph Smith’s ludicrous false gospel is compatible with the Holy Thirty-nine Articles and historical creeds. Quite naturally, of course, none of that sort of nonsense was ever “taught” here, and it is with great pride that I can say with my hand on my heart that <a href="http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=8983">unlike certain <i>Baptists</i></a> nobody heard <i>me</i> turning a blind eye to the crass heterodoxy of Mormon “theology” just because like any True Conservative I wanted to save America from Obama’s diabolical communist lies. Like that the creation of all people as equal is some kind of “self evident truth”. Or, even more satanically, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights endowed to all by their Creator – when any student of the Bible knows such things must be exclusively reserved for those able to afford treatment in the most expensive health-care system in the world.
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That so-called Clergy could turn a blind eye to Romney’s utterly unbiblical false gospel is in reality just further proof of something I’ve always said – people today <i>don’t read the Bible correctly</i>”. If they did, for example, the first time Romney had voiced his belief in the core Mormon assertion that the resurrected Jesus physically visited north-eastern America they’d have known to not pay another moment’s attention to his presidential aspirations. Even the most cursory reading of the Gospels puts paid once and for all to any possibility of such a ludicrous thing happening: how can anyone who knows the Bible even begin to imagine Jesus visiting somewhere people voted for Obama?
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Similarly, I know for a fact that in the lead-up to what is unquestionably an international disaster some wolves in sheep’s clothing (undoubtedly Episcopalians) were citing <a href="http://bible.cc/philippians/4-4.htm">Philippians 4:4</a> in an entirely misguided attempt to urge their congregations to rejoice in anticipation of what they believed would be an unqualified victory for the man whom I had been warning along would prove a heretical failure. This, My Beloved Sinners, is exaclty the sort heresy we can all expect when Ministers cease to obey the important principle of only ever interpreting Scripture in the light of Scripture.
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Thus while it is indeed quite true St. Paul exhorted his readers to “rejoice” – an odd choice of word here on account of it’s archaic French origin, and one which <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rejoice">Wiktionary</a> makes quite clear carries a variety of meanings, the appropriate one of which in this context (since it’s St. Paul writing, and we know he never thought about anything other than sex) is “<i>To have (someone) as a lover or spouse; to enjoy sexually.</i>” (No, I really haven’t made that one up: <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rejoice">click the link</a> if you don’t believe me!).
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As clearer and wiser Teachers of Truth like myself said throughout the lead-up to this national tragedy, and the one which you all know I stood as a fearless lone voice proclaiming, was that our prevailing emotion should be one of sorrow. <a href="http://bible.cc/john/11-35.htm">John 11:35</a> indisputably states that “Jesus wept”, and since Christians are called to be like Jesus (except for the bits about Him speaking to women as equals, associating with sinners, poor people, unbelievers, foreigners, and other riff-raff, and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A1-11&version=NIV">standing up for someone who’s sexuality had gotten them into a whole mess of troube</a>) there can be no doubt that those would follow Jesus are under a Scriptural Imperative to walk around sobbing till rivers of tears flow down their cheeks, staining their modest-but-tastefull cotton-polyester décolletage.
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Rest assured that there’ll be nothing but Christ-like grief at my Church for the next four years. Or at least until I find someone gullible enough to buy all the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recordings we stockpiled as part of a planned training course for those aspiring to careers as Washington lobbyists. Now perhaps Consuella still has the number of the <br />
<del>sucker</del>astute business man who purchased all the “Palin 2012” bumper stickers we printed a few years back…
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">PS. Spare a thought also, if you will, for John Kubik, an attendee at Romney's Boston election night party, whose 15 minutes of fame has just passed in the form of a mention in <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/live-coverage#sha=acf627424">The New York Times</a>. When asked how he felt, Mr. Kubik, who comes from Orlando, Florida, replied “Horrible. I’ve despised Obama from the election. He’s an arrogant Communist.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Guess it's downhill from here for John... but at least he's not letting reality get in the way of some really funny hyperbole.</span>The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-72765190616817312892012-11-05T04:02:00.003-08:002012-11-06T21:42:05.658-08:00Don't worry: vote happy.Not too much longer to wait now, and America will once more have a born-again Bible-believing Orthodox Conservative President in the White House. Certainly I know Miserable Liberals like little Matt Kennedy are <a href=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/29625 >predicting the worst</a>, but that just stems back to the same problem Liberals have with everything - they <i>just don’t read the Scriptures correctly</i>. <a href= http://bible.cc/philippians/4-4.htm >Phillipians 4:4</a>, for example, makes it clear that Christians are to “Rejoice in the Lord always.” That’s right – it says “Rejoice”. Not mope around like Donald Trump’s hairstyle in a sauna, but “Rejoice”. Which last time I looked at <a href=http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rejoice>Wiktionary</a> means something along the lines of “Be happy.” Although it also says the word is derived from <i>French</i>, so I’m not too sure why Paul was using it, or how God could have considered it appropriate for his Sinless Bible which died on the cross to save Us, but let’s leave that for another time just now.
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So, having established that true Christians are called to rejoice, we must also remember that God has also promised to <a href=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+26%3A3&version=NIV>”keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast”</a> – a passage which unquestionably applies to me, and quite possibly you also providing you sincerely believe as I do. And let’s face it: how could Righteous Christians possibly rejoice if they knew Obamacare - which is in sharp contrast to everything a Clergyman who makes a fortune on the side by contracting to the County for pauper’s funerals stands for – wasn’t going to be repealed by the next administration? How could God keep a man of My Righteousness “in perfect peace” if I knew that poor people will continue receiving life-prolonging medical care they can’t possibly afford? Or what about the fortune I accumulated through buying up properties seized as result of the former owners’ inability to pay their hospital bills? God knows full well that medical debts used to <a href= http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm>account for 62% of all U.S. personal bankruptcies</a> (you’d better believe I’ve reminded Him of this at every Parish prayer meeting), so it’s not as if He can just claim to have forgotten the importance of ensuring a continued supply of bargains for Doctrinally-sound Believers blessed with the capacity to take advantage of others’ misfortune.
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No, My Beloved Sinners, I refuse to believe that god’s Word would personally instruct Me to be happy if this sort of outrage was just around the corner. Call me old-fashioned, but if America’s founding fathers had wanted us to enjoy a fair and equitable health system they’d have called us Canada. Or New Zealand, Great Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Lichtenstein or one of those other god-forsaken hell-holes not enjoying an infant mortality rate somewhere in the middle of a whole lot of nations with names ending in “stan”. Which why you can all be sure that come this Tuesday I’ll be proudly voting for Romney as many times as I can get away with.
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Nor do I want any nit-picking so-called “Christians” sending me any more emails about Mitt “not really being one of us” on account of his Mormon inclinations. I’ve conducted no small amount of research on this topic, and can categorically state that these days the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is 100% doctrinally sound. Certainly I’ll agree that its teachings differ a tiny bit to those of denominations not convinced that after His resurrection Jesus spent a little chill-out time in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and upstate New York, but any unbiased Bible-believer will have to agree that these amount to nothing more than theological minutiae: Mormons have additional scriptures, reject the Trinity, practice baptism of the dead, claim special underwear brings one closer to God (and no, Beloved Sinners the said undergarments are emphatically <i>not</i> made of latex, PVC, or leather. Nor satin, naugahyde or fun-fur), and advocate a Christology which in more forgiving times normally resulted in proponents being burnt at the stake – all mere trivia in comparison to the meat at the heart of Christian Orthodoxy.
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Indeed; when it comes to the theological rubber hitting consortium-owned highway <a href=http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=8983> Billy Graham is completely justified in giving the Biblical all clear</a> to Joseph Smiths most talented spiritual progeny since the Osmonds. After all, as a Mormon Romney doesn’t like homos, so he can obviously say the 39 Articles and any of the historical creeds without crossing his fingers. He’s part of a church with more Bishops (all of whom have penises) than a convention of schismatic Anglicans (so there’s nothing heterodox about his ecclesiology), and which takes tithing so seriously it makes Pentecostals look laid-back about money. Nor should we ever forget that as a Mormon Mitt Romney brings the weight of his church’s history to the fight for traditional marriage.
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None of which must for a moment, of course, be construed as implying Mormons are <i>saved</i>. Obviously they can’t be – what kind of a place does anyone think Heaven would be if they let people who won’t drink beer and coffee? Yet it’s more than just his religion that makes Romney any Orthodox Christian’s only choice: it’s also his money.
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That’s right: for too long the only countries with leaders stashing away millions in Swiss bank accounts and the Cayman Islands have been places like Iraq, Libya, and African nations so psychotic not even GAFCON bishops appreciate them being mentioned. Whilst Haiti’s Duvaliers and Panama’s Noriega were busy hiding fortunes, America’s leaders were doing nothing more impressive than bungling hotel break-ins or leaving stains on an intern’s now famous blue dress. With this kind of inattention to detail on the part of our Presidents is it any wonder the U.S. is now in <i>only fourth place</i> on the list of <a href=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2011/0918/Death-penalty-Top-5-countries-to-execute-the-most-people/United-States>countries which execute people</a>? (Although you’ll be glad to know America does still <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate>lead the world when it comes to incarcerating citizens</a>, which not only proves how well the war on drugs is working, but also how successful a century of fundamentalism has been when it comes to transforming the hearts and lives of ordinary Americans.) But now with Mitt Romney having been sent to us by god (or at least someone qualified to give His more outspoken representatives advice on tax-avoidance) America will have a leader whose <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/krugman-mitts-gray-areas.html?ref=opinion&_r=0>fascinating personal finances</a> are every bit as inspiring as anything Gaddafi ever came up with.
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And if <i>that</i> doesn’t get you out to vote on Tuesday not even I can do anything to redeem your seared conscience.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3224671339660011652.post-65128543157363710762012-10-31T12:25:00.001-07:002012-11-01T11:40:17.271-07:00Storms are just passing wind.To be perfectly honest I’ve <i>never</i> liked the name “Sandy”. This is unfortunate, since I’ve known some very fine people indeed who are called that, and on one occasion was even obliged to Baptize an extraordinarily lovely child with this name. This required me to feign a coughing fit at the appropriately crucial liturgical moment, wherein I <i>sotto voce</i> substituted the first alternative to come into my head. That just happened to be “Sandinista” – something which may cause a few awful moments in the Kingdon to come given in that glorious place we shall all be known by our true names in the faith, and her parents were dedicated supporters of Reagan.
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Perhaps this perfectly rational aversion has its origins in a series of awkward experiences as a child with a swimming teacher of that name. A tall blonde of Scandinavian descent, he had the personality of one of those little metal tools Ikea supply with things that come packed flat in cardboard, with the intelligence of lutefisk. And he refused to comprehend that as one destined to lead the world in Doctrinal Righteousness there was simply no point in my wasting time struggling with his aquatic pedagogy, especially given it was only a matter of time before My Faith enabled me to stroll with confidence upon the waters of his chlorine-drenched domain. In the end things got so bad that my dear old mother had to come and see him after class: by the grace of god she’d forgotten her handgun at home, so we were able to make it look like accidental drowning and nobody was ever any the wiser. Although the next teacher did always treat me with a degree of respect that couldn’t help but make you wonder.
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Or, on the other hand, it might be a subliminal reaction to that terrible television show “Flipper”. Most people are aware the son’s name was Sandy – but what they don’t know was that his best friend and diabolical cetacean familiar <i>was actually a female pretending to be a male</i>! That’s right, My Beloved Sinners, the whole show was really a satanic plot to subvert the natural order of creation: what we all thought was this lovely animal made by god to get caught in tuna nets when not rescuing Florida children from an endless collection of criminals (who, curiously given the location, never <i>once</i> included cocaine smugglers) was in fact preconditioning an entire generation to accept the ordination of women. Dismiss as "coincidence" if you wish that this series ran parallel with the heyday of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_to_God">Robinson's "Honest to God"</a> - but no Real Christian is fooled.
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Either way, as soon as I learned the name of this terrible storm I knew things were going to get nasty. Now as sure as you can say worse things can happen in Atlantic City than card-counting, my prescient foresight has proven correct once again - surely it’s now got to be only a matter of time before I one day get it right on a well priced outsider at Saratoga). In response to which I must now do what every Great Man of the Cloth is called to do for god’s people in times of fear, despair, and suffering. That’s right: I’ve got to bring you all a three-hour exegetical exposition on the role of limited atonement in St. Paul’s Epistle to the <i>Colossians</i>.
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Although I must confess this might not be possible right now on account of the fact that I know many of you are experiencing power outages, and lack sufficient righteousness to have your own Curate to pedal a generator to maintain a satellite internet connection. Indeed, I am so pastorally sensitive that I am even aware many of you don’t even posses a schismatic bishop to whip the Curate should he begin to grow weary (although we all know my fellow Gafconeers are doing everything they can to resolve <i>that</i> shortage, and I’ve heard rumours <i>quite a few</i> ambitious South Carolinians have been downloading the purple pages of online vestment suppliers in anticipation of what they hope might be in the mess down there for them). Consequentially I’m aware, much as you would in this hour of destruction be comforted by a lengthy technical diatribe explaining why god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to damn those predestined to not agree with Me, that this might not be quite the most appropriate time for you to all appreciate the Pearls I'm called to cast before swine.
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Thus you’re all just going to have to content yourselves with a quick (it’s got to be quick – even the lashing isn’t working anymore, and it looks like Evangelical Eric is at any moment going faint) assurance of my deep concern. Do your best to keep smiling, and never forget that people in California pay big money to eat in places where everything tastes of seaweed.
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I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>PS. The wicked troublemaker who channels this offensive assault on decent people everywhere would also like to let everyone affected by the storm to know that the hearts and prayers of ‘St. Onuphrius’ are with you – God keep you safe, and bring you comfort, shelter, and peace. Blessings all, and never forget the promise that after wind and rain the sun will always come out once again. Take care, ok?
</i></span>The Rev. Dr. Christian Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12036555999630488760noreply@blogger.com14