Welcome, Cindy

I spent most of today at my friend Cindy's house. Michael spent most of today playing with her kids. I discovered that she has a new blog, which I have added to the links section over at the right.

I told her that I am thinking about splitting my personalities, and mentioned that I had created a temporary blog just for Uriel's posts. Here's the best part: She didn't ask who Uriel is. She already knew.

Cindy and her husband are uber-Catholics. One day a few years ago, they were visiting us, and we must have started talking about what Anglicans believe. I don't really remember the details. What I do remember is that I figured this would be easy to resolve: Grab the trusty old prayer book and turn to page 699: Articles of Religion.

I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. No problem.

II. - V. Various things about Jesus and the Holy Spirit. No problem.

VI. Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation. (Yeah, the capitalization is a bit odd.) There is a list of Canonical Books and a list of books that the church doth not apply to establish any doctrine. Already, things were a bit off. You see, the Catholic Bible includes extra books that Protestants doth not apply to establish any doctrine. But this wasn't a problem. It was more of an idle curiosity. The real fun started at:

XXII. Of Purgatory: The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God. Well. If you ever want to stop a party, haul out an official-looking leather-bound book that tells your guests in no uncertain terms that your religion officially teaches that their religion is repugnant.

It didn't get better. Having public prayer in a language not understanded of the people was also listed as repugnant. Transubstantiation was listed as repugnant. The book also stated in no uncertain terms that it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one. Yikes.

Cindy's husband calls the Anglican Articles of Religion the "list of repugnants". I don't think I'll be pulling THAT book out at parties anytime soon.