Posted on 09/08/2005 1:08:17 PM PDT by sionnsar
Edited on 09/08/2005 4:53:52 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Depressed by the state of the church? Tired of reading and hearing about issues of sexuality? Had enough of the Global South? Sick of New Hampshire? Put off by the primates? Exasperated by Canon 10? You probably are in need of a diversion. Some good spoofs of things Anglican on the internet from the United Kingdom ought to do it.
My regular diet is Ship of Fools (http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/), the irreverent British site I have mentioned on previous occasions. In its Signs and Blunders section, a man writes from Anjuna, India, with the following message: “I bought a great bumper sticker at a local market which states quite simply ... My God can beat up your God.” This site’s regular departments such as Gadgets for God, its caption contest, the Fruitcake Zone, and other pages are worth a visit, and its Mystery Worshiper is actually quite interesting.
A reader introduced me to an unfamiliar website the other day —www.episcopalian.co.uk. It’s a wonderful spot for Anglican-related satire. A note at the top of the site cautions visitors that it is not the official website for the Scottish Episcopal Church. At present there’s a spoof of the game Risk — a Windsor Report edition board game complete with a leather-bound presentation edition of the Windsor Reports, “signed by all the Anglican primates.” No threat yet to Episcopopoly. You can also find pages for vestments, inventions, and liturgy among its offerings. “This site is not intended to offend,” says the disclaimer.
And if you like irreverent church spoofs, visit the Diocese of Wenchoster at www.dioceseofwenchoster.co.uk. It’s a hoot! You can tour the Cathedral of St. Ennodius and St. Veronica, venerate the cathedral’s relic, peruse its schedule of music, and find all sorts of outrageous stuff. It’s almost enough to make one believe it’s real.
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Speaking of websites, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, San Francisco, www.herchurch.org, has a page that describes a “Goddess Rosary.” A correspondent thought I should check out the prayer found on the page:
“Hail Goddess full of grace. Blessed are you and blessed are all the fruits of your womb. For you are the Mother of us all…”
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A friend sent a note in which he ranted about the condition of “most of the” parish websites. He claims a majority of them are badly out of date and therefore not helpful to someone who might be looking for a church. I decided to see for myself. During a few free minutes recently, I went to 10 parish websites selected at random from all eight of the Episcopal Church’s domestic provinces. Six of them were indeed out of date, either showing scheduled events for 2004, early in 2005, or containing a note which states that the last update to the page was sometime last year. I found one site that hadn’t been updated since 2003. Obviously, this is not helpful to a church shopper or the church.
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One of our subscribers reports while visiting a parish in the Diocese of North Carolina, the priest said, in the introduction to the Nicene Creed, “Now we will recite the Church’s ancient attempt to explain God.”
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Belated birthday wishes to Sr. Ruth Angela, SHN, who turned 100 on Aug. 1.
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According to The Episcopal News, newspaper of the Diocese of Los Angeles, the Rev. George Regas was offered a walk-on role as a priest in the movie “Rumor Has It.” The film is to be released this fall and stars Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner. Fr. Regas is the retired rector of All Saints’ Church, Pasadena, Callif.
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Note to Ed in St. Louis: The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is included in “Sunday’s Readings” because the RCL was approved for trial use by the last two General Conventions.
David Kalvelage, executive editor
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. I just tried shipoffools.org and it came up a xxx porn search site...LOL gross!
Sorry about that. I've asked the mods to correct it.
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