SCREWTAPE PROPOSES AN EPISCOPAL TOAST - (8)
(With apologies to C.S. Lewis)
A Satirical Essay
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
7/26/2009
My dear Wormwood,
Word of your enormous success has reached our father's ears. What you achieved in Anaheim at GC2009 this past week was beyond our wildest imaginings.
That you should have obtained a public confession from that Jefferts Schori woman that personal faith or conversion of any sort was unnecessary and was actually a Western heresy must surely go down in the annals of hellish history as a first.
We have atheists and agnostics, unbelievers and disbelievers, but to have someone actually masquerading as a Christian and publicly denying one of its central tenets is a feat of uncommon performance. You are to be congratulated.
Your success at undermining that vile religion so adroitly through a female leader, (equality has its plusses) no less, only proves our point that heretics who rise through the ranks of the priestly classes only aid and abet our side. Jefferts Schori is the apogee of the feminist and pansexual revolution roaring through the churches of the West. Spong is her alter ego. Our success in undermining mainline churches like The Episcopal Church with pansexual acceptance and then calling it a "justice" issue rather than a moral issue deftly deflects it away from the truth that it will ultimately destroy their souls making them all hell bound. Heaven's loss, Hell's gain.
Our father has placed the highest priority on undermining Western Christianity. The successes achieved this week in The American Episcopal Church will undoubtedly be followed by more of the same with the Lutherans, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, Moravians and, in time, and a lot of effort on your part, the United Methodists.
The thin end of the wedge has penetrated the heart of the Christian behemoth; you will continue to hammer it home, opening up more fractures here and there till we have swallowed them all up. They will, in time, be ripe, for our ultimate goal - the triumph of Islam and the imposition of Sharia Law.
Let them cry out for justice for all oppressed peoples, but make sure that any talk of "justice" for orthodox types is glossed over with talk that when they were in charge, they gave nothing to the other side. Now it is their turn to hold the crown of victory. Never mind that the cry of repentance for all peoples was undermining OUR cause. It is important to focus away from any such talk and on to the whine of inclusion, diversity and justice for all peoples.
Keep the Listening Process alive and well. Make sure they get millions of dollars to listen themselves to death over sodomite inclusion. It all works in our favor.
Add to all this the undermining of Western morality with abortion, Internet porn, divorce, the abandonment of children, further undermining of the educational system, preaching moral relativity (keep the pressure on homosexual acceptance in the schools) and the rejection of absolute truth ...and our work will almost be done.
That lesbian Ragsdale woman at Episcopal Divinity School preaching that abortion is a blessing was further sweet music to our ears. It is emptying their churches faster than we could have hoped or imagined.
Now it is very important, Wormwood, to keep the institution alive. To do so, you must keep the remaining orthodox dioceses and parishes in TEC. If they leave, TEC will wilt and die even faster. If The Episcopal Church dies, and on its present trajectory it most certainly will, then it will be apparent to everyone. That will only undermine our cause. Whatever you do, keep it going, if only to make their case (and ours) that this church is where it is at - the seeker friendly church, the inclusive church, the emergent church, full of new ideas, taking the e-word (evangelism) and giving it a whole new definition and meaning.
The thing is not to kill off the church, but to undermine it from within, to change the definition of things, making words mean the opposite of what they originally meant and keeping people seduced by the language of inclusion. Keep the empty shells of churches and cathedrals open if only for tourism traffic. The English have that down to a fine art.
Keep Robinson smiling and hopping from one event to the next while making sure he stays off the booze. Keep him going to AA and announcing he now believes in a "higher power". Good stuff that changes nothing. Hell is filled with people who believe in a higher power. His upcoming appearance at Greenbelt, England, is a major coup. There he will preach his inclusive god and seductive gospel that embraces all manner of sexualities. The only sexual "sin" left in The Episcopal Church is heterosexual adultery. We need to trot that out occasionally to remind the world that TEC still has standards. (Grin)
Marriage, that horrid institution that has provided so much stability for societies and cultures for centuries, must be undermined. If not, then it must be twisted to meet the new sexual realities of the world and church. With your able assistance, we have taken it out of the sphere of heterosexual behavior and procreation, and have turned it into a narcissistic, self-absorbed past-time. Keep pushing the issue of ersatz rights - rights for gays, rights for women, rights for the transgendered, rights for same-sex marriage, and rights for dogs, if need be. Let them keep talking about the "other", but under no circumstances must this talk move into an understanding of a transcendent "other" - of a loving G-d who demands obedience and faith.
Keep that Jefferts Schori woman well supplied with heresies. Above all, keep her focused on this worldly transformation. Under no circumstances must she be given a glimpse of another world, a heavenly realm, a kingdom not made with hands...keep her believing that MDGs will change the world making it a better place with heaven just an extension of this world as SHE knows it.
Your work has been masterful, Wormwood. Our father broke open a pint of Pike's blood the other evening just to celebrate your incredible success.
Let the darkness roll on.
You remain in our warmest embrace,
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape