Holy hellfire, Batman!
With a slice of brimstone, Robin.
Perhaps Martin Cohen enjoyed writing this particular dilemma because it’s one of the lengthier ones in quite a while.
The vicar of St Bartholomew’s in Lower Little Whitteringham is desperate to get bums on seats in the church until he strikes on the idea of holding a debate with a Muslim cleric, the topic being “Will suicide bombers go to heaven?” (No, they’ll just go to pieces. [Stop that! Stop that sort of thing right now! –ed.]) Not surprisingly, the church is full and then some, and the readings come from the more violent parts of the Old Testament before Mullah Al-Jazeera, looking like a pirate right down to a hook, appears in the pulpit. (Obviously, the book’s editor was so unnerved that they overlooked the sentence, “So today Islamic and Christian churches are untied in faith.” [My italics.])
He starts preaching, reading out some of the less moderate passages from the Koran while the vicar interjects with a few Biblical passages. At the end of the mullah’s oration, the vicar claims that Christianity regards killing as evil and forgiveness as good, but his guest speaker has a couple of quotes from the Bible to contradict that. That doesn’t stop the vicar who has his own quotes to contradict the contradictory verses just cited. It’s like tennis, but without the bestial grunting.
Mullah Al-Jazeera then reveals he's wearing a bomb and calls on the congregation to follow him in a holy war, or does until the village constable stops him. The mad mullah disappears into the vestry with the long arm of the law in hot pursuit and the vicar himself following in a more lukewarm fashion. But when he gets into the vestry, the stands Jones the curate, the mullah having vanished.
PC Boot warns the vicar about tricksters, suddenly producing the beard, turban, hook and all from the waste basket.
As the book notes, the story may be fiction, but it’s based on actual people and events.
This is not only one of the longer dilemmas, but also the only one I can recall that doesn’t end in a question, and the discussion at the back of the book is brief. The vicar’s dilemma in the story is how to attract more people to church, but the tale itself illustrates the contradictory nature of religious texts – all love and toleration one minute; murderous intolerance the next. It’s also about the less restrained preaching of some Muslim clerics at mosques in the UK. I dare say that Clement III would’ve been tried for setting off the Crusades.
The vicar of St Bartholomew’s in Lower Little Whitteringham is desperate to get bums on seats in the church until he strikes on the idea of holding a debate with a Muslim cleric, the topic being “Will suicide bombers go to heaven?” (No, they’ll just go to pieces. [Stop that! Stop that sort of thing right now! –ed.]) Not surprisingly, the church is full and then some, and the readings come from the more violent parts of the Old Testament before Mullah Al-Jazeera, looking like a pirate right down to a hook, appears in the pulpit. (Obviously, the book’s editor was so unnerved that they overlooked the sentence, “So today Islamic and Christian churches are untied in faith.” [My italics.])
He starts preaching, reading out some of the less moderate passages from the Koran while the vicar interjects with a few Biblical passages. At the end of the mullah’s oration, the vicar claims that Christianity regards killing as evil and forgiveness as good, but his guest speaker has a couple of quotes from the Bible to contradict that. That doesn’t stop the vicar who has his own quotes to contradict the contradictory verses just cited. It’s like tennis, but without the bestial grunting.
Mullah Al-Jazeera then reveals he's wearing a bomb and calls on the congregation to follow him in a holy war, or does until the village constable stops him. The mad mullah disappears into the vestry with the long arm of the law in hot pursuit and the vicar himself following in a more lukewarm fashion. But when he gets into the vestry, the stands Jones the curate, the mullah having vanished.
PC Boot warns the vicar about tricksters, suddenly producing the beard, turban, hook and all from the waste basket.
As the book notes, the story may be fiction, but it’s based on actual people and events.
This is not only one of the longer dilemmas, but also the only one I can recall that doesn’t end in a question, and the discussion at the back of the book is brief. The vicar’s dilemma in the story is how to attract more people to church, but the tale itself illustrates the contradictory nature of religious texts – all love and toleration one minute; murderous intolerance the next. It’s also about the less restrained preaching of some Muslim clerics at mosques in the UK. I dare say that Clement III would’ve been tried for setting off the Crusades.
That’s the last dilemma on war ethics and the least relevant. Tomorrow, we embark on environmental ethics, so hug those trees and try not to worry about the roughness of the bark.
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