Here’s the video of yesterday’s sermon – somewhere along the way I’ve managed to lose the text, but the video is here in full. It is about Adam and Eve and about how their story is about now not then. There’s a nod to temptation and a chocolate boutique. I had the atonement in the back of my mind when I was writing it. Oh, and I included a semicolon. See if you can spot it.
My children just don’t understand it. Nor do they understand why I stay.
I suspect that the children of very many Christians in the UK these days don’t understand and don’t stay. We can see that laid out for us in page after page of diocesan and provincial statistics.
And still we are expected to cheer on Archbishops who propose amendements which would institutionalise treating women as having less authority than men and also Bishops who tell us that banning gay people from leadership roles is good.
In both these cases we are supposed to believe that these actions keep the church together. Meanwhile the children leave bewildered.
Hear what the Spirit says to the children.
What surprises me is that it’s the same term “evangelical” that went from connoting “student-ish” in the 90s to “happy” (reserving outright clappy for those of charismatic designation) to “evangelicals come in Open form too!” now to “traditionalist” in matters of Backwards Beyond Belief(TM).
Now I’m used to the arguments being “our tradition, restated more-so and louder” versus “put the Bible in context” – at least one party talking theologically.
For a fresh thought, is the CoE (in particular, but also the AC in general) a bit preoccupied with not losing any *one* bum-on-its-3-legged-seat? There is a tension in the dynamic that could be resolved well by a large-scale rotation in membership – redefine the denominational lines by issues not history – that leads to a slimy weasely position of “I sort of want to go but don’t have the honesty to get on with it so I’ll sit around being a thorn in the canonical flesh and blame the church for trying to push me out”.
Social evolution is too slow; that is where injustice lies.
I often ask me why I stay, and I’m in my late fifties. In the end, it is because I feel cheated without other people to worship with, and, well, to be a kind of thorn in the canonical flesh for the conservatives!!
We move on to discuss the report on the implementation of Journey of the Baptised and New Century New Directions. Alison Peden begs us to stop sniping at TISEC telling us that it has received excellent reports from those who validate it for the Ministry Divison of the C of E. [One wonders whether it…
We move on to a canon removing age discrimination from the canons. I get up to say that I support the motion, but ask whether there are any other forms of discrimination which would be allowed in the church which would not be allowed in another workplace. I’m told that they will take this question to…
The question of clergy employment comes up yet again. We are told once again that clergy are not employed, even though there have been recent circumstances where clergy have been treated as though they are employed in the law. A question is asked as to whether or not we need to deal with every employment…
Just to report the success of yesterday’s great innovation – we had the main Synod Eucharist in the place where we meet rather than in the Cathedral Church of St Mary (Edinburgh) just down the road. Yesterday’s service was splendid. James Macmillan’s lovely mass setting rang around the synod hall. The bishops huddled in splendour around…
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