What is in Kelvin's Head?

Charles, King and Martyr

30/01/2015

On this day, the Scottish Episcopal Church remembers Charles I – the king who was beheaded on this day in Whitehall in 1649.

There’s always services organised in Scotland to remember Charles. The Scottish Episcopal Church was strongly aligned in the Jacobite cause in times gone by.

I tend to remember this day not merely in terms of thinking about Charles but in terms of thinking about the violence and persecution that Episcopalians in Glasgow once suffered. (And also when they got the chance, doled out to others).

There was a time when Episcopalians could not worship terribly freely in this city and the congregation that was to become the congregation that I serve now knew real hardship. If you go to the Mitchell Library you can find ballads in song books celebrating the rabbling of the Episcopal place of worship – something which tended to happen at this time of year and which was almost certainly connected with the congregation remembering Charles and the Stuart cause.

Rabbling wasn’t much fun. It meant the destruction of the place of the worship and the scattering of the congregation. It was akin in its day to firebombing a mosque or a church these days.

In remembering Charles, I remember all those in this city of any faith who have been persecuted through the ages. I remember too those who kept the faith of my own congregation and eventually built a spectacular church in the respectable West End of the city – no doubt celebrating the fact that they were free to worship the way they wanted to at last. And I remember those who still do not have religious liberty today.

And I remember Charles’s words on the day they killed him too.

Introth, Sirs, My Conscience in Religion, I think, is very well knowne to all the World; and, therefore, I declare before you all that I die a Christian, according to the profession of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father…

I go from a corruptible, to an incorruptible Crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the World.

52 responses to “Inclusive Language – again”

ryan

11/10/2010

Kelvin – that cracked me almost as much as your last tweet on the left of your blog ;-)!

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Jimmy

11/10/2010

Ryan, although you address your comment to Kelvin like I am not there. I assume you are referring to my poem, I can assure you that it does not crack me up watching you making any opinion you may have untenable.

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1. kelvin
  
  11/10/2010
  
  No Jimmy – I think Ryan was indeed referring to my last comment, above.
  
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Jimmy

11/10/2010

Thank you Kelvin and Sorry Ryan.

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ryan

11/10/2010

No worries! Was indeed referring to the v.amusing coming out day tweets at the side.

I’m not sure there’s ever existed anyone, anywhere,at any time, of whom it could be said that *all* their opinions are ‘untenable’, so such rhetoric is dehumanising at best. Apropos nothing, I was moved to google the poetic stylings of the great David Brent. Who needs Auden? 😉
http://murfinsandburglars.com/2009/04/14/bad-poetry-for-tuesday-david-brent-edition/

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Peter

12/10/2010

Kelvin; no, I think it distracts. It simp;ly reminds us that this is how your mind works: you make connections and delight in that sort of word-play. However, to sharpen up my point. Thank you for helping me to realise that, for some, ‘family’ is not a positive word in the way in which I experience it. For my part, this willl mean that I will be more careful about its use when others might feel excluded (and therefore hurt). Mutatis mutandi can you accept that I feel offended by what seems to be merely a casual linking between family and the f word? These are sensitive areas, but sensibilities are by no means confined to those who find family a painful or unhelpful concept.

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Simon

29/10/2010

I am slightly nervous aboaut the alternatives to the 1982 Liturgy, not because I don’t share the inclusive sentiments expressed above (I do). I fear that, as so often in the history of the church, the steps we take to avoid one kind of mistake in the way we talk about God can lead us into another. The avoidance of pronouns as a measure to achieve inclusivity produces inelegant, strained and stilted English. How would it be if one were to use it in day-to-day speech? ‘I saw John this morning. I asked John’s how John’s health was. John said that John was over his flu, and hoped to be back at work on Monday’. This may not in itself seem to be a problem. But in fact, what very quickly happens when we adopt this idiom in addressing/expressing God, is that the very idea of a personal God begins to recede. My basic instinct is that the church’s language of pulbic prayer is properly anchored in that of the scriptures. There are dangers in departing from this. The perceived problem (rightly perceived) is perhaps better tackled by good teaching about the nature of God, than by linguistic contortions that produce stilted prayers, and possibly a less real and vivid idea of God.

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Melissa

15/11/2013

About the family imagery – another reason to drop it in church is for the sake ones who, like me, do actually have the signifying family relationships.

There is too much pressure on day to day life with children when that life is forced to serve as some kind of example or testimony or witness to the world – or more likely one’s church friends – about the nature of God.

I think it sours love because in that kind of scheme loving children is more fundamentally a means to an end.

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