FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Sword and Bull

Rant Number 445 22 June 2011

Atop the pediment of St Paul’s Cathedral in London stands a mighty statue. It shows the great Jew after whom the famed building is named, St Paul. He stands there, a sword in his right hand. The priest often likes to gaze at it, when he saunters by. But now...Lo and behold! The statue moved! Like the stone statue coming alive in Moliere’s Don Juan, St Paul came down from his lofty place and strode into his Cathedral.

In my dream. Yes, I dream a lot. Dreams can be weird but this especially so. I dreamt it the other night. Rather a sanguinary dream, I fear. Because I saw the Apostle’s stone effigy entering his church and walking stiffly towards the Quire area, sword in hand. Dean and Canons sat there, in their stalls. As the statue approached, they looked transfixed, speechless. Naturally, as St Paul raised his huge sword and proceeded to slaughter them all, one by one. Like butchered pigs they squealed, but the statue was stony-hearted and went on killing. Blood flowed in torrents...yak! Not a pretty sight. Thanks God the alarm clock woke me up. A bit shaken, I tell you.

Also worried. You see, according to Dr Freud a dream is a wish fulfilment. Gasp! Is it possible the gentle priest deep down is a sadist? A heartless, grim executioner? Luckily, not so quick. A dream does not wear its wish on its sleeve, Dr Fraud claims. Its meaning is never direct, simple. Interpretation is difficult...

I can’t afford an analyst so I must do my own dream deciphering. The vision was sparked off, I think, by reading about a certain Canon of St Paul’s cathedral. (Sorry, goodly Apostle – something you don’t deserve but... all Christians have a cross to bear.) I’ll call him Canon Bullshit – may Christ forgive my unkindness. Allegedly, he claims that the Church of England is ‘institutionally homophobic’. A reference to some legal advice to the Church requiring that a gay bishop, though in a same-sex relationship, should be celibate. I don’t understand this but...the C of E is the church I was ordained into, her pronouncements are often like the Peace of God – they ‘pass all understanding’. Anyhow, that is what prompted Canon Bullshit to bullshit, apparently.

First, homophobia. Fear of gays. Gay bishops in this case. Whose is afraid of them? They have always existed. One of my bishops was gay. His priests and lay people all knew it. He once joked to a parish meeting about his ‘pretty bottom’. He never came out, was probably a celibate and was just as bad, or as good, as any other bishops.

As to gay clergy, Canon Bullshit must inhabit a peculiar dream land. In London particularly they are thick on the ground. Some are celibate. Some live with their ‘lodgers’ in their Vicarages. Some are protected and preferred by sympathetic bishops. (Some become bishops or canons of Cathedrals.) Some go cruising in gay bars. Their parishioners know it. I knew a gay priest who died of Aids – his flock loved and supported him. Unless a priest, gay or straight, falls foul of the law, no one bothers. That is a fact. Homophobia may exist amongst some Evangelicals but they, the benighted fundamentalists whom the Canon once compared to the Taleban, would call it being biblical – a minor detail. Anyway, in the light of all my own experience (a buon intenditor, poche parole), talk of church homophobia, pace the Canon, sounds like bullshit to me.

Doctrinally, of course the matter of the status of an unworthy minister is dealt with in Article XXVI in the Articled of Religion in the Prayer Book. The validity of a sacrament is not affected by the unworthiness of the minister – a sound teaching going back to St Augustine. However, N.B. the article does not condone sin – it speaks of ‘those found guilty, by just judgment being deposed.’ Of course, Canon Bullshit obviously does not believe that being gay is sinful. Neither do I, actually. It is behaviour that is sinful, not a condition, as the Article rightly implies. And that applies to straights and gays alike. And all can repent.

Second, the dream. A bit of a problem, because St Paul killed no one. He helped the murderers of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, but that was when Paul was still Saul, the fanatical enemy of Christ. After the encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road, Paul was faithful to the peaceful teaching of his good Master, Jesus, who did not shed blood but let his own blood be shed for the salvation of all. Indeed, the sword in Paul’s hand symbolises his own martyrdom, suffered under the savage persecutions of Christians by Emperor Nero in Rome. It is then Paul’s blood that the sword sheds, not anybody else’s blood. St Paul’s Cathedral clergy have nothing to fear on that score – well, not until the Last Judgment, anyway. How can I then explain the goriness of my dream?

Thirdly, If I were a Muslim, I would try and find the answer in the Qur’an. (A Muslim always does that – an admirable procedure.) As a Christian, I must find that in my Bible. So, I open the Good Book and read in the letter Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus ‘And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Ephesians, 6:17).

Yes, St Paul’s sword is not a bloody one. Its meaning is unbloody, spiritual. It refers to the Spirit and the Word of God. In other words, to Holy Scripture. That too, like dreams, stands in need of interpretation. The Anglican Church is certainly not fundamentalist in its understanding of the Bible but nor can it ignore the plain meaning of certain holy texts. They are there to guide us. The Bible judges man, not man the Bible, geddit?

Canon Bullshit, I bet, would dismiss the priest a member of the Taleban tendency. You know, maybe that insult, unbeknownst to him, is a compliment? OK, I’ll make is easy for him, I’ll put my head on the chopping block and say the unsayable: in this case, better being a Taleban than a bullshitter.