TALKING TO MYSELF

A little humor for the New Year's from Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal:

“So what’s on for New Year’s, Johnson?”

“Nothing exciting, Johnson. Maybe I’ll do the laundry or finally get that haircut I’ve been putting off for a year and a half or so.”

“I like that Hubert Keller thing you’re rocking these days.”

“Thanks. Going to have to check out his restaurant here in town. But I’m getting bored with the look. I think I’ll also get in a little cold-weather cooking. A chili, a lentil soup, something like that.”

“You don’t do New Year’s Eve?”

“Nah. Gave that up a long time ago. I’m not supposed to eat any of the food at the parties and I’m a horrible conversationalist.

“So it’s either eating stuff I should stay away from or making small talk. I’ve always been way too good at the first and I suck at the second.”

“I hear you. Are you going to start on that CJ:AI recording?”

“Maybe. Got the last one printed out. Of course, considering how many takes it took me to finally get a two minute MCJ-TV thing that I liked, I’m not making any guarantees that this thing will ever see the light of day.”

“Speaking of which, when are you going to do another one of those TV deals?”

“When I get a haircut. And something to talk about. Rest of the next two days will probably be football, tea, the odd Screwdriver now and then, staring out the window and thinking about stuff. Same as always.”

“Gotcha. You want to know something?”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t look very happy.”

“Me, I’m 53 years old, overweight, a credit card debt that could buy me a really good car, single, no even remotely conceivable prospect and a job I don’t particularly care for. I never EVER look happy.”

“I know. I just figured you’d look slightly less dour what with getting that new Anglican province and all.”

“I didn’t get a new Anglican province.”

“You didn’t? Then what did you just get?”

“I got a new Anglican province announcement. Big difference. When an actual North American Anglican province is actually recognized, if it ever actually is, I’ll actually be kind of happy. Ish.”

“Do you think the issue’s in doubt?”

“Of course I think the issue’s in doubt.”

“Why? Do you think that when 815 says, ‘Jump,’ Rowan Williams replies,’How high?’”

“Yup. Trinity-Wall Street has a lot of money. It’s the only plausible explanation I can think of why that broccoli-shaped sock puppet organized the Lambeth Conference the way he did. It’s also meaningless.”

“Meaningless?”

“Aside from the occasional public libel and slander they can’t help, I stopped caring a long time ago what Kate or Susie or Lizzie or Gene or Fat Jonny or Tommy Three-Sticks or any of the rest of the girls do in their little hen parties. The Episcopal left hasn’t been relevant to this story for five years.”

“You’re wondering what the right will do.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you seriously think the conservative primates won’t confront Williams at the Egypt meeting?”

“Right now, I’d bet that way.”

“Why?”

“Body of work. The primates didn’t fight the introduction of the spurious “boundary-crossing” issue in 2003, got rolled in 2005 and let Mrs. Schori into Dar es Salaam in 2007.”

“They boycotted Lambeth.”

“Which in retrospect may have been a big mistake. Point being, the primates haven’t confronted Dr. Williams yet. When they do, I’ll be the first to congratulate them. But not before.”

“But what if Dr. Williams says no? Or, as is more likely, bureaucratizes the question indefinitely?”

“As he probably will.”

“Doesn’t that imply that the primates must be willing to walk away from Canterbury if recognition or the promise of eventual recognition doesn’t come?”

“Yup.”

“Awfully Roundhead of you.”

“Thanks. Jim Rome’s got a phrase for this. ‘Man’s game, bitch.’ You want make an omelet, you’ve got to crack some eggs.

“Or use some kind of healthy egg substitute but that would screw up the colloquialism. Anyway, you want to do this Christianity stuff, you have to make tough choices now and then.”

“Easy for you to say. Asking people to walk away from the apostolic connection, valid sacraments…”

“BOB GIBSON PAINTS THE LOW OUTSIDE CORNER, STRIKE THREE, TAKE A SEAT!! I have a question. What makes sacraments valid?”

“The apostolic connection.”

“And what makes the See of Canterbury apostolic?”

”The fact that the men who have occupied that seat have had hands laid upon them by bishops who have had hands laid on them and so on all the way back to the Apostles.”

“And the bishops below them have had hands laid on them by other bishops and they’ve laid hands on still more bishops, etc. So Bob Duncan is as apostolic as all get out.”

“Correct.”

“Now tell me something. Did Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, receive a pallium from Pope Gregory or was it the other way around?”

“Augustine received the pallium from the Pope.”

“So the See of Canterbury used to be under the See of Rome.”

“True.”

“But it’s not now.”

“Right. That Reformation thing. It was in all the whatever passed for newspapers back then.”

“Is Canterbury still apostolic?”

“Of course. You’re not less of an apostle just because you no longer acknowledge the supremacy of a particular bishop.”

“According to the Anglicans. But answer me this. Were Peter Akinola, Henry Orombi, Donald Harvey, Bob Duncan and Jack Iker ‘apostolic’ a year ago?”

“Of course.”

“If Anglican theory considers Canterbury an ‘apostolic’ see even after the split from Rome, wouldn’t an ‘apostolic’ bishop who split from Canterbury still be ‘apostolic?’ And wouldn’t sacraments administered by that ‘apostolic’ bishop be, therefore, entirely valid?”

“Well, uh…”

“Where does it say that you get one split but no more?”

“I, er, um…”

“If splitting from Rome did not affect the ‘apostolic’ status of the Archbishop of Canterbury, then why, according to Anglican theory, would splitting from Canterbury affect the ‘apostolic’ status of the Archbishops of Abuja, Kampala or North America? And why would sacraments administered by any of these by invalid if they split?”

“Well, I don’t know that…”

“Seems to me that you can have one or the other but not both. Either Canterbury is ‘apostolic,’ in which case those who split from it are still ‘apostolic,’ or Canterbury is not ‘apostolic’ at all and hasn’t been for five hundred years, in which case the ‘validity’ of Anglican sacraments ceases to be an issue.”

“Uh…um…lentil soup you say?”