Hip-hop style diplomacy

What I want to know is, how many of the bishop’s wives bonk their beloved over the head with a frying pan on his returning home late after too much partying and too many martinis.

From Here

The career of Bishop Catherine Roskam of the Diocese of New York has been built on her skills as a cross-cultural ambassador for the modern Episcopal Church.

She led the International Concerns Committee of her denomination’s executive council, helped create her diocese’s Global Women’s Fund and has worked as a consultant on issues of cultural sensitivity. In some circles, she is known as the bishop who dared to rap during a “Hip-Hop Mass” a few years ago in the Bronx.

“My sistas and brothas, all my homies and peeps, stay up — keep your head up, holla back and go forth and tell it like it is,” proclaimed the bishop, in her benediction.

“We have 700 men here. Do you think any of them beat their wives? Chances are they do,” argued Roskam, in The Lambeth Witness, a daily newsletter for gay-rights supporters in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

“The most devout Christians beat their wives. … Many of our bishops come from places where it is culturally accepted to beat your wife (an excellent illustration from Catherine on how to demonstrate cultural sensitivity). In that regard, it makes conversation quite difficult (I might add that this is the only known example of a bishop – while still living – having difficulty in conducting a conversation).”

Desmond Tutu is confused

Desmond Tutu weighs in on the Gene Robinson fiasco (be warned, this is a link to a pro-gay site). By saying “I could not stand by while people were being penalised again for something about which they could do nothing – their sexual orientation” he is confusing – using standard Anglican obfuscation – sexual orientation with sexual practice. The fact is, it is not Gene’s sexual orientation that is the problem: the problem is his acting on it by leaving his wife, setting up house with his gay partner and proclaiming to the world that this is not only socially acceptable (which it may be), but fully in line with Christian teaching – which it isn’t.

Also of note is that fact that Obama has met with Gene 3 times already! What more can one ask.

Influential figures within the church, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, strongly support Robinson. Tutu even penned the foreword in Robinson’s book.

“Apartheid, crassly racist, sought to penalise people for something about which they could do nothing,” he wrote. “I could not stand by while people were being penalised again for something about which they could do nothing – their sexual orientation … Gene Robinson is a wonderful person and I am proud to belong to the same church as he.”

Robinson also enjoys powerful support in the wider community. While the Archbishop of Canterbury has only acceded to one meeting with him – and then under such secrecy that he was told the venue at the last possible moment – Robinson has already had three one-on-one meetings with US presidential candidate Barack Obama, the man many believe will be the next President of the United States.

What people like Obama and Tutu realise, says Robinson, is that far from being dependent on texts from thousands of years ago for God’s word, the human relationship with God is a living, breathing, ever-evolving one.

Or, to put that last sentence another way: “since the Bible is really, really old, we might as well ignore it and make this up as we go along.”

The Lambeth Walk

The song goes like this:

Hello Dalida!
Hello

What are you doing?
I’m dancing
Dancing the fox-trot, the polka?
No, no, i’m dancing the lambeth walk

What?

The lambeth walk!

Which makes a lot more sense than the escapades of a bunch of ponced up in purple, middle-aged, ersatz hippy pseuds.

I would be marginally more convinced of the good intentions of the the illustrious enpurpled participants if, after exerting themselves (well most of them – Ralph Spence had to be carried in a rickshaw) on behalf of the world’s starving, they had not settled down at a marquee at Lambeth Place to gorge themselves on cold lemon and thyme scented breast of chicken with fresh asparagus and porcini mushroom relish, summer bean and coriander, tomato, basil and mozzarella served with hot minted new potatoes. To follow: dark chocolate and raspberry tart with raspberry ripple ice cream, topped off with coffee and white chocolate raspberries. To drink: Pino Grigio or Shiraz, or cranberry and elderflower fruit punch.

It’s hard being a bishop, especially when you are trying to convince the government of a secular society to spend more of their taxpayers’ money on the poor. Burp.