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C of E to follow Amazon’s lead and use unmanned drones

Following the lead of online retailer Amazon, the Church of England has unveiled plans to use unmanned drones to deliver church services to places of worship, homes, places of work or even outdoors..

While plenty of candidates for the Anglican priesthood continue to come forward, and plenty continue to be ordained, it has long been the Church of England’s policy to reduce the number of paid clergy posts as they cannot afford to pay them, or their pensions. This is because most of the money raised by Henry VIII’s mahoosive sell off of monasteries and their lands was blown by investing unwisely in the property bubble of the 80s.

The new system of drones will allow centrally-piloted, hovering robots to deliver approved services and even display the words on an abdominally-mounted screen. Congregations can request services by typing in the post code of their chosen place of worship, the date, time and type of church service they wish to have and indicating what the drone is to do if nobody is in. These options include: say the service anyway, give the service to a neighbour, leave the service in a safe place, or drop the service into a local church to be said by a human at a later date.

Daily Mail accuses Jesus’ Father of hating Britain

The Daily Mail has caused a self-publicising media-storm by running a piece accusing the Father of Jesus Christ of hating Britain.  The article, which is believed to have been penned under direct instructions from editor Pol Daycare, focused on the writings of the Father’s spokes-prophets which included allegedly anti-Mail British values such as “encouraging mass migration, letting the poor write off their debts every seven years, undertaking large-scale public works, having mercy on widows and orphans, leaving slavery to seek a better life, giving sight to the blind and freeing prisoners.”

Daycare (who is seldom seen in daylight and certainly never on TV) refuted criticism by sending a Crash-Test Deputy Editor to flannel on his behalf on Newsnight. Deputy editor, John Gleeful, stood by the Mail’s story, saying, “The Father clearly shows through His spokes-prophets writings  that British values are things He despises. His chosen people weren’t British for a start, and then there’s this business of 10 Commandments, none of which enshrines the right for the rich to store their money overseas, or for the press to vilify and smear anyone who criticises them. He’s clearly a communist and so we intend to run lots of stories about Stalin’s repression, genocides and terror with the caption ‘Close communist friend of Jesus’ dad’ under them for the rest of the week.”

David Cameron was swift to come to the Heavenly Father’s defence, commenting, “I think the Mail were wrong to attack the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in this way. Of course, there are many things which Jesus says which reflect the values of his Father and which I might disagree with, but just because there are these awful socialist overtones in their message and that of their spokes-scribes, it doesn’t mean to say any of them hate Britain.  In a Conservative Britain, prophet is not a dirty word.”

The Anglican OED adds voguish new words

Anglican Grammarobergruppenführers expressed there exasperation as the OED (the Orthorized Englican Dikshunry) adopted new, voguish words into it’s latest edition. New Christian vocabulary such as apols, shelfie, Phablet, bit-tithe, omnicandles and the controversial term ‘querk’ have made the cut. So, what do these newly-embraced terms mean, innit?

Apols – a low-church term for Prayers of Penitence

Shelfie – a priest’s face Photoshopped into a picture of  the Blessed Virgin Mary and kept as a guilty secret on a shelf in they’re study

Phablet – what Anglicans call The Tablet when a trendy Anglican is guest editor

bit-tithe – when online items are donated to support churches (though what St Agnes’s is supposed to do with donated Minecraft blocks, Candycrush lives or invitations to play Bubble Witch Saga is anyone’s guess)

omnicandles – a huge conflagration at Candlemas which could of burnt the church down and to which the emergency services have to be called

Querk – a provocative form of liturgical dance involving quirky genuflections and several Liturgical Errors (made popular by Father Miles O’Sirius at Greenbelt during his popular You Too? Mass)

 

 

 [Award yourself minus five points for every grammatical error you find it necessary to comment upon in this article]

Praetorian Guard tweets on Christian arrests #illegalchristians

Following the British Home Office‘s lead, Rome’s Praetorian Guard Twitter account is to highlight arrests of dangerous members of the new cult of Christians using the #illegalchristian hashtag.

Centurion Drusus Grachus said:

“these operations highlight the routine work we are carrying out every day to stamp out illegal meetings in houses where dubious cannibalistic meals take place in the name of captured and executed brigand Jesus of Nazareth. We are sending a clear message to people who choose to harbour these illegal so-called Christians: we will find you and you will pay a heavy penalty.”

The penalties will range from flogging to being thrown to the lions – dependent on the severity of the crime. More lenient sentences will be given to those willing to burn incense in the name of Caesar and deny this dangerous foreign god Jesus.

The Praetorian Guard insisted that plebeians would be pleased to hear that this justice is daily being done in the name of Caesar given the well-founded fears of the dangers of this Christian cult (which attracts women and slaves in huge numbers). Some plebeians argued that their taxes should not be spent on such activities – their twitter accounts will now be monitored for anti-Caesar comments.

The first tweet on the new @praetorian account shared an image of one of those arrested (pictured here below) and stated:

“A suspected Christian arrested at Appian Way Baths – LXII suspected #illegalchristians arrested across Rome today”

Image via Twitpic

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Here is some useful advice for what you can do if you see someone being subject to one of these UKBA raids including the rights the immigrants have.

Payday loan companies counter ABC with a cunning plan

Payday loan companies have responded to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s challenge to compete them out of business by offering a new service of their own to Church of England clergy. They are offering personal development training to clergy, enabling them to give even more of their time and energy to their ministry.

“We are well-placed to offer this service to clergy who are already giving 100% and feeling desperate,” explained a smiling spokesperson for  payday loan company Borrowlotsofdoshwithhardlyanychanceofitspirallingoutofcontrol.com, “and our experience of bleeding people dry will mean that, within a very short space of time, clergy who take up our unique Augmented Priest Regime (APR) programme will soon be giving 4214%.”

The new service had little initial take-up as it turned out that many churches carried on loving each other and seeking God’s guidance as to how to love and serve their communities and preach the Gospel in word and actions together so that nobody had to burn out at all. Which, to the payday loan companies and the financial sector in general, seemed very, very strange indeed.

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For information about Credit Unions, including how your church might set one up, the Association of British Credit Unions has an informative website.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to sue David Cameron

In a shock move, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse today launched a court case against David Cameron’s government claiming they are attempting to privatise their industries and completely undermining the dramatic impact of their plans for the End Times.

The Four Horsemen fear the government is steaing the thunder of their plans for the Apocalypse

A spokesperson for the horsemen (St. John the Divine who wrote their biography in his book Revelation some years ago) explained, “The boys are upset. For millennia they have been a watchword for the end times, as harbingers of the Day of Judgement. Now, each of them has identified ways in which the current UK government is seeking to privatise their unique area of operations.

“Pestilence is cross that the government’s surreptitious privatisation of the NHS will make his grand finale of epidemics lose dramatic impact. What will be the point of unleashing an unstoppable and hideous pandemic if the UK has already reverted to 19th century models of access to healthcare?

“Famine is aghast that the social security system has been undermined to the extent that food banks are having to be set up to feed those whose employers do not pay a living wage, or who are unemployed. Where’s the fun in unleashing plagues of locusts if the government is already starving the poor and vulnerable?

“Death is horrified by the machinations of the Department of Work and Pensions which are systematically euthanising the disabled and those with degenerative, chronic, or terminal illnesses. He claims this takes all the fun and challenge out of his job. And War was already upset that Mr Cameron was spending so much time openly marketing the UK arms industry while Mr Hague seeks to help get even more arms into unstable regions of the Middle East – these things have always happened with governments but they are supposed to be a guilty secret, not something to brag about. It is making a mockery of the whole Harbinger of the Apocalypse brand when they do it so brazenly!”

“These bozos are undoing the whole drama of Armageddon.” said Pestilence, “We’d been enjoying watching humankind attempt to alleviate war, famine, disease, conquest and death, and especially in the UK where a lot of them had been having a good crack at it since 1945 – that kind of thing makes an ideal dramatic canvas for the overwhelmingly destructive devastation of the Apocalypse. But now… the whole show will lose impact. These people have no soul.”

War, however, remained the most philosophical of the group, “Thankfully,” he said, “the UK is just one small part of the globe. We have plenty of other projects on the go in our various areas of operations elsewhere. It’s just that we had high hopes that the home of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Pratchett would have a greater sense of theatre about the End of Days than this. We’re not so much angry as… disappointed in them.”

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Footnote:

For information and background on the policies which are so upsetting the Four Horsemen, you might like to check out the following links (usual disclaimer about Anglicanmemes not being responsible for the content of external sites obviously applies):

The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks about Foodbanks and the government’s derogatory language about people living in poverty.

Church Action of Poverty – information about many poverty-related issues in the UK

War on Welfare campaign – which calls for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions

NHS Support Federation –  an independent pressure group that campaigns to protect and improve the NHS, true to its founding principles, a voluntary organisation, funded by supporters from the health professions and the general public.

Save the NHS petition – via 38Degrees

Stop the Arms Fair – campaign against London’s arms trade fair 2013.

Supreme Governor of Church of England declares ‘War on Terror’

George III stands up to terrorist insurgents

On this day in history, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, George III, declared the first War on Terror as insurgents attacked British peace-keeping forces in the American colonies following a declaration of treason by fifty six local warlords on July 4th 1776. As bombings, assassinations and civil disobedience escalated, Defender of the Faith King George resisted calls for the British government to withdraw its forces, saying their mission of restoring peace, a well-ordered society and proper use of the English language to the British territories of North America was not yet complete.

Spokesmen for the thirteen rebel tribes claimed that their campaign of terror marked the beginning of an epic ‘war of independence’ which would be celebrated for centuries to come as the dawn of a new democratic age. However, the British army dismissed the claims of these militias, pointing out that the insurgents’ sponsors were the slightly less than democratic Empress Catherine The Great of Russia and Louis XVI of France, and that the colonists were not seeking universal democracy, but merely tax benefits and political power for rich, white males.

King Louis XVI commented, “I am a big fan of zis Independence sing in America. King George… ‘ee needs keepin’ in heez place. I mean, in France we have the amazing ME at ze helm so ze people, zey are perfectly happy, but you haff to laff at ze silly English, letting zair colonies get out of hand simply by not letting zair upper middle classes feel important…” To which King George replied, “Don’t lose your head, Louis.” (which proved somewhat prophetic, as it turned out).

Happy birthday to our US cousins!

Hope you don’t mind a Church of England version of history as it most probably looked from this side of the pond back then…