Synod has begun this morning with a lovely Eucharist organized by the Liturgy Committee.
It is good to be celebrating Corpus Christi – we have not always done so when it falls on the first day of Synod. Good too to hear the Primus sing. I always like a singing bishop.
Bishop of Moray is not here as he is at an event with the Princess Royal in Inverness.
The Primus is currently welcoming Ecumenical Guests.
I heard someone talking on the radio who had looked at actual voting data (wherever such people get that from). Predictors of whether someone was a Trump voter, though by no means decisive ones, were whether someone earned more than $50000, had never gone to college or had done so but dropped out, was male, and over 44 years old. But there were people in those categories who had voted for Clinton as well. Even the much spoken of Hispanic vote was not as big a predictor of voting preference as thought and there were too many women who hated Hilary Clinton for misogyny to be the overarching factor.
The stand out predictor which went across all categories was colour, whites going for Trump, up to %58.
This vote was an anti-Obama backlash from people who couldn’t quite forgive the fact that an African-American had been running the show for eight years, whether the racism was of the vitriolic nasty sort or the more urbane sort that says that some of the other lot are probably ok, but only as long as we don’t have to actually mix with them and they’re somewhere else, it amounts to the same thing. The analyst speaking referred to a sort of nostalgia for when whites seemed to be in overall charge of everything.
As to our response: as far as I can see the reason American politics is so vitriolic is because Liberals and Conservatives hate each other and also want to remake the other side in their own image.
Love the other: well very gospel, but pretty darned hard when you struggle to even like xenophobic misogynistic lgbt-haters, let alone love them!
Love might be the attitude that those of us who call ourselves Christians have to struggle towards, but I’m less sanguine than Kelvin is on this one and the verse that keeps going through my mind is the bit in Ecclesiastes about there being a time for this a time for that.
Sometimes conflict is inevitable and has to be fought to a finish. You can’t react to the kind of person who shouted out at Trump’s victory speech “jail Obama” on the basis of well, six of one and half a dozen of the other. And such people aren’t exactly amenable to sweet reason.
On the other hand sometimes people have just to be left alone. Forceably trying to remake the other in your own image just antagonises.
I think our response has to be to discern the difference between the two situations. And to redouble our efforts to make sure that a Trump can’t become Prime Minister in the UK.
A prophetic and timely warning, Kelvin. What Trump represents is on the way to becoming a global phenomenon. The tone of his rallies, and the chanting of mindless slogans, is all too reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s. The fact that his election has been welcomed by Marine le Pen and other far-right leaders in Europe speaks volumes.
Something to think about: when it penetrates the general consciousness that the majority of white conservative evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, what if anything will be the fall out for Christianity as a whole?
The apples are nearly ready to start falling and the students are drifting back to the university. Autumn is here. The summer is over and we are not yet saved. (As the prophet says). There is a chill in the air some days too. Autumn crocuses will soon give way to frost.
How depressing – the Park of Keir hotel complex has been given the go ahead by the local authority. Ribbon development between here and Dunblane. A lovely wooded valley squandered for large sums of money.I've campaigned against this. At the moment it looks as though we have lost. There may be some kind of appeal…
Had a meeting of chaplains this afternoon here, at the University of Stirling. Napier, Edinburgh and Dundee Anglican chaplains were there, along with a student representative from St Andrews. The universities are so different. In one place, Anglican students sit around drinking port and talking about the Holy Trinity, whereas in others little of that…
No sermon today. We used a script from an Iona Community book this morning for the ministry of the word. I asked four members of the congregation to take and read parts. I had little voice this morning. I don't know about praising the Lord with song, I certainly praised the Lord with splutters.
Leave a Reply