A Gilded Clarification

I’m afraid the prurient godless liberal media have been at it again, publishing Slavic mistruths 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.

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.

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.

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?

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

Picture (c) Can Stock Photo / janecat

Goodbye 2016. Hello ????

2016 should well and truly have left the building by now. Consequently, My Beloved Sinners, it should finally be safe for Me to once more return to the public eye. The foolish and ungodly can mock Me as overly-cautious all they wish, but one look at last year’s celebrity death toll settles the matter as far as this Internationally Famous Biblical Warrior is concerned. Let’s face it, the moment Princess Leia went instead of Jar Jar Binks it was obvious the old Grim Reaper has started sipping the same backyard moonshine which filled voters’ hipflasks back in November, and there’s no way I was going to stick My head above the parapet in an attempt to become the next social media obituary.

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 Tlaloc.

All of which is a fitting lead up to Dear Leader’s looming inauguration. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 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).

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 the simpler ends of mainstream media, but between you and Me, Dear Sinners, I certainly hope you realise our beloved leader doesn’t actually think there are countries run by women. Which, given his preferred means of greeting members of the non-male gender, is probably just as well.

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.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

The Work Begins...

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.

(c) Can Stock Photo / janecat

Yet in your foolish naivety please don't forget My Work here is first and foremost about Ministry. 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.

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 directly by God. Consequently it is impossible 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.

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 always 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.

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.

As with any hyper-active narcissistic sociopath. teaching - like maintaining good bowel health - involves regularity. 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.

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.

I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

"Let's be careful out there."

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 Hill Street Blues. Set in a fictional inner-city police precinct, it was strangely enjoyable despite featuring an array of foreigners 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:

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 differently, 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 unstable. In fact a lot of them are batshit crazy, and they're nazis. And they have a strange compensatory fixation upon firearms.

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.

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 careless. And when I convinced jittery young Adolf to purchase a Berlin bunker in which "no harm will ever be able to come to you here, mein Führer" 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 that person on their Parish Council.

That's why if you look closely you may well find my homilies and Facebook edification 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 Tonton Macoute 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 careful.

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'.

I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

If you don't fight, you lose.

As all My Dearly Beloved Sinful Friends on Facebook 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.

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 especially 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.

Which is why instead of My planned homily I'm diverting to urge you all to take action immediately! 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 act.

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.

"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.

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.

That's right - they've been organising. (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:

•  Calling all their Representatives and Senators and telling them this is unacceptable.
•  Preventing Paul Ryan from feigning ignorance by calling his office at (202) 225-3031 and letting him know that this is not ok. 
• Same with Majority Leader McConnell, (202) 224-2541. 
• 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.
• 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. 
•  Getting so-called religious groups on board along with mainstream business organisations like the Chamber of Commerce (202-659-6000). 
• Contacting other people of influence - College presidents, high-profile coaches and anyone else who has a public megaphone.

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.

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.)

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!

I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

Back to Make America Grate Again!

HELLO MY BELOVED SINNERS!!!!!

That's right My Faithful Evildoers - I'm Back!!!

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 those days are over!!!

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.

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 centuries - 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!

I'm Father Christian and I teach the Bible!

Bob Duncan: Only Quitters Quit.

"They're not eyebrows - they're antennae of orthodoxy." 

 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 capo di tutti capi hat.

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.

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, and set straight every man who’s ever thought Glee 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.

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 laymen) 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.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.

*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.