A Duty of Pastoral Hate

Terry Jones, like others of his ilk, wants to be known as pastor. In the minds of the breed it confers a certain status on them: pastors of the lord doing goodly acts, leading their flocks and saving souls. I can’t even claim to be tone deaf when it comes to the term. When I hear ‘pastor’ an immediate diminution in moral worth is ascribed to the bearer. I tend to think of Pastors Peebles and McClinton, men of the cloth who in the image of the god they worship, learned to hate with a perfect hate. For them godliness is synonymous with hating their Catholic neighbours.

We are not so ethnocentric to think pastoral hate is something exclusive to the North of Ireland. It can hold its own in many rings where the power of hate is used to deliver a hefty punch. Just take a quick glance at the preachers on the god channels, their faces contorted with hate, a selective quote from the bible, a scapegoat to throw it at, made more emphatic with a good thump of the holy book – only out of respect of course – a bit of rabble rousing and before you know it god’s your uncle.

The purpose of Jones’ aborted Koran burning venture was to insist that his good book is morally superior to the good book he sought to burn. It is an attitude that dovetails perfectly with the rise of Christian nationalism in the US, so well described by Micelle Goldberg in her book on the subject. Christianity has a history of burning people who for one reason or another declined to conform to its tenets. The film The Name Of The Rose visually conveys something of the terrors the Christian gentlemen found it so delightful to put human beings through. So by some reckoning it may be a progress of sorts that the burners have switched their purifying mindset to books.

On the Thursday before his holy bonfire was due to ignite Pastor Burn ‘em revealed that he had got the sign from god he had been anticipating giving the go ahead to halt the fires. God, it seems, was happy that a local imam had supposedly acceded to a request from Jones not to proceed with the building of an Islamic cultural centre in the vicinity of New York’s Ground Zero. This allowed Jones to pull in his heavenly horns: ‘we have now put a temporary hold on our planned event.’

Strange that god never told the pastor to stay his hand on the cancellation, that it was a tad premature. Otherwise we are led to conclude that god was so short-sighted that he did not know the imam was a rascal intent on reneging. The imam for his part denied he or his colleagues had ever reached any agreement on the location of the cultural centre with the book burning pastor. Jones then accused Imam Muhammad Musri of having ‘clearly, clearly lied to us.’

But god wasn’t too straight either, withholding vital information from the pastor about the imam’s crooked intent. Maybe there is a theological explanation for that. Perhaps Yahweh did send a message but it was intercepted by Allah in the inter-celestial wars they presumably wage out there in heavenland.

Since then the messages from god have been getting through untrammelled. The pastor moved from a postponement of his burning to something that almost resembled a denunciation: ‘we will definitely not burn the Koran, no. Not today, not ever.’ Nothing less than a miraculous conversion. ‘We feel that God is telling us to stop,’ added Jones. A bit of strategic thinking and tactical nous on the part of god saved the day then.

Pastor Jones is a bible bashing moron. Worse, he is one who showed what a conflagration a fool with a religious book and a tin of petrol can ignite. But folly is contagious and perhaps the best advice aimed at fire stopping its spread came from Sajjad Karim, a Muslim and British member of the European Parliament. He deftly ridiculed the Jones plan, boldly stating that it:

is the act of one man and his followers alone. His actions should not be identified with the West or Christianity. Muslims globally must know that, through this Quran burning, this man will achieve nothing. He has been isolated in his country and his religion. It is only through a reaction that any perverse sense of achievement can be earned.


The pastor and the perverse, a word association we have long come to take as axiomatic.

15 comments:

  1. Mackers, I think at this stage of the game, God must be putting drop bars on the pearly gates to keep them all out.

    The Pope congratulated Northern Ireland's politicans on their work for peace! Said it was an example for war torn nations all over the world.(how to cover up and sell-out)
    Then the Queen congratulated the Pope and Big Ian and Cardinal Brady shared a plane to the venue, is it any wonder God is panic stricken.

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  2. very witty, enjoyed that article. Yep all Gods creatures coming together in the UK, well alsmost Rev Ian on the fringes. Just shows Joe soaps how foolish we have been for so many centuries.

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  3. Anthony as you well know all the religious feast days and holy places here in Ireland and elsewhere are just the catholics churchs rerun of druid and pagan festivities, so these peddlers of myths just revamp what works to keep the populace in place ,recent excavations of a bog in the republic have uncovered parts of a leather bound psalter,what makes this praticulary interesting is that this work predates the Roman version of christianity and is actually aligned with the Egyptian church,this could leave the catholic church with many more awkard questions re its history here, hope so, these scumbags you talk of Wright was a preacher for a while to, inbetween either blowing away or organising the slaughter of innocent men ,women and children, Dawkins said it in his book The God Delusion just add gods name to any dirty deed and hey its ok,the catholic church has been screwing the people of this country and everywhere else from the begining,during the famine one of the biggest landlords was a priest in Mayo I believe who if memory serves me well let the people starve,they worked as mouth pieces for the landlords and govt and with the exception of a very few played their part in keeping this country in subjugation,weasles one and all,they excommunicated decent men and women for being patriots,people who found this really hurtfull,personally I,d be delighted and would wear it as a badge of honour,but when the free state came into being they werent slow in getting into the priviliged position to the deterement to this nations children,stop yawning Nuala! my point is at last ,religion is parasite that modern man/woman should not be carrying,its way past time to wash the dirty bastards of all of them ,a world free of Benny the bad ,Mc Clinton, Paisley, Mc Crea, Jones and the rest can only be a good thing ,I mean remove that cloak and where do the likes of Bush get their inspiration to invade other peoples lands, or mouthpieces like Benny reading out a pre written script about how well suckered the Irish have been once again,and not a word about the mass murder in Iraq,now wouldnt it be a really christian act if Benny the bad was to donate all monies earned during his visit to the Pakistan flood appeal,not a fuckin mission I bet!

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  4. pope gets shot on his visit to the uk,he is rushed to the nearest hospital,on the way to the operating theatre he whispers to a nurse "am I in heaven?" nurse says "no we,re just talking a shortcut through the childrens ward"

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  5. I think the Pope has gotten himself into diffs already, warning against aggressive secularism, he has apparently described atheists as Nazis.

    Would have seved him a lot better had he used that term to describe those creatures that inflicted such horror on children.

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  6. Mackers that book we wrecked the place was a godsend. Finished it last night. Truely wish id found that in mid/late 90s as it would have done my heart much required good knowing people of such caliber saw things as I did. May have reduced my hooch intake for quite a few years too.

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  7. Fionnuala, his holiness knows what he's talkin about, he's a former storm trooper! Be careful about takin on the God squad or the tin of beans in Mackers cupboard will be havin words with ye...

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  8. Larry, I don't have a problem with anyone that believes in God, just find the hypocrisy disjusting.

    Benedict had a real chance to salvage something from this whole abuse scandal and he threw it away. He threw it away, because he was more interested in scoring points with non-believers than addressing the vile in his rank and file.

    Children are actually more likely to be abused in their own home than they are by a priest, however, that does not detract from the fact that they destroyed thousands of lives and have virtually gotten away with it.

    Most of those children were in orphanges, which meant they were vulnerable in the extreme.
    To be honest, I do not know how he even had the guts to show his face outside of the Vatican city.

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  9. Larry,
    We wrecked the place was a decent book but the author is a arrogant prick with some kind of grudge against republicanism. Back in 99 he and his girlfriend gave a speech on the north and it was total tripe all they did was attack republicans. I took a stand and was kicked out by security.
    Haven't heard of either of those two clowns since but hopefully they're not writing about the North anymore.

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  10. Ryan, totally agree, i got the constant pro Loyalist drift if I can put it like that. But for me the book took me back to a time of confusion and I really just wish i'd gotten hold of it at the time to see people like Mackers, Tommy Gorman and the likes of Calderwood who i met briefly with Jim Watt on the mixed wings, and see their take. I was in a wee bubble of deception but thats how they/Republican movement did what they did and got away with it. I should have gone to the library insstead of the boozer and travel agent!! But your correct Ryan, Jonathan Stevens himself would NOT be on my xmas party list.

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  11. Fionnuala, the RC church should be taken to court for crimes against children,from the Pope down. We live in a world where nothing shames any perpetrator. Banks, TDs and clergy. It galls me watching people crawl after them. What do we do, execute the population for complicity?

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  12. Larry, I think anyone that abuses trust, any trust is despicable.
    However, there are other people who should be held to account for all of this as well as the church.

    You only have to look at the sentences handed down to paedophiles and rapists and compare them to the sentence Ronnie Biggs received.

    The church are not the only people to have closed ranks around abusers.
    A lot of those uncovered in the republican movement where shipped out to other parts of Ireland.
    Gerry Adam's brother was allowed to work with children in West Belfast, even though the police and the republican movement knew what he was at. Mr Adams was aware his brother was working with the youth in Clonard, yet he a devout Catholic saw fit to cover it up.

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  13. Yeah the Adams case has a huge cloud hangin over it. Where were Mi5?? make ur own mind up.As for judiciary they have too long been very lenient in such cases. Dirty oul judges maybe know where the offender is coming from.
    priest drivin along the road drove over a toad..reversed and found it alive so took it home and fed it fly soup, nurtured it and tucked it into bed after its ordeal with a wee kiss on the cheek..FLASH and at that moment the toad was an 11 yr old boy. AND THAT YOUR HONOUR IS THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE..
    6 months suspended!

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  14. A paedophile,a homophobe,a hypocrite and a nazi walk into a bar,the barman said "hello your holiness"!!!!

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  15. Nuala,

    he probably knows nothing about the place. Last pope didn't either. Daly wrote his 1979 speech.

    It would be a supreme irony if he called anybody Nazis, given his own past.

    Was never sure f Rushdie. Agreed totally with him on publication but think he confused many people when he embraced Islam. Then again he had to go through the strain. The good men of a loving god were killing people over that book.

    The handling of the Liam Adams affair was probably the most cynical act of self preservation throughout a long career of self-preservation. Not the slightest modicum of human decency.

    Marty,

    A treatise! Well put. Interesting in what you had to say about the discovery. It tends to show the whole thing for the farce it is.

    Ryan,

    I reviewed the book for the Sunday Tribune when it came out and rubbished it. Stevenson was furious and wrote in giving out hell to the Tribune for allowing a ‘terrorist ‘ space to have a go at him.

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