There Is None Good But One
The recently-ascended Vicar of Downing Street, who over the past five years has done so much to promote peace and understanding in the Middle East, has given a sermon to Time magazine about how he wants to spend the rest of his life.
Tony was, we are told, "a committed Anglican since his days as a student at Oxford in the 1970s"; so committed that he threw over the Anglican faith for that of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor as soon as he found it expedient to do so. Whichever of the world's many faiths you prefer, Tony finds they can all be jolly handy for those little dilemma thingies: "What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength to do it," he said. It is certainly refreshing to see one of the godly admitting that faith has nothing to do with morality; it will be interesting to see how many cardinals, imams, rabbis and other holy persons agree. Tony also noted that "If you believe in God, [judgement] is made by God as well," a characteristic theological profundity. If Tony's heavenly chum exists, presumably he judges whether you believe in him or not; and if Tony's heavenly chum does not exist, he is unlikely to judge anyone whatever their beliefs, even if the believer is the sort of person who can conjure weapons of mass destruction out of thin air.
Anyway, Tony has set up a Faith Foundation to give his heavenly chum a bit of benign intervention and "bring together six faiths - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism" so that they can defy Jesus' implicit command at Matthew 26 xi to consider the welfare of the poor less important than his own posthumous pomp and circumstance. "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be," said Tony, seemingly so transfigured with enthusiasm that he was unable to pronounce the word synagogue. Perhaps the economics of the widow's offering cause him some slight psychological indigestion.
Tony was, we are told, "a committed Anglican since his days as a student at Oxford in the 1970s"; so committed that he threw over the Anglican faith for that of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor as soon as he found it expedient to do so. Whichever of the world's many faiths you prefer, Tony finds they can all be jolly handy for those little dilemma thingies: "What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength to do it," he said. It is certainly refreshing to see one of the godly admitting that faith has nothing to do with morality; it will be interesting to see how many cardinals, imams, rabbis and other holy persons agree. Tony also noted that "If you believe in God, [judgement] is made by God as well," a characteristic theological profundity. If Tony's heavenly chum exists, presumably he judges whether you believe in him or not; and if Tony's heavenly chum does not exist, he is unlikely to judge anyone whatever their beliefs, even if the believer is the sort of person who can conjure weapons of mass destruction out of thin air.
Anyway, Tony has set up a Faith Foundation to give his heavenly chum a bit of benign intervention and "bring together six faiths - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism" so that they can defy Jesus' implicit command at Matthew 26 xi to consider the welfare of the poor less important than his own posthumous pomp and circumstance. "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be," said Tony, seemingly so transfigured with enthusiasm that he was unable to pronounce the word synagogue. Perhaps the economics of the widow's offering cause him some slight psychological indigestion.
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