What is in Kelvin's Head?

I respectfully disagree…

02/07/2022

I respectfully disagree with the latest College of Bishops statement on Aberdeen and Orkney and I do so in two respects.

Firstly, there is no mention of a mediation process in Canon 53. If the College of Bishops wishes to use Canon 53 section 11 and subsequent sections, then they should follow the procedure laid down there and name the bishop who is hearing the dispute. The bishop in question should publish the terms under which they are going to determine the dispute and the date on which the hearing will take place. Canon 53 does not allow for the resolution of such disputes to be outsourced to other individuals or organisations. (Sections before section 11 do not apply to disputes within a diocese). The procedure outlined in Canon 53 Section 11 and the following sections is clearly a decision making process and not a process of mediation. (In any case, my personal view is that mediation processes are seldom appropriate in cases where bullying is alleged and where there are discrepancies of power between the parties involved).

Secondly, anyone making a claim of bullying against a serving bishop or any serving bishop wishing to make a claim that they have themselves been bullied by anyone subject to the Code of Canons, should be explicitly invited by the College to make a complaint under Canon 54.

Canon 54 can only be initiated by someone who is a member of the church. My view is that the College should make public appropriate arrangements for the bringing of a complaint by anyone who has subsequently left the church – specifically that the complaint would be passed to a (communicant) diocesan registrar or the clerk to the Episcopal Synod to be initiated formally.

Making vague references to the “Disciplinary Canonical process” of the church in a press release is unhelpful. Canon 54 is what the process is and the College of Bishops should long ago have insisted that people use it to bring allegations.

This is not the first statement by the College of Bishops with regard to these matters that has given me cause for concern. In a statement last December the College asserted that neither the Primus nor the College of Bishops had the power to suspend a bishop. The Code of Canons is very clear that bishops can be suspended and that only the Primus can do so and that this can only be upheld or not by the Episcopal Synod (which is the same body of people as the College of Bishops). The due processes governing how these things can come about are found in Canon 54 (Of Offences and Trials) and Canon 6 (Of Diocesan Bishops and their Jurisdiction and of Bishops’ Commissaries).

For the last few years I’ve been a member of a review group which has been carefully considering whether the disciplinary canonical processes of the church need to be updated. In time, I hope that they are. However, the canons that we currently have remain in force. Bishops require clergy to take oaths to uphold the Canons. Bishops themselves take oaths that they in turn will uphold the canons of the church.

I regard members of the College of Bishops as colleagues and friends and remain willing to discuss these matters with any of them or indeed with any member of the church. A number of the members of the College of Bishops have heard me say privately what I now assert here, that for the good of the whole church, the College of Bishops needs to return to the Canonical norms of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

I will not be discussing this matter with any journalists. The opinions expressed in this post are explicitly with regard to the College of Bishops and do not constitute a comment on anything that may or may not have happened in the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, about which I have little knowledge.

The Code of Canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church can be found here: https://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/Code-of-Canons-2020.pdf

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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