Friends:

How did the name Prurience Mark Cavendish end up on the Terror Watch List?

I can only surmise that it is a plot by the terrorists themselves. They realized that their gravest threat was the unchecked power of the Good Book, and I suspect that somehow they got their unwashed Mahommedan hands on “P. M. Cavendish’s Conflagration!” or “P. M. Cavendish’s Pillar of Salt!” (available from little Lionel Sfarro-Soymie manning the table by the bulletin boards) and realized my "rhymes" quadrupled the potency of said Good Book!

Then, through an useful idiot (who may or may not have been Mrs. Carrington Bertram), they calumniated me to the good people of the Department of Homeland Security. Such are the wages of Patriotism in these troubled times!

You may ask, “Reverend Cavendish, do you resent being renditioned to Hungary with a bag over your head, and being subjected to degrading and inhumane treatment?”

To which I would answer that it was a privilege to wear that bag. I dub it a “freedom bag!” To clarify, I did not actually have to wear the bag, but would have done so proudly. And while I was proud to visit our Hungarian partners in the War on Terror, in the end, the matter was cleared up before leaving the Virginia-Washington metro area. Luckily, my old friend, Father Martin Kleptgelt, seems to have been contacted. He kindly exaggerated, telling them I was too incompetent and stupid to be a threat. For some reason, this characterization not only freed me, but seems to have paved the way for special favors in the US Capitol!

Instead of being renditioned, I ended up being hosted by a Mr Tony “Boom Boom” Carbonetti, a swarthy but well-behaved gentleman who seems to occupy a high but ill-defined role in the Washington security hierarchy. Mr. Carbonetti was kind enough to invite me to a meal aboard his schooner Liberty’s Pinch. On the whole I enjoyed the place, although his avant-garde photography – a mix of photos of Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, Charles Schumer, live boys, and dead girls – was a little too grainy for a Man of the Cloth like myself. But I was tickled to find that another old friend, “Pat” Marion “Blood Diamond” Robertson, was there. Marion and I go way back, in fact, I have a funny story about him, my first pony ride, a flaming ottoman, and Nanette Fabray. But that is all in the past, and I found that today we see eye to eye on quite a bit.

For example, I was cheered to hear Pat say that he felt “the overriding issue for the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists”.

To tell the truth, I always thought that Marion was phoning it on the subject of abortion. To say nothing of they way he followed up any mention of the Sermon on the Mount with his trademark high-pitched giggle. But when he’s talking about any kind of lust, I’ve always felt him to be deeply serious and authoritative, and all the more so when involves statements about religious zealots!

Marion, in turn, was touched by my Bible-based defence of the practice of waterboarding. So much so that I decided to make it the subject of today’s reading.

Naturally, using drowning against one’s enemies sounds cruel. But cast your mind back to when well-known gun patriot Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea and recall what the highlight of the movie was. Was it the thrill of victory (the parting of the sea)? Or was it the agony of defeat (the sea closing in on the Egyptians afterwards)? Ask yourself this same question about Hebrews 11:29:

By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.

You save the kicker for the end. First rule of sermonating. Q.E.D.

But if it were just this instance of a justified use of drowning, we might chalk it up to the well-known excesses of our brethren who wrote the Hebrew Scriptures in ignorance of the salvific example of Christ. But consider Matthew 18!

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Indeed, not only does Christ argue that some offenders deserve what some liberals call “torture” but he goes on to pretty much command us to go whole hog! Consider Matthew 18:8-9:

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

An eye for an eye may make the whole world blind, but imagine a pile of eyes lying in the sun on the Guantanamo Beach – there’s an image guaranteed to make you sleep easier!

(Nota bene: It has been suggested that these passages are actually talking about disciplining oneself when one feels temptation. That is patently absurd. If one were to cut off the offending part of the body each time one felt temptation, one would soon be a bloody stump. Clearly Christ is talking about turning others into bloody stumps!)

These passages show that it is undubitable that God uses drowning, and so if he created man in his image, would it not be disloyal to disavow this practice?

Marion especially liked my reading of 18:8-9, a passage he reported to me was never one of his favorites. He even invited me down to Virginia Beach to give a lecture on the subject. It is nice to have a whole new set of friends. They say they are thinking of having me join the “campaign” – what campaign I’m sure will be revealed to me at a future date.

But in the meantime, the next time you hear someone criticizing waterboarding, ask them whether they would accuse Moses of war crimes?

And if they say yes, call them an anti-Semite.

AMEN.