Anglican Samizdat

March 23, 2010

The World Council of Churches: a new kind of potty

Filed under: World Council of Churches — David Jenkins @ 7:49 pm
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After I have celebrated Earth Hour by turning all my lights on, I am going to flush all the toilets in the house in orgiastic abandon. While doing so, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that crackpots in churches in 50 countries will be queuing in front of pretend toilets in order to bring clean water to those in need. I can already feel the water beginning to flow.

“The water crisis is a symptom of our ‘unjust’, our ‘polluted’ relations with one another and with the rest of creation,” she added. “The two are interconnected. And water, the bloodstream of the earth, is one of the elements that makes this connection visible and felt.”

In a act of solidarity with the 2.5 billion people in the world who don’t have access to safe, private and hygienic lavatories, staff members of the various church-related organizations based at the Ecumenical Centre queued in front of a symbolic “toilet door” for ten minutes. By doing so, they became part of the World’s Longest Toilet Queue. This campaign, taking place in more than 50 countries on all continents, is urging governments to tackle the global sanitation crisis.

I don’t know why no-one has thought of this before: people who don’t need to use a toilet lining up in front of a mock loo is the obvious way to tackle a global sanitation crisis.

2 Comments

  1. By all means, don’t actually DO somthing about the problems, just tell the government you would like them to.

    Comment by Frank — March 23, 2010 @ 8:10 pm

  2. I think the diocese of Niagara should be applauded for its boon to the homeless, the drunks and the not-giving-a-d..n people who are in the neighbourhood of its cathedral with its splendid outdoor facility nominally called a fountain, but well know locally as the “church john”.

    Comment by obituary — March 24, 2010 @ 8:43 am


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