Religious Cluedo - or who killed AC?

The story so far: Archbishop Cranmer, the celebrity blogger, has been found murdered. There are six principal suspects, all people who were (justly or unjustly) excluded from his list of the top 100 UK Christians in favour of more exciting people such as Catherine Pepinster, Giles Fraser and Austen Ivereigh. Which one do YOU think was guilty?

Cardinal Green.

The illustrious Cardinal Green, rumoured to have been the Eminence Verte behind the election of Pope Francis (who does not appear in this game), was once seen wandering round the cathedral with a candlestick. Green with envy because his sidekick Vincent Nichols made it onto the Cranmer list, and annoyed because his other sidekick Kieran Conry was exiled to a snakes-and-ladders game, could the Cardinal have decided to bash the celebrity blogger?

Sister White.

No relation to Canon White, the Vicar of Baghdad, who actually won the Cranmer game, Sister White, the pastoral administrator of a church in Milton Keynes, is described by her local priest in the Tablet as "a very good parish priest – she has that feminine quality that parish priests don't have". Why should Anglican lady vicars such as Libby Lane and Kate Bottley be Cranmerized, when this pioneering sister - who actually trades under the name of Sr Yvonne Pilarski - is leading the way for feminism? Sister White was apparently seen in the presbytery with the dagger.

Colonel Custard

The wrath of Damian Thompson ("Colonel Custard" of the Spectator) was wondrous to behold, when he discovered that he was excluded from the top 100, even though less famous Christians such as Tim Stanley, Richard Chartres and Alexander Lucie-Smith were allowed seats at the top table. Damian was last seen in Notting Hill with a piece of lead piping: he claims that it was an an organ pipe that fell off when he played Bach at Mach 2.

Mrs Beacock

An expert in religion, society and human flourishing (which is what we recommend to people who can't cope with grown-up theology), Tina Beacock is a high-profile lecturer, whose comic book God's Mother, Eve's Advocate is subtitled 4004 B.C. and All That. She was last seen on a Thames houseboat with a rope - an innocent enough item, given the context.

Professor Dumb.

Richard Dumbkins, although not a Christian in any meaningful sense, feels that he should have been included, since his writings have done so much to expose the contradictions and silliness of atheism. He was last seen wandering round Oxford with a spanner, although it may simply be that he has a screw loose (in which case shouldn't it have been a screwdriver?)

Mrs Scarlett

Once regarded as the Barbara Cartland of the House of Commons, the authoress of Say Farewell to the Archbishop of Corby, and No Communion for Mrs Mensch, produced a surprisingly orthodox contribution to the great "Should Cardinal Kasper be allowed to destroy the Catholic Church?" debate. However, because it was so sensible, it was largely ignored. She was last seen in New York, bearing a revolver.

So there you have it, six suspects who had reason to kill of Archbishop Cranmer. Over to you...

Religious leader talks about salvation

It has come as a great shock to many that Richard Dawkins, the Unholy Father or Chief Atheist, has broken an uncharacteristically long silence of approximately two hours in order to reveal ex cathedra that Damnation is not the exclusive preserve of atheists.

Richard Dawkins - voted the world's top drinker (H/T JabbaPapa).

Many people have misunderstood Dawkins's position on eschatology - they assumed, wrongly, that Damnation, Hell, Exclusion from God, Oblivion, The Lake of Fire, Scunthorpe (call it what you will) was the sole preserve of atheists, and that Christians would be left out. However, Dawkins has made it clear that Christians are also allowed to be evil, selfish, unrepentantly vindictive bastards, and so there is no reason to suppose that they will all be excluded.

Fr Green - definitely at risk.

We were wondering how to illustrate this post with a photo of a Christian who was definitely at risk of Damnation, and in the end we picked on Fr Green from the parish of Cluedo, who spends much of his time wandering round large mansions, sneaking into the billiard room, and hitting innocent parishioners over the head with lead piping. To our inexpert eyes, this sounds like the behaviour of an unsaved person, especially since he shows no signs of repentance.

But we should leave the last word with Professor Dawkins, biologist and amateur theologian, whose book The God Delusion is shortly to be made into a film with Tom Hanks playing the part of Dawkins. "The biggest problem I face at present is that I can never find two socks that match. Look, the variety of different socks in the world proves that they were created by evolution, and not by some sky-fairy creature. I'm damned if I know what to do about it."

Renowned Professor and beautiful Mrs Dawkins flee from a debate with William Lane Craig.