Pluralist Translates Rowan into English

Thanks to Pluralist for giving us this translation.

For those many people over the last many years who have wished for a translator capable of converting the ABC’s verbal blurts into plain English, Adrian Worsfold (blogging at Pluralist Speaks) is the man!

Have you seen or read the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Global South Encounter? Were you frustrated by the crap that came out of the Archbishop’s mouth? (I know I was.)

Well, never fear. Our friend Pluralist has provided us a translation of +Rowan’s nelly-kneed mumble-speak. Go here to read it all. I’ll just copy a few bits.

Pluralist channels Rowan Williams thus:

I would say greetings to some of you, anyway, in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour, but as you already exclude those I might have to exclude, I can indeed say greetings to you all.
….
In fact, to really up the bullshit, I can say I am delighted. I am delighted you are meeting now, subject to the remarks already made, and that I am delighted you are meeting at this time in our Communion. Why I should be delighted when the thing seems to be falling apart, in part due to your efforts and in part due to mine, I haven't the foggiest.
….
I want to comment on one or two things, and I wonder if you can guess what they are?
The final text of the Anglican Covenant has now been available for battling over for several months. As you know it's the fruit of long, careful, jockeying for positions; the fruit of a sustained attempt on the part of so many people to get one up on each other, to determine not only what it is that splits us apart in terms of fighting over scripture but also how we can humanly separate.
….
The Covenant sets out selectively the understanding you can have of the faith we seem unable to share, crumbling the foundations as the building itself falls down. . . . . For a bit of further cover I might mention the Benedictine tradition in which that mutual listening and obedience to one another has been so crucial but seems to have no impact on anyone I deal with. Who knows what Jesus Christ would make of all this.
. . .
Of course we are persisting on the need for a Covenant in the light of confusion, brokenness and tension within our Anglican family - a brokenness and a tension that has been made still more acute by recent decisions in some of our Provinces which will remain nameless in the case of Canada - oops - but you lot are really on to this election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles.

Some of us have problems with women as bishops, but when it comes to a lezzy that really does matter. That really does focus our attention. So there is the need for retribution, recriminations, more fights, division, and whatever else we can do, and I am in discussions about doing this despite the fact that I used the theologise in precisely the opposite direction. But you know me: I'm a weathervane for which way the wind blows, and at present you lot blow the hardest.

. . . I am obviously in touch with most Anglicans and know their one mind but what I really mean is this centralised construction I want is being built on the back of excluding lezzies and homos and those who give so many of us the visceral ick. I mean, just what do they get up to - it hardly bares mentioning and it matters not whether they are in stable relationships or jumping from one bed to another. This concerns us so greatly.

On the other hand, when I talk to other people, and they blow in the other direction, about how Anglicans feel, I then find it difficult to make any decision, but I do still ask the lezzies and homos to sacrifice themselves for my ambitions for a Communion to be like a Church, built on a fantasy of Catholicism and a fundamentalism of the scriptures. But don't worry, I'll intellectualise these approaches for you and make them look different from what they really are.

So let's gloss this up a bit too and say the Holy Spirit might descend on you and make you a little less like rabid dogs barking at those you don't like in all your prejudices wrapped up as theology . . . .

So happy Easter to you all and let's see if this nonsense persuades anyone anymore, as we are in danger of losing all credibility. Did I say all? I am not usually as outlandish as that, except when it comes to those we should sacrifice on the march to a Greater Church.

So that’s how Pluralist translates Rowan Williams’ statement to the Global South Encounter. I think Pluralist’s “translation” is more honest than Williams’ statement. In fact, I’d nominate Pluralist to be the Archbishop’s in-house translator. I would welcome such honest words from Williams … though I know we’ll never get them.

I urge you to go to Pluralist’s site, and enjoy his full translation and some of the comments that have been made there.

Pluralist, please forgive me for quoting so extensively. I couldn’t help myself!