What is in Kelvin's Head?

On being Proud

14/07/2012

Yesterday morning, an envelope slipped through the letter box. It felt like an invitation to something and on the back were the intriguing words “10 Downing Street”.

It turned out to be an invitation from the Prime Minister to a reception to celebrate the LGBT community in the United Kingdom.

Will I be going? You bet I will.

Receiving that invitation made me realise in some small part why I’ll be marching in today’s Glasgow Pride march.

Now, Pride is an emotion that Christians tend to be a little wary of. After all, didn’t our Lady have something to say about scattering the proud in the imagination of their hearts? Surely she wouldn’t be found dead on a gay pride march?

Well, think again. Our Lady will be marching today in the form of a group of folk from St Mary’s, Cathedral. (Notre Dame de Glasgow indeed).

The word “pride” covers a number of things in English these days – some negative and some positive. The proud hearts that Mary was wanting to send on their way were surely those of the haughty and the disdainful. Rather a different crew to those marching from Kelvingrove into town today.

The pride that is celebrated today is a sense of delight in the well-being of one’s self and others. Entirely a different thing, I think.

I’ll go to the Prime Minister’s reception full of pride in many people.

I’m proud of my congregation for continuing to believe that God’s welcome extends not just to people but to all people. I’m proud of the fact that they took a risk and took me on six years ago. I’m proud of the fact that they have lived up to the “open, inclusive welcome” that we advertise, rather audaciously on everything we print. I’m proud that our heritage in this area is built on the achievements of others of long, long ago. I’m proud of the refuge we gave in secret to Gay Switchboard many years ago when their premises were threatened. I’m proud of the fact that when we started to bless gay couples in church a few years ago, every member of the Vestry individually wrote to me supporting that move. I’m proud of having a diverse team of colleagues from the UK, the US and Nigeria. I’m proud of the intense way that people listen to the sermons in St Mary’s – absolutely convinced as a congregation that there is ever more to know. I’m proud of the Vestry’s response to the govenment on the Equal Marriage consultation. Far more nuanced and balanced and hopeful than anything produced by the national Scottish Episcopal Church.

I’m proud too of those who campaign for equality, wellbeing and justice. Proud of the Equality Network, Stonewall, Pride organisers, Gay Men’s Health and all the rest. I’m proud of those who write into the letters pages of the newspapers and those who tweet and blog for a better world. I’m proud of those who work on HIV/AIDS issues including all those represented at World AIDS Day in St Mary’s each year. I’m proud of those who work on refugee and migration issues in my own congregation and far beyond.

I’m intensely proud of the way the Equal Marriage campaign has become mainstream just a few years after my good-hearted friends told me I was wasting my time because it would never happen in my lifetime.

I’m proud when straight friends and allies walk beside me.

I’m particularly proud of my sisters in the clergy who, by and large, have found it easier to walk beside me in these struggles than most of my straight male friends. The goodness of my sisters reminds me that their own struggle is not over; that justice is indivisible. Reminds me of the common goal, that one day, we will walk in a world free from discrimination and prejudice of any kind.

I’m proud of my gay brothers and sisters in other denominations – from the highest of the high to the wee-est of the Frees. I’m proud of Scott Rennie and of Affirmation Scotland who have supported him and so many others in the Church of Scotland. I’m proud of my gay brothers in the Roman Catholic clergy, some of whom I was with recently. We met in secret for fear of the Church. We prayed for a time when all closet doors would be smashed to pieces, starting with those in the Vatican and we prayed for all those who sit in discomfort on ecclesiastical thrones throughout the world. For those whose struggle is secret – know that it is valuable, and true and holy and that I am proud of you.

And yes, I’m proud to receive the Prime Minister’s invitation to 10 Downing Street. When one brings up LGBT issues in the church one is more likely to be rewarded with a deep sigh rather than anything else. It is nice that someone has noticed the things I do and the people I work with enough to want to include me in that party.

When I was growing up, I was the only gay person in the world. In my younger years, 10 Downing Street was occupied by a Tory Prime Minister who did all she could to keep me isolated, ill-informed and miserable. Together with others, she promoted the iniquitous Clause 28, maintained inequalities in the age of consent and seemed to do everything possible to keep a lid on those working for equality and justice. These days, instead of the law forbidding teachers from giving advice to gay kids in school, many of them come out in school and expect and receive support and respect that my generation couldn’t even dream of.

So, yes Mr Cameron, I’ll accept your invitation. When I turn up to your party, I’ll turn up knowing that the sexuality battles are not over and justice has not yet been won. I’ll also take every chance to remind you and those with whom you work of the many other social justice issues which burn on the hearts of people of goodwill of every faith and none and which I won’t let go of until God’s kingdom comes.

But, I’ll also turn up knowing that for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered folk these days, things have changed and things are changing for the better.

And that’s why I’ll be marching today in Glasgow.

And that’s why I’m proud.

David Cameron, Glasgow, LGBT, pride

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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