What is in Kelvin's Head?

Coupled Together

18/12/2023

Perhaps one of the most unexpected things that could have happened this year in religious terms is that in the last days of the year, both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have moved to similar positions on same-sex couples.

Now, precisely what those positions are is complex, almost falling into the realm of holy mystery. However, it is clear that some form of prayer is going to be allowed in each of those churches for which the context of those prayers is a public recognition of such a couple. Both churches seem to want to have their wedding cake and eat it however and seem to be saying that whilst such love is the context for such a blessing, it is not the fact of that love or the union, partnership or marriage which is being blessed. It is a position that isn’t easy to understand, not least because it is nonsense. However, that’s where each church seems to be.

In the Church of England this comes after an enormously long and expensive process which has resulted in the bishops of the Church of England publishing a set of prayers and commending them to that Church. These can be used during already existing services but not as yet in stand-alone services. This is a curious position as it seems to stand a good chance of annoying just about everyone. Generally speaking, my view has been that the best answer to people who don’t approve of same-sex marriages/partnerships/blessings/hand-fastings/broom-leapings or whatever is that they simply shouldn’t enter into them and they don’t have to go to them. However the Church of England bishops by insisting that their pseudo-blessings have to take place during pre-existing kinds of services are basically insisting that those who go to church regularly and who don’t approve of such ceremonies are going to have their noses rubbed in them. Cue maximum offence all around. The pseudo-blessings are not really what the vast majority of what people who want same-sex couples to be treated with dignity and respect want to happen and they are going to be force-fed to at least some of those who don’t approve of them at all. The texts of the prayers themselves don’t seem particularly innovative either – they seem pretty much to be texts of the kinds of prayers that C of E clergy have been able to do all along.

Meanwhile, in the Roman Catholic Church there’s also been a process of introspective reflection going on for the last few years. The Synodal process is far less like a decision making process that Anglicans are familiar with but there is more than a whiff of change in the air. Today’s announcement from the Pope that in some circumstances those in same-sex coupledom may be blessed by priests is a wonderful Christmas surprise for those in that church who find a blessing in the Pope’s emphasis on mercy and pastoral care. Again, it is not the coupledom that is being blessed but the people in the couple being blessed. But again, the very fact of the coupledom of the couple is the only context that gives rise to such blessings. Once again, much like with the Church of England, it is difficult to make much sense of this without an extensive knowledge of the church as a political animal with leaders trying to bring about change whilst also being buffetted by forces that are not within their control, forces whose own leaders have a completely different vision for the future. Again, the suggestion is being made that what the Pope is saying can happen is no different from what Roman Catholic priests have been able to do in the past. All he seems to be doing is making that position a matter of public record.

I am reminded of the Roman Catholic priest that I know who claims that on the day that the Roman Catholic Church first ordains women as priests, the liturgy will begin with the words, “As the Roman Catholic Church has always taught…”

All of this seems a world away from the position of the Scottish Episcopal Church in which same-sex couples can just get married in exactly the same way as opposite-sex couples. Indeed, we’ve largely stopped talking about this and moved on since it simply became a matter of conscience after our General Synod in 2023. It isn’t a controversy any more and it is difficult to think that the position that we’ve come to is not the one that others will come around to in the end. Respecting everyone’s consciences is the only place that the Church of England can logically end up on this issue but respecting conscience isn’t to be underestimated within Roman Catholic thinking either.

A curious and unexpected thing is how closely the positions of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church are at the moment. At least in the UK, they are both quite a long way behind public opinion. They are also significantly behind the position of those who claim to be their members. People are often surprised that the Roman Catholic Church has been shown in a number of social attitudes surveys to have a membership that is more strongly behind same-sex marriages than the other churches in this country.

These two churches seem unexpectedly coupled together in offering blessings that fall a long way away from what those they want to bless seem to want. However, the most curious thing of all is that despite moving to the same position, it feels as though the Church of England is moving backwards whilst the Roman Catholic Church is moving forwards.

Neither has ended up with a stable position that will stand the test of time. I wouldn’t like to place a bet on which one moves to a more inclusive position first.

7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

Pausing Place

25/08/2010

I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

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Cal

25/08/2010

I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

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John

25/08/2010

The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significanceâ€. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended peopleâ€™s conception that they lived Christian lives.â€ It could be said to have happened as â€œsex beganâ€ between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

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Kenny

25/08/2010

Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

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MartinRitchie

26/08/2010

I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

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Graham Vahey

28/08/2010

If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

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Aldous N. Gaiters

01/09/2010

Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

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