Archbishop Jonathan Blake

The Most Reverend Jonathan Blake, Presiding Archbishop of the Open Episcopal Church B.A. (Hons), Dip. Pastoral Studies. Mobile: 07767 687711 www.bishopjonathanblake.com archbishopjonathanblake@gmail.com www.openepiscopalchurch.org The Church is a member of The International Council of Community churches and the World Council of Churches. Married and a proud Dad.

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Location: London, Kent, United Kingdom

Gassed Tehran, seized Kabul, helped Mother Teresa, funded TB hospital, priest 1981, went Auschwitz, wrote on Parliament, convicted, began 1st inter-faith NHS chapel, 12 yrs Anglican cleric/vicar - left, baptised 1000's in homes/Mt Snowdon/at circus, wedding underwater, wrote ‘For God’s Sake Don’t Go To Church’, nailed 95 Theses 2 Canterbury cathedral, arrested, co-founded the Society for Independent Ministry, consecrated a bishop, co-founded the Open Episcopal Church, did 1st gay wedding on morning TV, sued Associated Newspapers, co-consecrated 1st women bishops 4 England,Wales,Scotland, accommodated the homeless, posted Mass/took it 2 sex workers, elected Archbishop, arrested 4 climbing with sons,founded ‘When No One’s Watching',made ICV, did Jade Goody's wedding,invited 2 Downing St, wrote 'That Old Devil Called God Again', conviction 4 campaigning against child abuse quashed on appeal, convicted 4 successful blogging 2 stop paedophile. His Christmas Lights raising £79,000 4 Water in 4 Gambian villages. Published "The Tales of Henry the Lovable Hedgehog", the SAFE New Testament + Psalms + radical Book of Common Prayer, ordained priests for UK,US,Thailand,Spain,Ireland

Friday, March 21, 2014

NAOMI ONI SET A DEMON A RACING

A vivid demonstration of how one can send evil a racing with an unguarded venemous remark

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4040925.ece

GIRAFFE LOVE

A healing and loving kiss from a giraffe.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4040709.ece

FG CUTTERS AND CIRCUMCISERS SHOULD FACE JAIL

Anyone found mutilating boys or girls should face a hefty penal sentence.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4040458.ece


AYESHA VARDAQ'S IMMORALITY

Ayesha Vardag cannot disguise her immoral greed, exorbitant charges and corrupt use of the justice system for her own advantage. 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article4040902.ece

ZUMA'S DISGRACE

Zuma's 14 million home refurbishment disgrace -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Soweto_township.jpg

TALEBAN STRIKE ON 5 STAR KABUL HOTEL

 A 5 star hotel in a country of dire poverty is likely to stoke resentment.....

BARONESS HALE POINTS US TO IMBECILIC RELIGION

 A tired old world view that if you treat people like imbeciles and require them to wear a uniform and inflict punitive rituals on themselves they will jump at the joy of being given an artificial identity instead of finding their own. Gimmick church captures the searching young for a while, but they soon see through its sales pitch and empty message and move on. Human Rights legislation needs to be used to protect the majority from the violence, prejudice and manipulation of religious people.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4039882.ece

Thursday, March 20, 2014

RELIGION IS A DISEASE

I had a very disturbing encounter recently.

I met a person who had suffered through their early life and who had lived, as a result, a disturbed and disordered life that had endangered them. Then they 'found Christ'.

The experience of conversion transitioned them from fragmentation into a focused and purposeful existence.

Excellent one might suppose.

No.

I realised on meeting them that they had merely swapped disordered existences. Now they were clutching their bible, speaking about God in every sentence and earnestly praying that they would know and do God's 'perfect will'. It was only God that could have rescued them from their former lives they said and they owed him complete obedience.

An untutored observer and many innocent members of the public may have been enthralled by the confidence with which the person spoke of God's will and presence and may have assumed that they were special and holy, a deeply spiritual person about God's business.

However, under closer scrutiny all the religious devotion was merely a front, a sedative, a dependency akin to heroin or alcohol, that enabled the person to mediate their inner pain and operate a protective mechanism with which they could negotiate life.

You may suggest that this is a fine way to escape from a self harming lifestyle.

No.

They were still self harming, just using God to destroy themselves. They remained pursued and possessed. They knew no peace. They lived a frantic existence always on the look out to evangelise others and draw them in to Christian commitment.

However they had no experience of God.

Their God was a fabricated saviour figure, firmly under their control, subject to their beliefs and their understanding. They had God trussed up in a book, imprisoned in their beliefs, bound and gagged in their preaching and at their every command in their prayers. This God was a distorted effigy of their own egotistical need to escape the hell of their inner chaotic world.

Their God was cruel, divisive, rejecting and angry yet all behind a smiling benevolent face. It was only in repose that the torment and torture of this person's psychological state was apparent.

It was a deeply disturbing encounter because under the guise of loving words and serving God they were busy leading others into hell and knifing those who remained unconvinced with rejection and disdain.

It made me appreciate again that religion is a disease that people often contract when their immune systems are down, when they are at a low ebb, when their lives are a mess and they have few resources left. Others are infected at an early age by their parents, their schools, their culture or their churches. Our society and the world is blighted by this illness, our productivity is reduced, our potential is thwarted and our hopes are dashed.

We must, as a matter of the greatest urgency, find a cure and learn what life can really be like free of  religion and  ensure our children are inoculated until religion is eradicated forever from our planet.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

THE MARKET PLACE WITHOUT MORALS

 And who buys what is mined, the timber and the organs?


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article4037696.ece

PITY TROTTER AND OTTAWAY

The smiles will turn to tears, the dreams to ashes, the hopes to fears and the happiness to torment. Let us pity Trotter and Ottaway that they have been so cursed. They have given up their lives and turned towards death's shadows.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4037107.ece

L'WREN'S LONG LEGS CARRIED HER FAR FROM HOME

She left humble more mundane beginnings to weave amid earth's rich, glamorous and famous. Her long legs carried her far from home. Tragically she perished, swilled by glamour's wild and wasteful ocean. Let those with ears hear. One's modest roots can hold more fulfillment than ever catwalk dreams or Jagger's fame.

LUCY WINKETT CAN'T TALK UP THE BIBLE

Lucy Winkett tried on Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' to liken the Bible with Shakespeare, suggesting we needed to read Mark's Gospel at a sitting, rather than in bite size chunks to appreciate its breathless sweep and that the biblical characters were on a par with the bard's creations. She too claimed precedence for scripture saying that its role was to connect us with God.

There are many fine literary works that provide us with spiritual illumination and inspiration.

We need though to be honest that the Bible does not come high on the list.


£10,000 FOR A LIFE?

 £10,000 is no temptation to die for politician's mistakes.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/defence/article4036531.ece

MARTIN AMIS'S SEXUAL REVELATIONS

Martin Amis demeans both his father and the Queen in these objectionable gratuitous revelations. However, perhaps that is his point. Our excessive consumer culture,  gorging itself at the world's expense, will not  respect even the boundaries of family or monarchy in pursuit of its next gratification.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/tv-radio/article4036682.ece

Monday, March 17, 2014

CHEERS TO GUINNESS

 A pint of Guinness is going to taste a whole lot better now!!

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article4036001.ece

PLACE CREATIONISM IN THE BIN

Adam and Eve feel the pinch...

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4036287.ece

L'WREN SCOTT

 To have it all and yet to have nothing...

Did her long term boyfriend not know of the demons with which she battled?

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article4036305.ece

I BELIEVE..

I believe passionately in those things that have the grace to unite all humanity - love, justice and truth and the need for humility in the face of all that is not known, a humility that prevents us concocting silly religions and inflicting them on others.

THE SCOURGE OF THE EARTH

Religion has become the scourge of the earth. We need to protect children from its irrationality and its dangers.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4035481.ece

Sunday, March 16, 2014

OUR GUANTANAMO SHAME

 Shame on the 'free democratic law abiding' nations that have tolerated this outrage. Our hypocrisy appears no know no bounds.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article4034178.ece

DON'T JOIN THE ARMED FORCES

 The clear message. Do not join the armed forces. At any moment you may be required to lay down your life for a fruitless ill conceived political gamble, while those who sent you will be unaffected, busy earning millions on international speaking engagements and consultancies.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/defence/article4035306.ece

OT MASS READING - WISHFUL THINKING SAID TO VLADIMIR PUTIN

The O.T. Reading for today:

Wishful thinking said to Vladimir Putin, ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing.
‘I will bless those who bless you:
I will curse those who slight you.
All the tribes of the earth
shall bless themselves by you.’
So Vladimir went as his ego had directed him.'

Friday, March 14, 2014

TRIBUTES TO LORD BALLYEDMOND'S CULTURE OF EXCESS

 'Tributes' pour in for the 'richest man in Northern Ireland'. Laudatory remarks about the culture of amassing a multi-million pound fortune, and living a multiple stately home, game shooting, helicopter hopping existence. 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4033277.ece

SAM WELLS SERVES UP A DOLLOP OF AFFECTATION

Radio 4's 'Thought for the day' this morning served up another dollop of Anglican platitude delivered by Sam Wells of St Martin in the Fields. His peroration, neatly composed, urged an obese nation to consider the issues of justice and relationship involved in consumption. While his family sit neatly in a prime Anglican position and the UK sits neatly at the head of the world's table, his words were yet more affectation to conceal our nation's moral torpor and that of the Anglican church.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY IS A DISASTER

Too much money contaminates. It denudes adults and children of any sense of proportion and removes their appreciation of the ordinary. It distorts perception and ostracises individuals and families from the real plight of humanity. It breeds avarice and meanness. It leads to despair, loneliness and ennui. Having too much money is just one of the many disasters that can befall a person and needs to be avoided at all costs.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/families/article4031409.ece

THE RICH ENSURE FROST JOINS THEM AT HEAVEN'S DOOR

 Another display of how the rich and the powerful ensure that the rich and the powerful push their way to the front of heaven's queue and bag the prime places in earth's tawdry religious edifices.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4032401.ece

SAY NO TO RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

Excellent article:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4032820.ece

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A GOOD HEARTED POPE CLASHES WITH FOUL CHURCH

 The foul reality of the Roman Catholic Church. It damns those who have suffered the trauma and distress of divorce to excommunication. Having known the tearing of their most significant human relationship it further torments people with the tearing of their divine relationship. However, if you have enough money, power and influence then all is well and the church can annul your first marriage, wipe the slate clean, claim black is white -  that you were actually never really married the first time and the show can go on. What rational moral person can choose to be part of such an organisation? 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4030365.ece

KEITH RICHARDS ET AL MAKE A MOCKERY OF US ALL

 And so the public continue to be conned and the rich get richer

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/childrensbooks/article4030464.ece

GLENN FORD - 30 YEARS A SLAVE

How many more Glenn Ford's are there?

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article4030816.ece

Monday, March 10, 2014

YARMOUK

Oh the suffering in Yarmouk

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4028511.ece

RUB OUR NOSES IN LIBYA'S DETRITUS

 Is this what our bombs achieved? Is this what our brave journalists reporting from 'liberated' Libya envisaged amid the early euphoria? Why are the media not rubbing our noses in events there more rigorously? We could have a chance to learn that the world's 1.5 trillion arms budget may be money poorly spent.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4028244.ece

Friday, March 07, 2014

JESUS, AFTER SALAT, FEARED THE CHRISTIANS WERE COMING TO KILL HIS MUSLIM FAMILY

And Jesus noticed some Christian men marking the door post of his house. He'd just finished praying Salat and was alerted to the disturbance. When he went to look he saw a cross had been placed there. He feared that they would come, as they had come before and begin crucifying him again and all his Muslim family.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4026849.ece

THE TIMES BACKS MY CALL TO END ENFORCED CLERICAL CELIBACY

The Times backs my criticism of the Church's complicity with sexual abuse and the call to end the requirement of clerical celibacy.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article4026819.ece

THE THIEVING LEGAL PROFESSION

 I am afraid the legal profession follow closely behind bankers as those who fleece the public charging exorbitant fees. There is something quite nauseating about the concept of the rich striking because they want to get richer and being willing to endanger their clients in so doing. We are all held to ransom by our vulnerability before the incomprehensible judicial system and the legal profession who with smiling faces offer us the chance of a safe passage through it, as long as they can thieve all our savings in the process and leave us near destitute. Shame on them.

It is the most vulnerable who suffer whenever anyone enters a legal practice, because their bank accounts are emptied. Achieving 'justice' is mostly the preserve of the rich, which renders the system unjust and not fit for purpose. The adversarial nature of litigation where the skill and experience of counsel are bought as weapons by the rich and applied with no regard to veracity or sincerity makes it an area of public life in considerable need of reform.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article4026023.ece

YOU CAN'T TRUST THE POLICE

Apparently two thirds of the British Public trust the police. It's not surprising that there is a naive desire in us all to find security in believing that there are one set of people and one institution that harbours the good and the true, upon which we can rely.

It's a dangerous illusion that is mutually threatening. It exposes the police to the great temptation to use their power inappropriately, for their own ends and advantage and to take the law literally into their own hands. It exposes the public to false imprisonment, police violence, botched and corrupt investigation and surveillance tactics, Taser charges and SAP glove attacks, gratuitous handcuffing, intimidation, abuse, strip searches and even death  in detention.

The suppurating investigation into Stephen Lawrence's murder has demonstrated amply what Doreen Lawrence now declares, 'YOU CAN'T TRUST THE POLICE'.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4024946.ece

CRIMEA - ENGLAND'S NORTHERN IRELAND

 And if Scotland becomes a separate nation and if they at some future point have protesters who overthrow their  government and begin to threaten the English living around the borders, would not Westminster take action? And is not Crimea, England's Northern Ireland?

Thursday, March 06, 2014

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION - A POWER GAME BY SCHEMING MEN

The 'Apostolic Succession'  is  the transparently flawed attempt by men to capture control over the anointing of God. God doesn't follow petty systems so open to abuse. God anoints and we have nothing to do with the process.

THANKS TO THE BROCKMAN FAMILY

Great series. Great TV. - Thanks to all involved.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/tv-radio/article4024241.ece

BETH WARREN'S VICTORY - JUST ONE WORD

WONDERFUL!

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article4025081.ece

THE POLICE, GOVERNMENT AND JUDICIARY ARE FOUND GUILTY FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

 Yes the conduct of the police was 'profoundly disturbing' and remains so today. Yet another judge, yet another enquiry chasing that illusive truth that our developed sophisticated systems are meant to run to ground. Instead, what is illustrated so vividly as with Bloody Sunday and the Hillsborough tragedy and so many other such cases, is reliance upon the existing bureaucratic structures alone is never enough. The structuralists of our society, often the wealthy, privately educated and powerful should take heed, that truth, goodness and justice is more often found beyond their tight boundaries of control, in the messy business of free spirited humanity.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4024946.ece

CLEGG'S ANCIENT BELIEFS THAT WILL DROWN US ALL IN BLOOD

 These 'ancient beliefs' handed down over generations have led to more blood letting, human and animal, than any other force. More sinister is that human barbarism has created a divine mandate for its cruelty, that PC politicians fear to confront. Religion will be the undoing of the world unless we can evolve beyond its primitive tenure.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4024954.ece

JOSEPH OR ANOTHER MAN - JESUS'S DAD

Joseph or another man was the biological Dad of Jesus. Every womb is sanctified and every child a daughter or son of God.

JESUS - NO DIVINE INTERLOPER

Jesus is much more available to us as a useful exemplar if we see him as one of us rather than a divine interloper.

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

BASIC LESSON FOR THIEVES - JOIN THE POLICE FIRST

 Surprise, surprise. Gross amounts of money have been misappropriated - 'stolen' it seems by the police, but no charges are to be brought. The police will be able to carry on their noble public duty of arresting, charging and imprisoning the other thieves whose heists failed because they made the fatal mistake of not joining the police first.  

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4024097.ece

GIVE UP THE CHRISTIAN GOD FOR LENT

The God that Christians believe in is clearly racist, sexist and a genocidal, child abusing megalomaniac. That's why we need to give up that God and the language we use about him for Lent and start again.

SOME OF THE SINS OF JESUS

Jesus was prejudiced: He was racist to the Syro-Phoenician woman and treated her despicably. Misguided: He made the great mistake of choosing to be crucified. Fanatical: He urged his followers to put him before their families and encouraged the zealous to dismember themselves rather than fall into sin.

ANGELA TILBY'S OBJECTIONABLE THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Angela Tilby's thought for the day on Radio 4 today was particularly distasteful.

She spoke about Ash Wednesday and death set within the elitist culture that exists around cathedrals, UK Anglicans and Western Christianity.

She suggested that we should counter the fixation on life with salutary dollops of death talk, covering the 'faithful' with ash to connect them with their mortality and provide them with the 'comfort' of knowing all will share the same end game.

Yuk, I felt as I listened.

Rich comfortable Christianity pontificating 'spiritual truths' to the world from the comfort of their advantage, prosperity, health and power.

Wake up Angela et al.

Most of the world need no remedial dollops of death talk - death surrounds them daily, torments and haunts them. They require no ash - they breathe ash daily, it coats their homes and their lives  from incinerated buildings and charred bodies.

Further the comfort most find in contemplating death is that they will be rescued from the hell of their present existence. Though when you've been fed a diet of poverty, disease, war and want in life, while gazing at those rich Christians feasting on the other side, death remains the greatest injustice.

Please Radio 4, stop these offensive religious sermonettes from those who have nothing better to do than to spout condescending pap to the majority of the suffering world.

CHARLIE CHAPLAIN SPEAKS TO US TODAY

Charlie Chaplain's words, written and delivered by him in his first talking movie and his most successful film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMKpYxhI2KI


I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

"Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow — into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up!" As she rises, Mr. Jaeckel asks Hannah, "Hannah, did you hear that?" The girl silences him with a gesture, saying, "Listen," and turns her face, radiant with joy and hope, toward the sunlight

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

GIVE UP RELIGION AND BUMP INTO GOD

Lent has arrived. Christians will be busy preparing to be holy. Special groups will be studying together carefully prepared Lent course material. Prayer, vigils, penance and daubs of ash will be the rage as the long crawl towards Easter begins.
One might ask why? Didn't this happen last year and the one before that. In fact hasn't every religious festival been flogged to death over the years. Has this got anything to do with God. Of course not.
It occupies restless clerics, absorbs the spare time of bored human beings with nothing better to do, gives the unimaginative a sense of purpose and meaning and deceives believers into thinking that they are being that tiny bit more holy and so God will be that tiny bit more pleased with them.
Many will be giving up things during the season. Their modest acts of self sacrifice boost their pride and swell their souls.

True holiness has nothing to do with the above.

My suggestion.

Give up religion for Lent. That way, there is a chance you might finally bump into God!


THE VILE POACHING THAT CONDEMNS US ALL

 Humans have no mercy when their base desires are being satisfied, whether it be animal beauty or health products,  battery hens or meat farms. Such vile big game poaching may appall but  the finger points at us all.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/africa/article4022877.ece

NIGELLA BOOBS A BURSTING

 Boobs a bursting, Vogue humiliate Nigella further with a ridiculous photo shoot. Her haunted look begs for privacy.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/celebrity/article4022414.ece

PARENTS MUST GET REAL ABOUT SEX

 Parents must get real about sex with their children. It is worse than useless to shelve the subject in the hope that information will just emerge. Children ask questions from the earliest age and they must be answered honestly, candidly and clearly alongside a running commentary about the dangers of inappropriate sexual conduct and pornography. Children must be left in no shadow of doubt that the only proper place for sexual intercourse is between adults in a committed relationship.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4022460.ece

Monday, March 03, 2014

THE NEW RISE OF FASCISM

Banker greed, unbridled wealth, financial and political corruption, celebrity culture, aesthetic plastic surgeons, media air brushing and popular music videos - they all lead inexorably to the pursuit of selfish advantage, fantasy images of perfection and the garnering of power that undergirds fascist ideology.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4020926.ece

SOCIAL SERVICES ACTING TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM CHRISTIANITY

Will Social Services be taking into care also the children of Jewish families for circumcising their babies and the children of Christian families for teaching their children to be willing to die for their faith?

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4021330.ece

Saturday, March 01, 2014

THE LEGO MOVIE IS A NEW GOSPEL

A great film for a modern world.

It begins with the stereotypical old myth trail of a super hero special messiah type figure to come who will save everyone.

It portrays a world where the evil one has manipulated everyone into servile obedience to rules that have removed personal initiative and individual identity.

There is even talk of the mystery great man beyond that holds the ultimate power.

Then the little incognito man stumbles across the holy relic and is hailed as the long awaited saviour. However, he has no such powers and even the likes of Batman and Superman can't come to his and all the other people's aid to overcome the power of the evil.

Even greater catastrophic revelations are to come for the 'ancient one' reveals that he made the story of the  myth trail up and there is no super hero to come. They are on their own.

However, the abiding truth to be conveyed is that everyone is special, everyone is unique. It is a great mistake to look  for another and to another for the ultimate solution and it merely divests people of their own birthright to contribute their initiative to help save the world.

Further still we go to find that the mystery great man that holds the ultimate power is none other than a misguided Dad who needs his son to challenge him and put him right on a few things.

The morale of the film is strong. Let's debunk religion, messiah figures, saviour figures, even God figures and come of age. The idea of a mighty one that sets us rules to be obeyed is outdated and corrosive of humanity's potential.

We need to realise that each of us is unique, all part of a world team, all with our part to play, all with ideas to hatch, initiatives to pursue and hopes to realise.

Together we can build a better world.

It's a new Gospel.

It's a book for the new modern day Bible.

It's the path of liberation from oppressive religious dictates and Satan masquerading as a God with a long beard on a white cloud making puppets of us all and rendering the glorious creation we are, into a robotic and programmed entity devoid of the spark of mischievous, unpredictable life that drives us ever on to cross new frontiers and discover unimagined possibilities.

The ultimate evil that the bad guy has up his sleeve is glue.

With a spray here and there, he can render the myriad evolutions of creation into a static unchanging lifeless morgue.

Like those who want their God to be the same, yesterday, today and forever. Who want their truth in a book that they can hold, control and possess. That want their world view dictated by another, their destiny set out, their prayers answered, a saviour at the ready and fleets of angels in attendance. That want a mortuary.

No, the film declares.

No to that Satanic God and No to that Satanic Holy Book and No to that Satanic mindset.

As Jesus said, " I have come to bring you life, life in all its abundance."

The Lego Movie picks up where Jesus and so many since have left off. Before it's too late. Jettison the old myth trail. It was all made up long ago to entrap. Leave behind your puppet deities and comic superhero saviours. Discard your sky daddys, superstitious rituals and pointless prayers.

We have a precious, extraordinary world and the amazing chance to imprint it with our being. Life awaits. the door is open. We are all invited guests. It's up to each of us....