Friday 14 August 2009

New Anglican UFO

The new post of Anglican Communion Office Director for Unity, Faith and Order has been filled.

Anglican Communion Office Director for Unity, Faith and Order: Yes, come in and sit down.
Archdeacon of Toe-in-the-Door, Lincolnshire: I have travelled here some distance, and sat in a queue outside, so that you can see me.
Director: We do not, on our limited budget, provide travel expenses in situations like these. I think in your case I wanted to see you. You are an Archdeacon.
Archdeacon: And in my case, I received your letter headed ACO Director of UFO, and thought we had a new interest in extraterrestrial objects flying in from outer space, such as the Anglican Covenant.
Director: We will have the Covenant, by one means or another we will have it. And we operate now assuming we have it. I have called you in to check upon the orthodoxy of your sermons.
Archdeacon: Are these in any doubt?
Director: Yes. As part of my office I now use a new piece of software as contracted by the Primates. The program is orthodox.exe, and it takes the names of any Anglican clergy person worldwide and does an immediate search of all links and connections, including for example your entries on any social networking sites. The software examines phrases of words and compares them with an orthodoxy meter, and results below a generous 50% are notified in my email inbox.
Archdeacon: This is the new Anglicanism worldwide.
Director: Indeed it is. The centre decides what is central and what is local, and we look after Unity, Faith and Order. Now you scored 30%. You have a number of sermons posted on your website and even in some other websites. There are a number of words missing. We see little in the way of 'bodily' and 'virgin'; you have well underscored on 'Trinity', and there is nothing on 'eschatology'. But we further have positive-negatives, that is hits on words like 'gay', 'lesbian', 'faithful partnerships', and the word 'blessings'.
Archdeacon: What about them?
Director: They are unacceptable in their positive sense. Are you yourself a member of any of these categories of people?
Archdeacon: That is for me to know and you to wonder.
Director: That is not an acceptable answer. I would like to point out that members of these groups cannot be representative of Anglicanism and ministry. As you refuse to answer - you do refuse to answer?
Archdeacon: I do.
Director: Then I have no alternative but to put you on our grey list for further close monitoring. Should your sermons continue to fail to pass the tests provided by the Othodoxy program in its searching, then I shall have to conclude that you enter the Black list ready for your labelling as unrepresentative.
Archdeacon: And you can do this, as a UFO?
Director: I pass you to your bishop as a first action, although in your case it goes directly to your Archbishop. At the ACO and its UFO we publish and name and shame. This is usually enough to condition no further employment, and even more where freehold is no longer offered. You may consider some secular employment. That is all.
Archdeacon: That is the end of this interview?
Director: It is, and as Director of Anglican UFO I may well contact you and others about you again. And as you observed, I have plenty of other clergy to see, and many more to contact, and not a few bishops among them.
Archdeacon: But they don't usually divulge their opinions in public until retirement!
Director: No no, we have in addition the PurpleOrthodoxy.exe program installed that is particularly sensitive to absences of content, inferences and suggestions, and sophisticated uses of theology, but I am not here to discuss this nor divulge particular individuals. Goodbye.

3 comments:

June Butler said...

Pluralist, if Anglican Blogland didn't have you, we'd need to invent you. I fear that you may have given away the plot to more than one evil scheme. Clergy and bishops, beware!

On second thought, something on the order of this type of internet sleuthing may already be afoot. Are you not telling all that you know?

JayV said...

This is brilliant. People are saying on various blog comments, we should give the new UFO officer some slack because she's a Canadian woman priest. But the ACO wouldn't have picked her if they didn't think she had balls enough to join the big ol' boys and stay on ABC's message, right?

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

I must confess. I am myself from outer space.

Anglican UFO is headed by Colonel Freeman because Colonel Straker is the real boss and played by Ed Bishop - that is, Head Bishop. Lieutenant Gay Ellis was, of course, unsuitable for the job.

I thank you!