Abel Sentamongyu on Jenny Cain

Now I am Abel Sentamongyu, tha Archbishop o'North, and my job spec here says I can be tha all round entertainer of your Anglican Church here in England, especially to give a bit of fun to the Church when my friend down south is deep in his books. You don't have to call me Archbeeshop, no, because I am really your happy, local, friend, tha friendly friend like tha local Building Societies round here were lad before they demutualised yes.

Now look. Where I cum from, wi' teeth to prove it, we have a huooooge growth in people believing in demons, spirits, all sorts of signs and wonders, and when they open they their Gospel, you know, it is not 'istory book nor science book but a book about the present day an' salvation is there from all these wibbly wobbly things we is frighten about down there.

Now we Africans think that we aff to bring faith back to where it came from, where it was first delivered from dee saints by de nationalised Post Office. And this is what I am doing, but I have gone native and now I look a little bit liberal from the perspective of my once background. My mother said, "Abel, lad, when in Rome do as dee Romans do," like I have said to my friend the other Archbishop, who thinks he's in Rome by some of them things he's doing.

So to compensate for my going native, what I have decided to do is jump out o' aeroplanes and not wear me collar while Mugabe is in power. I am told that gimmicks get you into the media, so I do as I am told.

And I am tha Abel man able to ask, "Why can't you recover your beliefs that tha used to aff, when England was all traditional and imperialist?" So I like to comment on cases I can get in t'press even though I'm fairly ignoorant about them.

I like being that, yes, immigrant of colour who 'ass leapt barrier and gets 'proval of the right wing press after all.

So I, Abel Sentamongyu, now make a comment for the press about Jenny Cain and her daughter. You see, we like to manipulate how our daughters and sons think, and in Africa we can take them to churches full of demons where they get exorcised, whereas in north of England we take ours to school full of food and hope they get exercised. But we still want to manipulate their minds along with the sweeties and processed food and all the snacks they love to eat. Now, that Mr Dawkins, who has been sent to irritate us: he says that we should not call children Christians but children of Christians, and no doubt the daughter repeats the outlook in this case of a certain Jenny Cain. Listen to the babble of a classroom and you always hear them sexist and racist attitudes that can only come from parents - yes? - and so it is with religion.

A little girl tells another she will go to hell. Now we really must uphold the right of freedom of speech so that little girls can make others cry. It's part of childhood after all. As you know, back where dee faith is strong we do diss as a first stage towards giving the children some exorcise in PE - Paranoid Exorcism it is yes. And then we can really get them all screeeming and yelling on the floor as a way of preventing parents themselves from exercising child abuse. So here we have a teacher preventing a natural process, almost forgotten here, of going towards church and having adult pastors screaming at terrified children. Though I understand some churches daan in Landan have now taken up dis vital ministry, according to some interfering social services people that the right wing press love to hate, though they luv me and though it has now altered public policy towards children called that there Every Child Matters - which must have been in the mind of the teacher when she told one child that the other child mattered.

Then of course we have a parent like Mrs Cain - I hope it's Mrs - who emails from home asking for her people to pray for her, her daughter, the school and the whole world like. Unfortunately there was one o' them Judases out there opening the inboxes. Is this just not the Gospel teaching I preach abaht? Somebody takes the thirty pieces of silver and goes t' Pilate, like I did when I checked he was high enough and then jumped aht a plane.

Now surely she should, Mrs Cain, as a staff member, be able to criticise what is going on, and I welcome the sweeping in o' yer newspapers and pressure groups to come in and add whatever chaff they can t' debate, just like I do.

And this is just another case, like that Dish case recently, where a nurse approached someone with a syringe and asked if she should pray for the patient. Now this happened to me tha sees: "Shall I pray for you before putting this in your arm," she said, and I said, "No I shall pray that you put it in me properly and do your job." Tha sees this, yes. I recovered to be t'Archbishop that I am, so my prayer clearly worked and all demons that day ran away from t'ospital.

I think we bishops, intervening in the public debate, have been doing a veary good job recently. There is somat about from where we stand, somewhat removed from the push 'n' pull of everyday life, that gives us the pearspeective that we need in order to make a contribution, and it is so impoortant that we keep religion in the public debate exactly as we do do do do do.