Turns out this whole story is the work of a journalist who rang up and got a bishop to say some pretty orthodox things about God judging sin, and the consequences of human disregard for the environment, put them together with his unconnected but well-known (and equally orthodox) views on marriage and sexuality, and came up with some ludicrious nonsense which he then attributed to the bishop.

Hopefully the journalist concerned found the entertainment value worth it…. !

The current Bishop of Carlisle is not a member of the House of Lords, as far as I am aware. http://www.parliament.uk/directories/house_of_lords_information_office/house_of_lords_bishops.cfm has the current official list. I believe Carlisle is second in line to be allowed in the House, after Ely.

Nice idea Bishop, but the countries that are worst affected by global warming and likely to be most affected in the next decade are mainly landlocked countries in Africa who are amongst the worst exploited countries getting the worst deal out of dominant economic structures built on greed. Try again!

Yet I see the Govt today has pledged another £800 million from somewhere (for some indeterminate point in the future no doubt).

Not really joind up government there. see DK writing on this for a fuller explanation.

I thought it was quite a brave attempt to hold two mutually contradictory opinions at once. Bless.

the pedantry, it burns …

actually it’s not quite that. The Archbishes of Canterbury and York are Lords Spiritual by right of office, as are the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester. The Bishop of Carlisle is a diocesan rather than suffragan bishop, and so has a shot at being in the House of Lords (the current one currently is), but only by appointment. In general, they pick the 21 most senior diocesan bishops and it would be quite unusual to do anything different, but no major constitutional issues would arise from chucking Graham Dow out, as they would if you wanted to get rid of the Bishop of Durham.

I’ll get me cassock.

Halleluyah, Hallelujah, Hallelu …

Meanwhile Victorian scriptures provided the green light:

“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the lord god loves them all.”

Except for fuckwit Bishops.

The world has always been difficult. We know enough geologically to understand the complexity of the earth’s structure. We know that in the past millions of years huge changes in the shape of continents have happened through the movements of the undersea plates. What has happened on this occasion is not new. This is the physical world of which we human beings are part.

I take that to indicate that he didn’t believe God to have any direct involvement in the Tsunami. He considers why God did nothing to stop it from happening and concludes that we worthless humans have no claim on God - in other words, we do not have any right to live in God’s eyes - a traditional Christian viewpoint.

This is Graham Dow’s letter contemplating the tsunami in February 2005.
http://tinyurl.com/2d8bfp

My take on this is that the Bishop holds that God is responsible for the Tsunami and moreover did it to impress the survivors and make it possible for smug gits to go about emoting all over the place.

Not my idea of what God is about, but then I’m not a bishop with degrees in theological justice. If I were God, I’d be suing for libel.

You may read it differently.

“The Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Reverend Graham Dow, added: “I am enormously grateful for the very generous response throughout Cumbria to the tsunami disaster victims.

“Along with basic needs of water, food and clothing, long term priorities are the rebuilding of the livelihood of the fishing communities, secure care for orphans, with financial provision for their education, the rebuilding of churches and homes and counselling for those deeply affected by the trauma of their experience.”

Allerdale Borough Council News

I came across a reference on the search page of the Carlisle Diocese web-site to what appears to be some kind of statement regarding God’s part in the Tsunami but unfortunately it won’t retrieve the relevant page!

But, whether or not the Bishop regarded the Tsunami as another message from God to humanity it didn’t seem to prevent him from organising a relief fund to assist those people affected by it in Madras, which Diocese has long standing ties to Carlisle. So, the Bishop may view it as some kind of punishment for mankind’s errant ways but this doesn’t mean that he lacks compassion for those affected.

Well, I’m with the Bish on the characterization of institutional power as ‘the beast’ but as far as I can tell, the beast has been going round telling people they can’t have a fag, are drinking too much, and is getting ready to impose de facto marriages on anybody who is unwise enough to stay over once in a while.

Far from telling anybody that “people are free to act as they want” the Beast has set up millions of security cameras and is proposing a card-backed control system of where I go, who I see, what I eat and when I do it, all masquerading as taxation or green policies or public health or prevention of terrorism or any excuse to curtail my freedom.

Sometimes I think the only reason the Beast doesn’t liquidate me must be like that scene in Alien where the beast hisses at Ripley but doesn’t kill her because she is wanted alive - for the time being. Then I have a nice glass of cider and remember that politicians are just over-controlling bastards who are not actually evil, but are a long way up their own backsides.

In many respects the Beast seems to be doing exactly what the Bishop wants. Is he absolutely sure that he is working for the living God and not accidentally signed to the Prince of Darkness?

On checking online bookshops I found the Bishop Graham Dow does not just believe in the metaphorical existence of the beast. For him, the existence of bad spirits and witchcraft is a real thing. He has written a book about it, called ‘Deliverance’.

This means that he can and does accuse people of being witches or having inherited powers, as if this was a sensible thing. Now, the Satanic Panic has caused untold trouble this past 20 years but the only evidence so far of child abuse in this context is when primitive Christians get it in their noggins that a child is possessed.

To be properly scandalized at the dangerously idiotic beliefs of a senior cleric, and him inflicting these on vulnerable people who probably need to visit a shrink rather than his ‘healing ministry’, then read the sample chapter from his book ‘Deliverance’, pages 13-18.

Deliverance
http://tinyurl.com/2y48ah

If this had come from one of our battier sects, I would just be going ‘bah, humbug’. The world is full of people who believe silly things. But this is a responsible bishop of the Church of England. You’d have thought better would be expected.

Maybe it is something in the water up in Carlisle. The Bishop is not the only person who believes in ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties.

Bishop stands firm on ‘ungodly’ curse
http://tinyurl.com/2qm7hx

Thank the Lord for Labour’s Paul Im Thurn who said “I am a Christian and a churchgoer but I expect decisions in a modern democracy to be based on factual evidence and reason. This is the sort of sloppy, lazy, thinking that led to witch hunts and the pogroms.”