OVERHEARD IN HARRIS & HOOLE...
(An occasional feature)
It was absolutely lashing down in Uxbridge this morning, nevertheless Tony of the Big Saloon and I made it to Harris and Hoole in the High Street for a late morning coffee break.
Tony won't mind me saying this, but he hasn't been coping all that well with retirement. He says that time hangs heavy on him and days seem empty. It's different for me of course, I went straight from teaching into working as a fulltime writer. We arranged that Tony would work as my assistant when in late spring I begin work on a large sculpture.
As often the talk came around to Detterling. Tony, kind man that he is, asked me to go easy on him at the moment. It is pretty obvious that the old buffer is floundering. He seems to be even denying the existence of the Gay Lobby and his attempts to justify his remaining in the Church despite his heresy is pathetic. Despite his bluff and bluster it is painfully clear that he cannot palm off his heretical position:
No one can support abortion and claim to be Christian. It is a sin that must be condemned.
No one can condone the vile sin of sodomy and claim to be Christian. It is a sin that must be condemned.
Tony and myself are of the same opinion had it not been for his nephew Cuthbert being gay Detterling would never have supported the Gay Lobby.
We then had another great laugh about Duckie Duckworth threatening to go up to Tyneside and repeatedly kick Detterling's ass all the way out to Wallsend. Why Wallsend? we both laughed.
Before we went our ways I told Tony that exciting news was coming up about Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworths.
GENE
Oh, God, not this painful whimsy again, bleating about heresy, as if Gene had some kind of jurisdiction over who is and who is not a Christian. The day Christian doctrine is decided by a jumped-up, dirty-minded hypocritical bigot like Gene is the day the church will die a painful death. When are you going to realise that your pissy little opinions are worth the square root of fuck all to people with more than two brain cells to rub together?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand thanks for the laughs. So you have now been a full time writer for seven years now, have you? and have published fuck-all in that time. And as for "Grandma Jean shat herself in Wetherspoons" or whatever it is called, that will be published when the RAF Pig Formation Team does aerobatics over The Good Yarn.
And stop telling lies about my attitudes to homosexuality, abortion and sodomy. In all three cases, my belief is the same: that how people choose to express their sexuality, how they choose to deal with pregnancies, and how people conduct their sexual intercourse is their business and no-one else's. They will have to account for their actions sooner or later, but I am not so arrogant as to imagine that they will have to do so to me. Your bleating about "heresy" makes you look ridiculous.
Detterling you do realise you are talking bollocks don't you? Anyone who opposes Church doctrine is a heretic. End of story.
DeleteGene
No, Gene, YOU are talking bollocks. The offence of heresy was abolished in 1612, and the right of every individual to the offices of the Church of England is established by law irrespective of that individual’s religious opinions. There is no such thing as heresy in the Church of England and your endless bleating about it will not make it so. In organisations like the Roman Catholic Church, where the laity is discouraged (even forbidden) from thinking for itself, superstitious bigots like you are encouraged to bully others whilst, as in your case committing heresy by furtively ignoring the church’s doctrine on artificial birth control and lying to your parish priest at the communion every Sunday. Although in your case your personality is a most effective contraceptive without your having to resort to the smallest size in Durex Fetherlite.
ReplyDeleteDetterling I remind you that back in the days of the first ordination of C of E women priests George Carey wrote to the C of E faithful and warned them that anyone who did not accept women priests would be guilty of heresy.
ReplyDeleteGENE
George Carey also shielded the dreadful Peter Ball against investigation. I take no lectures from him about heresy or anything else. I was one among many who replied to him on that occasion and told him that, while a fervent supporter of women priests, I had no time for his impertinence in telling conscientious opponents of them that they were unChristian. His arrogance and stupidity no doubt make him a man after your own heart. Like speaks to like.
DeleteWe are talking about heresy as in opposing Church doctrine. You are talking about heresy as a criminal offence - as it once was in England.
ReplyDeleteMore bollocks from you as usual.
GENE
No, Gene, you are talking about heresy as though it were a defined ecclesiastical offence against the 39 Articles of the Church of England. It isn’t; the offence of heresy doesn’t exist in the Church of England any more than it does in English law. You are talking bollocks - but what else is new?
ReplyDeleteYou are entitled to your pissy little opinions. But you are NOT entitled to impose them on anyone else.
So why did George Carey warn his faithful about committing heresy?
DeleteBecause, like you he is arrogant, a fool and a bully - and, like you, inclined to make excuses for priests abusing their position to bugger small boys and rape little girls. Look it up, you ignorant turd.
DeleteAnd spare us the usual superstitious bullshit about the everlasting bottomless pit. You don’t even believe that crap yourself. If you did, you wouldn’t be such an appallingly nasty man.
ReplyDeleteSo these folk have got it all wrong too:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.charismanews.com/world/90876-repulsive-and-shameful-church-of-england-leadership-silent-after-heretical-sermon
What has this ridiculous nonsense got to do with the price of fish? Whoever preached this fatuous sermon is obviously deranged and is more to be pitied than condemned - there is no point, as Dr Johson remarked, in engaging with unresisting imbecility. As to whether these people have got it wrong is neither nor there: they are entitled to express their views, just as I am entitled to ignore them.
DeleteAnd anyone who, like you and like these evangelical bigots, conflates homosexuality, transgenderism and same-sex marriage as if they were all the same are too ignorant to have an opinion worth considering.
And I repeat: the offence of heresy doesn’t exist in the Church of England any more than it does in English law.
And this lady is wrong too?
ReplyDeletehttps://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/leading-evangelical-quits-church-of-england-leadership-over-heresy
I think she is wrong, but that is only my opinion, and I have no wish to impose it on anyone else. I am glad that she had the freedom to dissociate herself from what she saw as "heretical teaching". It is a nice point as to what she meant by this, by the way, as nowhere in the gospels does Christ offer any teaching on homosexuality or transgender issues.
DeleteAnd I repeat: the offence of heresy doesn’t exist in the Church of England any more than it does in English law.
And how about this? Wrong too?
ReplyDeletehttps://acl.asn.au/heresies-accepted-cofe/
As ever, Gene, you have not bothered to read any further than the headlines. This story deals with what happened when Jayne Ozanne tabled a motion at General Synod asking the church to repudiate the unscientific, cruel and highly dangerous practice of offering homosexuals conversion therapy. Anyone who thinks conversion therapy to be a good idea is, simply, too ignorant of human sexuality to have an opinion worth considering. Ms Ozanne is here condemned as a heretic for promoting this motion, which was passed by 35 bishops to 1. That doesn't make them right, of course, but her courage in banishing this repugnant, belittling cruelty towards homosexuals is a matter to be applauded.
ReplyDeleteAnd you really need to grow up, Gene. Just because some bigot calls something a heresy does not make it one, any more than you calling yourself a full time writer makes you into a published author, rather than someone who takes all day to write "fuck" on the wall in Harris and Hoole's Gents bog.
I repeat: the offence of heresy doesn’t exist in the Church of England any more than it does in English law.
The crime of heresy does not exist in Law - as it unfortunately once did.
ReplyDeleteThe sin of heresy most certainly does exist in the Anglican Communion including the C of E. Why is the term 'heresy' used about all these issues referred to above?
George Carey was wrong to threaten the C of E faithful with heresy but after all he was Archbishop of Canterbury and is it likely that he would use the term 'heresy' if it did not exist in the C of E?
Balls, Gene: your inept playing with words is fooling no-one. The “sin” of heresy may or may exist in the Church of England (whatever heresy is), and personally I don’t give a rat’s whether it does or not. But the offence of heresy in canon law does not exist. Furthermore since all inhabitants of the Uk live in an Anglican parish, all those inhabitants are entitled to access to the sacraments of the Church of England irrespective of their beliefs. As for George Carey, I am not interested in anything he says, still less on how he defines heresy. I regard him as a fool at best and an apologist for the sexual abuser Canon Peter Ball into the bargain.
ReplyDelete"The “sin” of heresy may or may exist in the Church of England (whatever heresy is), and personally I don’t give a rat’s whether it does or not."
ReplyDeleteWELL, I SUPPOSE THIS IS THE NEAREST YOU WILL COME TO THROWING IN THE TOWEL.
I COULD EXPECT NO MORE FROM SUCH AN UNGRACIOUS MAN.
GENE
I am not throwing in the towel Gene, because I am not wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou really do need to grow out of the notion that an opinion becomes fact when it is you holding it; that all you need to do to turn a falsehood into a fact is to repeat it loudly, or find other people who have made the same mistake as you have as if it proved anything other than that fools come in batches.
And don't lecture me about grace, you nasty little creep - the exhibition you made of yourself over Nick Chamberlain was testimony to your nastiness, your two-facedness and your cowardice.