Ecumenicism
Aww. I don’t know when I’ve been so, so, so almost maudlin with emotion. So nearly overcome. So tempted to soak my delicate silk and lace hanky with tears. So hungry. (Eh? Well it’s past noon, and anyway I’m pretty much always hungry.) Norm is planning to swap anecdotes with me in the great chat-fest in the sky. And he’s chuffed to learn that we’ll both be able to, according to no less an authority than the dear achbish of Canterbury. I do love those guys. So – agile in their accomodation of dreadful beliefs along with less disconcerting ones. Yes, Jesus decides these things, and yes he sorts the sheep from the goats and sends the goats (or is it the sheep) to the The Bad Place – but not to worry! because he’s a mysterious fella (see below) and it could be that some of the sheep (unless it’s goats) will go to the Good Place anyway because – um – because it’s cheerier to think so, and we still get to believe in the magical livestock-sorting abilities of Jesus? Because it’s not so much cheerier as more polite, tactful, acceptable, ‘appropriate,’ multicultural etc to think so and we still get to believe Jesus knows who belongs where? Probably. Very probably, in fact.
I don’t know, though, I think Norm may be taking a slightly optimistic view of the archbishop’s statement. Rowan Williams (I always do want to say Atkinson) did say that Muslims can go to heaven, according to the Telegraph, but he is not quoted as saying that atheists can. I really think Norm may be jumping to conclusions in thinking that if Muslims can then atheists can. I mean, there are limits, after all. Otherwise what’s the point? Right? If atheists can, well hell then anyone can and you might as well not bother having heaven at all, it just becomes ‘that place where anyone at all can get in no questions asked.’ Kind of like, you know, the world, where people just arrive, regardless of quality.
And then, it’s important to note exactly how the archbish phrased it.
Dr Williams said that neither he nor any Christian could control access to heaven. “It is possible for God’s spirit to cross boundaries,” he said. “I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think.”
You see? Did you catch it? That little ‘I think’ there at the end. That says it all. He doesn’t actually know all this – he just thinks it. Well what good does that do?! I don’t want some guy’s off the cuff opinion about whether I get to sit around chatting in heaven or not, I want to damn well know, don’t I! I mean – what business does he have giving an opinion anyway? What are opinions worth on this kind of thing? What’s his opinion based on? Anything? Just the fact that he thinks things will be more comfortable that way (see above)? Is that the kind of thing that decides how things fall out in the real world?
Okay, I’ll stop. I know it’s silly. One doesn’t go to an archbishop for rigorous or even clear thought. But it’s fun to pretend now and then.
You know the old joke, not? A priest and a rabbi sit across one another on a train, and the priest starts: “You know, yesterday I had a dream I had entered the Heaven of the Jews. What a terrible place! Overcrowded, with noisy, jostling people everywhere!” Then the rabbi says: “You know, I had this dream in which I visited the Christian heaven. All clean and green and peaceful… But not a soul around.”
Or the other joke:
A Jew dies and goes to heaven. He’s getting the tour…. Jewish neighborhoods, Muslim neighborhoods, Atheist cafes, poets bars, then he sees signs saying “quiet please” and a huge wall. He asks his guide what the wall is for? Oh, comes the reply, that’s the Christian section… they think they’re alone up here.
I know a variation on that. A man goes down to Hell and the Devil gives him the guided tour everyone gets at the beginning. So the Devil shows him a pub. And the man says: “That’s not so bad! There’s a pub here!” “Yeah,” says the Devil, “But it only has ten kinds of beer. In Heaven, there’s a pub with fifty kinds.” So they walk on, and they pass a golf course. “A golf course! In Hell!” the man exclaims. “Yeah…” says the Devil, “But it’s got only ten holes. In Heaven, there’s one with eighteen holes.” And they walk on for a while, and then the man points to a concrete and steel building, and asks: “What is that building? And why do I keep hearing these terrible tearing and burning noises, and those ghastly screams coming up from it?” “Oh,” says the Devil, “Don’t worry. That’s for the Catholics.”
No, I didn’t know any of those jokes. I must be in hell already, where there are only six or seven jokes and I’ve forgotten five of them.
But why would ANYONE bother with anything the Archbishop says? I saved his quote that says that disobeying an unjust law/government is OK. He said it in the context of being anti-Iraq war, but its a ‘get out of hell free’ card for my organised disobedience to other laws I happen not to like, such as the one banning Olympic pistol shooters form having their target pistols. And it is dead against scripture.
And then the question of ordaining actively gay bishops… I think we should remove establishment discrimination against people for being gey, but in the Church this is a total denial of the so-called foundation of their belief. Time to pull the chain on Anglicanism.
My favourite hell joke is…
Bill Gates died and went to the gates of Heaven. St Peter and the Devil greeted him and said, ‘Which do you wnat, Heaven or Hell?’
You mean I get a choice?
Sure, its this thing called free will, you know. Here, let us give you a peek so you know what you are deciding.
St Peter opens the gate, and sure enough it looks just like the conventional idea of Heaven – a whole bunch of happy people standing on green grass, wearing white robes and banging harps, singing praises to God.
‘OK, thanks… So what is Hell like?’
And the door opens and in there it is ROCKING. There is great music, people are drinking Guinnesses and chatting and dancing, there are gorgeous babes and handsome guys and everyone is having a great time!
The door closes. ‘So what’s it for you? Heaven or Hell?’
Bill Gates thinks and says, ‘Well Heaven looks as advertised, but its pretty tame and us nerds never got invited to parties like what I saw in Hell. I choose Hell.’
The door opens again for him, but this time flame belches out and burns off his hair; the air is filled with the screams of the damned and the stink of burst entrails.
‘Hey what the Hell is this? That’s not what you showed me!’
‘Ah, mate! You gotta understand – that was just the demo!’