What is in Kelvin's Head?

Memo to Holyrood re School Chaplains

07/01/2014

Dear Members of the Scottish Parliament

Yesterday, one of Scotland’s schools sacked its school chaplain. It is a school very close to me and the reason that the Rev Donald MacInnes was sacked from the chaplaincy of Glasgow’s Gaelic School is close to me too. Mr MacInnes was sacked because parents in the school had it reported to them that he used inflamatory and homophobic language in a semi-public place. He is reported to have said on facebook that being gay was a perversion and that such a life was disordered.

First of all, I’m sure you will all be queuing up behind me to give three cheers to the head of the Gaelic School for taking this decision. (You will, won’t you?)

You see, this incident has given you a brilliant opportunity to demonstrate the difference between being opposed to gay people being able to get married and being homophobic. And with the last stages of the same-sex marriage bill just a few weeks away, there has been increasing unease amongst gay people that ministers of the Scottish Government might bow to far-right religious views and put new guidelines and restrictions in place particularly around education which would turn the clock back in schools.

The sad case of Mr MacInnes allows us all to illustrate the point rather well.

It is clear isn’t it?

You can be against same-sex marriage and still retain your job as a school chaplain.

You can say you are against same-sex marriage and still retain your job as a school chaplain.

However, you can’t refer to gay people as disordered or as perverts and expect to retain your job as a school chaplain.

Indeed, you can’t say things like that and expect to be treated as a decent member of society. Not any more. And that is partly thanks to the progress that has been made in society and not least in Scotland by the Scottish Parliament. So, this sacking is partly down to you and hurrah for that! You all need to hold your heads up high and feel rightly very proud.

You see, some of those kids are gay. And all of them know gay people. They need, and every schoolchild needs to grow up in an environment which treats them well. Every child needs role models and every child needs good pastoral care. It isn’t just the gay kids whom Mr MacInnes was a poor role model for – it was all the kids.

So, tell all the local councillors that you know that it is time they started checking on who is going in as school chaplains. (Well, that’s if you want schools to have chaplains at all – I’m never entirely convinced that it is a good idea myself but some people seem to think it is worthwhile). If I were you, I’d give the hint to local govenment that they need to make sure that anyone who goes into a school needs to have signed up to a robust equality and diversity policy. No sign up – no access. And then tell them that unless they sort this out locally, publicly and proudly then you’ll get on and legislate to make it happen.

You’ll have lots of support. No-one wants children to be growing up in an environment where prejudice is protected. We want kids to be safe in schools. We want gay kids to be safe from bullying in schools. Oh, and we want gay teachers also to feel that they can be just as open about their own relationships in school as straight teachers can. This is how homophobic bullying, one of the scandals of modern education, will be tackled.

And you’ll keep that in mind when thinking about education regulations over the next few weeks, won’t you?

All good wishes for the next stages of the debate
K

Donald MacInnes, gay, Glasgow Gaelic School, LGBT, school chaplain

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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