What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Calling out Homophobia in the Church of England

    It is very, very rare that I accuse someone of homophobia. Those who know me in Scotland, who happen to hold different views to me will know that it simply isn’t an accusation that I throw around.

    However, I did make that accusation last night, against the Director of Communications of the Church of England.

    Here’s the conversation. You need to know that Patrick Strud is the journalist to whom Christian rock musician Vicky Beeching told her coming out story which was printed in the Independent. Rev Arun Arora is the Director of Communications for the Church of England. Andrew Forshew-Cain is a priest in the Church of England.

    In responding to a tweet about Vicky Beeching and the future of the Church of England, Arun Arora said that she was welcome in the church because all are broken. This is an entirely inadequate response to someone who has just come out. It is fine to say that all are broken – it isn’t fine to link that brokenness to the identity of groups of people who know prejudice at first hand. It wouldn’t be acceptable to say that black people are welcome in church because everyone is broken and so they are welcome – that would be racist. It is the same with those of us who are gay.

    I think that Andrew Forshew-Cain and I might well be regarded as people well qualified to know what church sponsored homophobia looks like.

    I’ve woken up today to many posts on facebook and on twitter from people agreeing that this tweet was unacceptable.

    I’m absolutely prepared to agree that Arun Arora did not mean to be offensive in his post. However, he needs to learn from the people on facebook and twitter who have found it offensive.


    (more…)

    , , , ,

18 responses to “General Assembly on sex and singleness”

  1. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    DCampbell writes:
    Wow, Kennedy – I hadn’t realised there was so much or so many people to it, but surely it is not beyond us to have some kind of webcast of the more important sections of the proceedings

    Webcasting from Palmerston Place presents a number of challenges:

    resourcing the camera crew, vision mixer and director (kit and people) and integration with the projection system to carry any slides and visuals
    looking at the lighting to allow good pictures but without interfering with the projection system (which suffers from light spill from the windows already)
    Network and machine infrastructure in the building to capture and code the video.
    Dedicated bandwidth (with Quality of Service) to transfer the video and audio stream out to a distribution server. (We currently piggyback on Palmerston Place’s own internet connection).

    An alternative would be an audio stream with a general shot webcam updating every 30 – 60 secs but again would probably need a dedicated connection to the net to ensure that there was no breakup.

    This is not a litany of reasons for not doing things – it’s just a realistic assessment of the resource requirements.

    Kennedy

    Reply
  2. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    Or another thought-

    We start having Synod on the Th/Fr/Sa after the Assembly on the Mound and share the costs of the setup.

    Reply
  3. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    No, I suppose a general ‘piskie tag would work just as well, but I’m with Kimberly and would prefer #piskie

    Reply
  4. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    My only problem with piskie is that in some parts of the UK a “piskie” is one of the little people, and not necessarily a nice one.

    See for example:
    http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/cornwall/folklore/the-piskies-of-cornwall.html

    “Some people saw them as the souls of pagans who could not transcend to heaven, and they were also seen as the remnants of pagan gods, banished with the coming of Christianity. In tradition they are doomed to shrink in size until they disappear. “

    Reply
  5. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    Maybe it’s just me, but I have always found the potential confusion between pisky and piskie immensely pleasing (by ‘always’ I mean, since I discovered the term – not too many years ago!). It’s one of the (many) reasons I’m pleased to be on the pisky/ie side of the pond.

    Reply
  6. David Campbell Avatar
    David Campbell

    Thanks Kelvin – all this stuff is quite amazing really – especially Kennedy’s informative and knowledgeable material about what is actually needed. I agree about the Primus’s charge being essential, but if live streaming (if that is what it is called) is too intensive an operation in all kinds of ways for an admittedly small audience, why not do a twice daily edited digest of each day’s business like the one the Revd Dougkas Aitken does for the CofS?

    Reply
  7. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    Rob Warren already does do digests in audio format – video may well be the next step, though it is quite a big step to take.

    Reply
  8. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    The video update that Douglas Aitken does is a copy of his audio update with appropriate video material behind it ie you don’t get any actuality from the chamber.

    We would still need editing and coding time before the video could be uploaded to an external server.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Ascension Day

    Its Ascension Day today – one of those festivals which is pure joy. We’ll be keeping it with a said Eucharist at 11 am today and also with a Choral Mass tonight. We are having Haydn’s Little Organ Mass complete with the young trebles and full adult choir. For the anthem, we’ll be getting God…

  • Sermon – Keeping the Commandments

    Here is the sermon that I preached this morning. There was quite a lot of chatter about if after the service. Not everyone will agree with me, but as usual, comments and debate are welcome here. Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love”. The news has been dominated this…

  • Fonts – more

    Kirstin has posted an excellent pic of a font in Norwich which apparently was adapted from something used to make chocolate in a chocolate factory. It is immediately obvious what the Scottish equivalent would be. Anyone know the whereabouts of a small unused whisky still?

  • Salisbury's Glorious Font

    The above pic is one that I took on my recent trip to England. Whilst I was in Salisbury to preach, I saw this wonderful new font which has just been installed in the middle of the nave. It is dark and mysterious. Large enough to drown someone in. The dark interior makes the surface…