Sunday Supplement: 'The Bible in the Light of Modern Thought'

Sir Richard Arcos here again: This Sunday I was at Loddon Road Methodist Chapel, Bacon St. Anne's. The Minister there, the Rev. Dr. Playce-Filler, DD, is a noted graduate of the now-defunct central Wesleyan College, and a man whose scholarship cannot be doubted, since he has written twenty-nine books, none of which anyone has read.

I was welcomed by a smiling woman at the door, who handed me a hymn book and a notice sheet. There was a meeting on Tuesday for 'woman and toddlers' - I pointed out the error, only to be told that it wasn't, but descriptive of the actual numbers. There was also a social set of meetings and social work. A woman was preaching the next week. When the Rev. Playce-Filler entered the pulpit the congregation stood. He read a prayer from a book, before announcing 'Jesus the Name High Over All.'

The congregation belted this out with gusto, after which the venerable heresiarch [minister, surely? ed.] proceeded to observe that Charles Wesley had a wonderful poetic gift. He read a piece of verse he had read that week, which proved he didn't have a gift of choosing good poems. The reading was on Isaiah 44:9-17, the title was 'Practical Religion.'

Speaking about the idol-maker who burned half the cedar and worshipped the other, the minister observed that this man had a religion that benefitted him. His religious observance was useful for him, as his idol making also provided him with firewood. He asked if our religious onservance was as practical. Did we warm and feed people as well as serving God in our worship. I just kept from exploding.

The minister went on to say that this part of the Bible was not written by Isaiah at all, but this was the product of some man after the return from Babylon, whose book was added to another book. In fact, he went on, the whole Bible was not written by the people whose names were attached to it, but other people. In fact, he went on, Wesley's Journals were not written by John Wesley, but by another man of the same name. His own books, he went on, were not written by him, but by another man with his name. the same man who had fathered his children...

At this point the venerable pastor climbed down from the pulpit and began to tell us that we were all illusions and that someone had replaced him with a clone and that his wife was trying to leave himfor another man with his name. The men in white were called and he was quietly taken away.