Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. Bishop Swing - now known as part of the Saturday Morning Cartoons "TEC SuperFriends" as "Plasticman" - is at it again. Now he thinks that it's Scary Anti-Communists and the Conspiratorial Counterfeits Taking Over the Episcopal Church. Still. Pull out your Tin Foils Hats and watch out for the Black Helicopters.
Oh and by the way, did you know he's actually the Real Catholic (as opposed to all the rest of you). He's the "real thing," he says. Everyone else who disagrees is not as inclusive as he is - and we all live in Joe McCarthy's Basement.
Once again it's all about inclusion and any one who isn't for inclusion is a counterfeit pretender. I can't even make this stuff up.
Here's a bit from Plasticman, (who's human identity is the Bishop of California - nice cover, don't you think?)
Plasticman?
Here is a description of the comic book character Plasticman: "Created by Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (Aug 1941). One of the trademark characters of Quality Comics during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plasticman possesses the ability to stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal, slapstick humor." Yeah, that's our man.
Our Plasticman writes this from his Ivory Tower on San Francisco's Nob Hill. One wonders if he can see St. Alban's Hill from his window? Tin Foil Hats anyone?
Don't touch the dial on your set! I swear - this is not a parody. This is the Real Thing. He says so himself! Click on the headline above for the full article - and make sure you read it in your best Charles Emerson Winchester III voice. And for Pete's Sake, before you do anything else - stop looking for commies under the bed, will ya?
From "Communists, Counterfeiters, and Catholics"
by the Rt. Rerv'd William Swing, Bishop of California
Every time there is trauma in the Episcopal Church, there is an effort by some of the counterfeiters and the Communist fixators to join forces but nothing – nothing – ever comes of it. Those who cannot tolerate the catholic, universal nature of the Church, with the strain of holding everything and everyone together, certainly cannot live with the idiosyncrasies of each other. Once a church group learns to say, “I don’t need you all any more,” then they are on the road to exponential isolation. The opposite of catholicism. What truly is worth striving for is to make the Church more catholic, or more catholic than it was when we inherited it. Paul inherited a one-race Church. When he died, the Church was multiracial. There is the model. Move outward; embrace more of the human predicament in the Name of Jesus Christ.
No one has cornered the market on being catholic. No one has ever seen the catholic nature of the Church in toto. It exists only in the mind of God. We do see miniatures of it occasionally, and we lurch toward it blindly in our deepest yearnings. The Roman Catholics do not exhaust the catholic nature of the Church, nor do the Orthodox or the Protestants. We all carry its seed in our fragmented groupings. Truly catholic means all of the above and more. Lots more, as the Holy Spirit leads us into the Truth of the One.
Therefore, as a bishop I spend most of my time strengthening and expanding the Church’s infrastructure and institutions so that we can make the long, hard pilgrimage toward the catholicism that Christ intends for us, the wholeness He holds in His heart. All of it is important – the seminaries, the social services, the retreat centers, the congregations, the worship, the ever-expanding ethnic constituencies. We must be on our way toward a catholic destiny where God is all in all. We aren’t communists or counterfeiters. We are the real thing, catholic Episcopalians who pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us ever deeper, ever deeper into the full revelation of the Body of Christ.
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NOTE FROM BB: I don't remember Bishop Ridley ever mentioning that his mission was to "spend most of my time ... expending the Church's infrastructure and institutions." Wasn't it something about being set on fire because you were resisting such infrastructure and institutions to follow Jesus instead? Oh, wait - he wasn't a Real Catholic either. Where's the Duke of Norfolk when you need him, BIshop Swing?
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