"Millionairess
Ann Gloag pleads for public money for estate’s upkeep"
The Sunday Herald, 8th November 2003With the news this week that Christian
billionaire Ann Gloag has applied for a public money improvement grant to further tart up
her Highland estate, there has been a predictable torrent of mean-minded criticism issuing
from demented critics, their views coloured by the politics of envy.
Thankfully, senior theologians have rushed to the put-upon Ms Gloag’s defence,
arguing that Ms Gloag’s behaviour is backed by scripture, as Professor Beaker, of
Aberdeen’s Department of Reading The Same Bloody Book Over And Over Again Studies now
confirms: "It’s a well known saying that ‘God helps those who help
themselves...’
Clearly Ms Gloag has taken this to heart, altho' I
can’t, at the minute find the bit in the Bible where the highlighted sentence
continues ‘...to scads of public dosh.’ But I’m sure it will turn up"
Pressed to justify this rather self-serving interpretation of scripture in the light of
other more critical passages like the one about an ongoing eye of needle, Kingdom of
Heaven scenario, Professor Beaker insisted that the Scriptures were sufficiently flexible
to allow rich, greedy people some spiritual comfort.
"True, there’s all that stuff
about how the meek and skint will inherit the earth but you’re not meant to take that
kind of stuff seriously. I mean, like that’s ever going to happen… It's just
something that God stuck in the Bible for a laugh." |
