What is in Kelvin's Head?

Why saying No Thanks is the progressive option

13/09/2014

Why saying No Thanks is the progressive option.

This is a golden time for democracy in Scotland. The media, the airwaves are full of political debate but more than that, the whole nation is debating what we should do next. Who wouldn’t want that new democratic passion to be spread wider than Scotland’s borders?

That’s a real question. It appears that many progressive people will be satisfied by a vote that would result in our turning our backs on much that is wrong in the UK and being thus unable to help put it right. How much more progressive to grasp the momentum and press for change in the whole of the UK.

It is good that we debate whether we are a caring society. It is good that there are people in Scotland interested in addressing the plight of the poor. However, progressive people don’t just exist on one side of this argument and those in need don’t just exist on one side of the border. There is a pressing case for staying together as a country and using the energies of this referendum debate to fuel new political movements to address all that is wrong in society. I care as much about the poor in Carlisle as I care about the poor in Carluke. I care as much about the NHS in Preston as I do about the NHS in Perth. I care as much about job creation in Sunderland as much as I care about job creation in Stirling. I want all to prosper and want my MP to fight not only for my interests but for the common good of all in the UK, forming alliances with other progressive politicians to bring about a fairer, better and more economically stable society.

But just because I’m going to vote No, that doesn’t mean I don’t want change. I long for change – real change for the whole of the UK and the only way to still be able to influence the change I hope for is to say No Thanks to separation.

I want a more federal UK. Lots of people do. The only way to be sure it will never ever happen is to say Yes to separation from the rest of the UK.

It isn’t simply more devolution that is needed for Scotland – we need something much more radical. If devolution has been good for Scotland then it will be good for England too. A federal system within a strong, united economy would bring not only the best for me but also the best for those most in need. Separation will not bring about devo-max – it is a rejection of that. Separation would bring about austerity-plus, damaging economic recovery not only in Scotland but throughout the other parts of the UK. And when austerity is the dominant theme of the economic cycle it seems to me that those who are poor and vulnerable tend to come out of things worse that those at the top of the pile, no matter who is in government.

I want a renewed democracy that is UK-wide. I want a new commitment to the vulnerable that is UK-wide. I want progressive people to be running a progressive economy that is UK-wide. And the greatest risk to what I hope for comes from those who believe it can never happen. As someone who was involved close to the beginning of the recent campaign to allow gay couples to get married, I know that the greatest trouble comes not from opponents but from those who say, “I’m on your side but it will never happen”. Real change in society is desirable and possible. The energy of the referendum campaign shows, like the energy surrounding the gay marriage campaigns, just how passionate people can become over things that they care about.

As a priest, I care about people and I care about society. For me, I can’t see those who are vulnerable anywhere in Scotland doing well in a society that has such an unstable economic beginning as that proposed by the Yes campaign who still can’t answer even the most basic questions about currency and long term debt.

Those who are arguing for a Yes vote sometimes speak as though it is the only option for political progressives. I want change in the UK and the changes I want can only be achieved by saying Thanks, but No Thanks – my ambition for reform is far greater than what is currently proposed.

Who wouldn’t want real progressive change in society to be for everyone in the UK? Who would want to turn their back on being able to bring positive influence to bear for the many and not just the Caledonian few.

For all these reasons – it is No Thanks from me.

#indyref, referendum, Scotland

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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