Barking, they're all barking.
No offence to dogs or those who own them. But they are, Barking!
I looked up Mountebank on Google.
The etymology of this word is derived from the Italian, mont am banco, so as a sometime Chaplain to the Anglican Congregation in Genoa I felt qualified to observe that there is a resonance with current statements emanating from the Prime Ministers office.
Building on this Doctor Johnson in his essential Dictionary, of which I have a revised edition with the date 1870 marked in faint pencil on the flyleaf, Johnson defined a mountebank as 'A Doctor that mounts a bench in the market and boasts his infallible remedies and cures'.
Well, that strikes me as a somewhat appropriate definition for the recent outburst of Christian Apologia from a PM who claims, unlike Mr Blair, to do God, as Alastair Campbell put it when correcting his boss.
Not only do we hear that indeed, 'We now do God', but the claim is reinforced by other Tory commentators, and underlined by an Article in the Church Times and other speeches about the warm glow that comes from sitting in the family pew.
So this Easter we are treated to the sight of politicians of the right, climbing onto a bench, or as John Major preferred soap box, and boasting not only that their infallible remedies and cures are working but that Jesus would have approved because austerity has brought out the best in people and the big society is actually coming into being as the victims of austerity reach out to assist one another.
Barking!
So how does the sermon of the mountebank compare with the Sermon on the Mount?
Clearly the sayings of Jesus collected into the NT passage known as the Sermon on the Mount are, essentially, spiritual in nature, key words qualify each statement, poor is qualified as, in spirit, those who mourn will be comforted, those who hunger and thirst do so for righteousness and those who show mercy will receive mercy, and the peacemakers become children of God.
But in the middle of austerity Britain, regaled by spokespersons for most of yesterday because the line on the graph showing wages had just touched the line showing inflation, meaning that if you had managed to hang onto your job through thick and thin, if your employer had kept your job open despite the investment poor environment he was operating within, if you were not someone on a zero hours contract or had not become, 'self employed', were not on benefits or disabled then the tax on your poverty, which is what inflation is, was about to be balanced out by the fact that your take home poor had reached the level it had been before the great crash.
I have always been in the company of various commentators on the sermon on the mount who see it as offering a radical programme.
There is little of value in offering someone deferred gratification by way of, if you're poor you're blessed because you are guaranteed entry into the Kingdom, especially when we pray your kingdom come on earth.
Poverty can be a spiritual blessing if it is chosen but not if it means days worrying how to pay the rent or feed your children, the kingdom should be our action plan for here and now, not where and when.
Those who mourn the death of hope as they wait for Atos or the DWP to get round to assessing their claim should be comforted by prompt and efficient action to enable them to rise to the challenges imposed by the crises they face.
The rise in food banks are not a sign of the big society they are a national disgrace but at least those who are hungry and thirsty are being filled.
The justice system is constantly struggling to show mercy but faced with the rhetoric of those hard liners clamouring for punishment it is hard to see where mercy will come from and in what form.
Jesus saw those who seek peace as the true children of God but we hang on to Trident and rattle our sabres at every opportunity and the world becomes an increasingly dangerous place.
So yesterday we were told that the remedies and cures imposed on us by a coalition government we didn't vote for have had a miraculous effect, well sorry to spoil the party (again!) but I don't think so.
It's a choice, the Sermon on the Mount, radical change and social transformation or the Sermon of the Mountebank, you choose .......
.
No offence to dogs or those who own them. But they are, Barking!
I looked up Mountebank on Google.
The etymology of this word is derived from the Italian, mont am banco, so as a sometime Chaplain to the Anglican Congregation in Genoa I felt qualified to observe that there is a resonance with current statements emanating from the Prime Ministers office.
Building on this Doctor Johnson in his essential Dictionary, of which I have a revised edition with the date 1870 marked in faint pencil on the flyleaf, Johnson defined a mountebank as 'A Doctor that mounts a bench in the market and boasts his infallible remedies and cures'.
Well, that strikes me as a somewhat appropriate definition for the recent outburst of Christian Apologia from a PM who claims, unlike Mr Blair, to do God, as Alastair Campbell put it when correcting his boss.
Not only do we hear that indeed, 'We now do God', but the claim is reinforced by other Tory commentators, and underlined by an Article in the Church Times and other speeches about the warm glow that comes from sitting in the family pew.
So this Easter we are treated to the sight of politicians of the right, climbing onto a bench, or as John Major preferred soap box, and boasting not only that their infallible remedies and cures are working but that Jesus would have approved because austerity has brought out the best in people and the big society is actually coming into being as the victims of austerity reach out to assist one another.
Barking!
So how does the sermon of the mountebank compare with the Sermon on the Mount?
Clearly the sayings of Jesus collected into the NT passage known as the Sermon on the Mount are, essentially, spiritual in nature, key words qualify each statement, poor is qualified as, in spirit, those who mourn will be comforted, those who hunger and thirst do so for righteousness and those who show mercy will receive mercy, and the peacemakers become children of God.
But in the middle of austerity Britain, regaled by spokespersons for most of yesterday because the line on the graph showing wages had just touched the line showing inflation, meaning that if you had managed to hang onto your job through thick and thin, if your employer had kept your job open despite the investment poor environment he was operating within, if you were not someone on a zero hours contract or had not become, 'self employed', were not on benefits or disabled then the tax on your poverty, which is what inflation is, was about to be balanced out by the fact that your take home poor had reached the level it had been before the great crash.
I have always been in the company of various commentators on the sermon on the mount who see it as offering a radical programme.
There is little of value in offering someone deferred gratification by way of, if you're poor you're blessed because you are guaranteed entry into the Kingdom, especially when we pray your kingdom come on earth.
Poverty can be a spiritual blessing if it is chosen but not if it means days worrying how to pay the rent or feed your children, the kingdom should be our action plan for here and now, not where and when.
Those who mourn the death of hope as they wait for Atos or the DWP to get round to assessing their claim should be comforted by prompt and efficient action to enable them to rise to the challenges imposed by the crises they face.
The rise in food banks are not a sign of the big society they are a national disgrace but at least those who are hungry and thirsty are being filled.
The justice system is constantly struggling to show mercy but faced with the rhetoric of those hard liners clamouring for punishment it is hard to see where mercy will come from and in what form.
Jesus saw those who seek peace as the true children of God but we hang on to Trident and rattle our sabres at every opportunity and the world becomes an increasingly dangerous place.
So yesterday we were told that the remedies and cures imposed on us by a coalition government we didn't vote for have had a miraculous effect, well sorry to spoil the party (again!) but I don't think so.
It's a choice, the Sermon on the Mount, radical change and social transformation or the Sermon of the Mountebank, you choose .......
.
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