Your bishops tonight

I don’t mean to boast, but I can state with confidence that during the course of an average working day I see more bishops than many of, for example, you—unless you work in the House of Lords as well, for the General Synod or at the Happy Halo Bishops’ Ball Pool at Membury Services. It’s because of this that I can vouch that there is indeed the odd bishop who has something useful to contribute and doesn’t deserve to be immediately FedExed to Spitzbergen to fend for himself among the polar bears. The Bp. of Worcester, for example, is an active campaigner for the poor and the imprisoned. Having just checked his biog, I see that he is also about to retire in a couple of days’ time, which may bring the average down again.

You could be forgiven for thinking that all bishops had been designed specifically to waste your time. Unless you read the Telegraph, whose fixation on the minutest goings-on in the Church of England is surpassed only by that of the Express on the fate of Madeleine McCann, the only time bishops are going to crop up on your radar is when they’re sulking at each other over homosexuality or making helpful contributions like these:

* The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique, Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately, and claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”.

* As you may remember, the C of E Bishop of Carlisle pronounced that this year’s floods were God’s judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society.

* It was the wrath of the bishops the government was flinching from recently when it blocked the first ever plans to exempt a state school from the requirement for “a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature”.

* The daddy, of course: the Bishop of Southwark—it’s what he does.

All right, the next example is cheating a little as it’s very obscure and your radar would have to be pretty powerful to have picked it up, but the man calls himself an Archbishop and I’m not going to risk gainsaying that kind of dark magic:

Now, I have discovered that medical science has developed a particular types of vaccines in order for them to develop immunity to some diseases. They are claiming that the body will build antibodies to fight against these foreign matters (i.e. the disease) that are injected into the system, giving the people resistance if they should come into contact with the disease later on. I believe that medical doctors also use this method with AIDS, injecting small doses of the disease and then administering various types of medication, to people who are tested and proven to be HIV positive, as an experiment.

They do not have a cure for this AIDS disease because it is a ‘spirit’. AIDS is a ‘pestilence’ that comes upon people who are cursed, and drugs cannot cure it because it is a ‘spirit’.

- Archbishop Gilbert Deya, Curses of Sexual sins That bring problems in marriage, Singleness, Barrenness poverty and misfortunes...

This particular Archbishop—who is far too excited that he once met Prince Philip [site since taken down]—has a thing about curses. Noting that the Book of Deuteronomy is quick to call down “God’s curse” for a whole range of offences, Gilbert sees the results all around him:

There are people who are highly educated but their education is ‘dry’ (barren); it is not bearing fruit in their lives in a manner that enables them to enjoy the good of the land. They have Degrees and Diplomas yet they do babysitting jobs and look after old people. Do not misunderstand what I am saying here, these jobs are not unworthy—there is nothing wrong with doing these jobs if that is what someone is qualified to do.

My point here is that persons who are highly trained and educated should be in employment that is suitable to their qualifications, above but not below it. I am addressing people who struggle in jobs that are below their qualifications and live from one pay cheque to the next, without being able to pay their bills or to save. They may be walking under a curse and are not aware of it.

... Ladies and gentlemen in your search for solutions to your problems, consider that this situation may not be your fault or that of your partner, but rather as a result of generation curses. Your father or mother or fore-parents may have had sex with their relatives, and these past sins have caused you to be now living under a curse.

- Archbishop Gilbert Deya, Curses of Sexual sins That bring etc, etc

So if things in your life aren’t really panning out as you had hoped, you now know the question you need to sit your parents down and ask. You’re welcome.