The latest idiocy to emerge out of the Church of England is the <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/manchester/3557750.stm

“>announcement by some idiot bishop that he has ‘banned’ the much loved hymn ‘I Vow To Thee My Country’ from services. Apparently, this wicked song has “echoes of 1930s nationalism in Germany and some of the nastier aspects of right wing republicanism in the United States.” Mind you, it’s not only right wing republicanism that annoys the Bishop. “There is this view that America is the land of the free when we know it is not.”

Burning with self-righteousness, and, doubtless, a time when Brits took bishops seriously, this nasty cleric even throws allegations of heresy into the mix. The hymn is “actually heretical because it actually says that my country’s approach to things must be my first call on myself and that my relationship with God or what I believe to be right or wrong is secondary to that.”

Read the hymn, bishop, but carefully this time. Here’s the first line:

“I vow to thee my country, all earthly things above…”

And check out that word ‘earthly.’