And so we turn to the Sydney Anglicans to carry us into the new year ...

(Above: important news for dissident Catholics thinking of turning Anglican here).

Bénissez-moi, mon père, parce que j'ai péché.

Put it another way: Bless me father, for I have sinned. It is a whole month since I visited the Sydney Anglicans website. For this sin, I am deeply sorry. Whack me with a recitation of the rosary, but please, oh please, not all the beads ...

Hang on, hang on, as usual the pond is garbled and cross-wired, the pernicious confession routine has no place in the spiritual life of Sydney Anglicans, and it's time to convert those pagan Catholics to the joys of vicardom.

Yep, the pond almost missed Mark Gilbert's Would You Invite Jesus Home for Dinner?, wherein he explains the theological wickedness of the Catholic church and its recent windy, wordy alterations to the Mass, with Christmas a handy time for attempted conversion:

Why not ask your Catholic friend what they think of the changes in the Mass this Christmas, and then ask whether they think they are worthy for God to come under their roof? You might just get the chance to tell them how they can become worthy.

There's nothing like the unseemly sight of Xians squabbling over minor wording and theological niceties at Xmas time to remind the pond why a decent sturdy atheism (or even nonchalant agnosticism) allows for a much quieter life ...

One can just imagine the Anglican and Catholic friends getting into the liturgy and a barney after a sherry or three ... There's nothing like Xmas for a domestic.

In much the same way, Dr Jensen devoted part of his Xmas message to the controversies and scandals of BC/AD dating system. Well it's a scandal in the minds of some Anglicans. (Celebrating the 'world's greatest inspiration').

Will Xians ever get over their eccentric, arrogant, self-centred view of the world and its history?

... the use of BC and AD causes more problems for Christians than it solves. For one, it perpetuates the stereotype that Christians are arrogant tyrants who insist on couching all of human history (including Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, etc.) as relative to the birth of Christ. Rather than living the lives of humble servants that their Bible calls them to do, many Christians maintain that all history should be subject to their own religious claims. Even the period of history that took place before Jesus supposedly came to earth is relegated to mere anticipatory events prior to the birth of Jesus. (Why Christians Should Adopt the BCE/CE Dating System).

Arrogant tyrants? The Sydney Anglicans? The pond merely reports and you decide ...

Meanwhile, there's splendid news of how Sydney brings Morogoro to its feet.

Tanzania is of course tremendously anti-homosexual:

Any person who- (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; or (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence, and is liable to imprisonment for life and in any case to imprisonment for a term of not less than thirty years. (2) where the offence, under subsection (1) of this section is committed to a child under the age of ten years the offender shall be sentenced to life imprisonment. (wiki LGBT rights in Tanzania).

No wonder Sydney Anglicans can dance with delight in Morogoro, but you'll find little cause to dance if you happen to be gay and turn to them for a little Xian fellowship.

Campaign against prejudice and bigotry? Moi?

And now for another confession.

The pond really only wanted to take note of recent developments at the Sydney Anglican website for one quintessential reason.

Try as you might to take the Queen away from the Anglicans, you can't take the Queen out of the Anglicans, not even the dissident, 'anti-female in any position of authority within the church' Sydney Anglicans.

Naturally they provided a splash at the top of the page, along with a link to the Queen's Channel at YouTube and her 2011 broadcast, flag fluttering in the breeze, as she spoke to the value of the Xian faith.

The Queen? Long may she rule over us, happy and glorious?

The reason for Sydney's strong opposition towards the ordination of women to the presbyterate is based partly upon their interpretation of the teachings of the Apostle Paul in respect to the understanding of the Greek word kephale (κεφαλη) mentioned in Ephesians 5:23, as well as the prohibition given to female teachers in 1 Timothy 2:11 and the roles of men and women outlined in his first letter to the Corinthians. (wiki Ordination of women in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney).

Dammit, and there the Queen was, as cheerful and flush royal purple as beetroot in a salad, sounding for all the world like a female teacher to whom Sydney Anglicans should pay heed, without regard for the advice of the good book:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (1 Corinthians 14)

Of course in the very same text there's a lot of jibber jabber about speaking in tongues, so who's to make sense of it all.

And of course YouTube isn't a church, nor television networks, unless, in the Emily Dickinson-Walt Whitman - William Blake way, you take the view that the world is a church:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,

I keep it staying at Home -

With a boblink for a Chorister,

And an Orchard, for a Dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;

I just wear my wings,

And instead of tolling the bell for church,

Our little sexton sings. (Dickinson)

So maybe the Queen was singing with a palace for a Dome.

Bow down Sydney Anglicans to the Queen - on your knees thank you - and acknowledge the supreme governor and defender of the faith - a woman - and designated appointer of archbishops and bishops, opener of the Synod, Royal assenter to Measures and the promulgation of Canons ...

And by the way, where is your apostle Paul now?

Long may she rule over you and instruct you in the many errors of your many GAFCON ways ...

(Below: the Queen makes a splash, because you simply can't take the Queen out of the Anglican).