- Generative artificial intelligence will become significantly disruptive of many sectors this year. Education practices will change quickly as a result of this but education will be but one of many areas of life to be affected.
- No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England. There will be a lot of talk about moving towards some form of official blessings for same-sex couples which would have the effect of thwarting those seeking actual equality, making it more difficult to achieve. Further division amongst pro-gay activists in the Church of England.
- Indyref 2 will not happen on 19 October 2023 as Nicola Sturgeon had hoped, which is a shame for those seeking to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK as the autumn will be the high water mark for the Indepedence movement. It will be downhill into the next General Election after that.
- Trump and Biden will both declare that they intend to run for the US presidency in 2024 and American politics will continue to be all about Donald Trump.
- Covid recovery remains bumpy, particularly through supply-chain problems due to mismanagement of Covid in China.
- No conclusive end to the war in Ukraine this year.
- Governments in Westminster and Holyrood will announce some kind of “new deal” for the National Heath Service.
- UK Government will not succeed in blocking Scottish Gender Recognition Reform.
- Liam McArthur’s bill in the Scottish Parliamant to allow doctors to participate in the killing of terminally ill patients will fail to receive parliamentary approval but will receive more support than similar proposals have before.
- Changes announced to the UK honours system, perhaps at the time of the Coronation, to remove references to empire. OBE becomes Order of British Excellence.
2 responses to “Synod – Overseas Committee”
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It’s not a straight choice between paying for theological education in Africa and in Scotland. The Overseas committee’s funds very largely come from legacies specfically given for overseas work so couldn’t be spent on training Scottish clergy. If we wanted seriously to spend more on that (an excellent idea in my book), then we would have to raise quota or find some other source of income.
And, I think, theological education in Africa is particularly important in light of the remarkable growth of the African churches. If there is not good theological education for the leaders of the churches in Africa we will have poorly trained African church leaders which is bad for the church in Africa and can only make attempts at communion wide understanding more difficult.
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Thanks John – I had forgotten about the legacies. You are right, there are two separate funding issues here.
I agree that we need good theological education for the whole Communion.
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