What is in Kelvin's Head?

What institutional homophobia looks like

19/04/2017

Here’s a quick example to illustrate what institutional homophobia looks like.

Yesterday the report of the Theological Forum of the Church of Scotland to the General Assembly was published and it deals with a number of issues of interest to LGBT people. (It is well worth a read).

Amongst the “deliverances” ie proposals to go to the General Assembly from that Forum is this very clear call for an apology to LGBT people.

The General Assembly:

Invite the Church to take stock of its history of discrimination at different levels and in different ways against gay people and to apologise individually and corporately and seek to do better.

What could be clearer? Should the General Assembly apologise for discrimination against gay people it would be a huge and significant moment and very much to be welcomed.

However, listen to what the Principal Clerk to the General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers of the Church of Scotland said on TV last night about the proposal:

“What the General Assembly is being asked to do this year is acknowledge and apologise for some of the harsh things that have been said on both sides of this debate over the last 20 to 30 years and I think the General Assembly will readily want to do that.”

This is very clearly not what the General Assembly is being asked to do.

This is a good example of institutional homophobia. In describing a call to apologise to gay people, gay people and their supporters are represented as being people making statements for 20 or 30 years which need to be apologised for.

I don’t believe that John Chalmers is a homophobe. Just the opposite. I’m quite sure that he is charming to gay people and I suspect he wants the church to accept gay people. However, put in a public position to explain a proposal to apologise for discrimination he gets it very wrong.

I have no doubt that there are huge institutional pressures on him over this issue and that is why he speaks as he does.

However, this looks to me like a very clear example of what institutional homophobia looks like. Institutional homophobia seems to come most often from people who are personally supportive of those of us who are gay.

Ironically, this is the kind of thing that needs to be apologised for.

We have it in our church too.

I find that people don’t like me pointing it out.

7 responses to “Sermon – 1 June 2008”

Di

01/06/2008

It seems to me more and more important for us to rediscover the idea of the divine inspiration of the reader of scripture as well as that of the authors.

Thank you for this, Kelvin. I agree with you wholeheartedly. After all, only the author truly knows what was in his head when he wrote it and indeed, where the inspiration came from.

Oh, and I enjoyed the rest too.

Reply
Marion Conn

02/06/2008

Once again I’m listening to this late at night. Definitely food for thought and prayer. I was outside in the rain tonight, I really like the idea of that I was not just wet, but drenched in Grace. Thanks Kelvin.

Good Night.

Reply
Jonathan Ensor

03/06/2008

I believe that everyone has a right to freedom of thought. Freedom of speech is a circumscribed fact of life in the UK and it is certainly an interesting idea that reading can be inspired, but who is the arbiter of what is inspired and who is the arbiter of what is apostate. I may believe with all my heart that I am divinely inspired, but I still have to convince other people that this is the case and that I am not being grandiose etc. If I pontificate about a text in the common domain, I may well have to justify myself and/or defend my position at some considerable cost, which I may or may not be willing to pay.

Reply
kelvin

03/06/2008

Thank you for your comments.

Jonathan – I think that I was suggesting that we see both the authorship of texts and the reading of texts as activities that can be inspired. I think that there has to be some dialogue between author and reader.

I also think that in the history of looking at biblical texts, some people have emphasised the value of the text to the individual whilst others have read the text in community. (We might also presume that the texts themselves were gathered in community). I don’t think that I’d like to lose sight of that idea of inspiration coming when a community reads a text together. That idea is important to me as it counters against the idea of individuals thinking that they (alone) are divinely inspired.

It seems to me that more people have believed that they alone were the only proper source of truth or inspiration or legitimacy than has actually been the case.

Reply
Elizabeth

03/06/2008

Having heard this text spoken of many, many, many times in the context of Luther’s reading, I must say it was an enormous relief to hear this other way of reading. This tempts me to return to other texts of Paul’s that might be worth re-reading without Evangelical/Calvinist/Lutheran-coloured glasses.

Reply
Jonathan Ensor

03/06/2008

Kelvin, I agree that there has to be a community, but pretty universally in churches I have been to the Minister has preached and the community has continued to be fragmented. Also there is no chance of dialogue with dead authors and in the realm of art, once a work is in the public realm it is available for multiple interpretations which the artist may well never have considered. Even legal documents which attempt to define the law are interpreted by the judiciary. There is little chance for art or literature or the bible to be consistently read because the implications of certain phrases or sentences may reside in the way that they are written rather than in the mind of the author and the definitions may be too loosely drawn.

Reply
kelvin

03/06/2008

Many thanks for your comments.

Reply