The Vicar of Bray and his Wife.

[A-Four]

Tonight has been the second night with in a week, that the vicar and his wife have been over here sat in the garden. His wife is fine, Hanna she's from Finland, wonderful lady and well travelled, her husband, English, one of those village type vicars who see good in everything even the recent Tottenham riots.

Any how the other night, they were here, and he starts preaching to me about the baby Jesus, I made it clear that I am not a Christian, and gave a few reasons why. Tonight he came back, as though he is armed by a load of papal bulls. Well some of you lot on here know, that I can hold my own when it comes to Church history. I believe that the word of Jesus Christ can not be questioned, however Church history and Church law can be. Let me give you an example of a current subject post.The early writtings of the New Testament says that man shall not have sex with a four legged animal, when in the third century, this was translated from Greek to Latin, this was changed, to man should not have sex with another man. (Ref., The Unauthorised Version. Robin Lane Fox.)

Any how yours trully had a good go at the Vicar of Bray, for one reason, and one reason only, he was trying to convert me from my own private faith to his, which is high C of E, to me that is very stoney ground with few foundations. He soon realised that my knowledge of Church history is far greater than his, however he suddenly begun to see me as the anti-Christ.

On one case he put before me, I told him this was simply not true, and to prove my point I got out the Standard Revised Version of the New Testament, ( which is a very good authority.) on this passage I reffered to, it points us to the fact that most ancient authorities omit this passage. In other words it was added at a much later date. So what is the word of JC.

In the end, I got fed up and came to my bedroom, that lot are still out there drinking, at the end of it all. I am sure that I am correct, However the Vicar of Bray is still out there drinking my booze, in the belief that he is correct, any how he has the baby Jesus onhis side, so he must be right.

Those of you who are British must remember Kenny Everett, from the very early days I loved his radio shows, and then his comic T.V. shows to me were fantastic, then suddenly I found something out about Kenny, that I did not like. Oh you mean he was gay, A-Four, - I hear you say. No not in the least. It was that Kenny appeared at a Conservative conference making serious bad jokes about the Labour Party and its then leader. It was also at a time when as a direct result of Margaret Thatcher, whole towns and villagers in the North of England became void. I could not believe that this inteligent man could set his sail to their mast, at such a time. I never saw this person in the same light, as I had done before.

What I have written above I expect to run concurrent with the subject post that has so far run to six pages.......at the end nothing really happens, and nothing really changes.

A-Four.

[timetraveller]

Glad you had a good evening then, A-Four!

[TonyC]

To invite a high C of E clergyman into your garden once, A-Four, may be regarded as a misfortune; to invite him twice looks like carelessness...

And without misquoting Mr Wilde, he also said: "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."

[Mimimay]

My Dad used to advice me 'never to argue about politics or religion because no one can win' !

[JOJO]

Blind faith! It as always astounded me how people are willing to believe things that could not possibly be so, on the other hand I've always been quite envious of people who's faith will not falter .

[Arthur]

My Dad used to advice me 'never to argue about politics or religion because no one can win' !

And you should never argue with your parents...

[A-Four]

Last night when I was 'sent' to my room by the family for being drunk and up-setting the vicar of Bray, who incidently helped himself to a further two bottles of my best wine, after leaving careful instructions that they should only be fed muppet wine, so it looks like the old joker got the better of me after all.

I got to my room last night, I read through the latter parts of the gay subject post. I realised that what had happened to me that evening, was very simular to that post in many ways. Before me was an intelligent man, who you expect to understand standand fact, but could 'see' no further in understanding, than his nose, because of dogma, should we just ignore these people.......no, we all have different minds and thought, and thats what makes the world interesting.

Other than Timetraveller's comment, who knows, I do not suffer fools, each of the others could fit very well, and perhaps make more sense than many of the other long and drawn out statements.

Nothing really changes.

[TonyC]

Nothing really changes.

Probably not in the case of your Braying vicar, but I harbour thoughts that the gay thread to which you refer might have made people think, maybe even changed a view or two. Many people were reading it (it ran much longer than I expected) and it produced many thought-provoking posts.

So no need to get too down-hearted – you'd expect the clergyman to stick to the company line, after all.

Incidentally, your cleric differs somewhat from the historical incumbent at Bray: he kept switching sides to whatever benefited him most. Yours seems to stick rigidly to his view ... and still get the benefit of your best wine!

[timetraveller]

Actually A-Four, I have known you to suffer a few fools quite gladly over the past few years! Got to disagree with your last comment though. To me the world seems to be constantly in a state of flux, and everything changes given enough time. Unless of course it's a case of 'the more things change the more they stay the same' you're referring to?