Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Anglican

  • Skandaal in our Dorp

    Skandaal in our Dorp

    Prester John of the Harrismith Engelse Kerk was a man about town.

    A MOTH, he frequented the MOTH Hall and knocked back many an ale seated at the bar. Anglicans are lucky. Like Catholics, they are allowed to booze. Unlike poor Methodists!

    It was also known – perhaps unbeknown to him – that he had a lover; a married lady from a different church; a church that frowned on booze.

    They met on the grounds of the defunct Presbyterian Church for their trysts. Was the church thus refunct?

    As far as is known he suffered no consequences for his philandering; he wasn’t defrocked; but secret nocturnal witnesses say she occasionally was.

    ~o0o~

    Ye Olde Original Prester John

    Prester John was a mythical Christian priest and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who ruled over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. These tall tales were often further embellished* with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Wise Men, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures. The myth was used as one of the excuses for the murderous crusades.

    Like secret uranium, hidden weapons of mass destruction, drugs – there are always lies that can be told to justify attacks and the beginnings of wars. Instil fear, repeat the lies, and suddenly many people trust politicians and newspapers! without asking for any evidence. Wars are profitable, therefore wars MUST be started.

    *Sample embellishments: A Hebrew book of Ben-Sira was published in 1519 in Constantinople, and its appendix includes ‘a copy of the letter that Priesty Juan sent to the Pope in Rome’.

    The main theme is: In a very remote land there was a great king and Christian priest Prester John, who ruled over 72 countries rich in silver and gold. Many wonderful creatures lived there, such as men with horns on their foreheads and three eyes, women who fought while mounted on horses, men that lived 200 years, unicorns, etc.

    Ah, religion! So flexible. Never needing evidence. Ooh, a priest we invented is in trouble we hear! We’d better go on a murderous crusade to find him / rescue him (and his treasure)!

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Engelse kerk – Anglican church

  • Crisis Averted

    Crisis Averted

    The Church of England, Vrystaat Outpost of the British Empire Division (diocese?), in its small sandstone building in Harrismith – off the beaten track, not even in the shadow of the tall, imposing Kerk of ve Chosen People in the square which sat smack in the middle of Warden Street, interrupting the flow of traffic, forcing ox-wagons and – later – automobiles to go AROUND it – had a big problem:

    Dwindling membership and a severe shortage of people able to serve the Queen and the Home Country – oh, and the Lord – as deacons.

    Not a new problem, this shortage had occupied the minds of these good Anglican, Anglophile Colonialists even before the darned Nationalists had taken over Colonial Rule in 1948 and the death of their dear King George in 1952. Long gone were the days when the mayor and a few councilors might occupy these pews (and speak English at town meetings!). Everyone who was anyone now sat in the Kerk pews of a Sunday and listened to thundering donder n bliksem sermons of power and guilt (and what one could quite legitimately do to the sons of Ham) up the road.

    Part of the problem was those families who might cough up good English deacons sent their sons away. Hilton, Michaelhouse, St Andrews, Treverton. You know, good Church schools (yes, some of them might be Methodist, but one has to make do out here in the Colonies). Trouble was, these good schools’ chapels cured them of any desire to spend more Sundays on cold, hard wooden benches. So what to do?

    A thought: What about young Clive Oswald? An approving murmur started up among the little group of Church elders, a quiet buzz . . . He had recently returned to the district to join his father and mother on the farm. Young, good-looking, polite, capable; why, it was like manna sent from . . .

    “Has his shadow ever darkened the door of this church!?” boomed a voice.

    Belonging to Joan Simpson. Dairy farmer; Long-serving deacon; Anglophile; Known for sleeping on her bed on the open porch of the farmhouse she shared with her sister Vera. Year-round, even in Harrismith’s freezing winter. And for delivering milk in big metal cans on the back of her grey Morris Minor pickup – made in England, what. And for wearing khaki trousers at all times. Occasionally a dress to a MOTH do or high church. She’d served in the war in defence of Empire, and was still now serving in defence of what was right. After all, sleeping on the stoep within earshot of the N3 highway which linked the town pubs and Gailian probably gave her more insight than most as to which doorways shadows had darkened on many nights well past closing time.Hmph!

    Well, that settled that question. Tabs Fyvie was safe. England expects every Church of England in the Provinces to do its duty and die quietly, fizzling away with dignity.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Joan is probably in this picture somewhere:

    MOTHs names
    – Platberg MOTH Shellhole, Harrismith ca.1960 –

    Luckily Joan probably hadn’t spotted Tabbo patronising the Anglican Bazaar, or she might have mollified her stance and he might have been sentenced to carry the collection plate for decades.

    – he and his cousin Desmond would only have been there for the chicks –

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    kerk – stepping stone to heaven; compulsory; ladies, wear a hoed!

    donder en bliksem – fire and brimstone

    hoed – isigqoko