1 – The UK will lose its triple A credit rating.
2 – The Scottish Episcopal Church will have poor statistical returns this year prompting very quiet wailing and gnashing of teeth except in Argyll.
3 – At least one Church of England bishop (and maybe a pair) will be outed. (Only time I’ve retained a prediction from one year to the next).
4 – The Scottish Parliament will vote for new legislation allowing gay couples to get married. (But no such weddings this year). The details of the new category of “belief marriages” will be substantially changed and much more heavily regulated than is suggested in the recent consultation response from government.
5 – Sadly, I expect renewed campaigning for straight people to be able to enter Civil Partnerships with preparations being made for a legal challenge for 2014.
6 – The Coalition will have lower public opinion ratings by end of year due to public concerns as austerity measures bite. It will record one of the lowest public opinion rating of any UK govenment in modern times.
7 – The Church of Scotland will have a difficult General Assembly, but one characterised by fine speeches. They will approve a report which suggests having a theological study into blessing civil partnerships but not actual marriages of gay people. (This will please no-one who has any opinions about the matter and will thus be regarded as a success by those who don’t).
8 – The Church of England will be unable to agree a way forward on opening the Episcopate to Women.
9 – Justin Welby won’t put a foot wrong.
10 – The new Bishop of Durham will come from a relatively small congregation in London.
7 responses to “The Antisemitism Notice”
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Helpful, thank you
What is the concern with the reproaches? I’m not familiar with them
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They can be interpreted as being directed at us the listeners. But they can also be interpreted as speaking to Jewish people as all the imagery is from the Hebrew Scriptures and doesn’t reference the experience of those who actually were around Jesus during his life on earth.
For example:
“I led you out of Egypt, having drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea:
and you have delivered me to the chief priests.”Who is being addressed here?
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That’s interesting, because whenever I have sung the Reproaches I have always felt them as being expressions of personal repentance rather than accusations thrown at the listener.
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I must admit I had always read the Reproaches as directed to the listener. That the Egypt from which we are delivered is the Egypt of the modern world, the slavery of ghastly jobs (I’ve had a few, in fact a lot) and the oppression of terrible political systems. But I come from a totally different thought world to that of most people today, and I absolutely see they wouldn’t commonly be read that way.
But I think it would benefit everyone to find a way of expressing BOTH what faith can offer in terms of freedom AND the mess we do make of the world, and sitting with that tension.
And I think the church as a whole urgently needs to find a compelling and deep reaching way of doing both.-
You might be interested that we’re looking at Isaiah 59 as a helpful text for this year, given the current ways of the world.
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I’m of much the same mind. (A mind that is still blown away when I hear them sung)
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Thank you
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Derrida is dead
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Sermon – 10 October 2004
There is a lot going on in the story of the 10 lepers being healed by Jesus in this morning?s gospel. Often this text is preached about as though it were all about thanksgiving, One might even get the idea that the Lord is grumpy that only one out of ten have come back and…
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Cat politics
The Conservative Party really are in trouble. I asked the cat what she had thought of the Tory conference. She has always been a Tory supporter and very dismissive of my campaigning. Flicking her tail into a pound sign, she announced that she had changed her allegiance. Furthermore, she indicated very clearly that she thinks…
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Choosing Hymns
One of the most difficult jobs to do well as a priest is choosing hymns. Just enough that is familiar to people to feel comfortable, just enough that is new to stop us getting caught in a rut. Music needs to be singable and the words need to make some kind of sense. We want…
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