Bishop of Egg Wiped Writes

That letter in full:

Bishop Mountaineer Anus
POB 0001
Zatapek
Round the Horn
Egg Wiped
bishopmoutaineer@tickeli.com

To the Primates, Moderators and Standing Up Committee
The Four Friends and a Website

Greetings in the name of that chap who might have come round here as a little 'un if Herod ever did what it says here he did.

I'm resigning forthwith, going, leaving, stomping out, call it what you will, from the Standing Up Committee.

I joined the Anglican Church because it is full of double standards. People are able to stand up and read things they say they believe when they don't. So I was shocked, deeply shocked, when in my conscience I realised that the recommendations made by the primates and by the Windsor Report itself would mean a kind of double standard in dealing with different issues that face us today. Such duplicity is the sort of norm I can only be selective about.

We are supposed to listen to the Lesbians and gays but nobody listens to me. I am so marginalised and useless. They talk about inclusiveness but they don't include me. Of course we can care for the marginalised in our communities, like the LGBT community, just like they intend to do in other countries on this continent, but now the orthodox Anglicans are being marginalised. Yes, we the upstanding, trinitarian, credal reciting, ritualist, full gospel believing types only set the agenda and the rules of operation for the faith liturgically and theologically and it is just not good enough.

Despite being ignored, despised, rejected, I will still be around! Oh yes. You won't get rid of me that easily! I will still come along to Primates Meetings and still promote the Anglican Commode. After all, I am a bishop.

Here is the problem I face. When you stand at the committee it keeps questioning the Primates and the Lambeth Tea Party. So I was talking to my four North American mates who want rid of The Episcopal Church and now think the Covenant as proposed won't actually do it, and so if I resign they say it might just generate a crisis, turn the Standing Committee into a Sit Down Committee - a from the urinals to the cubicles sort of thing - and then by recruiting all over again we can fail to invite in The Episcopal Church. Well, I said, "I'm game and yes I'll resign," so long as they don't get rid of me that easily.

So while I constructed this my letter of resignation, my mates in the United States and Canada (for one ran away) constructed their enormous essay telling everyone how they could get me back, by changing the Standing Committee into a Sit Down Committee. Fantastic! Mind you, it has been written at such length that I haven't been able to read it without falling asleep. In fact I've no idea what they are going on about. But I have done my end of the bargain and now I have resigned.

I'll therefore add my views that I want to add in co-ordinated support of my handful of friends and their website.

1 The Authority of the Instruments

Let us be clear. The primates achieved promotion and they should be in charge. The bishops are the same. The Anglican Consultative Council is the only democratic element in any sense, so why should that take a leading role? The answer is clear. Now these days we take our orders from the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Casper McFadden, the friendly holy ghost, told us (when he came to instruct the Lambeth Tea Party) that we are supposed to be episcopally led and synodically governed, but in a perverse understanding of government the synod side has blocked the episcopal leadership side, when it ought to do as it is told. And if we are going to use the Covenant to change the instruments and present a Worldwide Anglican Church to the Roman Catholics, we had better get it right. Thus we need a Sit Down Committee, even a Kneel Committee, responding to the Primates and the bishops, and the laity can do whatever it likes.

2. The Covenant

The Covenant now is written so that those who don't sign it may still be part of the Instruments, and some who will sign it won't be, while some who do sign it will be part of the Instruments, and some who won't sign it might choose not to be part of the Instruments, but will be chased up anyway. What use is this Covenant then?

Surely naughty Provinces should go on to the naughty step, but the children of the provinces, as in the dioceses, who are good children, should be able to sign. This is what my essay writing friends want. And, like they say, as soon as a Church joins the Covenant it should send representatives to the Instruments so that 'first come first serve' can determine what the others can do and cannot do.

Otherwise we'll end up having to run off to Gaff Con and that Primates Council, and it is all pro-Israeli in outlook like that right wing politicised satellite TV, and I don't want that, not when I'm here in Egg Wiped.

3 Listening when Deaf

The clatter of money flying around is so loud I can't hear anything. In fact we're all a bit deaf down south. If the idea of listening to minorities is to agree with them, then what's the point about being a minority? There are people down here who need the money and as it stuffs in their mouths they end up being unable to say anything. It breaks my heart but let's have a party!

4 The Current Structure

Let's get a bit of reverse imperialism going instead. Too many Westerners, that's the problem. In the Global South we can't operate computers and so the Westerners, in inventing that closed and secretive Internet system, are running away with their ownership of the Anglican Communion Office. It is time we pulled the plugs and went back to using aircraft and shaking hands more often. But do email me about what you think.

5 Good News

Despite the fact that we are in turmoil, there is no doubt that people are leaving the hand-waving highly dogmatic Churches in the Global South to attend our hand-waving highly dogmatic Churches in the Global South. Powered by their ready beliefs in the supernatural and magic, people flock to us when we do what the other fundies don't do, and that is wave water around and kill the odd chicken. So it is good news, and soon your Western theology will count for nothing.

May the Lord Bless you all, particularly you minorities and hope you join the majority or you will be forced (at least in these parts).

+ Mountaineer Egg Wiped
Bishop of Egg Wiped and Round the Horn

The Reply:

Most Reverend Archbishop Rowan Tree
Archbishop of Anglicanism
The Palace
Lambeth Walk
London.
rowan@anglican.org.uk

For the Bishop of Egg Wiped and Round the Horn
Egg Wiped
And the worldwide Internet (except the Global South people who can't use computers)

Dear Bishop Mountain

I wish to say as little as possible as usual except to wonder why we take any notice of three clerics and one layman in North America, even if they lick me as often as they can around my version of your surnamesake.

You have done great work; as for your resignation, I understand its tactical nature and am pleased I shall see you as often as I would have done anyway.

Yours in the name of that bloke we forget about,

Archishop Rowan for England and the Worldwide Anglican Commode.