The Ryno Pen

Last night I did the old vegetable-in-front-of-television trick. Up came an advertisement on one of the commercial channels (as opposed, of course, to the advertisements on the non-commercial channels), advertising Christian Outreach Centre’s Toowoomba College.

While I’m fully-aware COC was initially established by Clark Taylor, and constant readers of this blog will know I have no respect for Clark, I did have some family members at the school for a while, and it seemed to be just an ordinary fundamentalist-fodder-factory. Until I saw The Advert, that is.

Now here is a picture of COC College Toowoomba’s principal, Jonathan Oastler.

Okay, reasonably normal-looking bloke…

There was something about the way he was dressed in the advertisement that just gave me the old Cognitive Dissonance in spades.

I can’t speak for the motivation part of this weirdness: fundie pastors sometimes go gay, and I’m certain not all fundie pastors can afford tres expensive threads like Brian Houston wears.

Still, here’s an artist’s impression of how Jonathan Oastler was dressed in the advertisment, as he spoke to-camera, mixed with kiddies, introduced himself as ” I’m Pastor Oastler”, and did all the stuff Main Talent is required to do in  adverts:

Yeah, a bit Father Ted, isn’t it?

So what’s the deal? Can’t a clergyman wear the funny vestments, even if he’s setting a precedent among charismatic fundies?

I looked closely. Oastler had turned up the collar and lapels of a normal suit-coat to give the appearance of vestments. I could even see the damned buttonhole where one might put a flower. The little patch of white, which might have been taken for a dog-collar, was all that showed of the conventional white shirt/tie combination.

Questions need to be asked. What’s next, a knock-off of one of Benny the 16’s bits of divine drag?