Can't you keep her, Americans?

There is this perfectly idiotic bit from the Emory University website and I couldn't RESIST fiddling with it:

Margot Kässmann (Dr. Rev.), ex-lay-bishopette and as such former head of the Protestant* church in Germany, is culturally enriching Emory University during the fall semester, serving as Distinguished Theologian-in-Residence at the university’s Candler School of Theology, and as a Distinguished Fellow of the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, which lends a so far unknown meaning to the word "distinguished".

A theologian, pastor, prolific author and able to hold more booze than an entire troop of Russians, Kässmann is an influential leader in the international ecumenical arena and an enormously popular speaker in Europe, often drawing crowds in the thousands, specifically since she was caught in a drunk-driving incident with more than three times over the limit, which proves that we have become an undiscerning, sheepish breed with a knack for the sleazy.

“When I became dean at Candler, I issued her a standing invitation to join us for a semester at our rowdy stagettes whenever she could, and I’m delighted that she has accepted,” says Love, dean of Candler. “Candler faculty and students will be able to interact personally with an extraordinarily creative, charismatic and chadbandian Christian leader. Plus, with our new strategic emphasis on internationalizing the curriculum, whatever that is worth, the fit of having her on campus for a semester could not be better”, says Jan Love. Love is, who would have thought so, female.

Since Kässmann's election in 1983 as one of the youngest members of the board of directors of the WCC, she has broken age and (retch) gender barriers within the leadership of the Protestant church, and it shows. First in 1999 with her election as the first female bishop of the Protestant Church of Hannover — the largest worldwide, then in 2009, when she was elected chair (barf) of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), the governing body of 24 million Protestants. She enjoyed (you bet) a lot of media attention and even granted interviews about intimate matters to the sleaziest of all Caesarean media whores, BILD.

Kässmann’s February 2010 voluntary resignation from her roles as bishop and chair (barf) of the EKD after a drunk-driving conviction when she had always vocally condemned all forms of "excess", has not diminished her popularity, but, as it could be expected in a totally worth- and shameless society, enhanced it: She received several standing ovations at her first major appearance after her resignation, a Bible study for 5,000 people at the Ecumenical “Kirchentag” in Munich this May, which ought to teach Catholics what ecumenism is worth.

“I think the public see her as a leader who models honesty and integrity in the face of difficulty — a model of authentic leadership at a time when too few leaders own up to the consequences of their inappropriate actions,” simpered Love lovingly. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what the slimy old bag would have said, had a Catholic bishop committed the same "inappropriate action".

Known for her administrative acumen, prophetic witness and pastoral ability to address complex dilemmas of everyday life (burp), Kässmann is the author of more than 40 books on spirituality, the quest for Christian unity, Christian social engagement and Bible study and about all other thinkable footling and fatuous attention whorish things with which a certain ilk of theologians, not all of them female, poisons the hearts and brains of the undiscerning.

During her semester at Candler, Kässmann will deliver lectures, participate in panel discussions, hen parties and preach, addressing such hilariously funny and utterly worthless topics as women’s leadership in the church, post-modern and secular challenges to the church’s mission, and Protestant spirituality, all of which are unbearable below a blood alcohol level of 1.5 o/oo.

Kässmann is the featured speaker at the following events, which are free and open to the public, which is self-explaining because otherwise she wouldn't attend anyway:

Lecture in the Luminaries Series, "The Challenges and Opportunities of Women's Leadership in the Church Worldwide," Sept. 21, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Emory’s Office of the Provost, Luminaries Series, Candler School of Theology, la Veuve Clicquot and The Halle Institute.


Preaching, preening and presiding while pissed, Reformation Day Chapel Service, Oct. 19, 11:15 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus.

Preaching at Emory University Worship Margot Service on Reformation Sunday, Oct. 31, 11:00 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. Drinks will be served.

Lecture, "Bible, Prayer and Confession: Anticipating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation," Nov. 16, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Candler School of Theology, The Halle Institute and Johnnie Walker. 


* I am not using "Evangelical Church", the literal translation of the German term "Evangelische Kirche", of which Americans are so fond. It is misleading, and so "Protestant" will have to do.

Now I was pointed at a recent bout of verbal diarrhoea of that woman, exactly one of those for which she is so widely revered in this country. She explains Americans how they ought to feel about the Ground Zero Mosque, which is, after all, ten whopping walking minutes away from Ground Zero. "Does this building of a mosque really hurts the feelings of Americans? Does it really have anything to do with the terrorist deed of September 11?" In a word: Don't make such a fuss, Amis!

How was that about the religion of the natives? It was considered inferior, dismissed, eliminated by forced baptisms, wiped out. Today there are Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists here -- and they all define themselves as Americans. [No, NOT ALL do that, Margot.] And yet there is an undercurrent: An American is Christian.

If there is a single politically correct issue, however far-fetched, in the vicinity, that woman will grab it and twist it to fit her own shallow, vain, slimy and sleazy devices.

She then goes on to inform us about the evil Pilgrim Fathers and their rigid understanding of religion, and goes on -- as a German SHE CAN NOT HELP IT -- to wax lyrically about the Koran burning of that "fundamentalist" pastor in Florida that never happened and how hurtful this was for, yes, not just Muslims, but specifically for us as Germans -- the entire old schtick of the child molester who thinks he is especially qualified for a job as a kindergarden teacher.

She left out, I guess yet and just, the slavery issue, and I spare you the rest, Americans. Frankly, I've got neither the time nor the stomach to translate the rest of that totally predictable, hackneyed, undignified drivel. Here we have a woman, a woman who holds a doctorate in theology, a woman who used to head one of the largest Protestant churches worldwide, a woman who has supposedly taught for two months now at an American university, a woman who IS BOUND TO HAVE spoken to Americans, a woman who still doesn't know how Americans, her hosts, think, feel and define themselves. Why? Because she doesn't give a damn as long as she looks pretty in her priestly cassock.

In a word: a woman.

She is supposed to come back to Germany later this year. Do me a favour: Keep her!

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

The Slave Driverette of Modernity

Margot Kässmann, ex-bishopette of Hannover and ex-"chair" of the council of EKD and thus the highest-ranking of Protestant bishops of both sexes in Germany, retired in February, following a drunk driving incident.

The -- inevitable -- demise was taken as a sign of human strength as well as the drunken joyride was taken as an endearing sign of being "just human". She is an expert of and always appealing to basic human stupidity and laziness, for example when she was shameless enough to equate radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and when she draw a big slime trail right through the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced, another matter that proves to her adoring followership how cute and endearingly human she is.

Three months and presumably one withdrawal treatment later, the demoted bishopette-soon-to-be-papette made a triumphant return to public life and was received at the oecumenic church congress (Kirchentag) at Munich last week with standing ovations. Serves the Catholic Church right for supporting something that starts with "oecumen". As a staunch opponent of the war in Afghanistan, she spoke about the transformation of a weapon of war into a sign of hope, long bow, rainbow and all that. Yes, we yawned too.

At a sermon in the gallant Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, Munich Archbishop’s own cathedral, no less, Kässmann warned against "demonising" birth control. "We may, however, see it as a gift from God as well" and, with her very own idiosyncratic ability to travel on a slime trail through theology, concluded "for it is about the preservation of life, of freedom, which doesn’t have to degenerate at once into pornography, as much as the sexualisation of our society is, of course, a problem." Can you stomach more? "It’s about love without fear and about responsible parenthood. And for women "it’s about concern for their own lives and those of their own children." Well, whatever. You get the general idea.

Cheers! (Yes I know, that was cheap.)

Dear Catholic Church, your son G. K. Chesterton once said: "The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age." If you want to survive, spiritually and physically, run for the hills at the first sound of "oecumen...", and let the rest have a jolly good time with Ms. Kässmann.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Surprised, Anybody?

The pastoral head of the umbrella organisation of Germany's Protestant churches has admitted drunk-driving after having passed a red light and being caught with a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit. This is not the first time the church leader has made headlines. Criticising Catholic teachings on homosexuality, the ordination of women and celibacy come to mind. The calling for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan in a sermon on New Year's Day became well known or, if you like, notorious, as well. The representative of Germany's 25 million Protestants, who revels in the role of a moral authority, who has in that capacity criticised bankers for their greed during the financial crisis and condemned all forms of "excess", vocally declared that "Nothing is good in Afghanistan" and urged a speedy withdrawal of the German troops.

Now I will let you in on a secret about German psychology. You can bet your last penny that, if a German opposes a war -- ANY war -- he is really, deep down, opposing WWII, where the evil Americans attacked a trusting and innocent Germany to prevent it from completing their great patriotic deed.

"There is no such thing as a 'just war.' I cannot legitimize it from a Christian point of view," the bishop had stated, and: "There is nothing right in Afghanistan. All these strategies have just obscured the fact that soldiers are using their guns and even killing civilians."

Asked whether that applies to the war against Nazi Germany as well, the reply was affirmative: "They always say, if the Allies hadn’t attacked there wouldn’t have been freedom. But I say — why wasn’t there a strategy to avoid war? Why wasn’t the German opposition to Hitler strengthened? Why weren’t the rails leading to Auschwitz bombed?" And who gives an aviating fornication for the fact that is was the "strategy to avoid war" in the first place that enabled Hitler to turn into a threat to the entire free world.

Predictably, such history-relativising and responsibility-misaligning statements evoked a groundswell of support from the leftist German mainstream, public and media.

And now for the really interesting detail: The bishop is, interest- but not really amazingly, a bishoppette.

That women, known for granting the disgusting German tabloid BILD (no links to BILD from my blogs) interviews about her love life and her theology, never misses a snide remark about the Catholic church, like, for example "I'm not an infallibe papette", which proves either that she doesn't deserve her doctorate in theology or that she is an intellectually dishonest hack and oughtn't to head a Protestant kindergarden, let alone the Protestant church. Papal infallibility is clearly defined, strictly limited and has been executed twice, namely by Pope Pius IX in 1854 regarding the Immaculate Conception and by Pope Pius XII in 1950, defining the Assumption of Mary. But that theologian can safely assume that BILD readers don't know that anyway and whatever if it only makes such a great point against that evil old man in Rome whose throne even SHE (SHE SHE!) won't be -- horribile dictu -- able to reach. All this, mind you, goes by the label of "improving ecumenism".

We have, incidentally, reported on Margot Kässmann already when she was shameless enough to equate the radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and about the big slime spot she left in the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced.

But as usual, not the problem is the problem, but how people react to it. The entire leftist public and media have their Attends in a knot to protect this paragon of leftist, i.e. rotten-to-the-core and depraved, values. Her organisation explicitly "covers her back" and the online fora are atwitter with statements saying that this is basically a good thing because it proves that she is, after all, human. And that when we all thought, just like she did herself, that she is godlike. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what had happened, had a Catholic bishop made the same "honest mistake".

I, personally, find it almost a relief that her statements can now safely be dismissed not just as the the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged woman drugged by the thought of her own importance, but as the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged alcoholic woman drugged by the thought of her own importance. With a blood alcohol level of 1.54 o/oo, a non-alcoholic would have been, at best, able to find the next lavatory in time, but not his car, let alone open it, start it and drive it. That is not bad in itself, she is neither the first nor the last alcoholic in such an office, what IS bad is that she thought that she could get away with it (and that, so it seems, she WILL get away with it) and didn't even bother to call a taxi. Being high on one's own inflated ego and being high on alcohol is, in the end, difficult to tell apart, or so I guess.

If Margot Kässmann was, so far, the first bishopette of the German Protestant church, she is now the first booze-bishopette of the same church. And the latter is only the to-be-expected consequence of the former.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Rather, Let Them Be in Submission

... because if not, THAT will happen:

Why Women Oughn't To Be Holding A Public Office

SPIEGEL ONLINE reported last Friday, that Wolfgang Bosbach, a fairly prominent Christian Democrat politician, dared, in the light of the recent arrests of would-be terrorists who are ethnic German converts to Islam, to say that Germany needs to keep a closer eye on their Muslim converts. He said, too, that such converts seek out contact with violent and fanatic Islamist groups, which is specifically dangerous, because in such cases the attackers come from the midst of German society. Bosbach said that the monitoring of converts ought to be considered. This, predictably, triggered off angry twittering from the most odious of Gutmenschen, bishops of the Protestant church. In this spirit, the Protestant (female) Bishop of Hannover, Margot Kässmann, warned against overreacting because, although converts are often specifically ardent fighters for their religion, "that is found within Christianity as well."

Picture: DPA.
Right, Margot. And now tell me where and when the last Christian bomber, suicide or not, butchered dozens, hundreds, thousands of innocent bystanders.

Kässmann is the bishop whose divorce caused some moderate cluck-clucking in the media and a lot of boring soulsearching and some clever bible-interpretation by her. "Marriage", so Kässmann, "is a good and right institution ... But the bible says, too: 'Whatever you wish to loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16, 19)'". What the bishop and doctor of theology did not say was that this word of Christ has nothing to do with divorce ("If you manage to get a divorce on earth you will be shot of your husband in heaven [Thank God!] as well") but is about the redemption from culpability by mutual forgiveness. She, too, subtly changed the quote. The original quote says 'Whatever you will loose on earth will be loosed in heaven', which proves that she knew what she was saying and is probably cleverer than her simpering (don't I just LOVE that word!) picture suggests.

Kässmann, too, wrote to the pastors of her diocese about her divorce: "It has been an immensely difficult step, which needed a lot of trust in God." Maybe a leading ... person of the church thinks he/she/it HAS to talk such drivel, and I wonder whether one of her pastors asked her why she didn't stick to the biblical command of marital faithfulness in the first place if violating it was so terrifically difficult and needed so much trust in God.

The shameless arbitrariness, blatant cynisism and lack of any ethical compass from what is supposed to be our elite is as frightening as sickmaking and we need not to be amazed that we can now add cowardice to this roster.

I don't really know how to translate "Bischöfin", the female form of the German word Bischof. Is it bishopette or bishopeuse? What sounds more vile?

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My blog entry The Muslim faith is not a totalitarian dictatorship from last December may be interesting in this context.

Lawrence Auster's blog is always worth a look. He is never shuns the truth and has lately provided an interesting link to a blog of which I wasn't aware so far, Wise Man's Heart. The Wise Man blogger offers some interesting thoughts on the German reaction to Muslim terrorists from within. His thoughts on women and voting are worth following as well. The reactions this mere play with thoughts triggered off are almost comical to watch.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.