It would seem as though my last couple of posts have had the effect of poking Farver Phil back to life, and here’s his latest.

How old-fashioned can you be?  It is obvious that if you use the words ‘God of Abraham’ you mean that all the Abrahamic faiths believe in the same God. Trinitarian Christians have this insistence about a ‘Trinity’, and if you let them, they’ll come up with all these dead white blokes from ancient history using incomprehensible language; best of luck with that, Pope Frankie isn’t going to let that get in his way, any more than I will.  Apart from anything else, such language isn’t inclusive, as it fails to include Binitarian Christians or Unitarian ones.

Fortunately, good old Vat 2 put us on the right track.  It recognised the obvious – that ‘God’ word is used by many, and when you come to think about it, if you believe in God, what you believe in has to be part of the One God – coz that’s the only God that there is, even if you see him in Shiva and Ganesh – they’re all part of the One God, and as I’ve said to many Pastafarians (Google it daddio), God is indeed like a bowl of pasta, in so many ways, when you come to think about it, indeed, I was watching a telly prog the other evening where you could see that those Pagan with their worshipping the Sun were really acknoledging the oneness of all.

Me, I’m at one with the new Dean at Washington National Cathedral, who has pushed me even further to where I’ve always been going, not least with this brilliant summary:

“I don’t want to be loosey-goosey about it,” he says, “but I describe myself as a non-theistic Christian.”

And he goes on to expand on the concept.

“Jesus doesn’t use the word God very much,” he says. “He talks about his Father.”

Hall explains: “Where I am now, how do I understand Jesus as a son of God that’s not magical? I’m trying to figure out Jesus as a son of God and a fully human being, if he has both fully human and a fully divine set of chromosomes. . . . He’s not some kind of superman coming down. God is present in all human beings. Jesus was an extraordinary human being. Jesus didn’t try to convert. He just had people at his table.”

That’s a cool definition of not being ‘loosey-goosey’ – couldn’t be any looser if the wing-nut had come off – that’s how I like ’em.  And he sure gets into the zone when he says:

“We’re in a period where people under 50 don’t see the church as a credible place to explore their questions about God.”

I wonder why that can be given good priests like the new Dean. Still, we can, as he does, take comfiort in the fact that the culture to which his church belongs is dying and it with it – I guess that’s what happens when your church is monocultural.

Still, all the more room for me and the guys down at the interfaith cntre, where we know that from Buddha to Big Brothers, all are one in the great One and All, as the great Meanie put it.

We are fortunate in having access to another of the Rev. Phil Cringeworthy’s talks – this one is entitled:

Dialogue of dialogues among the saved, the not so saved and the interminably confused.

All is dialogue sayeth the preacher. Well, that is as it should be, for the gift of tongues allows us to find what binds us, and that, surely, is the sense of fun we have at being alive in this, God’s world, and you don’t even have to believe in God, or Gods to be part of the fun – just shimmy on down to your local worship centre and give thanks to yourself for being the best you can be. Be careful though, won’t you, because there are still (I am told) church places where you only get to sit in rows like some school from the olden days, where white men jaw at you. Look out for one of those happening places where participation is all – it’s what we do best here at the Apostate of St Daryl’s.

As the good people will tell you, when Rev Phil here took over, this was a dump – had a great lump of stone at the end of the worship centre, and it was full of candles, like an old Ronnie Barker sketch – I ask you?  Well, we chucked those, and those pew things, right out, got the walls painted with rainbows and we’ve never looked back – from the Friday night raves to the Saturday night raves, it’s all going on here. It’s all about getting in touch with your inner self.

We’re hosting a special visitor next week – a brand new speaker, a man from the church of Baal. Now then, some of you will know that Baal gets a bum rap from those old Israelites, who were, lets face it, a narrow-minded bunch, and talk about a lack of diversity, they only had one god – not like the Canaanites, who had regular raves with Baal. Did I hear someone mention blood-sacrifices?  Come on folks, get with it – you can see worse down the high street on Saturday night – and remember, these people knew how to worship with feeling.  I’m sure we have everything to learn from dialoguing with Baal – and when you think how his followers have been treated across the centuries – well, I hope you’ll see just how forgiving Baal is – a lesson there for us all.

Here at the Apostate, we know how to have a good time too, and we’ll be doing our version of ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ – but, hey wait for it – Gangam style – you won’t want to be missing out on that now.

What matters is that we are relevant to the things that really concern people in the real world – their i-pads and iPods, their mobile phones and their x boxes, not, of course, forgetting social justice and the rights of the trans-gendered to use whichever bath room they like. And to those who ask what about God, well we’re sure that with his love for everything, he, or she, would approve – it isn’t about getting on your knees to say sorry for what you can’t help being – it’s about getting on your feet and praising Baal or whatever.

Be there – or be square.

I am sure you will all join me in hoping that the Rev Phil finds himself in the place he deserves.