Episcopal Barbie

Meet Barbie, the Episcopal Vicar..


Bess writes: She has more than 6,000 FaceBook fans, and a wardrobe that sparkles with clerical chic. Even her own matching thurible.


Yep that’s right, meet Barbie, 51-year-old blonde rector of St Barbara’s-on-the-Sea, Malibu.


Nope, Mattel hasn’t got religion. Episcopal Barbie is the invention of a real clergywoman, Rev Julie Blake Fisher, resident in Kent, Ohio.

A dab hand with the scissors, Blake Fisher has fashioned “vestments, clothing and holy hardware for well-dressed 11.5’ Episcopal clergy."

A gallery of Barbie modelling her finest ecclestical garb may be seen on this "open" access group on Facebook. And this is merely the start.

“My next project will be Episcopal Priest Barbie: Cathedral Edition” Blake Fisher reveals, in this article on virtueonline.

But expect radical changes: Bishop Barbie will be African-American. Naturally the news has sparked a host of Barbie-theology joke posts.

Will Barbie save the Episcopal Church?” asks Faith Matters on the American Interest Online: "Every now and then I am tempted to believe that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States is in a death spiral as its membership ages and dwindles, as more and more of its parishes go on life support.."

But “there is still hope; we Episcopalians still have a message to the contemporary world. We are ‘fun’. We dress up. We are PC. We have incense. As a church which has borne Christian witness in this land for more than 400 years falls to pieces on our watch and around our ears we have hundreds of hours to spend making vestments for dolls”.

Quite.

Personally I've seen nothing yet to beat Greg'scouch and the speech bubble coming out of Barbie’s mouth: “I used to eat like a normal human being, but then I found God. Now, I’ve been blessed with a 2-inch waist, a car, anorexia and a man!"


Genius.