Gangsta Rap and the Ecclesiastic Life

I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times. People was trying to kill me.
-Tupac Shakur (gangsta’ rapper, killed at age 25 in a drive by shooting)

I don't have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated.
-Tupac Shakur

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

Out in Washington, D.C., Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) held a little hearing. Nothing unusual there: Congress holds more hearings then there are fraudulent seminaries and hokey prelates, although the latter may be more honest than many secular leaders—and better dressed. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

While the Toad usually stays away from readings of the Congressional Record, Bobby’s hearing, titled "From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images," caught this amphibious one’s eye. Inspired by the furor over fired radio host Don Imus and his “ho” talk, the Bobster decided to get down with the problem of the cultural debasement by the makers of sexually depraved and racially charged rap music. The Toad doesn’t suppose a similar hearing could be held on the effects of the “pro-choice” industry on the culture, but, hey, we’ll take what we can get!

The Toad gives the congressman credit for a countercultural stand when he said this music of violence and degradation has ''reduced too many of our youngsters to automatons, those who don't recognize life, those who don't value life.'' He was unequivocal. “There is a problem -- a deep-seated, deeply rooted problem in our country,” he said. “The paycheck is not an excuse for being part of the problem.”

Well, it isn’t the cash paycheck that is the problem with the “roll your own catholic church” crowd, boys and girls. Nosiree! But it is some sort of emotional and spiritual payback that causes a pipe-fitter to play priest and a busboy to be a bishop. There must be something that makes a guy put up a website hawking a “seminary” offering “degrees” and asking the guy who woke up this morning and felt a “vocation” coming on for bucks to quench that spiritual fire. (Or, was it the refrieds you had last night while watching EWTN and complaining about modern liturgy?)

Maybe, it’s simply like the late Tupac said, “Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.” The Toad doubts it, though, but he ain’t no Continental philosopher-he’s a toad—the Toad—and the Toad knows metaphysics, the laws of supply and demand and a few other things he ponied up some good beer money to learn. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

Nope. Even, for those who have some sort of theological training, there’s gotta’ be a return in declaring that their “jurisdiction” is the true church and ‘dissing the other folks. This ain’t psychology, it’s economics; it’s return on emotional capital. You want psychology, bunky? Do what the Toad does and call Dr. Phil’s radio show. (A word to the pathological, Dr. Phil only lets you call in once every couple of weeks, but Dr. Toad will let you comment your heart out. Just send me money—right now.)

But, here’s the rub for you “big” (and the Toad uses that term advisedly) “legitimate” continuing Anglicans, as well as you roll your own catholics who happen to have a bit of real training-what “authenticity” are you after? This seems to be the lynchpin for your existence, and is the basis for many florid and lengthy pronouncements, concordats and musings. The Toad is particularly fond of the lengthy exchanges by one continuing Anglican group (you know who you are) and its crafty minions questioning the authenticity of other groups. C’mon gang, this is a bit like Phillippe Dauman, the president of Viacom extolled the vile rantings of the gangsta’ piously pronouncing, “We have a responsibility to speak authentically to our viewers.” There you go, it’s all about a little authenticity.

The Toad suspects that much of this involves authority. Tupac summed it up when he said, “I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.” There you have it. I am a leader, but you know I just don’t respect the authority of those other guys, so I’ll get a website, a couple of fake degrees, some fancy duds and, I am my own authority. Gangsta’ church.

Well, boys and girls, “due to a growing feeling that the gangsta’ rappers have grown far too negative,” rap sales slid a whopping 21 percent from 2005 to 2006. Does that word “negative” ring a bell? There’s no negative in the gangsta’ church-just carefully worded statements providing a somewhat erudite veneer for dissin’ other Christians, followed by the old retreat and sneer. In the toad’s neighborhood, that will result in someone busting a cap in your ecclesiastic…well…in your Belgian lace surplice.

How about taking a look at those numbers among practitioners of drive-by Anglicanism, gangsta’ church or, for that matter, those who just believe “pimpin up da’ church” with e-bay frippery is the path to salvation? And what of the ecclesiastic equivalent of the gangsta’ name—you know, the “venerables” and “arches” and “doctors” that are the substitutes for “Ice-T”, “Snoop Dog”, and “Murder One”?

Well, the Toad is going to be after those numbers, and is going to post them here to bust that cap…at least in an editorial sense. And, bunky, you can make all of the internet statements about “numbers not being important” you want, but if you can hold church in your chopped Chevy, maybe you need to find another tune to sing. If gangsta’ church is a sickness, the public seems to be getting immunized, and the Toad aims to help. Why? Because, as St. Elvis said, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.”

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious), LSMFT
*The Sound of One Toad Barking

SPECTATOR SHOES

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.
-Epictetus

A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined.
-Anne Petry

The spectator shoe is also known as the "co-respondent."
-Wikipedia


Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

You know, boy and girls, the Toad is all about style. After all, isn’t that what the church style aspires to? Whether it’s a fancy get up snared after heated E-bay combat, or that retro martini shaker in on the empire drinks cart in the rectory, flash says cash even when there might be no “there” there. As Tommy Carlyle once pointed out, “The first purpose of clothes... was not warmth or decency, but ornament.... Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries.” And it looks like there are barbarians enough to go around.


You know what we are talking about—some of you out there reading the Toad are even living it. Whether it’s the fake sheepskin on the wall or the sumptuous vestments clothing the wolf, there are too many hanging on the trappings of the faith, and not building it up. Clothes, particularly clerical attire and vestments, can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or, indeed, lie and apply subtle pressure. The result is written in the courthouse records or in Anson’s Bishops at Large or, in the event of the more outré cases, both.


It was in the course of this clothing-based reverie, the Toad pondered his spectator shoes-you know, two-tone beauties, a bit like saddle shoes. Mine are black and white, just like truth and falsehood, or the difference between fake and real clergy. Spectators are a theological and ecclesiological paradigm in footwear.


The Toad is reliably informed that other colors of spectators are not unheard of. One John Lobb, the famous English boot maker (and suspected seminary dean), claims to have designed the first spectator as a cricket shoe in 1868. They became popular as dressy sports shoes, after the Duke of Windsor adopted them. And, hey, if the Duke of Windsor is wearing them, well they have to be right.


Mind you, bunky, the Toad ain’t giving up his sense of aesthetics particularly on clothes. After all, it is a Dickensian axiom that, “Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed.” And, the Toad, while never in good temper, is always in good spirits. In the Toad’s view, though, just like fake seminaries, the more covering one sees on one of these ecclesiastic swells, the more Toad wonders what or who or how many folks are lurking under them. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*


It is the difference between a spectator and a co-respondent—a light and darkness motif in shoe leather. Now, you remember, co-respondents, don’t you boys and girls? They were those oily guys with the pencil-thin moustaches, slicked hair and natty suits who were essential to the English divorce case. After all, ‘twas a time when you needed adultery to get unhitched, and, whether photographed climbing out the window or caught in flagrante, the co-respondent was a vital player in the drama. In fact, a cottage industry arose to deal with those divorce cases in which adultery wasn’t present. Specious adulterers would be commissioned to provide the necessary condition to get the parties unhitched, sometimes appearing in several cases a week, in sporting attire right down to the co-respondent shoes.


The point is that like the Toad’s spiffy spectators, which either can glide him across the dance floor or get put where the sun don’t shine, church aesthetics can be used for good or bad. A snazzy cope can clothe the devout priest or bishop, or it can camouflage the scoundrel. Just cruise on over to the links on Anglicans Online http://anglicansonline.org/ or one of the Independent Catholic Movement http://www.ind-movement.org/ (sort of free-range “catholics”) pages and check out the finery. There’s a lot of trimming on those ecclesiastic trees. The Toad particularly likes the onion dome miter for evening wear.


Maybe it’s just the case that, when you can't do something truly useful, you tend to vent the pent up energy in something useless but available, like snappy dressing.” Perhaps fashion is like the id: it makes you desire things you shouldn't, like pretending to be a fully-formed and trained deacon, priest, bishop, archbishop, archimandrite or cut-rate pope. Or, maybe, it is just a matter of spectators gone bad, and turned into co-respondents.


The Toad may be cynical, after all he has been around the ecclesiastical block once or twice. The Toad philosophy is not as cynical as good, old Hermie “Where’s me leg?” Melville, who noted, “Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear!”


Nevertheless, we just have to bark about the folks who dress up like Spanish madrigals and construct internet “jurisdictions”, “communions” and “seminaries” clad with similar electronic finery, all sprinkled with the initials of hoked-up degrees and whole-cloth religious “orders”. (On this latter topic, if you are a married, 350-pounder with a day job at Wal-Mart and ESPN on the cable, you ain’t no monk, pally. so take off the faked-up Cistercian get-up already or the Toad’s gonna’ come for you!)

The co-respondents have gotten so bold as to trade on their trappings in the public arena. Just this week the toad learned of one skeezer who, in addition to having more e-Bay acquired religious accessories than Barbie® has outfits, has obtained a public office trading on a masters and doctorate obtained from a now closed diploma mill, and a purported undergraduate degree from an institution that never has offered a major in that discipline. Geez-don’t people do background checks any more? But, he looks marvelous!

If that weren’t bad enough, the Toad also received a noxious bit of e-mail reporting on an “Anglican continuing church priest” who really took it downtown. Seems that he was holding himself out as a physician and was writing scrips and giving injections. Guess he needed a “tentmaker” job to keep up on the Almy payments. Rawk, rawk, rawk!* (Left) R. Vilatte, Bishop Co-Respondent and Man About Town

Bottom line, gang, if you are wearing co-respondents, at best you are harming the faithful and putting your own soul at risk. Find a better hobby than playing church (or doctor), or at least pony up for the premium cable package to keep you off the street. Better that than getting found out, and, find you out we will, pally.

Meantime, the Toad is polishing up the spectators for a night of gin and skittles at the ballroom dance competition. At least unlike the co-respondent wearers of “independent catholic
land”, he knows that the 1940s are over and his zoot suit with the reet pleat and snap brim are fashion accessories to a fantasy.

As for you alleged clergy who are fakin’ it through, “Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.” (William Hazlitt, On the Clerical Character, 1819). Or, in the words of Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon, “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the pattern.”

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious), LSMFT, TIAD**
*The sound of one Toad Barking
**Truth Is an Absolute Defense

Martini-ism in America

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
-Hunter S. Thompson

Good evening, Toads and Toadettes,

Once again, the Toad has been trolling the backwaters and brackish bayous of Christendom these last few days applying the fraudulizer™ to a few select institutions for your delectation. Some time ago, we had visited the Table-Top “seminary” of the Anglican Church of Virginia. However, the, shall we say, extravagant claims of this little group to membership caused us to take a closer look.

In its lengthy news page, the ACOVA boasts new “international” bishops added to its already star-studded retinue. The group included one Rt. Rev. Lic I. Canot, and the name proved too unusual to keep from looking. These groups are like bad motor accidents: you just don’t want to gaze on the unsightly carnage, but you just have to. So we hopped on over to Bp. Canot’s group, the IGLESIA ANGLICANA LATINO-AMERICANA in the Dominican Republic only to find some baby pictures of somebody’s little bishop in training and the Spanish version of the usual web façade of another tiny group. But, by heavens, the links page entitled “Cristianismo” provided the real pay dirt, the kind of outré stuff that makes it all worthwhile.

ACOVA’s newest buddies are tied in some way, perhaps through the emanations from the pleroma (that's something to look up for you theologians), to one Bishop Timothy, Spiritual Director of The Arimathea Institute, Primate of the Celtic Church USA , and Archbishop of the Apostolic Guardian Church of Grace and Blessings. Whoa, there! That’s a lot of sees to be seeing, particularly that Grace and Blessings bit.

But wait, boys and girls, there’s more. The “Timmer” is also “an ordained Interfaith Minister, Lodge Master of the Order of the Temple of the Holy City, and Steward of the International Order of Chivalric Companions.” He “serves as Hierophant of the Templum de Octo Rosae Mysticus, and serving under a charter from the Ulster Order of Druids directs Saint Bridget's Grove of the Eternal Flame.” This guy could be running the Anglican Communion! Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

But let’s not stop there, according to the website, “Rev. Timothy is a Reiki Master, a Mason 32°, a Martinist and Free Initiator in the AMO, OMCC, OM&S, and Sufi Martinist Order traditions, a Knight of the Healing and Teaching Order of St. Michael and St. Raphael, Knight of the Rosicrucian and Military Order of the Grail, and Knight of the Order des Chevaliers du Saint-Graal.” Recently, Bp. Canot’s buddy co-authored a book and tape series entitled Initiation Into the Grail Mysteries. Somebody tell Dan Brown to phone home-one of your characters has escaped.

Finally, we note that Bishop Timbo’s Old Catholic Orthodox Church ordination claims to transmit “22 lines of valid Apostolic Succession from the Master Jesus--the same Holy Orders transmitted in more traditional Catholic and Orthodox Churches.” We’d better alert some of those traditional Catholics and Orthodox-they’ll want in on the action. Yeah, right!

The bottom line here, Toads and Toadettes, is that when you are working up those news releases for the Holy Catholic Orthodox Anglican Church of the Cenobitic Crackpot (Original Jurisdiction), you might do a wee bit o’ the old Google on the folks you list in your “international communion”, and their friends, blood kin and occasional fellow travelers. Otherwise, you look even stranger than you already do. bunky.

As for the Toad, he doesn’t know about Martinism, other than he once had a suit with two pairs of pants Martinized at the dry cleaner in under one hour. For our part, we are staunch Martini-ists, the little onions being the only roughage we get in a week.

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious), LSMFT

*The Sound of One Toad Barking

The Happiest Little Parish Around

Good evening, Toads and Toadettes,

Recently, someone accused the Toad of going light on Roman Catholics while being too critical of Tanglicans (that would be Traditional Anglicans-the Toad coined it-steal it, pally, and there'll be more hot "suits" on you than on Paris Hilton's defense team). Just to prove that he's an equal opportunity offender, the Toad went swimming in the backwaters of the Roman Church.

Okay, okay-we didn't have to go very far to find just the right parish for the Toad and some of you Tanglican(tm) gin swillers. You just gotta' click on the website for St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Channelview, Texas—it has the hippest church website music on the net. Lounge lizard meets the Sacraments. Maybe it's just Texas.

http://www.standrewcatholicchurch.com/

G'wan. Share it with your friends! You know you want to.

Look at the whole site-particularly the little display for confessions—put the pointer over it but don’t click. The script will unfold. And, best of all, they have an Alaskan cruise—7 Days of pampering, fun and faith Ship: Carnival Spirit. “CRUISE PRICE INCLUDES-CABIN, UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF FOOD-24 HOURS A DAY FOR 7 DAYS.” Forget that Holy Land pilgrimage, we are going to the seafood buffet and the floorshow. It's a heck of a lot better than tossing away the greenbacks for a fake seminary degree.

Can you say motu proprio? Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. "Crusin' Catholic" Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious)

*The Sound of One Toad Barking

More Better Bishops

Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.
-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

Some years ago, a friend of the Toad’s attended the anniversary of the St. Louis declaration. As we recall, he was one of the speakers at what proved to be the ecclesiastic version of the famous bar scene from the first Star Wars film (“Yes, Susie, that is the Archbishop of the Holy Catholic Anglican Rite Church of Neptune (Original Province) playing tunes on his clarinet-shaped proboscis.”) A well-known and respected Anglican journalist ran up to this clergyman as he arrived and said, “Look at all of these bishops! I’ve covered this crowd for years, and I just don’t recognize many of them!”

Surveying the purple clad crowd which the Toad is reliably informed included one “primate” (Egad, we love that term!) dressed up as Msgr. Guido Sarducci, the clergyman sighed and said, “Wait until the early FedEx from Almy gets here-there’ll be ten more before the day is out.”

Continuing church bishops have been analogized to putting one wire coat hanger in the closet at night. You will have four-hundred of various shapes and sizes crowding the bar by morning. And titles? Pally, you just gotta’ have a title to go with your miter, door-knocker sized pectoral cross, purple beanie, purple batman cape, purple shirt, purple gloves (yes, boys and girls, at least one continuing archbishop loves those) and purple socks.

Indeed, one jurisdiction, despite the fact that it is now down to about 2,000 members and, yes, four count-em-four bishops, just had to elect an “archbishop” rather than oh, say, worry about actual Christian unity. You just had to have it, didn’t you, bunky? For those who like farcical ceremony, you can check out the photos of the event over at the Province of Christ the King website. Did the number of bishops actually outnumber the attendees? Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

This sorry pageant is replayed it seems almost daily in garages and rented chapels everywhere. At least the APCK crowd owned the church in which they crowned their latest king. More than we can say about the tweezers out there who have a “cathedral” and “seminary” operating in the spare room. (You know who you are, and the Toad will expose you. Just sing a chorus of Anticipation, in the meantime.)

But, wait, there’s more. How long have continuers been braced by “mainstream” Anglicans pointing out the fact that our fissiparous lot seems to be made up of the priesthood of all bishops? Or is that the episcopate of all believers?

Well, boys and girls, those very same “communion” Anglicans have gotten in on the purple derby. Rather than cooperate with that nasty old bunch of folks who told you so thirty years ago, you just had to get yourselves new jurisdictions. The reason might lie in having read too much J.I. Packer or Peter Toon and not wanting to have a hoe down with those bad old Anclo-catholics—you know, the ones who are dead. But, you have new oversight from far across the sea, and, guess what? You gotta’ have more bishops. Here is a sampling of the once and future bishops and their “jurisdictions”:

The Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, D. Min. (Kenya)
The Rt. Rev. Bill Cox (Southern Cone)
The Rt. Rev. Andy Fairfield (Uganda)
The Rev. John Guernsey (Uganda)
The Rev. Bill Murdoch (Kenya)
The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Nigeria
Bishop Sandy Greene, (“a Missionary Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda”-but we aren’t counting him as he is in Canada, technically a country)

But it’s all just fine because you are remaining “in the Communion” and are “missionaries”. Ever seen the Falls Church? Man, that’s operating out of a grass shack in Pago Pago, isn’t it? Oh, well, they’ll have a stage until Bishop Peter “Heresy is better than Schism” Lee and his band of flying monkeys…er…lawyers…take your digs away. Somehow, I don’t think these folks will be reduced to table-top church.

All of this makes Orthodoxy seem a model of stability and, Rome, well, let’s just say “a rock” to coin a phrase. At least there are real signs of hope of late such as the recent move of one bishop and a dozen or more parishes and clergy into a much larger body. No “Anglican Celtic Orthodox Catholic Rite Church (Original Province)” there, pally. Just a little sanity. And, nobody has to ask, “Who’s your daddy...er...bishop?”

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious), LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking

Eatin’ Crow?

“The crow wished everything was black, the owl, that every thing was white.”
-William Blake

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

Looks like the Toad has riled a few friends of evangelical scholar and occasional pundit J.I. Packer. Seems as though some naughty little boy or girl published a specious article purportedly by the Pack-man jacking up Anglo-catholicism and pronouncing it deader than the proverbial door nail. It appears that someone was using the Packmeister’s name to “drive a wedge between evangelical and catholic Anglicans,” as if there weren’t one or two of those already.

Whoa! Dirty tricks? Dirty tricks in the church, perhaps perpetrated by prevaricating popinjays of the apostate variety? Could it have been….Satan!?! The Toad is shocked, simply shocked!

Scads of well-meaning folks took the opportunity to bash or defend the Packster, including the Toad who, of course, was on the side of the bashers and not the bashee. (What did you expect, bunky, kid gloves?) Even a well-known journalist-the one with the D.D. that is not quite as fake as the Toad’s-got into the act with a little A-C zinger that claimed to have antedated the Packer piece. Perhaps the Toad is technologically impaired, but the story seems to have disappeared off the website of the “global voice of orthodox Anglicanism.” Maybe the search feature doesn’t work after you drop liquor on the keyboard. (Gin, pally, it ain’t time for winter liquors yet.)

Toad himself got an earful (assuming he had ears-I am a toad, you know). Including a bit about how a photo of a lady with a blue shown with J.I. is not really a priestess, but only a lay reader. Trust Anglo-catholics to focus on the vestments and their color. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*
And, now, old J.I. denies that the story is his not his handiwork. No siree! We’re in conversation with Catholics (or would that be dialogue?), and we wouldn’t want some fraudster to cause trouble at the tea party. But, why was the story so darned believable?

Ahhhh, boys and girls, that’s because it sounded so very much like the Pack-man himself. "The Puritans answered those questions that perplexed me," he says. And more than that, they introduced him to the "whole range" of Christian truth, wrestling with aspects of the Christian life in a rational, yet spiritually enlivened and theologically grounded way. "From the Puritans," he says, "I acquired what I didn't have from the start—that is, a sense of the importance and primacy of truth. Which means theology." J.I. Packer: A Biography, by Alister McGrath.
Boy, the “whole range” of Christian truth. Darn those pesky Sacraments!

Again, from the McGrath book, Packer wanted to revive "authentic Anglicanism"—a heritage, he says, that had been "in eclipse" since 1944. "The shapers of Anglicanism were evangelicals—Cranmer, the Puritans, the Clapham sect, Wilberforce," he says. "I wanted to re-establish it in its own heritage." Okey, dokey, boys and girls, we can just forget about Keble, Pusey and…God forbid, Newman.

Make no mistake, the Toad doesn’t wish to rain on the Packster’s parade—all that exegesis is just dandy. But, one really has to suspect the motives of a guy who signs on to an Evangelical Mission to Catholics. That wouldn’t be to convert them from all that Romish superstition would it? Naw! He just wants to “dialogue”. Then, there was his off-the-cuff after-hours comment to Catholic theologian Richard John Neuhaus that the papacy is "a grotesque institution". Perhaps that’s why the specious article had the whiff of the real J.I.

It’s nice that he has had a critical role in Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT). Differing sides need to stand together in areas of agreement, in order to serve a larger purpose. But, he is about as Catholic in his theology as Zwingli.

On the women’s ordination question, Packer seems to be a bit incontinent on the issue. On the one hand, he appears to oppose women in the presbyterate, he nonetheless states that, "Since authority rests in the Word of God rather than in preachers and teachers of either sex, it is my opinion that a woman's preaching and teaching gifts may be used to the full in situations where a male minister of the Word has the effect of supplementing and supporting his own preaching and teaching." Say what?

This is sort of the ecclesiastic version of having an all-girl back up band. Call it the James Brown theory of ministry. “Yeow…I feel good!”

Finally, let’s not forget J.I.’s sometime role as an adjunct at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in beautiful Ambridge, Pennsylvania (although the reference seems to have gone missing these last few days. The picture from the TESM website says it all. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

So, the Toad is eating some crow. However, bunky, I’ll be washing it down with a Chateau Montrachet ’51. It’s the Anglo-catholic way. Rawwwwwk!

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD-VS (Very Specious), LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking

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

Everybody’s Getting Into the Act

“A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on non-alcoholic wine.”
-Karl Kraus (Austrian Writer)

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

When the Toad started an innocent little skewering of questionable seminaries, little did he know what would await him in the brackish pools of “continuing” Anglicanism alone. Just as there are grains of sand on the beach, so too are there “jurisdictions” of traditional Anglicans. And, with almost each of these jurisdictions—you guessed it, boys and girls, there is a “seminary”. Today we tee up on a couple of these entities and, once again, offer the opportunity to comment in defense or condemnation. Of course, the seriously odd, vicious or loony epistles will be read and savored…by the Toad. (Otherwise, this stuff won’t see the light of day, pally.)

First up, there is St. Aelred's School of Theology of the Catholic Anglican Church. This little gem bills itself as an “online school of theology offer[ing] solid theological education and preparation for ordained and lay ministry leading to the degrees of a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and/or a Master of Arts in Theology (M.A.Theology).” Under the direction of its chancellor “Bishop +Barry”, this school lists no accreditation of its “degrees”, no faculty, and no street address—just an e-mail and telephone to “Bishop +Barry”. Tuition, however, is a modest $20 per credit hour, with “a one-time Registration Fee of $30 to cover the adminstrative [sic] and material costs of registration and grading documentation.” Perhaps that fee will also cover a new spell-checker. Such a deal!

Next is the Saint Andrew's Institute of Theology “a seminary whose primary focus is to prepare and train men for Holy Orders in the American Anglican Church.” Translation: outside this particular group your “degree” will get you into the graduate program at McDonald’s Hamburger University (“Ol’ Flip”). Here’s a familiar theme, none of the “professors” are named, there are no listed accrediting bodies, and you have to contact the “dean” even to get an idea of the curriculum. While you are on the line, they may have some attractive timeshares if you don’t buy into the academics. Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

How about it, boys and girls, anybody know anything at all about these hollowed (and the spelling is intentional, bunky!) institutions?

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking

COMIC BOOK HERO

Toads and Toadettes,

The Toad has one more bit before returning to poolside for some serious basking. Ever wonder about the religious preference of your favorite comic book hero? Now all shall be revealed, bunkie.

Over at http://www.comicbookreligion.com/, you can find out the religion or faith communities of your favorite fictional super hero. Here you will find most of your faves and what they do on Sunday, or Saturday, or, whenever they worship who or whatever.

Sadly,some religious groups have no superhero to represent them. As the site notes, "Few things in life are sadder than having no super-heroes to represent your faith or primary-identity sub-cultures. Think of the Seventh-Day Adventist child who sees that her friends - Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Presbyterians, Hindus, etc. - all have super-heroes that belong to their faiths, but she has none. Sure, she can look to Christian and Protestant superheroes whose precise denominational affiliation is unknown, but she knows in her heart that Spider-Man doesn't attend church on Saturdays, and neither does Aunt May. She really wants the same thing we all want: a super-hero from her background."

So, the good folks at http://www.comicbookreligion.com/ have a program so that your own super hero in your faith community. Hey, if the Episcopalians can have Invisible Woman (yeah, right!) and the Human Torch (sorry, we don't do flame-related humour on the Toad), why can't you have a comic book hero in your congregation, prayer group, coven or "primary-identity sub-culture"?

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD, LSMFT

"A Super Hero Since 1977"

There's No There There (Really and Truly)

"You just hit 'em where they ain't!"
-- Wee Willie Keeler, one of baseball's earliest Hall of Famers, describing his success strategy

Good afternoon, Toads and Toadettes,

I just couldn't help myself. I swore that an afternoon of dedicated novel reading and gin swilling would keep the Toad out by the cement pond and away from the soft, warm glow of the computer. The incessant rustle of vestment cuffs brishing against the wallets of the faithful has brought me in to discover...a continuing church that is all website. And, even the website itself is unfinished.

While trying to locate one of the "churches" claimed as within something called the ACIC (Anglican Church Independent Communion), some of the boys in the research department disturbed my electronic reverie with non-stop barking. They found a little number called The Apostolic Anglican Church which proclaims it is "In Full Communion with The Apostolic Communion of Anglican Churches" or ACAC. This latter body which we couldn't locate, is distinct from the Orthodox Anglican Communion (R) which bills itself as "Really Traditional. Truly Anglican." (Their italics, not ours, pally.)

Well, we finally found a "jurisdiction" that is truly (gosh, we love that word) all miter and no bishop. Archbishop David L. Smith, Jr. sports an Office of The Metropolitan Archbishop and Primate located at...P.O. Box 93314, Cleveland, OH 44101. We checked the links on the website. Under "Ministries", there was, "Page Under Construction--Please Return Soon!" Likewise, a look at "Event Photos" yielded, you guessed it, "Page Under Construction--Please Return Soon!" And, for "News", the ubiquitous "Page Under Construction--Please Return Soon!"

Lest you think there was absolutely nothing on the site of The Apostolic Anglican Church, there were several likns...to other people's websites. Oh, yes, there is a "Donation" page that seems to be up and running. Just think, no overhead and messiness of an actual church, just a website perenially "under construction." No sermons to write, all that is necessary is a broken link to sermonaudio.com where you can go to hear someone else's sermon. Just get the marks...er...congregation to click on the "Donation" button and you are on your way to "helping yourself".

So, the new Dr. Roy A. Toad Award for Minimalist Continuing Anglican Churches goes to the Apostolic Anglican Church and its post box primate. Really and Truly.

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
(NOT a bishop)

Left Way Behind

"I knew before everybody disappeared," she said, pitifully. "And then I knew for sure. With every plague and judgment, I shook my fist in God's face. He tried to reach me, but I had my own life. I wasn't going to be subservient to anybody."
-Armageddon by best-selling authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

"I wasn't going to be subservient to anybody." Well, now, doesn't that quote tell a story on its own?

Frequently, hopping through the backwaters of the web looking for grist for some new bit of adoxography lead the Toad to some items even more dubious than membership figures amongst continuing Anglican "jurisdictions" where no one is "subservient to anybody" and life is good in the land of the episcopate of all believers.

The Toad loves the grandiloquent websites, the apostolic lineage charts resembling the wiring diagram of an F-18, and the outrageous membership numbers. Why, the numbers claimed in India alone boggle the mind! One of the Toad's personal favorites is the preposterous assertion that "traditional bishops" of something called the ACIC ("Anglican Church Independent Communion") and ACOVA (Anglican Church of Virginia) "have united over 600,000 Anglicans having more than 900 parishes and missions." Pretty nifty shooting for a group founded in 2001 that has (insofar as our crack research team can identify), perhaps half dozen clergy and nine "parishes", four of which are run by the same guy, and one of which is the primate's house.

Of course, this microscopic group claims that, "Virginia is the new 'seat of communion' for Anglicans." That's probably news to, oh, the tens of millions of other Anglicans we are sure will be on pilgrimage to the Commonwealth once they get the word about that new "seat". Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

We'll be be getting back to the likes of ACIC, ACOVA and ACID. The toad isn't kidding, boys and girls-this last one is billed as an umbrella group on the ACIC site. And we thought it was just the the recreational origin of some of the claims the Toad finds on websites like this!

The Barking Toad be paying them a virtual visit, because they too have a "seminary"-the "Anglican Seminary of VA"-identified by an alert reader as literally consisting of a table and plastic lawn chairs in what looks to be the "dean's" sun porch or dinette. Wow! There's even a photo! At least there is some truth in advertising. Oh, yes, the fact that the dean's "Doctorate in Ministry" is from good old St. Georgie's which is legally proscribed from offering degrees makes this just too attractive.

It's always best to remember: don't tempt the Toad!

But, we are not just about putting the smackdown on fringers, frauds and collection plate artistes. No indeedy! The Toad has his serious side too. After 72 straight hours of reading the Left Behind novels about the "Tribulation" fueled by entirely too much gin, Dr. Toad found himself pondering the big questions:

Are we living in the last days?
What does the future hold?
How will the future affect my world?

Fortunately for the Toad, one site had the answers! Courtesy of the good people at Ship of Fools (The Magazine of Christian Unrest), I found http://www.nonraptured.com/ Good gracious, boys and girls, the site description says it all:

"If you're like the authors of this site, you know that when Jesus returns and takes the saints with him during The Rapture, it's not likely you'll be among them. So where's that leave you? Well for starters, trying to get by back on earth during seven years of tribulation and the reign of the Anti-Christ. In the coming days, this site will be your guide to surviving and even thriving during this time of turmoil. You will get tips on everything from what stocks will boom while commerce is controlled by the anti-Christ to how to minimize inheritance tax on gifts left by raptured relatives."

Well, well, well. Turning a little cash out of the end times seems as likely as getting a legitimate degree from some of the institutions at which we are barking. The Toad took a look at the investment section of Non-Raptured which gives some valuable tips for September 13, 2007 (mark that date) when "unbelievers on Earth given their just rewards." http://www.nonraptured.com/invest.htm

The authors point out that, "Of course for many investors, [this] does not bode well. Use early 2007 to transfer your holdings into CDs and bonds and out of flexibly priced securities to minimize the impact of this 'just rewards' stuff on your portfolio. Bear in mind that everyone else on earth will be receiving their just rewards too. Have cash and gold on hand for buying opportunities and let your most sinful friends know you're willing to give cash value for their assets in a pinch. Don't focus on what the 'just rewards' are doing to your net value, focus on that neighbor who's been kissing up to the anti-Christ. On September 14, you could be driving his Mercedes."

Now there's news you can use. It sure is better than a cardboard collar, boxtop biretta and plastic pectoral cross you got for attending the E-piscopal Seminary of the Internet and Home Locksmithing Course!

If you must, though, you can sign up for "Prophecy Club", a division of the Left Behind operation that consists of "a website and newsletter to help you understand how current events may actually relate to End Times prophecy. Each week you will get Interpreting the Signs, an online newsletter featuring Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Mark Hitchcock and other End Times scholars" that seems a sort of Kiplinger Investor's letter for the Apocalypse.

The Toad guesses somebody was cutting classes at seminary the day they taught that bit about "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Or, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." (That would be Mark 13:32 and Acts 1:7, respectively for St. George's alums!) Oh, well, a book sold is a royalty banked.

Now it's time for the Toad to chill down the Bombay Sapphire and get out Charles Williams' All Hallow's Eve. I'll take my eschatological images in their leanest, purest form--shaken, not stirred. And I won't have to buy the newsletter.

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking

Upping the Ante

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone and another one gone
Another one bites the dust hey
Hey I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
-Queen

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

As the simple yet repetitive lyrics by Queen note, another one has, indeed, bitten the dust. While continuing with our “Hall of Shame” for spurious seminaries, a bit of correspondence relating to St. George’s School of Theology in Texas surfaced. The alert reader who forwarded the material noted that “degrees” from this “institution” are used as resume fodder by several alleged Anglican bishops and Archbishops, as well as “professors” on the rosters of other questionable. Whoa! Bunko alert! Bunko alert! Clergy with false credentials? Dr. Toad, say it isn't so!

So, here's the upping of the ante. We’ll be checking those names and invite all of you alert readers who might know a fraudster to send in an anonymous tip to info@planetanglican.com If you are listing a "degree" from St. Georgie or a similar joint in your educational credentials, pally, it’s going to be a rough ride. Because, boys and girls, the Toad plans to publish the identities of all claiming degrees from the institutions identified as less-than-legit. Why? Just so that you know we care! You can then 'splain it to the faithful why that Doctorate in Medieval Metaphysics might not actually exist. (That's a little ontological humor, gang.) Bet you won't be getting another educational sabbatical, bunkie!

But, today, the Toad doesn’t have to write it all out for you. He’ll let Mr. David Linkletter, Program Specialist at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board tell you the tale of good old St. George’s in song and story (well, e-mail, at any rate) with a little boldface to highlight the savory bits. We are sure that St. George would be proud. Rawk, rawk, Rawk!*

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking


From: Linkletter, David
To:
Date: 10/7/2004 3:20:14 PM
Subject: St. George's School of Theology

Dear Mr. [Alert Reader]:

Yesterday in our telephone conversation, you asked about the legal status of St. George’s School of Theology. That institution may legally operate as a teaching institution preparing individuals for religious vocations; such activities are not regulated in Texas.
However, the institution may not offer or grant degrees or credits alleged to be applicable to degrees. It may not use protected academic terms to describe itself, such as “college,” “university,” or “seminary.”
The Texas Education Code (Chapter 61, Subchapter G) prohibits such activities
unless the institution has a certificate of authority from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board or is accredited by an accrediting association recognized by the Coordinating Board. St. George’s School of Theology does not have a certificate of authority, and never has applied for a certificate of authority, and is not accredited by a recognized accrediting association.
It has come to our attention that the institution is claiming that it can award degrees and that it has authority to do so through Woolsey Hall, Oxford, England. Both of those
statements are false. Even if there were some relationship between St. George’s and Woolsey Hall, Woolsey Hall does not have authority to offer degrees in Texas.
If you have evidence that St. George’s School of Theology is or has granted degrees, I would be pleased to receive it. We can only address violations of the law with the appropriate evidence of a violation.

Cordially,

David Linkletter
Program Specialist
Private and Out-of-State College Certification
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
Box 12788
Austin, Texas 78711

"You know, Dr. Toad, I think Almy got our order wrong!"

"Never mind that now, Eddie, the game's afoot!"

-Flt. Lt. Roy "Doctor" Toad and Ens. Fr. Eddie "Fastball" Fassbinder in Sinkers (2007)


The Hits Just Keep on Coming


Toads and Toadettes,


When the doctor started a little exposition on seminaries, he never expected that there would be so much fodder for the old canon. Thank all of you for your help on this, particularly an unnamed padre who advised this morning that one institution we hadn't yet named apparently disappeared in a puff of proverbial smoke following the beginning of this series. As soon as we have them printed, we'll be sending you all a Barking Toad t-shirt. Yeah, right, for $16.95+s&h! If Bill O'Reilly can do it, so can we. Rawk, rawk rawk!


The latest duck in the barrel is


St. Alcuin House Academy
1383 130th Avenue NE
Blaine, Minnesota 55434
http://www.stalcuinhouse.org/id1.html

St. A's holds accreditation with...drum roll, please...the Oxford Educational Network/Wolsey Hall as a distance learning Christian academy. In the words of John Cleese, "There's a giveaway!"


We took a hop over the website sent by the alert reader (the t-shirt will look great on you...$16.95, pally). St. A's offers "course work through distance learning, and in residence at varied locations. We work in close association with ACTS International College which provides quality classroom Christian education. " (looks like a bit of interlocking management with ACTS) They don't specify those residential "locations", but their website more than implies relationshps with Nashotah House (an Episcopal church seminary) and Oxford University. Of course, "[f]or student-scholars studying at the University of Oxford, Nashotah House, or other institutions, there are additional fees and travel expenses paid by the student directly to these institutions." You bet! That would be tuition, fees and other "extras" because these real institutions for some reason don't have a financial arrangement with St. A's.


Most of the "academic programs" appear to be based on the resale of audio materials from The Teaching Company, a legitimate purveyor of taped university lectures. Looks like one might wish to eliminate the middle man and buy direct--it will leave you more money for that Barking Toad t-shirt.


If anyone has something to say about this or any other of these fine named institutions, please send a message via info@planetanglican.com You'll be glad you did.



Yr. Obed. Serv.,




R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
(Only kidding about the t-shirts...sort of...)

“Sighted Seminary, Sank Same”

Lt. Cmdr. Lance Rogers, MD, Flight Surgeon: [Sarcastically] What's your school? The diploma mill of Hoosier State?
Lt. Douglas S. 'Doug' Lee, MD: No, Harvard, Hopkins, Cambridge. I can read and write.

-Ralph Bellamy and Errol Flynn, Dive Bomber (1941)

Well, Toads and Toadettes,

Here is the first round in the Dr. Toad’s Seminary Survey! An alert leader has written us concerning both the Evangelical Episcopal Theological Seminary (no location listed)
and its “accrediting” body the Oxford Educational Network

You can find the seminary here http://www.theceec.org/seminary.htm and the Oxford Educational Network here (http://www.oxfordeducationalnetwork.org/members.htm)

Or, at least you could last night.

Our correspondent writes that “EETS” (what an acronym!) “exists only in the mind of The Most Rev. Dr. Russ McClanahan, president of the school.” Abp. McClanahan apparently serves as archbishop for the “extra-territorial” Province of St. Peter of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC). We are told that this particular prelate also was the most recent presiding bishop of the CEEC until he resigned and the entire “International College of Archbishops” took over the presiding bishop role. Archbishop McClanahan previously held his see in Memphis, Tennessee, but moved to Florida last year.

The seminary, which appears to be peripatetic, traveled with its president. It is currently is listed as being located at 2807 Trebark Drive, Tallahassee, FL, which corresponds to the Intelius® white pages listing for the archbishop’s personal address and is likely his home home.

The writer goes on to advise that “EETS has no known faculty other than the archbishop.” It claims to be “accredited” by an outfit called the Oxford Educational Network, an organization which no one who hasn’t paid $2,500 for “accreditation” has ever heard of.

Let’s stop for a moment, boys and girls, and have bit of a peek under the kilt of the OEN. A cursory look shows that the Oxford Educational Network does not appear to be an authentic accrediting body. Pony up that $2500 and you're a member. Pay $1000 per annum and you can stay a member. (Presumably this is a modest investment to put the veneer of respectability on that table-top seminary. The web page gives a long and nifty history of Cardinal Wolsey, Wolsey House and Oxford University, but we can’t find any whiff of an actual connection either to the late Cardinal or the institutions. They give an impressive list of the real Oxford's University colleges, but then they note that "in their entirety, these Colleges are not members of Oxford Educational Network." Whoah, there! Fraud alert! Fraud alert!

Curiously, there is no information on the site as to where Oxford Educational Network has headquarters or offices. That makes it easier to keep unwanted visitors like process servers and members of the constabulary from disturbing all of that accreditation going on during the work day.

Like most other diploma mills, EETS seems to be heavy on tuition payments, light on academic requirements and has a soupcon of bogus accreditation tossed in to improve the bouquet. Bottom line: this is an institution that trips virtually all of the triggers in Dr. Toad’s Fake Seminary Fraudulizer.™

Anyone wanting to rise to the defense is welcome to post a comment. Or, if you just want to pile on, you can have at it as well. Just remember, threats, obscenities, rants and excited utterances all will be read—not necessarily posted, mind you, but carefully read and savored. The Toad doesn’t have much in the way of hobbies.

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT

Image of the Day

While traveling the brackish waters of the internet doing research, (okay, while checking the online sports book), Dr. Toad came across this gem connected with the first International Church of the Web.

I particularly like the armorial shield. Are they sure they are not another continuing church?

Yr. Obed. Serv.,

R. Toad, DD, LSMFT*

*helping himself since 1982

Down By the Old (Diploma) Mill Stream

Diploma Mill-"An institution of higher education operating without supervision of a state or professional agency and granting diplomas which are either fraudulent or, because of the lack of proper standards, worthless."
-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

Good morning, Toads and Toadettes,

We’ve gotten our first response blowing the whistle on one of the seminaries identified in our earlier post. The correspondent has hit the Evangelical Episcopal Theological Seminary (no location listed) with a full volley just below the waterline. Before we have a look at that report in a subsequent post, I think we should say a bit more about the problem of diploma mills and offer some further clarification.

Some Parameters

A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is an organization that awards academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study, and without recognition by official accrediting bodies. These degrees are often awarded based on “life experience”, which, translated means “I got my degree by breathing”.

Such organizations are unaccredited, but they often claim accreditation by non-recognized/unapproved organizations set up for the purposes of providing a veneer of authenticity. These accreditation mills based in the United States or elsewhere (oh, say, in Italy maybe) may model Web sites after real accrediting agencies overseen by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Some of these fraudsters may even advertise services for transcript notation and diploma verification in order to seem more legitimate. According to a number of sources, another typical ploy is for mills to claim to be internationally recognized by organizations such as UNESCO. Ooops-UNESCO and does possess the mandate to accredit or recognize institutions of higher education or their programs and diplomas. This is why we are barking about these organizations too, boys and girls!

“He’s Got a Little List. He’s Got a Little List.”

The United States Department of Education lacks direct authority to regulate schools and, consequently, the quality of an institution's degree. Under the terms of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, the U.S. Secretary of Education is required by law to publish a list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies that the Secretary determines to be reliable authorities on the quality of education or training provided by the institutions of higher education that they accredit. http://www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/
Also, there is something called the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. TRACS is recognized by both the United States Department of Education, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, as a national accrediting body for Christian institutions, colleges, universities, and seminaries. http://www.tracs.org/
So, the Toad’s got a little list, he’s got a little list…

What’s in a Name?

Here’s another giveaway. Diploma mills are frequently named to sound confusingly similar to those of prestigious, accredited academic institutions. As diploma mills are typically also "licensed" to do business. It is common practice within the industry to misuse a simple business license to imply government approval.

Now, here’s the real problem, compared to legitimate institutions, diploma mills tend to have, shall we say, drastically reduced or practically non-existent requirements for academic coursework. Some even allow their students to purchase credentials rather than earn them. Of course, students may be required to purchase textbooks, take tests, and submit homework, but the degrees are nonetheless conferred after little or no real study.

Is all of this sounding familiar, yet?

You Know You Might Be a Fraud If…

Thanks to the excellent website of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation http://www.chea.org/default.asp , let’s say (with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy) that you know that you might be getting a fake degree if:

--Degrees can be purchased. (Seminarian to priest in five easy payments)
--There is a claim of accreditation when there is no evidence of this status.
--There is a claim of accreditation from a questionable accrediting organization. (The Greater Buffonistanian Independent Colleges association might be sketchy)
--The operation lacks state or federal licensure or authority to operate.
--There is little if any attendance required of students, either online or in class. (Our school motto: “You never have to show up”.)
--Few assignments required for students to earn credits.
--There is a very short period of time required to earn a degree. (“Our one-week M.Div. program allows for post office delays with your check.”)
--Degrees are available based solely on experience or resume review. (“Allegator wrestler? Sure, you can have a D.Min. in pastoral care!”)
--There are few requirements for graduation. (Did we mention our one-week M.Div. program?)
--The operation fails to provide any information about a campus or business location or address and rely, e.g., only on a post office box? (“We reduce our costs to you by not maintaining an expensive infrastructure-other than our villa in Portugal.”
--The operation fails to provide a list of its faculty and their qualifications. (“All of our staff at St. Swithun’s are graduates of…St. Swithun’s.”)
--The operation has a name similar to other well-known colleges and universities. (Just how many St. Andrew’s Seminaries are there?)
--The operation makes claims in its publications for which there is no evidence. (Good grief! That’s every undergraduate catalogue in the country! Rawk, rawk rawk!*)

The Toad knows that one of the most troubling aspects of a recent Federal investigation revealed that foreigners who purchased such bogus online degrees could then be eligible for "H1-B" (educational) visas—or, for that matter, “R-1” (religious worker) visas, using their alleged educational backgrounds as reasons for legitimate entry into the United States.

The Toad was particular struck by one example, when an undercover Secret Service agent using the name "Mohammed Syed" applied for a college degree from James Monroe University. Seems as though the applicant, court documents say, filled out an online application, claiming he had obtained "multiple hours of training in chemistry and engineering" as a member of the Syrian Army. Whoohoo! And we don’t know of any similar instances of the old frode immigrazione involving continuing Anglican churches or “seminaries” do we?

"Christ-centered, Biblically based, Affordable"

Yep, that’s the actual motto of the Newburgh Theological Seminary and College of the Bible of Newburg, Indiana which seems to have facilities at the local Executive Inn and which offers a full menu of degrees from a Bachelor of Theology ($1595.00), to a Doctor of Theology (Th.D)(a mere $2,195.00). For the doctorate, you have to read at least six books and write a “dissertation” of 50-100 pages which they will review…thoroughly…really…after the check clears.

The Toad’s absolute favorite so far is the Google link to “Degree Mill” which leads you to “Rochelle University”. These guys are right up front- “No Studies. No Attendance. No Waiting. No Examinations. No Hefty Fee.” I mean, heck, the “Degree Package Special” gets you a Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate for a low, low, $1,038.00! That’s even less than some of the seminaries the Toad identified in the initial post. At least old Rochelle U. isn’t vending theology degrees…yet.

Or, avoid the whole messy registration and payment problem and go to the “Magic Mill”. http://www.pixdox.com/magicmill/creagodip001.html Just enter your name, pick your poison, decide when you graduated and VOILA! You'll be all set to print your diploma and hit the big time! It’s as legit as some of the “seminaries” out there, and prints a snazzier certificate.

Testing the Waters

Essentially, there are two categories of folks out there: the unwary and the unscrupulous. For the former, if you really are that clueless, perhaps it might be that you need a bit more discernment before pursuing a vocation. As to the latter, and you all know who you are, there just isn't anything we can do for you other than to hope that you are taking one of those little pop-up thermometers when you go.

So today, Toads and Toadettes, we’ve given you a set of criteria and resources to apply the fraudulizer to some of these august academic institutions lurking in the backwaters of the internet for those in the unwary category.

If you want to contrast the real with the specious, have a look at the Catholic Distance University. http://www.cdu.edu/index.asp (And, no, the Toad isn’t working on commission.) It is a respected resource, in operation for more than 20 years, which posts its accreditation from legitimate secular bodies, as well as the Catholic Church, right up front.

http://www.cdu.edu/accreditations.asp You may also want to take a look at the faculty and check out their credentials. http://www.cdu.edu/faculty_staff.asp You won’t find a St. Swithun’s Theological College and Paralegal Academy grad among them.

You also won’t be getting anything on the cheap: tuition for continuing education courses are $135 a course; undergraduate courses cost $227 a credit hour; and graduate courses are $369 a credit hour. That’ll really cut into the vestment budget.

Oh, yeah, you have to actually do the course work. What spoil sports? How will one ever find the time to get one’s “pro-cathedral” built with all of that darned studying?
At least one can’t claim you are committing fraud on the Body of Christ with a spurious educational credential. Oh, sorry, I forgot. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:...all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.” Matthew 23:2-7.

Rawk, rawk, rawk!*

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
*The sound of one Toad barking

TAC/APCK Bishops on Pligrimage-2004

Toad on the Road

Good afternoon Toads and Toadettes,

The doctor will be out for about 24 hours as we are on the road to visit a parish somewhere in the United States. (C’mon, you didn’t think we make it that easy to see where we were, did you?)
An alert reader forwards the attached photograph from Fond du Lac, WI in the fall of 2004 as folks prepared to step off in the religious procession. For those who who need a scorecard for the players, shown, among others are Abp. Hepworth of the TAC and Abp. Morse of the APCK, along with three of the APCK bishops (+Florenza, +Wiygul and +Morrison) and some other folks.
Like Waldo, one has to ask, “Where’s the ACC crowd who had been there?” Guess their flights had to leave early.
We’ll be back Monday! And remember:
“If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry.”-Dave Barry

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT

Fakin' It

The Barking Toad's campaign to uncover spurious seminaries and specious degrees proceeds apace. Several alert readers have sent in some names, but you haven't given sufficient information to distinguish the Potemkin institutions from authentic entities of the on-line or residential variety.

Dr. Toad does hate having to do his own research, so stand and deliver. If you want a post on your favorite suspected diploma mill, you have to give our crack team something more than the customary Angrican rant. In particular, we'd like to know physical addresses (if any), accreditation, faculty, and years in operation.

In the meantime, those of you who might have information on the following entities identified in your e-mails are welcome to send it along to info@planetanglican.com

Evangelical Episcopal Theological Seminary (no location listed)

The Saint Andrew's Institute of Theology, Scarborough, New York

Holy Trinity College and Seminary, New Port Richey, Florida

Laud Hall Seminary, York, Pennsylvania

Saint George's School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas

The Atlantic Orthodox and Anglican Seminary, Lothian, Maryland

St. Andrew's Theological College and Seminary, Lexington, North Carolina

Anglican Seminary of Virginia, Front Royal, Virginia

St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology, Seward, Nebraska

Confederazione Nazionale delle Università Popolari Italiane (a purported accrediting body)

Now, before you go carrying on or making threats, the fact that your alma mater is on the list above doesn't mean you are sporting a bit of spurious sheepskin. It just means that someone had a question. If you want to tell us about your seminary, the Toad would certainly like to hear it. What the hey...he might even buckle down and actually get a real degree for a change!

Be forewarned, you will be asked just how long you attended seminary and, if you are sporting a doctorate of any variety, the subject and length of your dissertation, and the location of the library where one might have a peek at it.

Just remember, Toads and Toadettes, you wouldn't want your doctor to have a fake degree--your lawyer, maybe, but not your doctor. Would you want the care and cure of your soul in the hands of someone who lacks education, formation and the basic moral foundation that might just make a questionable educational background a wee bit repellant to them?

Grist for the mill as you iron your Sunday best.

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT*

*One of these degrees is wholly specious, the other is an advertising slogan.

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
-William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Well, Toads and Toadettes,

Today we ask the question of some “orthodox” Anglican groups whether there is no position that isn’t “negotiable” in the service of legitimization. You see, VirtueOnline reports that the “Network”, an amalgam of purportedly “orthodox” Anglicans had a little hoe-down this week St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford, a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. We are reasonably certain that St. Vincent of Lerins would have been firing up the brazier and getting out the tongs over the doings there.

You see, the delegates apparently voted to ratify something called the Federation Articles of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) (as if Anglicanism needed more acronyms right now). The CCP is a coalition of ten Episcopal and Anglican groups in the U.S. and Canada including the American Anglican Council (AAC); the Anglican Communion Network (ACN); the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA); the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC); The Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC), the Anglican Province of America (APA); the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA); the Anglican Essentials Federation (AEF); Forward in Faith, North America (FIF/NA); and the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC). Enough letters for you?

But, here’s the rub, boys and girls. In masterful Episcobabble, mid-Atlantic Network Dean and Bishop-elect John Guernsey (aren’t they all bishops-elect of late) said, this is a "a step forward for Common Cause that allows the constituent partners to retain their [current]identity and autonomy while forming a more coherent and accountable structure. None of the groups disappear and none of the groups stop their gospel mission... Yet we are forming a more coherent whole." Say what?

How is there “coherence” in a body committed to “making space” for different opinions about something as basic as women in "Holy Orders"? Sounds pretty darned Episcopalian to the Toad. But, wait, there's more.

How about, “Delegates of the ACN declined to remove the clause from its Charter which declares that the Network ‘shall operate in good faith within the Constitution of the Episcopal Church’”? Yowza! You REC and APA folks tracking on that, or, are you too busy trying to get yourselves back in the club? Be sure that you are operating within that Constitution-the one that undergirds the canons that prop up the regime that supports the heretics in the House of the Squid Woman. (You know, that would be the same sect that many of your people fought to get out of.)

The Toad is particularly taken by the notion that these groups can, “Propagate the truths of the Gospel as articulated and practiced in the historic Anglican way and speak with one voice and act in concert for the welfare and witness of all its Partners”, when they can’t even pin down that pesky ordination thing. It’s all a just a question of “making space”. Let's see how the spinmeisters at the REC/APA deal with this-they'll surely have to convene a meeting at the Waffle House.

Theological incontinence has risen to a new level. Rawk, rawk rawk!*

Yr. Obed. Serv.,


R. Toad, DD, LSMFT

*The sound of one Toad barking.

Religion in the Public Arena and Failed Apologetics

"To be ignorant and simple now--not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground--would be to throw down our weapons and betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."
-Attributed to C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

One of the things that really goads the Toad is the constant attempts by the priests and priestesses of secularism and atheism to chase the faithful from the public square. I know, I know: you know all about it-you read First Things every month, than have a nice sherry and whinge about it at coffee hour whilst snarking down the tea cookies.
Well, pally, here’s a thought for the day: “Books like Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ and Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ do not become best sellers in a society that understands what Christianity is all about.” These folks are out to steamroll you and other faithful, and mopping your moistened brow won’t carry the day.
Indeed, according to a Christian Post story, former atheist Anthony Horvath, a Christian apologist who works with young adults, says that churches are producing atheists by not answering the questions of young people and explaining why they believe in the Bible. Horvath goes on to explain that some of the recurring questions young adults struggle with but churches often fail to address include the formation and development of the Bible, the presence of evil and suffering in the world, and the question of inspiration and inerrancy. “In large part, it happens when the church leadership is completely unaware that their members – and not necessarily just the young members – have questions at all,” states Horvath.
The failure of apologetics comes at a time when proponents of secularism wish to exclude worldviews founded on religion because they are supposedly based on sources that are not reliable or are irrational. In a pluralistic society is it not sustainable, according to secularists, to introduce religious arguments because this is imposing elements of a religion on others who do not share these beliefs. Brendan Sweetman, a professor of philosophy at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, affirds an excellent analysis in his recent book Why Politics Needs Religion: The Place of Religious Arguments in the Public Square (InterVarsity Press). It’s a good read, but, what’s a Toad to do beyond barking?
A series of recommendations over religion's role in politics came last year in the form of a question-and-answer booklet authored by the Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona. In his pamphlet, Catholics in the Public Square published by Basilica Press, he recommends the faithful to be respectful of the beliefs of others, or of those who have no faith. "Nonetheless, it is our duty to engage the culture, not run from it," Bishop Olmsted comments. People of faith, like others, have every right to bring their views and beliefs into public.
Yeah, right, but that ecclesia just isn’t militans enough for the Toad. How about this, from Benedict XVI’s statement of July 5th? The German Shepherd recommended, no hand wringing. Instead, give public testimony to your faith and not live two parallel lives: one which is spiritual; and another which is secular. Instead, the Pope urged, strive for coherence between your lives and your faith, thus providing an eloquent testimony of the truth of the Christian message. That coherence is only too often lacking among many active in public life.
It’s probably a coherence lacking in a more than couple of church leaders. The Toad isn’t naming any names, but offers only the following cryptic observation, “Ask not for whom the Eagle or the Grey Goose fly.”
Faith helps us to see our life and to judge right and wrong according to God's wisdom. And faith without works is…well…you know. So the Toad’s bark is to get busy-make sure your churches aren’t churning out mini-me Richard Dawkinses and Dan Browns or even lukewarm Christians. Train ‘em up and turn ‘em loose in the public arena. And yourselves be courteous (the secularists hate that), yet fearless in calling to account those in public live trying to lead that dual existence.
What’s the worst that can happen? They won’t let you in the club? Pally, if you are reading this blog, you either aren’t in the club, or you won’t be when someone (perhaps the IT trolls who monitor your company’s internet use) catches you out as a secret Christian.


Yr. Obed. Serv.,



R. Toad, DD, LSMFT
(NOT an Horned Frog-REALLY)