Anglican true believers and Fahrenheit 451

Whenever you see an Episcopal church or what used to be an Episcopal Church in the United States calling itself "Anglican," you can bet it's a fundamentalist version of the historic Anglican tradition, and has broken with that tradition over issues such as biblical inerrancy and/or abortion and/or homosexuality.

Christ Church Anglican in Jacksonville, Florida is one of those and is now affiliated with a homophobic Anglican outfit in Rwanda.

A fledgling congregation, they have purchased land in Jacksonville upon which formerly rested a drive-in theater. Plans are underway to build a new church building on that land.

But, there was a slight problem, according to Fr. Mark Eldridge.

When they went into the old building on the site, they stumbled upon "Just stacks and stacks of old pornographic movies."

Yup. Right there. On that old drive-in's site. What pornographic movies would be doing at a drive-in theater is anybody's guess.

How did the Rev know they were "pornographic"? you ask. He put it this way: "...we didn't actually have to look at the films to know -- the titles on the outside of the cases gave it away."

Hmmm. Titles like "Solomon and his Concubines"? Or "David and Jonathan"? Or "Sampson and Delicious Delilah"? Or "Lot and His Daughters in the Cave"? or "Mary Magdalene in the Garden"?


Anyway, Eldridge and his parishioners knew they had to rid themselves of this trash. And what better way than to burn them? So a bunch of church members gathered to set them ablaze with the local fire department standing by just in case the whole damn neighborhood went up in flames.

Eldridge, being a good Christian, said, "I prayed and asked God to bless the water and the truck to make it holy water, and then jokingly called it the 'holy hose down.' And they just sprayed the land down again symbolically cleansing it and claiming it for God's glory."

Of course. What a sense of humor!


As silly and inane as all this might seem, it still bothers me. Burning? Bonfire? Doth such doings not reek of fear and paranoia?

The burning of books ( & movies) has a long history of nastiness. Often it was done by those in authority out of fear their minions might be subjected to information deemed harmful by the poohbahs.

Worse than that, though, is that burning of books quite frequently led to the burning of the people who wrote the books and then to those who dared read the books.

The Christian church burned books, their writers, their readers, witches, heretics, so-called criminals, and others who they viewed as a threat for hundreds of years. The Nazis burned lots of books.

All of which reminds me of the classic movie, Fahrenheit 451, based on Ray Bradbury's novel. It tells of a totalitarian society in which books are forbidden. The fire department exists, not to put out fires, but to burn "threats" to society, like books. Thus the title: Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which a book will burn.

Maybe the good folks at Christ Church Anglican ought to watch the movie.

Here's a clip.