Spoken in jest

A local vicar (Rev. Tim Jones, St. Lawrence's) managed to hit the headlines just before Christmas when he interjected into his sermon the advice to his flock that the poor should shoplift in order to get what they need (src). The story went national, and like all good stories probably gained something in the telling. (Actually, most moral reasoning has held that stealing to obtain necessary food is probably all right. But we try to avoid turning that reasoning into advice from the pulpit, for reasons which are now abundantly obvious to the hapless vicar.)

One response in a national paper was Giles Coren's re-writing of Ex. 20:1–17 into a form which he thought Fr. Tim might have found a little more conducive to his perspective. Most of it, of course, is the usual satire, but he manages to score a serious hit when he writes,

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. But I’ll be sending along a Son eventually, and you can make all sorts carvings of him if you want, and kneel in front of them, prostrate yourselves, whatever floats your boat. (src)

Or, as Heinrich Bullinger put it in the Second Helvetic Confession,

Although Christ assumed human nature, yet he did not on that account assume it in order to provide a model for carvers and painters. (src)

And when you see monstrosities like this, you can understand why I suspect that Giles Coren had managed once again to demonstrate that many a true word is spoken in jest (src):