Was browsing articles at the website of Melbourne’s Herald Sun and saw the headline: Crown casino chaplain James Grant cans gamblers superstitious streak
Wha…???
Crown Casino…
…has a Chaplain.
Crown Casino has a Chaplain.
His comments on gambling and Crown:
Crown’s resident chaplain, Fr James Grant, said that too many gamblers were not rational about their prospects of winning.
“An increasing number of patrons believe that luck is on their side, that they have a God-given right to win today,” he said.
“People believe that wearing black, blue, green or any other colour or whatever on any given day will cause cards or roulette wheels to fall on lucky numbers.
“In our society luck has become a new secular deity.”
The Anglican priest said this behaviour wasn’t encouraged by Crown.
Gamblers had to take responsibility for their own actions and not act like they were “in the grip of fate”.
“I find it strange that the more educated we are … the more likely we are to fall prey to this crappy thinking,” he said.
apparently the sentiments attributed to him were conveyed at an event hosted by the Casino as part of ‘Responsible Gambling Awareness Week.’
I have no idea if the phrase ‘Responsible Gambling’ will feature in Oxymoron Awareness Week.
Casino Chaplain.
sigh
mgpcpastor's blog 
Father (as he likes to be called, even though he’s Anglican) James has been around Melbourne city centre for a number of years, pushing beyond the boundaries of traditional ministries of the Anglican Church. I wasn’t aware of this latest venture. I would be interested to know what the terms of his appointment are, and the degree to which he does or doesn’t work “for” the casino bosses. Is he truly independent and able to counsel people against the interests of the casino, and speak out against the casino if he sees matters of concern? Or is he just a cosmetic accessorie to make the casino seem caring and thoughtful while it robs the masses of their spending money?
Well apparently the Casino are pretty much okay and people have stop making excuses for their propensity towards problem gambling.
It’d make for some interesting counselling.
There seems to be an agency: http://www.chaplainswithoutborders.org/index.html
Its Board of Reference are an interesting group.
And Anglican ‘Fathers’ aren’t all that rare.
Thanks Gary. I must confess I had been unaware of Father James’ recent activitiy. Hadn’t seen him since he shared some space with an ecumenical attempt to plant a church in the Docklands, which sadly failed. He wasn’t part of our program, but overlapped and worked beside our man on the ground. The chaplaincy thing looks interesting, and perhaps a good bit more promising that I had dared to give it credit for at first sight. And yes, I know there are a number of Anglican ‘fathers’ around, but I still find the use of the title a wee bit incongruous for a denomination that is supposed to be protestant.