Oiling the wheels of the Archbishopric of Canterbury

By Stanley Collymore

It’s indicative of British society that our Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer: a typical English fancy term for finance minister, House of Common Parliamentary Chief Whip, most of the male members of the current Con-Dem cabinet, including Nick Clegg who is the leader of the Lib-Dems element of this body, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and practically everyone else who holds a top position in the British establishment all went to Eton College.

So why not the Archbishop of Canterbury? And in case you haven’t heard or just UFO in from another planet, that situation has been finally rectified. The new Archbishop of Canterbury is Justin Welby; in situ as Bishop of Durham for just one year, now elevated to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury; the top ecclesiastical job in the Church of England, CE as it’s called here at home or the Anglican Church as it’s generally known overseas and where most of this church’s communicants and adherents actually exist; and who is - please wait for the drum roll; after which you can go ahead and give vent to your enthusiasm for the assisted achievement of another old boy of our most famous English public school, Eton College.

Additionally, Mr Welby was formerly by all accounts a highly successful executive in the corporate oil industry with close ties obviously to those affiliated corporate businesses that fleece us rotten and gratuitously for the rest of us but imperative for themselves routinely catapult our country into imperialistic, colonialist, hegemonic, thieving and plundering wars to sate their grasping avariciousness.

But the spin doctors associated with Archbishop Welby’s appointment assure us that like John Newton the author of the iconic hymn “Amazing Grace” who was the captain of a notorious Transatlantic Slave ship ferrying abducted and manacled Africans from their native continent to abject slavery in the so-called New World but couldn’t stomach this awful degradation of his fellow human beings any more, roundly forsook his employment as a slaver and chose instead to become a priest; or like Saul, travelling to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, was himself subjected to a lightning transformation of character.

A miracle many say, enabling Paul to immortally become the saint and arguably the father of established Christianity he’s perceived as, and who as a staunch convert to his faith even willingly sacrificed his life for it. Archbishop Justin Welby the spin doctors tell us is such a man; that like John Newton and Saul the redoubtable defender of Christianity before him, both men at separate but crucial times of their life having seen the errors of their ways, Justin Welby our new Archbishop of Canterbury is likewise someone who is very antipathetic to the excessive and markedly illegal excesses of corporate greed and wrongdoing covertly condoned by our establishment.

The same establishment incidentally, which is exclusively responsible for Mr Justin Welby’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. For don’t delude yourselves into thinking that the body politic of the Church of England had anything to do with this appointment. Nothing could be further from the truth, since the religious appointment as head of the Church of England and all other senior ones for that matter is the exclusive remit of the secular legislative leader of our government of the day, in other words the Prime Minister.

And while this might seem at face value to be the classic case of one Etonian, David Cameron scratching the back of another Justin Welby, I’ll charitably and in tandem with the precepts of my own faith, which avowedly is Christian and Church of England, accredit them both with the benefit of the doubt. That said, after the likes of James Callaghan, Maggie Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the Tweedledum and Tweedledee partnership of David Cameron and Nick Clegg inexplicably having been allowed to run and even ruin this country that I genuinely do care about, I’m even more sceptical of miracles occurring in contemporary Britain to ever accredit either the transformation or appointment of Justin Welby to the top post of Archbishop of Canterbury to the category of being defined as one.

Traditionally, when an existing Archbishop of Canterbury dies in office or steps down from it by virtue of retirement the incumbent Archbishop of York, whose diocese is constitutionally, as it were, heir to the Archbishopric of Canterbury customarily gets the Prime Minister’s nod to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury; with a seat in the House of Lords; and this elevated cleric automatically entrusted with the coronation of our monarchs, all of whom when alive and in office because of the established nature of our church are themselves the secular head of that institution; plus the unchallenged right and opportunity to solemnize the marriages of their several offspring, as well as straightaway become the de facto leader of both the domestic and overseas wings of the Anglican community of worshipers.

In his post for a few years now the present Archbishop of York is Dr. John Santamu, an African whose appointment to this position was met with unconcealed dismay and some pretty nasty demonstrations during his investiture by a coterie of somewhat odious individuals of both sexes claiming to be Christians but who markedly failed to recognize that in objecting solely on account of Dr. Santamu’s race and skin colour to his taking on the role of Archbishop of York they had in effect in their quite loathsome behaviour towards him, itself attendant with their purportedly professed faith, displayed as much Christian tolerance and humanity on their part as a rapist hypocritically offering condoms to someone he’d just violently and sexually abused to stop her getting pregnant should she lucklessly fall prey to another similar sexual monster who decides to rape her as well.

No one with a functioning brain or an awareness of the subtle and covert racist nuances that thrive in the British establishment ever seriously expected Dr. John Santamu, or any other non-white cleric for that matter, regardless of how religious or competent they were to carry out the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, to get the post. A preposterous idea that would have fitted most uneasily with many British Caucasian and some non-liberated black minds faced with the prospect of having to observe, let’s say, a white British monarch, aren’t they always and selective breeding ensures that they stay that way, crowned and effectively given his or her official religious stamp of approval by a black clergyman however elevated he was. It’s just not on old boy!

For even though this is the 21^st century that we’re supposed to be in and the year is 2012, even the lowliest domestic staff at Buckingham Palace and all the other royal residences across the entire United Kingdom are pristinely snow-whit. And when I voluntarily served with the Royal Air Force there were absolutely no guards other than white ones in the purportedly prestigious British regiments then, and that included Irish members of those regiments, and this even at the height of the IRA’s murderous anti-British, and understandably from their patriotic perspective anti-colonialism campaign. Additionally, Irish and therefore potential IRA sympathizers were never excluded from the perceived privilege to be sentries outside Buckingham Palace since they were freely permitted to be members of the same guards corps from which these sentries that were characteristically stationed outside Buckingham Palace were exclusively drawn.

No such prospect or concession was accorded though to Blacks in the British Armed Forces, who were always volunteers, seen as good enough to put their lives on the line for, shed their blood on behalf of, and even make the ultimate sacrifice as they’ve regularly and courageously done for numerous generations in Britain’s multiple and often misguided wars, right up to the present time, for a monarch, country and all-white controlled Ministry of Defence; sent to their deaths by officers who got their rank solely on the basis of the public schools they attended but would you believe it unsuitable these loyal Blacks to stand guard outside the home where their monarch lives; victims of a racist and bloody class war make no bones about it! That imbecilic policy has rather belatedly but nevertheless changed in relative terms in recent years and there are presently some black guards in Britain’s principal regiments; and about time too I say!

But like the employees who irrationally had to go through the back entrance of a departmental high street store I once worked for as part of a summer vocational job I took during my student days, Blacks are still psychologically regarded as ineligible persons by those that reside in and additionally the Colonel Blimps and social climbers who organize the affairs of those living in Buckingham Palace to ever usefully set foot in that building or the other comparable, publicly owned but royally occupied ones across the country in whatever capacity they might be ideally suited for, and consequently it would be an empty gesture and worthless exercise to have them there in the first place.

So the idea of the British political establishment deeply complicit in this reprehensible charade wilfully and even irresponsibly creating a situation where its equivalent ecclesiastical one, and it’s generally acknowledged that the Church of England is essentially the Conservative Party at prayer, is put in the highly compromising position of having a black Archbishop of Canterbury conferring religious legitimacy on a white British monarch is frankly I find palpably ludicrous. Not an unattractive idea mind you, but from where I stand absolutely risible!

So such an improbable development was never going to happen regardless of the ludicrous shit that David Cameron and his posh lot keeping bullshiting us with that we’re all in it to together. Pull the other one! That said, I sincerely wish Justin Welby the very best in his post as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Notwithstanding that though, I can’t help wondering just how many of you out there who’re following this recent development are even remotely aware of having a most important and crucial ecclesiastical piece of information that’s quintessentially relevant to the religious history of England but which is deliberately hidden from all of you not only exists but will knock your socks off by its mere revelation; that the first ever appointed Archbishop of Canterbury was a Blackman.

It happened in the year 668 AD when the then pontiff, Pope Vitalian who reportedly “wishing to set over the Anglo Saxon bishops [in England] a primate devoted to his views, venerable by age, experienced and distinguished by his rear knowledge,” offered, “the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury to an African named Hadrian.” Hadrian was then a monk based in Niridano near Monte Casino in what at the time was the Kingdom of Naples. But he unpretentiously declined Pope Vitalian’s offer and recommended instead a fellow monk, a man called Theodore, born at Tarsus in Cilicia for the post. Pope Vitalian rejected Hadrian’s proposal but eventually gave in to it when the two men, who were evidently friends that clearly respected each other, reached a compromise with Hadrian agreeing to accompany Theodore to England, which he did.

The Venerable Bede, England’s first historian of note and who obviously knew Hadrian, wrote extensively about him and the outstanding ecclesiastical, scholarly and social work that he did in England. Other later scholars did the same but you’d be extremely hard-pressed to find their work on this most outstanding black member of the clergy in virtually most English schools or universities. Hadrian decided to stay on in England and ultimately died there. He’s buried in St. Augustine’s Chapel, Canterbury. Go have a look for yourselves!

Suitably David Cameron should also go and pay his respects to this man and take the Queen as the secular head of the Church of England, and of which Canterbury is its religious See, along as well. For Hadrian was alive and efficiently carrying out his ministry in England there was no United Kingdom, England was a separate kingdom then; no Church of England or any English monarch prior Hadrian’s arrival here or during his life on this island that conceitedly accorded to himself the designation as head of any church, far less an English one, and compounded that arrogance with the additional title of defender of the faith. For there was only one unanimously acknowledged church then, and that was the Roman Catholic one whose commonly recognized leader was whichever Pope was in situ at the time.

The creation of the Church of England and its arbitrary and somewhat madcap enforcement on to the people of England only arose when Henry VIII, the serial adulterous monarch at the time who habitually swapped his several wives and mistresses more frequently than many of today’s Lotharios change their underpants, took the proverbial hump when the then Pope determinedly refused give him religious dispensation to divorce his existing wife and take his latest mistress as his her successor and his transient Queen.

And like all repulsive bullies who when they can’t have their way go to elaborate extremes to prove how indomitable they are, Henry did just that by not only commanding that England religiously break away from Rome but also went further and quite haughtily and outrageously set up what was now dubbed the Church of England with himself pretentiously and ludicrously as its head and defender of the Christian faith.

That Medieval lunacy which subsequently resulted in frequent internecine strife and numerous religious and sectarian wars not only in England but throughout the entire British Isles and that interminably still persist in parts of it like Northern Ireland and Scotland is preposterously none the less the foundation on which the Church of England is principally established, exercises its purported remit and nonsensically continues to have a constitutional monarch with no religious leanings, ecclesiastical qualifications or experience and none ever demanded by the worshipers of this established church, as its authoritative and unchallenged leader. A head that traditionally and legally but nevertheless idiotically so in my view, presides over a church that while calling itself the Church of England is only that in name but not in substance.

For while a sizeable portion of the populace in England, the other areas of the United Kingdom don’t pledge any allegiance to the Church of England by the way, would nonchalantly describe themselves as Church of England even though they’ve never been inside one of its churches for a christening, including their own; been a part of any of its other important religious rituals like Sunday School, confirmation, marriage – a diminishing activity in the latter’s case where fewer people than ever before bother to get married in Britain nowadays and those who either decide to or can afford it choose a registry office affair or else tie the knot in some holiday destination abroad, the Church of England has long lost what credibility it had, and its highly questionable whether it ever had any from the outset of Henry VIII’s spat with the Pope, to realistically call itself the established church of England and elaborately pretend that anyone really gives a toss what the monarch, prime minster or the rest of them that inflict this outlandish, outmoded and class based, religious doctrinarism on the majority of us actually think about how we appraise the Church of England.

Religion like consensual sex is a fundamentally private and strictly personal matter that must at all times be determined by our adult consciences and the consequences, irrespective of whether these are satisfactory, appalling, indifferent or disappointing that stem from them, and with that in mind should be treated and respected accordingly. The idea of some theocratic overlord with the divine or constitutional right of kings or queens to tell me what I should think because they and their advisers presume that they know what’s best for me I find absolutely offensive; and to additionally have that concept enshrined in law doubly so. For it smacks of the domineering parent or guardian patently treating adults with minds of their own as if they were helpless and incompetent children totally unable to make practical and rational decisions for themselves and what’s more stick by them.

It’s why the Good Lord endowed us with minds of our own to allow us to think for ourselves; and while we must sensibly acknowledge and inescapably accept that established institutions, whether they’re religious or secular, might need a hierarchal structure to in essence support the execution of their work, that arrangement must nevertheless not be so remote, constraining and patronizingly insulting to those it seeks to influence or control as to be surplus to their genuine needs while totally alienating them at the same time.

That’s why it’s absolutely essential and particularly so in England’s case for religion, the state and the monarchy to be completely and irreversibly separated from each other. Furthermore, no ordinary and sensible person in the 21^st century expects or desires a nanny state situation where they’re corralled into thinking that their political bosses in conjunction with a manifestly aloof, hereditary and constitutional monarchy that conjointly bestride a process that’s camouflaged in an extravagantly elaborate, class structured and for most people who’re grudgingly subjected to it a completely humdrum experience in their lives, have any inherent, legitimate or moral right to determine for them who or what they should worship or not at all; how often; when they can lawfully do so; or why. And not to challenge this pervasive and egotistical interference in one’s ecclesiastical and private affairs, however subliminally it’s actuated, is to willing submit in my view to what I see as untenable and deleterious brainwashing by others; intrigues that have no place at all in the modern world.

When Queen Elizabeth II of England dies, as in due course she will; just as all of likewise will when the Good Lord determines that our time on Earth is up and we consequently must shuffle off our mortal coils, Charles the Queen’s oldest son, in what’s basically still a misogynistcally enshrined England and where too the hierarchy of the country’s established church is likewise cripplingly infected with this poisonous cancer, will, assuming that he survives his mother and is still enthusiastic about having the job, automatically as things presently stand succeed her as our next hereditary monarch.

Now Charles has received a lot of stick over several issues with some of the criticisms levelled at him perfectly justifiable others not so, with many of the latter in my opinion self-serving and completely disingenuous by those advocating them. But by and large I like the guy and always have, because I believe that in the suffocating, straight-jacketed and outmoded conventionality he’s obliged to live in and be a part of, whether he wants to or not,  is your average guy trying against the odds to break free and liberate himself from it all. And as such is as much a bloody prisoner of the system grotesquely symbolized by his parents, as the rest of us that passionately abhor it.

But speaking as a life-long and committed member of the Church of England from the time I was officially inducted into it by my parents, both sets of grandparents, other family members, my Godparents and the other congregational members of the family church they all religiously and enthusiastically attended, proudly standing around and in various states of amusement and personal joy, I was later told by my maternal grandmother, observing and participating in the personal inconvenience of yours truly, at the time just a week old infant, howlingly protesting against the actions of the local and much revered priest holding me over the church font, still there to this day after generations of usage and being centuries old, and pouring water over my forehead at my christening, I was thereafter personally and committedly involved in just about everything that one can conceivably imagine in my parish church.

The said church that owned the pre-secondary school that from the age of four years I willingly attended until securing my place at grammar school; had a representative, customarily the local parish priest, on the Board of Governors of my grammar school and so was quite prominent in positively influencing major proceedings there; and where in a range of functions from Sunday School pupil, afterwards at 16 becoming a Sunday School teacher myself; choirboy; confirmed communicant at 10 years old; altar server at age seven, subsequently graduating up through the ranks of servers to assist as MC or Chief Server to the priest conducting principal Masses; lay preacher; A Godparent several times over and much more, embodying opportunities that I was trustingly accorded with and in which having avidly embraced them I competently and happily officiated, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that attending church together with being lovingly ensconced in the constructive setting where I contentedly and beneficially spent my formative years have fashioned me into the person I’ve become and frankly have no problem with.

I even at one stage during those heady days of my youth thought of becoming a priest myself but crucially at that time and for me in the bargain discovered the charms of the opposite sex. And since I’ve always had a particularly close though pragmatic relationship with my Maker, thanks considerably to my own personality whose significant characteristics were and still are actively encouraged by my family members, close friends and, critically, my old parish priest, now retired but whom I’ve always had and still enjoy a decades long close friendship with and an immutable respect and admiration for, I forthrightly told God that I’d decided to knock the idea of becoming a priest once and for all firmly on the head. Arguing anyway he already had enough outstanding priests of the calibre of my current one, Father Gatherer excellently doing his work for him so one less member of the clergy, essentially my absence from the priesthood, wouldn’t in my view make any noticeable difference to the status quo.

Even deities like to be flattered and mine is no exception. And knowing from our several tète a tètes with each other which throughout the years of my life have been ongoing and forthright at all times, and furthermore that have resolutely and specifically on objective criteria I had made my mind up on something I feel passionately about I never back down regardless of the actual or probable consequences there are, God smiled, conceded to my decision and wished me luck. His blessing concomitant with my undoubted skills obviously worked; and did so successfully.

For in the consequent years following that conversation between us I’ve consensually, lawfully and enjoyably had a plethora of desirable females in my life, each of them contemporaneously and meticulously annotated and obviously still remembered. However none of whom I’ve ever lied to, duped or coerced into reciprocating their affections for me or getting them into my bed or theirs for that matter. Nor would I ever have embarked on such devious or underhand tactics or needed to.

In fact my situation has always been the opposite, with me consciously and even at times going out of my way to dissuade some of those that on purpose and of their own volition came within my ambit to desist from what they’d emotionally, objectively or even premeditatedly embarked upon. For as I gratefully and informatively learnt from my very first lover who was much older than I was at the time and evidently highly skilled in the art of lovemaking; skilled lovemaking isn’t or should it in strictly contemporary terms be about a Usain Bolt-type, athletic dash to the finishing line, but instead ought indisputably to be a marathon and challenging endeavour in its exemplication.

Words of wisdom corroborated by my very with it, astute, worldly-wise and incredibly savvy maternal grandmother who I’ve always had a close bond with, and who counselling me on this specific subject advised me that to efficiently chart a tempestuous river, properly understand its vagaries and effectively deal with, I’ll need to commence my journey at the source of the river, diligently and observantly work my way down its course, exploring all its tributaries along the way, but still carry on doing so with the main body of the river until I reached the point where it convulsively and gushingly empties itself into the sea. I’ll never forget the telling look in my Gran’s eyes or the affectionate and mirthful smile on her face when she concluded her counsel. Spontaneously we both laughed and hugged each other, both of us well aware that for Gran her mission had been accomplished.

I’ve never, or am I ever likely to do so, forgotten Gran’s words nor the essential motive behind them, which is that sexual intercourse is a God-given gift to be enjoyed and gratifyingly made the most of but never exploitatively so nor to the detriment or abuse of others, and particularly so when potential sexual partners are at best confused about what precisely they want from the assignation or embryonic relationship they’ve got themselves involved in. My dad additionally told me in one of his pep talks on sex that one didn’t have to needlessly climb Mount Everest umpteen times just to prove he could do so or in order to demonstrate that he had the requisite skills to be a mountaineer. Mum said that any advice she gave would be superfluous to Gran’s but cogently reminded me all the same that I had sisters and therefore shouldn’t treat anyone’s female relatives, however unworthy they were of such consideration, in a way I wouldn’t want my sisters to be treated by other men.

Naturally and understandably throughout my sexual life I’ve determinedly and conscientiously taken all this advice on board and staunchly abided by it. So with a very clear conscience I can honestly say I’ve absolutely nothing to apologize for, and won’t ever do so. And what strangers there are who I obviously don’t know, am unlikely ever to meet and who don’t feature at all in my think of my sexual conduct is frankly of no interest to me. For the only opinions that count in this scenario because I permit them to are those of trusted persons who’re closest to me and of course the individual I’m sexually involved with. That’s the formula I believe that everyone should either adopt or be given the opportunity to freely make that choice or reject it in respect of his or her private life.

Unfortunately, however, the theocrats of the various religions that plague this planet along with their secular minders think quite differently and this is particularly the case with the Church of England. Contradictorily calling itself the established church of the kingdom its secular as well as its religious head must avowedly and immutably be Protestants. Moreover, in the case of the monarchy neither the reigning monarch nor any of their relatives who’re remotely in line to the throne of England can without the monarch’s approval, even though we’re in the 21^st Century, marry someone of their choice; with the guaranteed outcome that whoever they eventually and officially end up with will not be a Roman Catholic. For to go down that r road will definitely ensure that they and their descendants will be permanently barred from the line of succession.

The stark irony being that like the Roman Catholic Church the Church of England professes to be a Christian entity but in actual fact like its Roman counterpart is a sectarian one, no different from the Protestants and Catholics ripping each other’s livers out in Northern Ireland or Celtic and Ranger supporters doing the same in Scotland for example. And it equates to what I know from my military service with the RAF that you can politely preface a command with the word please or you can choose, dependent on your disposition or empathy with that person receiving the order brusquely deliver it. But whatever method you employ it’s none the less a command.

The IRA and the loyalists in Northern Ireland and their surrogates in Scotland employ physical and deadly violence to achieve their sectarian goals while the two hierarchal wings, the secular and the ecclesiastical, of the Church of England utilize psychological intimidation bordering on outright terror to subtly achieve theirs. So I ask you; where’s the Christianity that is supposedly being dispensed by the English monarchy as the head of a Christian church and importantly as Defender of the [Christian] faith?

Furthermore, I find it somewhat incongruous that an impenitent adulterer, notwithstanding the Christian commandment explicitly forbidding this kind of behaviour, will nevertheless be our next secular head of a purported Christian Church of England. And when one factors into this equation that his designated as well as our constitutional Queen when that happens throughout his former marriage and even before it to the young woman he promised in that same Church of England amid all its pomp and ceremony to love till death they did part, for better or worse and the other stuff they both freely committed themselves to and had most of the country and indeed the rest of the world believing them, was his long term mistress.

A first marriage moreover that ended most acrimoniously with Charles’ first wife accusatorily and publicly acknowledging on national television that her husband’s unrelenting extramarital affair compounded by his rejection and betrayal of her from the onset of their marriage, “there were always three persons in our bed,” she plaintively confessed, were the undeniable catalyst for the irretrievable breakdown of their marriage.

Then to unhappily lose her life in somewhat controversial circumstances in a Parisian hospital following a baffling car crash, events which would later facilitate the marriage of the two lovers whom Diana had come to despise; cynics would say, and many others too, that the tenets of another Christian commandment “thou shalt not kill” should also to be seriously appended to the one we categorically know is appropriate, “thou shalt not commit adultery.”

I’m an avid fan of Murder She Wrote and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman because both series of programmes unashamedly advocate rectitude, an unequivocal respect for the law and civilized behaviour, and at the end of each show justice is upheld, the guilty are caught and get their just desserts and societal equilibrium is once more restored. The moral message these programmes communicate couldn’t be clearer or more desirably appealing to those with consciences that is. American these two series of programmes, Foyle’s War is the only British equivalent which I can think of that correspondingly can justly be commended in this way.

Another reason for my rating both programmes as highly as I have is because of the courageous and laudable way that dignity, intelligence, a sense of purpose and unabashed prominence are automatically accorded to the leading female characters in both series. Unquestionably a discernible departure from the established stereotypical and submissive roles that women not only in cinematic terms but also quite ruinously in their everyday lives have imposed on them and culturally or religiously, and sometimes both, are expected to uncomplainingly put up with.

Thankfully I can truthfully report that these are and have always been throughout my life alien features within the structure of my biological family where the women, quite welcomingly and supportively so by their menfolk, have habitually, explicitly and encouragingly from their own perspective as well as that of those with whom they’ve conducted their normal everyday social intercourse with been dominant, please don’t confuse this terminology with domineering which they most categorically have never been, sought to be or would they ever have wanted to be the case; know their own minds intimately and have never been frightened to speak them or frankly express their opinions whatever the circumstances or how unpalatable or discomforting their views might be to those on the receiving end of them; and wonderfully and courageously have a distinctly hostile attitude to and a no-nonsense approach towards injustice, inequality of all kinds and wrongdoing per se, and from my childhood, and decisively for me, affectionately nurtured me into adopting this same uncompromising stance to what my conscience tells me is conclusively inappropriate, unjust or downright wrong; a discipline for which I shall eternally be grateful.

Women who I’m most delighted to say proudly and unequivocally see their gender as uniquely placed and particularly privileged by Nature; and who moreover earnestly and single-mindedly advocate that all women should consensually see, acknowledge and imbibe this fact; fearlessly act upon it and accordingly assume the mantle of choice to decide the course of their lives and chart their own destiny, and is their inalienable right to do; or wrest this right for themselves if they have to from those who either seek to or actually deny them it. Emancipating themselves therefore, in having done so, to constructively utilize in any way they deem fit the multiplicity of talents which they individually and collectively have, to beneficially engage in or positively create roles determined solely by themselves.

Roles that altruistically institute, promote and actively support mechanisms for the betterment of mankind generally and women in particular, and which in their concept and application are unhampered by and thoroughly indifferent to any physical or psychological restrictions placed upon them, least of all the suppressive misogynistic encumbrances or the puerile and purblind demands of emotionally insecure men complicitly and regrettably reinforced by the intractable compliance and ridiculous support of unliberated female minds. Highly educated professional women in their own right and confidently and competently carrying out the careers they chose for themselves, I’m immensely proud of the females in my family; and it’s why I unreservedly extol and happily recommend programmes like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Murder She Wrote; the agree with optimistic messages they characteristically portray, and of course salute the constructive brilliance and foresight of their creators.

From a strictly personal perspective I’ve no judgemental axe to grind about the private lives or the personal goings on of the English monarch, members of her family, the British aristocracy, or those among the political classes that concomitant with the aforesaid delude themselves that they have an inalienable right to control or manipulate the lives of the rest of us; or anyone else for that matter. Simply managing my own life, avoiding pitfalls along the way while being true to myself and what I do are the only critical activities of a personal nature that I’m prepared to embark on or willingly expend my valuable, to me at any rate, time on. And therefore as far as I’m concerned other peoples’ dirty washing is strictly their affair and definitely no business of mine or do I want to make it so!

However with a hint of light-hearted mischief I can’t help speculating what Angela Lansbury’s fictional character, Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote would make of the weird conundrum, taking into consideration the several issues surrounding Charles and that were raised earlier, to his becoming on his accession to the English throne the secular head of the Church of England. Would she in her inimitable fashion and imperturbably ably assisted by that canny brain of hers set out to establish motive, means and opportunity moulded by the events of what led up to and subsequently transpired on that fateful day in Paris to exonerate Charles and therefore not stand in his way or else disqualify him from taking on such a religious role as the one predestined for him and let us all know every scintilla of the facts that do emerge?

Just a hypothesis on my part I’ll readily admit, since I can’t see any screenwriter on either side of the Atlantic with the balls, however interested or appreciative of the need to do so they might be, who’d be willing to buck the establishment or the official narrative of what supposedly occurred on August 31 1997 and intentionally put his or her head above the proverbial parapet and objectively tackle this mega-story. So in my view it’ll probably never happen; not anytime soon anyway.

I’ve already intimated and firmly believe that England could do a lot worse than have Charles as its successor monarch, if indeed it’s really necessary for our country to have still have one; and likewise think that under no circumstance other than the unlikelihood of him ceasing to be compos mentis should he step aside for anyone. That’s my honest view anyway and I’ll stick by it, and I have good reasons for doing so as I shall explain.

Running or more appropriately supervising England in the constitutional monarchical sense, for let’s face facts and acknowledge that England is where the heart and thrust of the British monarchy, but only in name, actually lie and operate and that most people here at home in the United Kingdom as well as abroad associate it with, notwithstanding the handily overlooked fact that Scotland, Wales and, of course, Northern Ireland, evidently the secondary and lesser considered components of what was a freely embarked on political union, are likewise part of Britain and therefore legally fall within the indisputable ambit and obvious jurisdiction of the London based and distinctly English monarchy, that as it now stands represents a convincing case of a Sword of Damocles situation waiting to happen.

So looked at pragmatically the monarchy mustn’t be about or should it as long as it’s permitted to exist, either sensibly or constitutionally ever be allowed to take on the grotesquely senseless imprimatur of a bloody media generated, X-factor or reality TV-type structured celebrity status which is exactly the direction in which it’s currently heading.

A ludicrously enjoined public spectacle where ostensibly the decidedly spurious importance of photogenically looking good on television by those that for this precise reason are favoured by, and who additionally in the eyes of those that are directly responsible for this hyperbolic media farce are seen as befitting personages to be automatically placed on iconic pedestals in order to wantonly satisfy the puerile fantasies and personal inadequacies of a public willingly led by the nose and therefore either disinclined to or absolutely incapable of transcending its perverse and unprepossessing fixation with liking nothing better it seems than living collective lives through the superficial glamour and manufactured success of those who’ve yet to accomplish anything of consequence but nevertheless live the lie and the dream that they have, since this is the only thing that genuinely matters to all of those concerned, because the official and one-dimensional narrative that’s interminably universally spewed out from these media outlets dictate that this is how things must be.

Nothing said though about what should sensibly be the plausible alternative to this nightmarish situation where reason plays no part and deception rules supreme. Or any mention either of the enormously important, crucial and indispensable measures urgently required for the proper and genuinely democratic governance within the 21^st Century of England or those other constituent parts of our current political setup that might abstain from self-determination and opt, however reluctantly so, to stay in the union; and would also want like England, when it finally manages to emerge from its self-induced state of atrophy, to have their concerns properly addressed.

And the trumpery of wilfully manufactured celebrity status, particularly within the ranks of the royal family compounded by the established predisposition of our political class, the purported mainstream media that support it and who together fawningly subscribe to this obnoxious state of affairs while persuasively getting vast sections of the general public, like lemmings jumping off a cliff, to carry through with this self-destructive activity that though evidently appealing to the intellectually unenlightened elements within our society and those that sadistically for their own ends exploitatively manipulate them, is nevertheless not the way forward I don’t think.

But this would entail having a completely different dispensation with the Church of England compelling it to create a new and relevant constitutional arrangement between itself, the state, the people at large and the monarchy where the latter undertook new and specific roles and, in turn, irreversibly dispensed with some existing ones. And among the first of these to go in my opinion must be the long overdue abandonment by the monarchy of its religious and basically outmoded function as the secular head of the Church of England or any other church come to that, simultaneously accompanied by the legalized disestablishment of the Church of England as the official church of the realm, or England to be more precise.

This isn’t to say that England or the remainder of the United Kingdom, should such a political construct continue to survive, oughtn’t to be a Christian preserve as they presently are, if only nominally so; since few people within the Anglican community in the United Kingdom bother to go to church these days and there’s a strong disconnect between them, the religious rites of the Church of England, and most notably, and this is especially true across the entire spectrum of every Christian denomination here on this island of Britain, the moral tenets of the Christian faith. So my straightforward suggestion is that since religion like sex is usually a private matter and should respectfully therefore be treated as such, people must then be unreservedly allowed to make up their own minds and reach decisions on religious matters relative to themselves as they routinely do in other areas of their personal lives.

Therefore it’s no business of the monarchy or the state or should they have any responsibility for prescribing their subjective interpretation of religious principles let alone doctrinaire ones to anyone anywhere in Britain or outside of it where Anglicanism exists and to all intents and purposes these external believers quite embarrassingly for the hierarchy as well as the general clergy of the Church of England here in the United Kingdom outstrip anything which England has realistically seen at home in many decades. So having Canterbury, No.10 Downing Street and the monarchy exclusively among themselves and to the exclusion of the Anglican Church abroad prescribing how Anglicanism should be administered is like a failing inner city school turned so-called Academy presuming that it can lecture Eton or a prestigious grammar school like the one I attended on how to conduct their academic affairs. It’s a risible notion!

To be brutally frank 21^st Century England doesn’t require the state or the monarchy to organize its religious rituals or observances. Martin Luther compellingly showed how futile the exercise of inhibiting and subjective top down control was when he challenged the might of the Church of Rome and successfully left the enduring legacy of Protestantism, where at long last ordinary men and women could freely think for themselves and not have their priests or those whom the masses were obligated to see as their betters, arrogantly and patronizingly assume the right and responsibility to do this for them, even when that thinking was solely a matter of conscience or communication between the communicant and his or her God. And from a spiritual perspective the Church of England, either secularly or religiously, doesn’t need to re-invent the wheel!

Nevertheless, despite what’s earlier and convincingly been said the consequences of embarking on such far-reaching procedures would without doubt be too much of a radical approach for the incumbent English monarch, who’s a stickler for conventionality anyway, to consider let alone willingly agree to and who would therefore implacably oppose them. Doing so in a manner and the complete awareness that the several yes persons, jobsworths and comparable advisors she’s continuously surrounded by, or those in the relevant positions of authority to credibly confront her, hopefully persuade her to see the errors of her ways or ultimately and effectively wrest that self-imposed monopoly from her, are in actual fact pusillanimous cowards who don’t have the balls to do so.

So no deep-seated changes, if any at all, will ever be made in this monarch’s life time to the Church of England, either in its religious governance or far less so in relation to the array of conspicuous contradictions embodied by the monarch’s role and which evidently stare us vividly in the face, or the peculiar stranglehold that a purportedly secular and constitutional monarchy irrationally exerts, and is permitted to get away with it, on what after all is supposed to be strictly a religious institution.

That’s why effective and no-nonsense measures must seriously and openly be discussed soon or whenever that happens but certainly before the death of the present monarch, with an active participation ensured for and suggestive contributions taken from those most involved with the Church of England, its active congregation particularly and putative membership in general, at home and in the diocese abroad, to guarantee that the present incumbent English monarch will be the last monarch of any kind to hold the position of secular Head of the Church of England, and that Charles’ role and that of any other successors as monarch of England when he or they finally assume that position, will unquestionably be a secular and constitutional one with them having no enshrined, implied or automatic jurisdiction over the Church of England.

And while ultimately it must be entirely up to the people of England or Britain, either united or separately independent, to informatively and freely decide for themselves who or of what rank their head of state is, that agreed position must nevertheless and most categorically so not have any official religious element to it, with the crucially important and additional prescript that all existing members of the royal family, whether they’re hereditarily in line to the English throne or not and provided, of course, it’s a prospect which still applies to them, they must all be able in a genuinely democratic England or Britain to have the same inalienable rights and privileges as the rest of us to freely, reciprocally, legally or morally marry anyone of their choice without the iniquitous, patronizingly offensive and thoroughly meddlesome burden of what can best be described as Medievally-type prescribed sanctions conceitedly applied to them should they not do what is compliantly expected or in the worst case scenario demanded of them.

The controversial events that bedevilled Charles’ first marriage and were largely self-inflicted by him its must be conceded, even if one were prepared to set aside or overlook the tragic and still puzzling events of the 31^st August 1997 and whatever the realities of or those inescapably linked to that fatal day for his ex-wife and her companion Dodi fayed and so commiseratively, unforgettably and emotionally etched in the minds of most of us, and bearing in mind that it is perception more often than reality itself that is the overriding and abiding factor in the thought processes of most people, Charles by any logical deduction and regardless of what his probable capability as a future monarch of England is , is wholly unsuitable I feel to be the successional head of the Church of England on the death of his mother.

It’s a situation that was convincingly borne out in the results of a straw poll I conducted on this particular subject matter and a process in which no one was indifferent to or saw themselves as neutral relative to this issue or its wider repercussions if as expected it does go through. People who in effect, none the less, had a great deal to say for themselves on the matter. And listening to and afterwards analysing their up-front and recorded remarks, these ranged from unabashed outbursts of incandescent rage at the suggestion of Charles becoming the constitutional head of the Church of England, to utter consternation, abhorrence and even bouts of irrepressible fits of laughter sneeringly interjected with expletive remarks at the notion of him doing so.

But which basically means that while there’s still sizeable support for Charles’ prospective position as the next monarch of England there is, as far as I can reasonably discern, virtually no enthusiasm or Christian charity being articulated by an even more substantial element of the English populace relative to his automatically designated role as head of the Church of England. “Risible” is how one female who is an ardent royalist described the suggestion.

Likewise at variance with the consensual judgment of the English public is the position of the government in situ and the crucial role it usually plays in the religious affairs of the Church of England conjoined in particular with that of the Prime Minister whose sole prerogative it is to appoint not only the Archbishop of Canterbury, the ecclesiastical leader of the English Church but also the other senior archbishops and bishops of that establishment, a state of affairs that in my view has outlived its usefulness, which was always questionable anyway, as well as its sell by date, and incontrovertibly so in contemporary England. For by no stretch of the imagination could any of these prime ministers in the very remotest sense of the accepted meaning of these concepts have been, or in the case of the incumbent one, David Cameron be described as either ethical or Christian by nature in how they actually behave.

In fact I’ll candidly say they’ve been the complete opposite of these universally acknowledged, generally and aspirationally aspired to and indisputably fundamental values that each and every one of them has wilfully flouted, calculatingly ignored, dishonestly misused at best while in the vast majority of cases treacherously misrepresented to us, and with mocking impunity for their own nefarious purposes whenever and solely for public utilization they sought to look good or felt it necessary to paint a positive or misleading civilized image of themselves that in actuality was as far removed from the truth and reality as one can possibly get, sallied forth indifferently to embark on what they always intended to anyway regardless of what the rest of the country in whose mutual best interests they’re supposed to govern really thinks. And here I’ll use just two prime ministerial examples taken from a plethora of others, well documented and irrefutable, to illustrate my point.

Tony Blair one of our longest serving prime ministers dishonestly and bizarrely conveyed then and still seeks to do so to this day that he was on a mission from God when he lied through his teeth to unlawfully take our country together with the United States into a premeditated war for oil with Iraq. It was a calculated and despicable lie among whose many innocent casualties was Dr. David Kelly a weapons expert who inexplicably lost his life, most British people believe he was murdered, to permanently silence him for having rather inconveniently for Tony Blair and his warmongering aspirations at the time courageously exposed to the media as well as openly challenged his lie; decisions that obviously didn’t go down at all well with Tony Blair.

For Dr. Kelly had defiantly debunked Tony Blair’s principal warmongering card and one of the numerous other lies in his box of tricks that Prime Minister Blair was well aware of long before he’d even opened his mouth to odiously spew these out to the House of Commons, the British public and the world at large that he’d premeditatedly concocted them all and significantly the one that led to Dr. Kelly’s death with George W. Bush the then US President with the specific excuse they’d planned to con the world with and ultimately succeeded in doing so that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had multiple weapons of mass destruction that the United States and Britain ex best friend would be capable of unleashing in a time frame of 45 minutes with utter disastrous consequences for British and US interests in the Middle East and specifically in the case of the UK its military facilities in Cyprus and with the intention and capability on Saddam Hussein’s part to target Britain itself.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their administration as well as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, the British Cabinet and the House of Commons got their way and of course their manufactured war. Now in the aftermath of an invaded, lengthily occupied, infra-structurally destroyed, post Saddam Hussein and a completely subjugated Iraq Tony Blair royally pulls in and sumptuously enjoys with his family the enormous kickbacks he gets in gratitude for his barbarous behaviour towards the people of Iraqi and Afghan from the multinational oil corporations and the military industrial complex on whose behalf he deceitfully took Britain to war on a lie and gratuitously for his avaricious ends consciously wasted the lives of many valiant, if in some instances naïve, British servicemen.

Tragically but ironically as it turned out the lucky ones in this somewhat bloodthirsty scenario enthusiastically orchestrated by Tony Blair and George W. Bush when compared to the several thousands still alive relatively speaking, but who’re on the other hand grotesquely encumbered by catastrophic physical and mental injuries, homelessness, having to live rough; family break-ups because of the psychological impact of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; drug addiction as a hopeful palliative from the distressing and nightmarish experiences they were forced to witness or else inflict on others in the combat zones where they fought, and most hurtful of all undergo the humiliation and degradation of imprisonment because so many of them can’t cope, have no supportive care, and consequently end up breaking the law.

Heroes when it comes to risking or else forfeiting their lives for these interminable oil wars in concert with the intensive and avaricious British and other western plunder of the global south; to be ostentatiously, publicly and disingenuously eulogized at elaborate and periodic cenotaph gatherings of the high and mighty that have caused their predicament in the first place but who nevertheless strenuously ensure that neither they nor their own flesh and blood are ever put in harm’s way by joining the same armed forces that they dishonestly pretend they care so much about.

Happy in their twisted notion of patriotism to fight Britain’s imperialistic and covetous wars to the last drop of somebody else’s blood. While conveniently overlooked or deliberately ignored are the forgotten ones who devotedly did their service for Queen and country but who having returned home as broken men and women are consistently treated like vermin by these self-same and supposedly upstanding members of our society who engineered their tragedy in the first place.

And how’s this for sheer brass-neck presumptuousness! Tony Blair the purported Middle East peace envoy but who publicly and subjectively sides with the Zionist aggressor, Israel because Zionism other than mammon are the only doctrines he empathizes with and religiously follows, walking free and unmolested while conceitedly not only thinking that he’s untouchable but also believes that he’s a right to be.

This despite the fact that according to the rules and protocols of the Nuremburg Tribunal and all the other applicable international treaties there are in place and that the Britain is a voluntary signatory to having authored most of these agreements itself, this detestably impenitent war criminal, mass murderer and the architect and perpetrator of multiple crimes against humanity shouldn’t be doing so or allowed to benefit financially as he obviously and lavishly does from his heinous crimes. And even more troubling ostensibly manages to get away scot-free because the evil system that he instrumentally played a key role in constructing while he was in office now protects and permits him to do what he likes.

Now we have his protégé David Cameron that can’t find the funds to alleviate the imposed and crippling burdens on austerity hit Britain by his Con-Dem regime astonishingly has no problem it appears when it comes to liberally shelling out millions or even billions of Pounds Sterling of the hard-earned cash of British taxpayers to bankroll as he earlier and successfully did in Libya and now haughtily, although sycophantically so in response to the dictates of the United States, proposes to repeat in Syria for the same purblind political reasons and insatiable greed which is leading to the mindless destruction of the last remaining, independent-minded and not prepared to be another Sykes-Picot, Arab Bantustan satrapy of the west in the Middle East.

A country that has never threatened Britain or realistically poses any danger to us or those who seem to be so implacably against it to daily have its infrastructure deliberately destroyed and its population appallingly massacred by British trained, financed, armed, diplomatically sponsored and logistically supported, fundamentalist and savage salafist terrorists and death squads with a medieval state of mind and whose only raison d’être in life is terror, violence and murder of the most sadistic kind; all of which is quite nauseatingly compounded by David Cameron’s regime readily jumping into bed with the same al-Qaida savages whom Britain and the rest of the west advantageously use for their own barbaric ends while lyingly maintaining that they’re engaged in fighting a war on terrorism against this detritus of humanity and essentially a standard mirror image of themselves.

So I’ll ask this probably awkward, or problematic for some but nevertheless pertinent question: What’s Christian, moral or civilized, in the remotest sense of the understanding of any of these terminologies, about the sorts of brutish or barbaric behaviour occasioned by the actions which Tony Blair or David Cameron instigated, authorized or personally condoned? Activities which aren’t by any means exclusive to them as are categorically borne out by the empirical and well-documented information convincingly stacked up against and amongst our several other prime ministers that correspondingly did comparable things at various times in the past.

I’ll tell you if you really want to know; absolutely nothing! In precisely the same manner that their numerous crimes, other acts of wrongdoing and moral transgressions, and let’s not make any bones about these for that’s exactly what they are, explicitly, gorily and societally delineate and attest to the real characters of those that are accountable for committing them, if only those with eyes to see sensibly choose to do so and acknowledge what’s vividly staring them in the face.

And I don’t believe for a single moment that there’s anyone with a flicker of conscience who’d think otherwise. That’s principally so, for the simple and obvious reason that these are heinous, savage and inexcusable acts by those who govern us, think they’ve an inalienable right to do so and furthermore add insult to the injuries they routinely cause by considering themselves to be socially and even intellectually our betters. But whose activities are none the less the complete antithesis of everything that’s good about or appropriate in life, and realistically and justifiably consequently fittingly adjudged by all decent elements of humanity everywhere as such. It’s a perceptible judgment that additionally labels and roundly condemns the miscreant and deviant activities of these offenders and those of their comparable and affiliated global counterparts as absolutely evil and, as such, the devotional handiwork of the Devil himself.

Hardly the prerequisite skills or qualifications or the suitable background then, from any moral perspective, from which those presently tasked to do so can truthfully or justifiably continue to proactively, unilaterally and unchallenged prescribe what’s either appropriate or unsuitable for a religious organization and in particular a Christian one with the scope and global reach of the Church of England with its miscellaneous Anglicanism-faith-based, congregational community domestically and abroad.

It’s just not right or logical. And from my personal point of view is bizarre, totally at odds with modern, enlightened thinking and, furthermore, quite redundant to 21^st Century needs. Besides, it’s ethically contradictory as well. For how on earth can one logically have unrepentant sinners deciding who runs a Christian institution let alone seriously support their confirmed right to do so? In the same way that most Christians would instinctively consider this outcome as morally and condescendingly offensive to them. Condescending, because the entire ongoing process in place persists in treating sagacious adults as if they were feeble-minded children or imbecilic characters who can’t think for themselves and consequently need looking after.

And consistent with that view by those that take their Christian faith seriously is the firm belief that relevant and positive change in the hierarchical structure of the two wings of the Church of England is an exigent necessity. And for those in charge who really can’t see why this is so or, worst still, others among their ranks that self-interestedly or for whatever misguided reasons or evil purposes they choose to espouse, set out to doggedly resist such change, that’s identical in its infamy, I would say, to calculatedly removing Ian Huntley from his jail cell and without any suggestion that he’s mended his ways or any undertaking from him that he won’t offend again, cheerfully giving him the benefit of the doubt and in hoping he’ll come to his senses and justify the faith of those that let him out rehabilitate himself.

An irresponsible conclusion decided on a whim or the perverse idea that wrongdoers, regardless of the nature of their crimes and whether or not they show any sincere remorse for them, must encouragingly be given as long as it takes and as many chances as are needed to see the errors of their ways and preferably allowed to do so outside of jail and in the communities where the rest of us live.

Additionally if it were suggested that Ian Huntley or some such person whom he approved of should be placed in charge of Soham Social Services with overall responsibility for as well as the exclusive authority to manage that body and recruit what social workers, foster parents or careers they choose to have with specific responsibilities for the supervision, care and control of underage children, and especially girls, such propositions would right away be regarded as profoundly offensive and their supporters vituperatively slammed as either unconscionable or utterly depraved; and quite rightly so. But having mass murderers, war criminals, committers of crimes against humanity, protracted or serial adulterers, or all manner of social deviants as the secular guardians of the Church of England, well that just par for the course and perfectly acceptably, isn’t it?

Similarly acceptable it would seem is widespread sectarianism, sexism and racism which must first be acknowledged by the church to exist if these wholly unacceptable and pernicious vices and inequalities are ever to be truly eradicated not only from within the Church of England but also many other religious bodies which call themselves Christian. Religiously I was brought up as a High Church Anglican adherent but this has never stopped me, nor will it ever do so, from freely worshipping whenever I choose to or get invited to do so or additionally opt to take Holy Communion in churches, chapels or cathedrals, whether these are Protestant, Roman Catholic or Nonconformist, and which denominationally are quite different from my parent church, the Church of England.

I never lie about or do I ever seek to conceal my Anglican affiliations or that I was confirmed in an Anglican church if I decide to take Holy Communion in a Christian establishment other than a Church of England one; and to this end and constantly without fail apprise beforehand whatever clergy or religious minister is in charge of my religious status. And not once have I ever been denied permission to participate in the religious worship of any church, which goes to show where the real beasts of religious sectarianism and hatred are actually encamped.

Anyway for a refusal to have been put in my way would have struck me as absolutely bizarre; a Christian actually denied access to a supposedly Christian assemblage with the sole purpose of worshipping the same God. That’s how I would have seen it. That’s why sectarianism and particularly the religious kind seem to me so downright nonsensical. Because in every respect it’s as equally idiotic and destructive as having full siblings fighting and murdering each other to purportedly prove who among them love their parents the most. Does God really need this? And if you think so then you clearly are in dire need of having the nuts and bolts in your head reconfigured and what passes for a brain completely reconditioned.

Sexism is another issue that needs to be urgently discussed and positively dealt with within the church; not least so from an honest historical and now as well a glaringly obvious demographic perspective. To put it bluntly there are now more women in Britain than men, and to ignore this well-known fact, pretend otherwise and treat women as mere adjuncts of the male gender is not only idiotic in itself but also counterproductive in ever conceivable sense.

Since those doing so, in wilfully cutting of their noses to spite their faces, are repudiating and even wastefully thrashing the immeasurable, highly competent, indisputable, undervalued and therefore significantly untapped skills and capabilities of women everywhere. And not only so in the general workforce where their authoritative clout is drastically circumscribed but also in the clergy and particularly at its highest levels of religious ministration and Episcopal authority where they’re conspicuously absent; and what’s more no conscious efforts are currently being made to rectify this deliberate misogynistic, selfish and unforgivable debarment.

It’s true that in recent years the Church of England has minimally relented and permitted some women to become vicars but this is not the universal approach within that body, and besides is a decision which is still being resisted tooth and nail by many of the church’s own male clergy and, most ironically so, sections of its misogynistically brainwashed female congregationalists. Some of whom like the former Conservative, evidently with a large C it would seem, MP Ann Widdecombe, who has actually left the Church of England in protest at the appointment within it of female vicars for the suitably, from her twisted point of view, all-male and even far more misogynistically-minded Roman Catholic Church, don’t under any circumstance at all want to see women serving in any capacity as clergy of the Church of England. How bloody odd!

This despite the fact that were it not for the courageous, altruistic, undaunting and indefatigable efforts of strong-minded women like Mary Magdalene and others of her resoluteness, devotion to the cause, calibre, foresight and undoubted character in the face of the obvious spinelessness of men, including many of Jesus Christ’s own disciples, who calculatedly turned their backs on his legacy while simultaneously doing all they could not only to distance themselves from their past and even close association with their religious Master but crucially save their own skins in the process, the doctrines of Jesus Christ that led to the embryonic Christian Church founded in his name wouldn’t have survived to mushroom into the global phenomenon as one of the great monotheistic religions over the past centuries that Christianity has become.

For in calculatingly and rather dishonestly sidelining the historical roles of women in the early Christian church while at the same time hubristically hyping and fulsomely celebrating that of men the Christian church with characteristic and convenient amnesia happily chooses to forget that previous to Christianity becoming what was effectively the official religion of the Roman Empire with the attendant gentrification and power that was lavishly ascribed to it Christianity was in actuality an underground religious sect proscribed by law and whose members could be and regularly were hunted down and brutally murdered.

However, with women societally not considered to pose the same degree of threat as men were perceived to be capable of the Roman as well as the Jewish authorities focussed their vigilance on suspected male Christian converts inadvertently leaving their covert female counterparts to metaphorically pick up the cudgel of their faith and fight on, doing a remarkably first-rate job of keeping their religion alive while serving as active and committed proselytizers of it within the bounds of the political and societal restraints they were subjected to.

The men on the other hand fully aware of the omnipresent dangers that they were beset by as Christians or even past associates of Jesus Christ prudently laid low and to everyone else but close and trusted friends or family members denied their involvement with Christianity or any liking for it, perfectly cognisant of the risk to themselves if the truth of their involvement with Christianity ever became known. They had either seen or heard firsthand of the complicit and collaborative enterprise that was assiduously embarked on by the Jews and the Romans, each with their own vested interests in the matter, to have Jesus Christ crucified and they weren’t prepared to take any chances with their own lives.

Religious scholarship within the Church of England and that of its predecessor the Church of Rome, as well as the religious faculties of our prestigious universities like Oxford, Cambridge and Durham are fully knowledgeable of this and like the Vatican have in their possession vital documents which they conspiratorially secrete from the general public’s awareness and all but highly selective academic scrutiny by those whom these universities and the Vatican evidently trust to slavishly respect and keep their secrets intact.

Secrets that specifically show the roles of women in an entirely different light from those of the generally submissive ones in which they’re customarily and patronizingly portrayed. Explicitly that the assortment of positions women routinely held, extending right up the ecclesiastical tree so to speak, and their conventional roles in the early Christian church, which stretched right up to the when Constantine made Rome a Christian Empire and even well beyond this preliminary stage of Christianity basically becoming the de facto religion of the Roman state, were vibrant, gender equal, charismatic and authoritative ones.

And it was the Roman Catholic Church zealously aided and abetted by no less a figure within it than the incumbent Pope at that time that together were barefacedly and entirely answerable for abrogating that compact and destroying the established environment of mutual cooperation and respect that had congenially and successfully existed between women and men in the Christian church and seemed destined therefore to continue indefinitely. It didn’t happen though! Chiefly because everything that had preceded the disastrous, lying and ignoble edit that emanated from the Vatican and permanently changed the status quo, effectively and unfairly for centuries after that exiling women to the margins of Christendom, was diligently and convincingly airbrushed from history as if it never happened.

Racism is another matter of huge controversy and disquietude within the Christian community generally and its Anglican offshoot in particular that in the 15^th Century, starting around 1490, raised its ugly head to shatter, then irreversibly destroy the mutual trust, understanding, respect for and cooperation that previously existed between Caucasian, specifically from western and southern Europe, and the peoples of the then known global south, particularly Africans.

The overriding catalyst for this major change in the attitude and conduct of Caucasians towards Africans was the evident stumbling upon by some Caucasian explorers of lands and continents in the western hemisphere that the European nations that sponsored these sea navigators would brashly assert they discovered and just as self-importantly rename them, for example, the West Indies, since it was India that these navigators were actually in search of by a western sea route that would hopefully preclude their home traders who were doing business with the Indian sub-continent and also the Orient from having to rely solely on the existing trans Eurasia land route that over the years, because of widespread banditry and other associated activities, had become a hazardous journey for many of these traders and a distinct financial pain in the neck for their home countries; and of course calling the two continents and their interlinking land bridge the Americas, after one of their navigators; events that both triggered and concomitantly led to the brutal Transatlantic Slave Trade in African men, women and children.

Fabulously rich with numerous and invaluable artefacts and other truly astonishing works of art flawlessly fashioned in gold, silver and precious stones and virtually commonplace everywhere these stumbled-upon continents and their adjacent lands with indigenous populations which for several millennia had uninterruptedly occupied these places and during that time had culturally, politically and independent of external assistance created impressive empires and kingdoms of their own that appreciably surpassed everything that European nations conversely had managed either individually or collectively to fashion for themselves, unsurprisingly became the extreme focus of Caucasian envy and greed that morphed into an insidious malice that initially revealed itself in the plunder of these new found lands to be promptly followed by their violent invasion, occupation, systematic theft and the colonization on behalf of the European countries that these Caucasians came from.

Countries that grew filthy rich from these rapacious and much encouraged colonial enterprises and consequently didn’t hesitate at all to self-importantly assume the perceived status that their rulers and populations generally believed was their entitlement, and not least so because of the massive wealth they’d acquired and now unduly enjoyed at the expense of those from whom it was viciously taken.; not that any of this featured for a solitary moment in their considerations or deliberations on how they’d got to that particular position they were now in but which all the same they were most happy to benefit from.

While in marked contrast and rather uncaringly so these purported Christian entities and their populations for the most part thoroughly welcomed in their name the organized massacres carried out with absolute and mindboggling impunity of those members of the local communities whose lands and continents had illegally by means of force been sequestered but who none the less refused to toe the line and accept the humiliation degradation that were inflicted on them. A process that these Caucasians never stopped or ever endeavoured to rein in during the entire period of their colonization of these places but instead ceaselessly sought to subjugate those that miraculously had managed to survive these senseless atrocities.

But colonies by their very nature and definition need a cheap and malleable workforce to keep them functioning and profitably so. And disinclined to use fellow Caucasians for this purpose and whose numbers would have been largely insufficient anyway to meet necessary demands, and furthermore faced with the rude and challenging realization that the indigenous peoples of what was now conceitedly dubbed by European leaders, their populace and colonizers alike as the New World would prefer to die, and regularly did so, rather than submit to the ignominy of being in any way complicit in the widespread depredation of their countries and the decimation of their people and therefore efforts to forcibly co-opt them for these nefarious purposes would fail abysmally, their Caucasian colonizers decided in the circumstances to pragmatically accept reality and knock that particular wish and approach firmly on the head.

But still very much in need of a large, essentially cheap and crucially a completely manageable and expendable workforce that had no physical links with these expanding colonies and would literally be thousands of miles away from their homelands, these European colonizers together with their home countries mutually set their gaze on Africa, and in cahoots with their new best friends the Arabs ruthlessly orchestrated the enslavement of African men, women and children. As a result of this reciprocity the Transatlantic Slave Trade was born.

It was a trade that lasted continuously for the better part of half a millennium and which proved to be rather catastrophic in all circumstances for the continent of Africa and its people, with the awful repercussions that stemmed from it still painfully and disadvantageously felt by Africans at home and in the wider, global black Diaspora to this very day. For Europe however it was a quite markedly different situation that saw that continent generally and the countries that were specifically and more actively involved in this slave trade of African people dramatically and irreversibly transformed in terms of their prosperity, fortune, political power and international influence. A far cry, one must admit, from when all this began and they were still collectively emerging from their medieval cocoon of blissful ignorance and insularity.

Sad to say the Christian churches were decidedly in the forefront of this coldblooded barbarity, with the Church of England quickly making up lost ground as well as lost time principally due to England’s somewhat dilatory start in this colonial caper by unreservedly permitting itself to be become the enthusiastic cheerleader of this far from Christian enterprise. So it should come as no surprise to anyone to discover that most of the enormous wealth that the Roman Catholic and Church of England establishments have hoarded away to this day, making them essentially very profitable mega-corporations indeed, and knowingly doing so I must add in direct breach of Jesus Christ’s plea to his followers to voluntarily distribute what they have to help alleviate the hunger, misfortunes and marginalization of the poor, was in effect avidly and disreputably acquired through the wretched misery, coldblooded exploitation and callous deaths of millions of Africans who were dragooned into slavery.

An involuntary state of affairs for those hapless Africans which was barbarously brought about by the white man and the Christian churches’ insatiable greed for mammon; and it’s principally this invariable mindset of white supremacist thinking born of the sheer evil of the Transatlantic Slave Trade that cancerously still affects the attitudes and decision making processes at the top of two of the most important and predominantly Caucasian-led Christian churches in the world at present, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, that fundamental change to properly reflect the doctrine of Christianity and the essential requirements of the modern world that we live in is urgently needed.

All along the west coast of Africa to this very day can be conspicuously observed the immense ruins of what during and especially at the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade were a surfeit of what were then enormous and substantially fortified forts constructed by Caucasians to stave off their European rivals from muscling in on what was clearly a dog eat dog but nevertheless a particularly lucrative venture for all of them. In the bellies of these forts though was a network of dungeons whose only exits and deliberately so were to the sea, and where the African slaves heavily manacled, immensely fearful and held in the most disgustingly inhuman conditions one can imagine while awaiting, often for days on end, the arrival of the slave ships that would take them forever away from their homes, family members, friends, communities, countries and the continent of Africa that they were indigenous to, were kept.

But even more sickening than this, which neither excuses nor downplays what has been said already, were the chapels and churches that were deliberately built directly above these same dungeons and the heartbroken mass of humanity within them and involuntarily heading for an uncertain future away from everything they knew and were familiar with, compounded by the real possibility of an untimely death either at sea or on the plantations they ere assigned to on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

These churches and chapels weren’t there for the benefit of these Africans who never saw them or who wouldn’t ever have been allowed to enter them. No! There were there for the sole usage of the white slavers and the general Caucasian administrators and their families that supervised or ran this loathsome business of the slave trade so they could congregate in mutual fellowship, pray, worship and in their warped thinking sing praises to God and gratefully thank him for the munificence he’d propitiously bestowed on them. For that reason alone if none other this is the bona fide legacy of the European Christian church to the Blackman and in which the Church of England made an enormous and quite significant contribution.

Should black people therefore as numerous whites and even some Blacks have often suggested forget what has happened and just move on with their lives? The answer to the first part of that question is I believe a definite no; and to the second part of it, trying to constructively move on with their lives is precisely what the majority of Blacks of my experience have attempted to do with varying degrees of success and religiously aspire to do so. The major handicaps to both of these actions however is that white society for its part and particularly those in charge of it, be they of a secular or religious disposition, won’t let them, and more to the point keep infernally placing roadblocks in their way which physically and psychologically critically obstruct them from doing so, which is the precise purpose of those who are creating these problem for them.

Furthermore, while it may be the Christian thing to do in forgiving others for their wrongdoing towards one forgiveness must be matched by a genuine apology from the wrongdoer otherwise the entire exercise becomes one-sided, misguided and completely meaningless in terms of any authentic rapprochement between the opposing individuals involved. Likewise the supposedly altruistic concept of turning the other cheek when metaphorically or physically hit by someone is a non-runner from my perspective, as it can realistically have all manner of unforeseeable or undesirable consequences for the person whose cheek it actually is and who has been attacked. Not least of these the attacker perceiving it as weakness and consequently providing them with carte blanche to do the same or even worse next time round.

So I personally believe that giving apologies for what any conscionable person sees as an act of wrongdoing is absolutely vital if there’s to be any real possibility of a positive move forward in the relations of those involved. But I’m also equally aware that it’s extremely difficult for some people or organizations to tender apologise for what they’ve done wrong. However this doesn’t mean that their behaviour must be tolerated far less that they should indulgently be forgiven for any remissness by them for their overall conduct.

Basically, there are three key reasons why people and organizations are reluctant to apologize for what they did wrong even though their actions were patently wrong in the first place. And the first of these is that they’re unconscionable, absolutely evil in other words; and because of the power that they personally or individually wield, or that others they’re closely linked with have it or comparable influence themselves, that situation automatically renders them immune to do with impunity whatever they like, not have to face the consequences of their actions and, of course, get away with their wrongdoing.

Others refuse to apologize because they think that to do so makes them vulnerable, since an act of apology however necessary or justifiable it is will cause them to appear weak, not in control of the situation, and therefore likely as well to cause them grief in emotional, financial or even reputational terms that effectively could be a life changer for them, although not necessarily for the better, in other people’s perception, something that they regard as of the utmost importance to them. And then there’re those to whom any apology is seen in their pathetic lives as a bridge too far, and who’d rather put up with a troubling conscience than ever admit they’re wrong.

I take the view that for individuals, organizations or the state to premeditatedly embark on acts of wrongdoing for whatever twisted reasons they may espouse to justify what they did is totally unacceptable; and when such activities are clearly and even publicly shown to be unwarranted and moreover constitute monstrous acts of wrongdoing that take one into the realm of brutality such activities, no matter when they occurred, cannot be conscionably overlooked, casually or even perfidiously be brushed aside, or have the perpetrators or beneficiaries of these appalling crimes dismissively and condescendingly claim that the passage of time either should or must exonerate them entirely from personal, collaborative, as in joint venture, or even conspiratorial  culpability; and consequently no mea culpa is necessary or should be given.

It’s worth noting generally and is also of significant importance in particular for whites in their guilt-ridden hang-ups about their preceding and ongoing wrongdoings to other races or cultures at home in Europe and globally as well to at long last acknowledge and fully take on board that black people, who’re in effect their foremost and recurrent victims, aren’t marching around in a constant and obsessive state of rage at them. Neither are they choosing to sedentarily sit around on their ostensibly indolent backsides all day expectantly hoping for present day Caucasians on behalf of themselves or their white ancestors to make reparations or pay out enormous amounts of compensation to black sufferers of white colonialism or who along with many others of their African race are the descendants of victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

To start with black people as it stands already and quite unwarrantedly have more than enough on their plate as far as their dealings with whites are concerned to contend with than needlessly waste their precious time and energy waging meaningless wars of words with their bothersome white foes; wars which they know that whatever forms they eventually assume will at best only end up under the white judicial system as Pyrrhic victories for them.

And frankly what the vast majority of Blacks want from whites is to be left alone to constructively fashion for themselves the kind of future that they personally judge is best for them and crucially are freely allowed to go for and vigorously pursue without white interference of any kind, however well-intentioned that meddling might be, intruding on that decision making process or the actual decision itself.

Moreover just as pivotal as one’s personal and direct response is to this somewhat intransigent stance by white governments, together with the privileged and powerful secular establishments and their religious equivalent that these regimes are intimately and socially connected with and allied to, of those countries that have profited immensely and invariably the most from slavery and colonialism, that reparations, compensation or even an official mea culpa aren’t merited by the multitude of black victims or their descendants of these barbaric actions extensively carried out against their race by whites and therefore is wholly out of the question, tendentiously at the same time listening to them volubly and unashamedly advocate outright spurious or completely fraudulent arguments to support what’s essentially indefensible, these same white governments and their privileged elites nevertheless suitably and unpardonably wilfully choose to knowingly overlook the proverbial bull elephant firmly ensconced within their sitting room.

That elephant in their individual sitting rooms is the European holocaust; the general obeisance to it which these same white governments in cahoots with consecutive US administrations, that country’s Congress supported by the unconditional endorsement of their respective secular and religious establishments and the totally subjective and propagandistic brainwashing attached to it all and persistently and unremittingly spoon-fed to their countrymen and women conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to mechanically and animatedly respond as they’re directed to by the west’s media, unambiguously shows the vile hypocrisies and transparent double standards barefacedly applied vis-à-vis the recognition for reparations and compensation and the actual dispensing of them by these people to one specific set of victims, exclusive of the others that also suffered in the same circumstances that they did, and no others regardless of the disparity in the suffering, the overall consequences of this, or the length of time that these happened relative to the select few genially and solely favoured for routine recognition and financial indemnification and a far more diverse and overwhelming majority of global victims likewise caused by Caucasians who specifically and prejudicially aren’t.

While almost at the end of winding up this detailed article there was a Breaking News story on Sky Television on Tuesday 20 November 2012, that the Church of England, restricted solely to the British element of it one must add had balloted, a decision that can and most certainly will be unilaterally foisted onto Anglicanism everywhere in Britain and outside of it, not to appoint female bishops to that body. A result that was arrived at because the three constituent elements of the English branch of the Church of England: the bishops, clergy and the laity, had not been able to secure the two thirds majority vote during that ballot that was consistent with their rules in order to affect the requisite change needed to depart from the existing status quo not to have female bishops in the Church of England.

I’m obviously disappointed by the decision but which however doesn’t come as any surprise to me, as there are evidently many still among the Eurocentric, Caucasian Christian communities domestically within Europe and their unquestioning followers, white as well as black, globally of the Anglican faith who appear not just to be totally out of touch with reality and the modern world we live in, but who additionally would have us all regressing with breakneck speed into the Dark Ages and Christian authoritarianism.

Which makes it particularly sad and somewhat disgusting, whether one is an objective neutral observer or a committed Christian with both feet firmly planted in the 21^st Century and not the Medieval era, to see enlightened elements within the Church of England quietly submit to the intolerable blackmail of these reactionary people who disingenuously assert that their actions are specifically designed to keep the Church of England unified and intact, and therefore what they’re doing is the only feasible way to preserve this particular goal and consequently prevent further schisms looming inside the Church of England that might very well lead to and actually herald its demise.

Hasn’t the Christian Church as an entity been down this particular road before, I ask myself, when comparable dishonest, rearguard and even recalcitrant arguments were desperately put forward by diehards in it to scupper Martin Luther’s progressive and relevant challenge to an autocratic and reactionary Roman Catholic Church? Furthermore, Henry VIII’s invention of the Church of England wasn’t on his part by anyone’s most vivid stretch of the imagination a conservative gesture or move nor was it intended by him as such, and had nothing at all to do with religious scruples.

So change either deliberately or involuntarily affected can turn out to be a progressive measure after all with beneficial consequences for most if not exactly all of those involved. And the idea of supposedly staunch advocates of the status quo within the Church of England, or any similar Christian outfit for that matter, employing obvious specious arguments of their own or spurious Christian diktats they claim the Bible authorizes to support their uncompromising construal of what Christianity is all about is quite frankly tantamount, and ironically so in my view, to avid meat eaters who can’t do without their Sunday joint inflicting their problem onto others.

I say problem because while it’s clear they’re either unwilling to or else incapable of curtailing or even stopping their meat eating habit, should they then arbitrarily take it upon themselves to obstinately and vociferously condemn the presence of abattoirs in our society and the slaughter of animals for food and which provide the meat they’re so hooked on as unjustified instruments of death; maintaining as their contention for doing so that all life is precious as God willed it so and to break his divine law and kill animals specially raised from birth for food, is for whatever reason that proponents of these practices advocate morally indefensible, an intolerable outrage and sacrilegious as well. That in my opinion I’ll cheerfully admit and would imagine any other rational person would also think the same, would constitute the height of hypocrisy.

Such dishonest twaddle just doesn’t stack up in my view and it’s high time that these irritating people, analogous to those suffering from Attention Hyperactive Disorder or AHD as it’s more generally known, were firmly and impolitely told so; in the same way that one would discount what an exasperating backseat driver had to say and unflinchingly tell him or her to put a sock in it. Just as the Christian Church universally should per se have the courage, honesty, decency and dignity to conscientiously tackle and successfully stop the insidious and repulsive trend of turning a Nelsonian blind eye to other equally scandalous forms of revisionism within its ranks and carried out in its name. Like the following and a most blatant one for example.

In 1228 the German Emperor Friedrich led out his knights from his capital Magdeburg on the 6^th Christian Crusade. A few years later a new statue was proudly created and unveiled by the Emperor Friedrich on behalf of himself and his people in his capital, this time to Magdeburg’s Patron Saint, St. Maurice. The original statue of St. Maurice authorized by Emperor Friedrich “to honour the fame and virtue of an African friend and ally different in face and form but just as surely equal in dignity and honour” still stands in the Cathedral of Magdeburg to this day as it has always done since its commissioning and erection there. Soon afterwards other churches throughout Christendom did the same as Emperor Friedrich had done in Magdeburg.

And not without good reason! For St. Maurice was the leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion in the 3^rd Century and the favourite and most widely venerated saints of that group. He is also the patron saint of several professions, locales and kingdoms across Christendom and is a highly revered saint of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as well as the Coptic Orthodox Church. There are still statues of St. Maurice in several churches across Europe and even those churches located in their former but Magdeburg Cathedral is the only one in Europe to present St. Maurice as he actually was; undeniably a Blackman.

For with the dawn of the Transatlantic Slave Trade accompanied by the various Christian churches condoning of and profiting from it the hierarchy of these churches either decided to modify the authentic depiction of St. Maurice from what it was and contemptibly portray him as a Caucasian or remove his statue altogether. And despite incontrovertible proof to support the fact that St. Maurice was black, pigheadedly refuse to either apologize for what was done or replace their sham version of St. Maurice with an image or sculpture of the real one.

The image of St. Maurice has been examined in great detail by Gude Suckale-Redlefsen who demonstrated that this image of St. Maurice has existed since his first depiction in Germany between the Weser and the Elbe and spread to Bohemia where it became associated with the imperial ambitions of the House of Luxembourg. And according to Gude Suckale-Redlefsen the image of St. Maurice reached its summit during the years 1490 to 1530.

However images of this saint died out in the mid 16^th Century, undermined Suckale-Redlefsen suggests by the developing African slave trade. “Once again as in the early Middle Ages the colour black had become associated with spiritual darkness and cultural otherness.” It accounts too for why in Ireland as well as generally across the British Isles few people, even among the clergy, know that Ireland’s first bishop was an African by the name of Diman. He died in Ulster in 658 and is buried there.

Blacks and Christianity, as customarily espoused by white Caucasians, has a chequered history therefore, and it’s easy to see why. Presented from the onset of the Transatlantic Slave Trade as less than human; objects for buying and selling like cattle against whom any sort of violence or debasement was justified, it isn’t rocket science to comprehend why whites adopted and still do the rather asinine notion that they’re not only immensely superior to Blacks but in actuality are the master race. Dream on! Since words don’t translate themselves into actions on this one.

But one thing that’s absolutely certain and for which Caucasians were entirely responsible for then and still are to this day is that wherever slavery, colonialism, imperialism and its contemporary equivalent along with racism have spread their ruin the stability and fabric of African life have been destroyed. But something else was also destroyed, and that was the mutual respect which had previously existed between Blacks and whites.

So the various Christian churches have a lot of fence mending to do and that includes my own church the Church of England. So it’s my earnest hope that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby steps up to the plate and literally do what we all know needs to be done. It won’t be an easy task I know, but where there’s a will then I’m absolutely sure that a way can also be found. And if I may be permitted to make a few suggestions as to what my priorities would be they would include the following:

The immediate disestablishment of the Church of England accompanied by the instantaneous removal of the monarch as its secular head; she or he can continue to belong to our church if they choose, join another church or not have any faith at all if they prefer to, but having them as our head must be out of the question and permanently so. Another unequivocal no-no must be the irrevocable and notably long overdue jettisoning by the Church of England of whatever Prime Minister, or anyone remotely linked to the government of the day or the two constituent pillars of parliament: the House of Commons and the Lords, having anything at all to do with the selection, either hands on or indirectly, of any Archbishop of Canterbury or other spiritual dignitary in the Church of England, however exalted or lowly these positions are; the grounds for the latter stipulation being quite self-evident.

What manner of man, woman or informed child on earth, and who’s a genuine and committed Christian wants a bunch of war criminals, mass murderers, child killers and committers of the most heinous crimes against humanity to be the ones principally in charge of the selection and appointment of the most senior positions in any Christian church remotely worthy of that name and especially so as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the Church of England. I know for certain that I don’t! How about you?

Moving progressively on I know that there’s a lot wrong with the Roman Catholic Church, yet for all that there’s one specific thing I’d like to see the Church of England borrow from it which I think is relevant and would serve the Church exceedingly well; and that’s to have our universally recognized spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, exclusively and democratically elected to office by a global representative body of the Anglican faith similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals.

I’m completely aware, bearing in mind what I’ve earlier said, that these radical suggestions of mine won’t find any favour whatever with our empire loyalists, Colonel Blimps, imperialists, neo-colonialists, secret or explicit racists or the white supremacists that infest our communities with their tiresome diatribe that multiculturalism is the thin edge of a concerted and deliberate strategy by evil, dark forces at work in our society to undermine the cohesion and greatness of Britain, interpret that to mean England, and therefore to naively or voluntarily consent to more of it on the part of the English, whoever they are meant to be, by willingly causing the Church of England to go through a forced metamorphosis of this kind, would in essence mark the end of England as a beacon of light in a diversity of ways to the rest of the world as it has been for a number of centuries while simultaneously wantonly devaluing everything that it stands for.

Cynics and critics of that risible point of view would cheerfully say “and about bloody time too and good riddance to bad rubbish” and further suggest to these rather pathetic morons that they urgently get a life and swiftly move into the contemporary world; reminding them as well that Neanderthal man, who they do and excellent portrayal of, like the dinosaurs had a penchant for dicing with extinction and even succeeded in getting themselves completely wiped out, which as it stands is a very likely prospect for our modern day equivalent of Neanderthal man and the dinosaurs that no amount of inbreeding between them will stave off if they carry on as they do and in the end will only exacerbate matters for them. And besides no one with a working brain gives a toss what they actually think as their ideas are already perceived as too purblind to ever warrant any serious consideration.

Similarly there will of course be the diehard royalists with their fawning fans purposely at hand and possibly smelling salts at the ready as well to facilitate the recuperation of themselves after they’ve screamed blue murder and themselves sick shouting the odds that such an insufferable step wouldn’t only be an impudent affront to the monarchy but would also imperil the survival of that institution as well. Not at all a bad thing I say if being the hereditary secular head of the Church of England is the only criterion that makes the holder of it worthy of being the queen or king of England.

And didn’t the United Kingdom after Japan’s comprehensive defeat at the end of World War II insist along with its US and French allies that the country’s emperor perceived by his people as a living God and concomitantly their spiritual and secular leader as well must drop these religious titles pronto if he really wanted to remain as emperor with a strictly secular status allocated to him? Isn’t Elizabeth II’s role as monarch of England and head of the Church of England, to be automatically assumed by her successors, also the equivalent to being a God-queen or monarch? What short memories these royally fawning nurds have!

And one can also absolutely guarantee that the rightwing autocratic morons in both houses of parliament and who aren’t any true fans of democracy despite all the disingenuous crap which they unremittingly spew out to the contrary will I’m sure, satisfactorily assisted by our largely rightwing media, be getting themselves equally into a right lather as they masochistically whip themselves, or have others do it for them, into a frenzy saying as they howl delightedly to the lashes of their willing flagellations that the suggested new model advocated for the Church of England would be an undertaking too far which would dangerously undermine parliament that had enacted and legislated this piece of nonsense in the first place. Furthermore, it would also negate the rights and privileges of the elected Prime Minister and parliament of the day, itself supported by a constitutional House of Lords, to rightfully and constitutionally determine how a major and integral state institution is run and who heads it.

My response to that is this; that democracy as far as these discreditable whingers are concerned is a simply a convenient tool to be used by them for their sole advantage as and when they wish to do so and to the complete disadvantage of the rest of us all the time. The average member of the public knows this already, so it’s absolutely pointless these MPs and other parliamentarians attempting to shove shit down our throats and tell us that it’s cheese they’re giving us.

So I for one don’t buy into their tactic even if I weren’t aware, which I very much am, that these are the identical MPs, House of Lords members and government who’ve no problem when it comes to obsequiously pushing their willing heads up the receptive asses of the Americans whose every bidding they always comply with regardless of how humiliating or detrimental such acts to the British people or Britain itself. So where I ask is the much vaunted democracy that they speak of incessantly yet barefacedly and unaccountably to us abrogate to the Americans at a click of their finger?

And anyway, our parents or guardians while having the entrusted responsibility to look after us while we’re kids and growing up gradually and sensibly, if they’re adults or parents worthy of the name, relinquish that right as their respective charges or offspring move into their late teens or early adulthood, develop a sense of maturity for themselves and become fully fledged adults in their own right. And this developmental process is allowed to responsibly happen regardless of how emotionally attached these adults are to these individuals they’ve nurtured and looked after. So why should the Church of England existing in an increasingly changing, complex and modern world be treated any differently from children educated to the level of maturity and be nanny-stated for its entire existence and what’s more by people and a system that are evidently unfit for purpose?

Then there’s the professed worry antipathetic to any change in the status quo of the Church of England that purposely promotes the argument that since the job of Archbishop of Canterbury automatically secures for the holder of it a place in the House of Lords, which constitutionally is the revising chamber of our parliamentary system; and the entitlement to sit in the House of Lords necessitates that that particular individual who’s accorded that supposed honour must in all circumstances be a bona fide British subject, that of itself determines that the Archbishop of Canterbury must at all times be British himself.

For he’s not only the religious head of the established church of England and de facto the realm but also a member of parliament charged with the right and responsibility to participate in and influence legislative matters that will considerably affect the governance of England and also at times the rest of the United Kingdom. Therefore, to have a non-British person doing these sorts of things would be a flagrant and unwarranted interference in the domestic affairs of the UK by an outsider; and that says these extremely subjective opponents of consequential change within the Church of England would be a most intolerable situation for Britons.

But why must the Archbishop of Canterbury be sitting member of the House of Lords anyway as apart from standing as an MP and if successful taking his seat in the House of Commons if these risible clowns espousing the earlier stated arguments think he has a political role as well as a religious one to play? And when this counterargument is put to them they instantaneously and alarmingly witter about the separation of powers between the state and the church, which is hypocritical to say the least since the English state and the Church of England are intimately entangled with each other, and the Archbishop of Canterbury being a member of the House of Lords cements that fact; so these people can’t even argue their case convincingly.

And while I might be inclined and even quite agreeable to freely discussing my political views with my parish vicar who I trust and respect, outside of that personal rapport and the voluntary inclusion of him by me into my political affairs, his official role nevertheless relative to myself isn’t political: acting as my mentor or advisor to me on who I vote or don’t vote for, if I brother to at all, but categorically a religious and pastoral one. And therefore I firmly am of the opinion that the status of the Archbishop of Canterbury in these circumstances should be comparable to the one I have with my priest, and not have the spiritual head of the Church of England become another utterly useless and revolting politician. And God knows we already have more than our fair share of those already!

I do know that the label on the tin says Church of England and for many people that mindlessly suggest all things purportedly English on a broad and even at time a farcical magnitude, and for them that’s how it should always stay. I fervently disagree and take exception to the notion that there’s anything either distinctive or particularly homogenous that can convincingly be affixed to the terminology English in any spiritual sense of the meaning or the ludicrous way in which this notion is constantly bandied about. In fact it’s mainly just a far-fetched concept in peoples’ heads and that’s fine as long as it stays there; but to religiously inflict it on the rest of the world as of right is just madness as I see it.

So if this fanciful notion of Englishness and everything that’s linked to it are to be the sole and salient ingredients of the Church of England and they’re what the majority of people in Britain, and especially England, really want; fine by me! But then keep your church, as I most certainly wouldn’t want to associate with it any more, at least not within the British Isles, exclusively to yourselves and let the global community of Anglicans outside of the United Kingdom do their own thing as well; distinct, independent and well removed from your English church which in that process wouldn’t or shouldn’t, at any rate in any way, be allowed to have any influence in theirs.

Finally, it’s my personal view that taking into consideration the unwarranted wars in and the intensely predatory and voracious plunder of the global south with its attendant humiliation, exploitation, havoc and the enormous loss of innocent lives there caused by western regimes acting on the behalf of multinational oil and gas corporations of which I understand that you, your Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was once a part of as the successful executive of an oil company.

So speaking only for myself I now expect you to productively use your influence, contacts and old school tie networks - like you the Prime Minister, David Cameron and his Deputy Nick Clegg, and others in the present cabinet I believe also went to Eton College – to put a stop to the utterly grotesque and inhuman excesses by these multinational corporations and the governments like our own that fawningly do their bidding.

And to all those of you out there who’re still immensely fearful and even distressed about the fallacious argument that reforming the Church of England will cause it to lose its Englishness, let me firmly remind you that on the tin of that particular religious commodity commonly used by the Catholics it says Roman Catholic Church, but ask yourselves how many of the adherents of Roman Catholicism are actually Romans? Get where I’m coming from?

And wouldn’t it be nice if instead of fighting each other as Anglicans that those fomenting these counterproductive schism utilized their seemingly boundless energies to positively ensure that England’s children and young people get a well-grounded education in the real history, not the fabricated crap that they’re habitually taught, of England so that they and future generations of them don’t grow up into the largely ignorant adults that many within our population are.

Sad and even pathetic that all these Little Englanders right across the entire spectrum of British society who think they know it all, what’s best for Britain, or worst still that they and their kind have solely shaped our country’s history and therefore they alone have the right to decide what happens to our nation now and in the future, yet in point of fact know bugger all about this land that we all call home!

Important References:

Gabriel K. Osei: Fifty Unknown Facts About The African; published by the African Publication Society, 48 Chiswick Lane, London W4; 1966.

Cambrensis Eversus Vol. 2, pp 686-7; 1848. “S. Diamanum nigrum Espiscopum Connoresnsem in Ultona. An Dom 658 vivera desisse tradunt.”

Wikipedia: St. Maurice.

Basil Davidson: African documentary series, Africa.