Pull the tassel and his head lights up.
This blog denies any responsibility for the Giles Fraser idea, but here are some possible suspects.
Standing on my head by Fr Dwight Longenecker. Was this the origin of the "Christ would have approved of same-sex marriage" joke?
The Beaker folk of Husborne Crawley by Archdruid Eileen. Could she have invented the "I don't object to suicide on religious grounds, merely because it is a tool of market capitalism" quip?
Linen on the Hedgerow by Richard Collins. Surely nobody else could have come up with the idea of a priest who sells his soul to the Guardian?
Dr Spaceley-Trellis.
One obvious ancestor of the Giles Fraser character is Peter Simple's Dr Spaceley-Trellis, the go-ahead bishop of Bevindon, who regarded Christ as a social worker, and was anxious to reject His miracles and moral teaching. Another ancestor is probably Tolkien's character Fr Gollum, with his cries of "Bigotsess, I hatess them!"
... and I was wondering whether you could invite Fr Gollum onto Thought for the Day?
Of course the Catholics have their own comedy characters, some as hilarious as Giles Fraser. We were thinking especially of the brilliant Basil Loftus, who is generally agreed to be an invention of Dr Joseph Shaw.
In other Anglican news, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has admitted to being strongly influenced by Buddhism. When he runs out of socially aware prayers to say, a spot of navel-contemplation keeps the archiepiscopal spirit fully nourished.
The mystic art of Can-tu-ar.
No offense intended to the Archdruid, but that phrase about so-called 'assisted suicide' being but a 'tool of market capitalism' could only have come from a man or Laurie Penny, who, remember, fought against that same market capitalism in the midst of the Occupy New York brigade during their storied battle with the city dragoons on Wall Street.
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