Not Threadbare

"Seldom do people discern Eloquence under a threadbare cloak."

-Juvenal

J.I. "Mr. Orthodox" Packer and Priestess Pal

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

It being Sunday, and all, the Toad has a few things to take care of. However, some recent yawping about the “death of Anglo-catholicism” brushed him the wrong way, and everyone (or, at least those readers who are sentient) knows the motto of this blog, “Don’t Goad the Toad!”

First it was the aptly named J.I. Packer, a theologian of the evangelical variety who spun out a little piece entitled, Anglicanism: Protestant or Catholic. You can find it by looking up the title, but, sufficed to say the august Packer spills much ink re-hashing the same tired arguments of 100 or more years ago-the sort of grating anti-Catholic bigotry dressed up in fancy language that makes The Secret History of the Oxford Movement look like an encomium. He concludes with the statement:


Anglo–Catholicism, once embraced as a remedy against rationalism and humanism, has proved inadequate to the job. Historically foreign to the true tradition of English and American churchmanship, it has become exactly what it initially sought to combat: it is liberal, lawless, and radical in the extreme.

Really? Dr. Toad thought that was the province of those places where the “true tradition of English and American churchmanship” of the Protestant flavor has yielded such freakish products as Robinson, Schori, and Williams. Not much of the Anglo-catholic in those jokers, bunky. It was the pure-D "mainstream" Protestant side of the house that gave us that freakshow, whilst Mr. Orthodox and the gang passed resolutions, drew lines in the sand, and generally gave a hearty ecclesiastic middle finger to all those "continuing church" Anglo-catholics. Oh, yeah, J.I., that would be the same A-Cs who had the guts to walk away from their buildings and comfy positions to maintain actual orthodoxy. Glad to see you catching up after thirty years, old shoe. (Oh, yeah, who is that priestess in the blue stole? Friend of yours?)

If it weren't enough to engage in the same tired rant that A-Cs have listened to since the days of Pusey, the Pack-man also had to try to hit below the appropriate regions:

Today we can even find Anglican churches in which the interior differs in no way from that of a Roman Catholic church. Anglican churches in which The Lord's Supper is again considered the sacrifice of the Mass; in which the priest wears Catholic vestments; and in which nearly all the Roman Catholic devotions such as benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, recitation of the rosary, and veneration of Mary and the saints have been introduced. However, by far the majority of Anglicans find this all as strange as does a Dutch Protestant.

Whoa, nelly! Vestments, you say? Catholic vestments. you say? Well, the Toad ain’t no Dutch Protestant and doesn’t want to be. I mean the threads they wear tell all, and perhaps they say a little something about old J.I. who is seen above in drab Protestant regalia with one of his priestess buddies. Whose orthodox now, pally? Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

We here at the Barking Toad won't take this, or the accompanying Catholic bash by an ever-original writer claiming the moniker “The Voice of Global Orthodox Anglicanism” (the one with the DD that is as fake as the Toad’s that he can’t stop using). No siree! We dialed up our friends at C.M. Almy and got us a little in-your-face regalia-the kind that really sets off the likes of old J.I. Packer and the dreary boys and girls who seem to feel so awfully threatened by the por old A-Cs.

To all of this the Rev. Dr. Roy "Barking" Toad says, "Take that Tippet Boy!" Your cassock and surplice are no match for the sartorial splendor of an Anglo-Catholic in his "Romish" vestments. Check out the orphreys on this number! And this is my Low Mass set, pally. (Oops, used the word "Mass"-papist alert!)

The Rev. Dr. Roy Toad, Late Vicar
St. Swithun's, Little Hopping
Mole Valley, Dorking, Surrey, U.K.
Current Annual Fund Chairman, DDOS
(Dorking Dramatic & Operatic Society)

Just remember, boys and girls, here at the Barking Toad it’s “Fop ‘till you drop!”

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD (an absolutely fake degree and proud of it!), LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking