Itching for the Itchen, Vicar?

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2017/03/itching-for-itchen-vicar.html

By Daphne Anson

 

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Our old friend the Vicar of Virginia Water’s new outfit, Peacemaker Mediators, has apparently changed its registration address.

No longer, it seems, is its headquartered in Windsor but in a part of Southampton that fronts the River Itchen.

Woolston, to be precise.

That our old friend is itching to swap his pulpit for the new venture by the Itchen is suggested in a sermon of his that he  has linked to on Facebook.

Although by agreement with his diocesan overlord, the Bishop of Guildford, he’s supposed to desist from referring to the Middle East until he relinquishes his pulpit (on Easter Sunday) or immediately resign, there’s a reference there to the contemporary situation, as well as an overt plug for Peacemaker Mediators (which the vicar is plugging separately on social media now):

“[T]he most valuable piece of real estate in the world, is the Haram al Sharif, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The site on which Abraham offered Isaac, on which Solomon and Herod built their temples. The Temple Mount is sacred to 16 million Jews as well as 1.6 billion Muslims, and of interest to 2.2 billion Christians…. Were it for sale, there would be no problem getting a deposit Orthodox Jews pray 3 times a day that the Temple will be rebuilt in their life time.

More on the Middle East. The vicar shares a video.

Many Fundamentalists are dedicated to destroying the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock to achieve it. And millions of Bible-believing Christians are convinced it must happen for Jesus to return….  [T]hose who advocate the rebuilding of the Temple are regressing into a pre-Christian sacrificial system, superseded, made redundant and annulled by the finished work of Jesus Christ….

What are the implications? What was the Temple intended for? What is the Church intended to be? Open or closed? Inclusive or exclusive? The Temple was the place of mediation. It still is! And what are we called to be? Mediators. What is our primary ministry as a church? Peacemaking. That is why we are launching a new charity, Peacemaker Mediators, on Saturday 6th May here at Christ Church. This is your invitation….”

 Wouldst that the likes of David Collier might be there, to report the details of the launch!