May 30
Arius redivivus (or not)
AKMA draws attention to the splendidly bizarre Arian Catholic Church, which seems to be a new British cult (and possibly not much more than a one man band. A little more about its beliefs in a minute, but a quick Google reveals that its recently “consecrated” Arian Catholic Primate Archbishop of York (why use one title when more will do?) is a “Most Reverend Dr. B. B. Michael John Mackenzie-Hanson, BA (Hons), DD, acOSB. and Arian Catholic Primate of the worldwide Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Nothing like a delusion or two of grandeur.
Another quick Google helps me note that at the same address as the Diocesan Office, a certain Brian B. M. J. Mackenzie-Hanson is the genealogist for the Earl of Cromartie and the Mackenzie clan, and from there it’s a short leap to discovering that the same bloke also runs a Russian-English translation service, a consultancy and design service, with software development. You’d think he might be a bit too busy to run the worldwide Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
So what does this new cult believe? Well: here’s just a taster. According to their downloadable new parishioner form, attending Mass every Saturday comes first on the list. Hmm, I’d forgotten Arius was a seventh day adventist. They note in their calendar that 1st of May is “Beltane / St James (the Less) and St Philip the Apostles - Feast” Apparently Arius was also a Gaelic pagan. According to the new parishioner form again, you have “to keep the eleven holy commandments” — and I bet you thought ten was more than enough. (You also get a bigger Bible, with the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas added in)
Oh, and because Jesus spent some time in Britain (although the real evidence is lost because that nasty Roman Catholic church burnt all the evidence) England is the natural home for one of the patriarchates of the church, as “endorsed by St Paul, St Simon Zealotes and St Joseph of Arimathea”, apparently. Okay, Arius was a British Israelite too.
At this point my mind begins to spin as much as I suspect the Arius of history might be spinning in his grave. As if it wasn’t enough being an old-fashioned Arian, now he’s got to be a sabbatarian, Gaelic, British Israelite pagan too.
Update:
Actually, it might not be such a laugh after all: see this page, where you can find this seriously nasty and objectionable quote among others:
“It is an inalienable fact that humans have evolved on the Earth into four principle sub-species and these were distributed primarily on separate continents … The Arian Catholic policy is to promote cultural identity and not multiculturalism. It is not racist to be proud of being Caucasoid, Christian and English, in just the same way as being proud of being Mongoloid, Buddhist and Mongolian! God put the mechanism in place for humanity to evolve the way it has for very good reasons (each sub-species is tailored to suit a particular continent with its own Environment and cultural ways of life), it is the Church’s belief that to work against the grain of evolution is unnatural and will result in problems that will later become disastrous for society”
May 31st, 2007 at 9:13 am
I spent (not too much) time reading through the posts on their forum. My mood changed rapidly from a sort of Pythonesque (w)risibility, ‘My goodness, aren’t we genuine Christians better than these poor misguided heretical chaps!’ to feeling I am from a parallel universe. Leaving the theology of that as a proposition to one side, I compared the challenge to me as an outsider to accept what they say as being ‘truth’ to the folk who come into church on a Sunday morning, or to a wedding or funeral, and who have no cultural or spiritual background of Christianity. Those folk, too, might draw the conclusion that we also are barking mad. I guess it comes back to Governor Pilate’s famous question, ‘What is truth?’
Elsewhere in their material, they describe the church in England pre-664 as being Arian. I think St Hilda would have a word to say on that, which might be fairly uncomplimentary! Their exegesis of Colossians as being Gnostic is in error; it is a pre-Gnostic text and the whole tenor of the Letter is to warn against dilution of the nature and completed work of Jesus leading to error, such as Arianism (see Col 2.8).
Arguments about filioque aside, I don’t see coherence offered that would accommodate Pentecost as being fully of, in and from the Godhead.
Which brings me back to my starting point: it is easy to be taken in when un- or ill-informed, which leaves a huge onus on those of us who teach or lead God’s people to speak of faith in a way that captures imagination but does not lead folk into positions of confusion or error.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Some more utterly bizarre gems from their website:
Looks as if Bruce Lee would feel at home…
It is important to keep fit and to learn self defence, this is a policy promoted by the Arian Catholic Church… Learning a Martial Art also conditions the mind through concentration and meditation, and promotes self control.
The internet is the mark of the beast:
The number of his name is the name of the beast. In the Hebrew each number is represented by a letter, and the number 6 is represented by the equivalent to “w”, therefore the name of the beast, 666 = www; could this also pertain to the World Wide Web?
And the Beast will be led by Santa Claus:
It is also interesting to note that “Santa” (a name commonly used in the English language for St Nic) is an acronym of Satan (a name for the devil), also “Saint Nic” bears similarity to “Old Nic” (another name for the devil). The Arian Catholic Church therefore concludes that the story of Santa Claus is neither necessary nor appropriate for the celebration of Christmas and there is a danger that people could be inadvertently teaching children immoral values at Christmas time instead of truly Christian values. References and imagery pertaining to Santa Claus must therefore not feature in any part of the Christmas festival.
http://holy-catholic.org.uk/arian/socio-political_lore.html