1 – The UK will lose its triple A credit rating.
2 – The Scottish Episcopal Church will have poor statistical returns this year prompting very quiet wailing and gnashing of teeth except in Argyll.
3 – At least one Church of England bishop (and maybe a pair) will be outed. (Only time I’ve retained a prediction from one year to the next).
4 – The Scottish Parliament will vote for new legislation allowing gay couples to get married. (But no such weddings this year). The details of the new category of “belief marriages” will be substantially changed and much more heavily regulated than is suggested in the recent consultation response from government.
5 – Sadly, I expect renewed campaigning for straight people to be able to enter Civil Partnerships with preparations being made for a legal challenge for 2014.
6 – The Coalition will have lower public opinion ratings by end of year due to public concerns as austerity measures bite. It will record one of the lowest public opinion rating of any UK govenment in modern times.
7 – The Church of Scotland will have a difficult General Assembly, but one characterised by fine speeches. They will approve a report which suggests having a theological study into blessing civil partnerships but not actual marriages of gay people. (This will please no-one who has any opinions about the matter and will thus be regarded as a success by those who don’t).
8 – The Church of England will be unable to agree a way forward on opening the Episcopate to Women.
9 – Justin Welby won’t put a foot wrong.
10 – The new Bishop of Durham will come from a relatively small congregation in London.
8 responses to “Synod – membership”
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Kelvin – you are very modest in not describing your contribution to this debate – I guess it was in your usual style.
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Kelvin, I have lurked and read here for some time. I am curious about happenings in sister Anglican churches. I live in the Diocese of Northern Mexico of the Anglican Church of Mexico. American English is a second language for me.
It is difficult for me to follow much of what is written here for two reasons. You all speak a cryptic or clipped form of English at times, even different from what I encounter from the Mad One. You also use a lot of jargon and acronyms associated with the Scottish Church.
This is all OK if you intend your blog to be mostly catering to fellow Scots. However, if you are open to a blog with more international following you all might keep my points in mind when writing.
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I usually try to give the Spanish pronunciation of my name, as opposed to the English, but you blog does not like the augmented letters!
Perdoname.
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Glad to see you got your connection going again – I’m impressed with your speedy blogging!
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But what was the motion though? You can’t say it failed without telling us what it was.
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The agenda and papers are available here:
http://www.scotland.anglican.org/index.php/news/entry/general_synod_2008_agenda_and_papers/These have all the motions and the preparatory materials.
Thanks for your comment, David – I’d be happy to try to explain any technical terms. Synod is quite confusing enough when English is your first language.
If you take a look at the papers that I pointed to above, you will see that the synod members all have a large book in front of them.
The motion which failed would have updated the way in which membership rolls are compiled to allow people to know whether or not they are on them. At the moment, membership rolls are compiled by rectors who do not need to tell people that they are included on the roll even though they may have liabilities thereby.
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As one of my bosses used to say “all aid short of actual help”.
If you can be bothered summarising what all the speakers say why couldn’t you take another couple of minutes and summarise the motion? -
Perhaps what hasn’t been clear to readers who have come upon this post from further afield is that Kelvin was blogging the buisiness of synod in real time. That is only possible in short hand — and therefore probably of most use to those who are unable to be at synod, but broadly aware of the debates going on in the church.
So, perhaps we can let him off the hook for not being all things for all people while blogging from Synod, and be thankful for the wider pattern of good communication that we usually see here.
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