A GRAVE threat to Christianity has been nipped in the bud by a Yorkshire clergyman.
Reverend David Rhodes, of All Saints Church Hall in Totley, Yorkshire, has banned weekly Tai Chi classes in the church hall – and in doing so has angered and perplexed a group of pensioners, who attended the classes to relax and do some gentle exercises.
Rev David Rhodes brandishes a Bible against Tai Chi outside his Yorkshire church
But the loopy vicar and senior members of the church community saw a more sinister side to the popular £2 a time lunchtime sessions.
They decided the ancient martial art, with its roots in the Chinese Taoist philosophy, was incompatible with Christianity and should not be tolerated.
So  he told the group of around 20 regulars must find an alternative venue.
Needless to say, says this report, the decision has brought ridicule upon the vicar and his church “elders” who have been slammed as “bigots”.
Pat Parkin, 74, said :
We are not anti-Christs, we’re just a group of mainly older women trying to keep fit and healthy. I find it absolutely astonishing that we should be banned as anti-Christian. We are not learning anything about any Eastern religion or philosophy. It is just about calm , gentle movements and breathing. I have had a stroke so this is perfect for helping me with my balance.
I don’t know if the vicar thinks we are learning kung fu or martial arts and are training to kill people but we’re just trying to keep healthy as we get older – what’s anti-Christian about that?
One class member Betty Warwick, who is in her 80s, said the vicar told them Tai Chi was:
A spiritual exercise which was anti -Christian.
She said:
This all seems so petty. There’s nothing anti Christian about it, it’s all about keeping calm and breathing and trying to keep fit.It has caused a lot of upset. I can’t understand it, we are living in the 21st century. I am a Christian but this isn’t a Christian attitude at all, stopping us from using the church hall just for doing some gentle exercise.
She added:
We are not doing anybody any harm at all. Now we will have to decide if we are going to keep going.
Tai Chi combines deep breathing and concentration with slow, controlled movements aimed at developing strength, balance and calm. It is beneficial to the joints and works the muscles gently.
The hour-long sessions have been running for five months and were organised by Sheffield Council as part of its health promotion programme.
Jennie Street, a community leader, who rang the vicar to protest, said:
The bigotry is appalling. Some of the older people were very upset about it. They say they’re just doing exercises and being healthy, it’s got nothing to do with religion.
All Saints’ has recently asked the local residents’ association for financial support to help refurbish the church hall on the grounds that it is open to all. But it seems a cheek to be asking for help and then throwing people out.
But the Rev Rhodes remained defiant.
Within the the church we see Tai Chi as being an aspect of the Taoist religion. We want to promote a whole life spirituality which centres on following Jesus and and we feel that the two things clash.
Our understanding is that the basis of Tai Chi is in Eastern religion and from the church’s point of view that isn’t something that we want to be involved in.
He blathered on:
Had we known that is what was intended, we wouldn’t have taken the booking in the first place. Our first priority is to seek to be consistent with the Christian faith as we understand it. This is not my own personal decision. It’s something the church leadership team has considered. We feel very upset at the upset it has caused.
Ronnie Robinson, spokesman for the Tai Chi Union for Great Britain, said:
These little old ladies in the church hall will have no knowledge or concern about Taoism or anything like that.
Hat Tip: Stuart W
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 20th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Shame about the Tai-Chi class, I hope that they can quickly find another venue. On the other hand I love it every time that a vicar says or does something so spectacularly stupid. Christians are worried that they are being sidelined as an outdated irrelevance, I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why this might be happening.
March 20th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
They do it because they think they can get away with it. Not any more, as ratcatcher is now finding out.
March 20th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Do you think he might be a little insecure about his faith?
March 20th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Keep the footbullets coming, guys!
March 20th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Being the moral pillar of his community, the conduit of god’s will and the last rattling breath of an institution that’s on its deathbed, you’d think the narrow-minded twerp might have more important things to worry about. Is there an NSS meeting room in the area that we could offer the old dears?
March 20th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
This kind of thing is quite common in the CofE contrary to popular belief that it is all luvvy dovey. In my sky fairy days I once suggested we let the local community use our church hall, it wasn’t used for anything other than church activities and not many of those, I specifically suggested a mothers and toddlers group as I knew that there was a shortage of venues for that, you would think I had offered to piss on a crucifix from the reaction I got from the vicar. As he was virulently anti-female ordination I think he saw women in the hall running something for themselves as a step on the road to the advent of the anti-christ.
March 20th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I’d be a little insecure about that jumper.
March 20th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
On behalf of twats everywhere, I must protest strongly against being compared to the likes of Reverend Rhodes.
March 20th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Did I not read somewhere that churches are angling for public money for upkeep, largely on the grounds that they do serve as community centres?
David
March 20th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Perhaps if the Tai Chi class had also received Kung Fu training the church ‘leadership’ wouldn’t have dared try to ban them.
March 20th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Hilarious when this happens in churches, but what about when facilities built with public money are run by superstitious muppets?
I ask because this also happened with a request by the WI to run Tai Chi in a ‘conference centre’ near me.
The place is home to so many right wing evangelical ‘charities’ we nickname it ‘Stepford Central’. The irritating thing is, while technically a ‘private business’, it was mostly built with government grants as a ‘millennium project’ to ‘revitalise’ a small community. It’s propped up by income from government conferences, thanks to links with godbothering politicos and civil servants, but is in practice not available to the general community whose taxes built it!
March 20th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
In the days when I was involved in Karate, eighties and early nineties, church halls were a common venue for many of the clubs. We didn’t come into contact with the vicar that often as I recall but I don’t ever recall a problem with Karate being regarded in any way as anti Christian. Later on in this period Karate clubs started moving toward leisure centres, it cost more to hire the halls but the facilities were much better.
March 20th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
And the christians wonder why we point and laugh at them. I wonder if this berk is the sort who bans menstruating women from his church [Leviticus 15] and doesn’t allow blind or short-sighted people to approach the altar [Leviticus 20] and ………
March 20th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
And I thought it was just we Americans who had to put up with this caca de toro.
March 20th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
There’s no such thing as bad publicity, someone said, but for christianity all publicity is bad publicity right now.
March 20th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
When people do stupid stuff like that they prove only how weak their faith is.
March 20th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
“We are not learning anything about any Eastern religion or philosophy.”
I find the inference here to be interesting – that perhaps it would be a problem if they WERE to be so much as learning about another religion. Knowledge is anti-Christian after all.
March 20th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
These types of idiot are rife in the C of E.
I remember about 15 or 16 years ago, a local vicar caused an uproar when he wouldn’t let a grieving family put the word ‘Dad’ on a headstone, insisting they use the word ‘Father’ which he deemed to be more ‘Christian’. This little Hitler caused unimaginable upset, whilst the vicar from the neighboring parish picked up the pieces and consoled the family.
I forget his name but it was in Freckleton in Lancashire… This was reported on the 6 o-clock news at the time, but who remembers these fools? You can bet he tells all his God mates that he’s been on the telly though!
March 20th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Found a link:
http://news.google.com/newspap.....%2C3683968
March 20th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
When I belonged to the Plymouth Brethren they forbad members from practising Yoga for similar reasons!
Apropos what others have said, churches and church halls are exempt from business rates, so already receive a subsidy from the public purse. I entirely agree that they should be forced to make their facilities available to the community, within reason. (I know – reason is not their strong point!)
March 20th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I remember that, DannyJ. The man only demonstrated his ignorance, as Jesus addressed God as Abba (Mark 14:36), which is an Aramaic word meaning “Dad”!
(Christians are urged to use this term on two occasions in the Epistles as well.)
March 20th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
JohnMWhite: I knew Christians who, with frightening similarity to the Muslims, declared that “everything you need to know is in the Bible”. I’m not kidding!
March 21st, 2010 at 3:12 am
Damnit!! The site software if fucking up again.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:23 am
bjohn,
Not that it is all that important, but, “Abba” is hebrew, not aramaic, and while it can be translated “dad”, it can also be translated as “father”.
Anyway, I have to bust out laughing at the religious pinheads that think they are keeping their practice pure. Meanwhile, they celebrate christmas, which is really a pagan ritual of the winter solstice, which included worship of evergreen trees as symbols of life surviving winter, and the burning of the yule log, an all night orgy.
And Easter? Pagan rites of spring, worshipping rabbits and eggs as symbols of fertility. Oh, and by the way, yet another orgy. Pagans got laid a lot!!!
Yet, this dick thinks he’s keeping his religious practice holy and pure by rejecting Tai Chi???? It’ like fishing a styrofoam cup out of the sewer in order to purify the shit. Beyond belief!!!!!
NeoWolfe3
March 21st, 2010 at 7:10 am
Here’s a fatwa against Yoga. It’s worshipping the sun, y’unnerstand, kinda like tai chi is worshipping the tao.
None of these unchristian values in their hall. NAMBLA should be acceptable.
March 21st, 2010 at 9:05 am
David Rhodes*: Hi, sad odd rev.
(*Correct spelling, Barry!)
March 21st, 2010 at 9:30 am
I don’t know how you can all be so cruel to the good Vicar.
He was merely going about his Christian duties, protecting the people who use his Church.
It’s common knowledge that Tai Chi is all a part of the Ornamental Agenda to turn us in the West into yellow-skinned Communist Demons.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:01 am
“Everything I need to know is in the Bible.” Can anybody give me a reference to the passage that tells me how to wire a plug or the bit that gives the valve clearances for a ’96 Truimph Daytona?
March 21st, 2010 at 11:27 am
NeoWolfe: this article echoes all that I learned as a Christian regarding the word Abba. Maybe he is wrong though:
http://www.orthodoxresearchins.....of_god.htm
March 21st, 2010 at 11:31 am
Rather significant that the vicar couldn’t simply say: ‘I say, let’s all use the ancient Christian discipline for achieving greater mental and physical health.’
March 21st, 2010 at 11:36 am
This is from Wikipedia, but then we don’t know the qualifications of the author:
The word ××‘× â€™abba in Aramaic corresponds to the emphatic or definite form of ×ב ’av, literally meaning “the father,†or “O Father.†It was the intimate name used by children for their fathers and combines some of the intimacy of the English word “papa†while retaining the dignity of the word “father,†being both informal and yet respectful. It was, therefore, an endearing form of address rather than a title and was among the first words a child learned to speak.
This Aramaic word appears three times in the Scriptures. It is always in transliterated form in the original Greek and usually is transliterated in English translations. Each time the term is followed immediately by the translation ho pater in Greek, which literally means “the father†or, used as the vocative, “O Father.†In each case it is used with reference to the heavenly Father, God.
March 21st, 2010 at 11:44 am
Regarding @valdemar’s comment about the Church and mental health, did anyone else listen to that nutty Christian “exorcist” in the debate “Does The Devil Exist?” on The Big Questions this morning? How can an erstwhile intelligent person believe such rubbish? Talk about “loopy vicars”!
March 21st, 2010 at 11:48 am
What about “Twat”,is that Aramaic?
March 21st, 2010 at 11:49 am
The state has to aquire all church properityand allocate time according to needs
one mass – 30 minutes
one Tai Chi class 60 minutes
Sunday Market – all day
March 21st, 2010 at 4:06 pm
@chrsbol
Is “twat” Aramaic ? I understand it’s a back formation of “tawt” ( old style spelling ) which is what the good rev’s arse is.
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:59 am
barriejohn,
My apologies, as I knew a family of Israelli immigrants in San Diego, and the (bilingual) children addressed their father as “abba” I assumed it was hebrew, or it’s bastard child (yiddish). And I was right, but, Aramaic is another bastard language of the region and the word for father is the same.
Much like english, which is latin, celtic, gaelic, saxon, german and street thug
. That’s why it’s so hard to speak or spell.
NeoWolfe
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 am
Happened to my aged Mum and her pals in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire a few years ago, but that was Yoga not Tai Chi.
I hope all those old ladies give up going to church. They are probably the last worshippers the old goat has left.
March 26th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
FFS! We’re talking about tai chi not nin-fucking-jutsu. I suggest the elderly worshippers boycott the church hall in favour of a social club, where they will be free wave their little limbs gracefully around without fear of clerical meddling.
September 26th, 2010 at 12:21 am
Clearly the not-so-reverend rhodes is just another dogmatic fascist.
unbelieveable! literally! ha ha….
I wonder what Jesus would’ve done? These christians have absolutely no understanding of the message of their own ‘saviour’. there is a large part of Jesus’ life that is unreported in their friggin guidebook! I reckon he spent years in India, studying thee Buddhas teachings, hense the emphasis on COMPASSION.
“…and jesus wept…”
love to all free-thinkers
Fight the power!!!
x.