What is in Kelvin's Head?

Predictions 2021 – How did I do?

31/12/2021

Time to see how I did with my predictions at the start of this year.

Boris Johnson will achieve his longstanding ambition to become a former Prime Minister.

Alas, Boris Johnson did not achieve this ambition this year. But we must award him 10/10 for trying. He’ll get there in the end. Prediction not accurate

Stock market higher at end of 2021 than at the beginning (FTSE – 6,460) but higher inflation too (most recent CPIH – 0.6%).

Yes, the stock market is higher and so is inflation. (FTSE – 7379 and most recent CPIH – 4.6%). Prediction accurate.

No progress for those hoping for marriage equality in the Church of England.

Indeed, no progress at all for those hoping for marriage equality in the Church of England. Moreover, any hope is receding, made much worse by the Church in Wales opting for blessing same-sex couples rather than marrying them. Prediction accurate.

State based hackers turn their disruptive attention to open source software. (Watch out WordPress).

Hard to prove but there are reports suggesting this is happening and indeed may have been happening before this year. I’m claiming this as a win. Prediction accurate.

Donald Trump will remain the centre of attention.

He’s not gone away. He’s not been convicted of anything. He’s building his media empire. He wants to run again and has no major republican challenger. Prediction accurate

There will be midnight mass in St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow next Christmas Eve. People will be wearing masks.

Accurate in every respect. Prediction accurate.

A rocky year for Nicola Sturgeon but the SNP will be returned triumphant to Holyrood, despite their record.

Well it wasn’t really a rocky year for Nicola Sturgeon who is still the only show in town but the SNP did return in triumph to Holyrood despite their record. Prediction partially accurate.

No vote on Scottish Independence this year but like it or not, constitutional change is a-coming.

Indeed so. It has been quite a year for asking whether devolution works. Prediction accurate.

Attempt to repeal the Human Rights Act, removing the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights from UK law. (It is a stepping stone to restoring capital punishment – the Brexiteers are not done with us yet).

Consultation currently underway on a plan to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights that would distance the UK from the ECHR. Prediction sadly accurate.

Legislation emerges in Scotland to restrict fireworks.

The Fireworks (Scotland) Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2021 were brought in at the end of June restricting the times of day that fireworks can be used to between 6 pm and 11 pm, restricting the times of sale and limiting the amount that can be sold to someone at any one time. We’ll see how these restrictions have been received at about one minute past midnight tonight. Prediction accurate.

Not a bad year overall. I’m claiming 8½ out of 10.

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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