The 2009 Gaffe-Con Awards

Well the holiday season is behind us now, and things are just about back to normal. Bishop Quinine has stopped seeing giant spiders in the Sanctuary, and the liverwurst stains have just about all been cleaned off my cappa magna. Given a little more time Evangelical Eric will probably even grow to like the tattoo of the Ould Twins that Brother Richthofen’s friends from Seminary gave him as part of an experimental liturgy held to commemorate the Slaughter of the Innocents, although I personally agree with Consuella that the Red Indian from the Village People would have been more masculine.

Yet before we all rush headlong into another year of gloriously tearing apart our Communion for Jesus it would be wise for us to take a moment to pause, and look back fondly upon the high points of 2009. Therefore it’s with great pride that I present the 2009 Gaffe-Con Awards for Conservative Bible-Believing Anglican Excellence.

Division Three: The Unsaved Blaspheming Evildoer’s Award

This award is exclusively for people outside the Kingdom of God (ie. who are not Anglican) who have nevertheless in some way in some way epitomized what it means to live as a Righteous Schismatic Christian It was, like all of this year’s honors, hotly contested, and the Judges’ initial inclinations were to award it to the suffragan Bishop of Sydney who defended his side-line occupation of slumlord by announcing "I have nothing to do with the house, and my position has nothing to do with it."

Unfortunately this decision was subject to some dispute, as contrary to appearances the Diocese of Sydney (a.k.a. “Mordor”) remains officially Anglican on account of the Jensen family lawyers still having proved incapable of finding a way for them to leave and keep all the loot. Certainly some of the panel felt that since they act like spittle-flecked Baptists, sound like spittle-flecked Baptists, and even look like spittle-flecked Baptists it would be safe to assume Jensen’s Senior Clergy in fact are spittle-flecked Baptists, but in the end it was felt that the technicality would have to stand, thereby disqualifying little Bishop Forsyth's splendid example of Fundamentalist Christian responsibility and compassion from this division.

Consequently it was decided was decided that the prize must go to His Holiness Benny Ratsfinger, whose charitable invitation to take the weirder Catholic extremes off ++Rowan’s hands might not have made Layman Bobby Duncan’s day, but it certainly got anyone with concerns about their son serving as an altar-boy for one of the less wholesome “Wardens of Walsingham” cheering. Besides, with most of Rome’s kiddy-fiddlers now ministering behind bars Benny can’t be as picky as he used to: these days he’s got to grab dodgy clergy from wherever he can find them, and goodness knows he’s welcome to ours. Now if only we can interest him in a package deal on evangelicals…

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.