A long time ago, back in the mists of nearly twenty years ago, I started to think that it was important that there was a liturgical celebration of creation. I thought long and hard about it and decided that instead of celebrating that modern invention the Harvest Festival, we would celebrate Creation instead, rolling a sense of thanksgiving into that but praying too for the wellbeing of the created world.
That is the way that it has been for quite a while now. We usually keep it on the first Sunday in October, around the time of the Feast of St Francis. We even sometimes throw in an animal blessing service that weekend, despite the fact that Francis himself wouldn’t allow members of his order to keep pets.
As time has gone on, the climate crisis has become more obvious to more people and the churches have been looking for ways to think about creation. Thus the idea of Creationtide – a month long celebration of creation has started to be marked in different ways in different churches.
Now, I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to churches declaring new seasons. When the Church of England and those who follow its mysterious ways decided that Kingdom Season was a thing, I wasn’t impressed. Similarly, when in the Scottish Episcopal Church, the bishops started talking about a Season of Christian Living or a Season of Discipleship I was more inclined to be a disinterested observer than an active participant. The biggest problem, it always seemed to me, with new Seasons in the Calendar was that the worldwide church hadn’t made its mind up.
And yes, I know that there are those who will think that it is odd that I thought we could move ahead with the marriages of same-sex couples or the ordination of priests who happen to be women without the enthusiastic agreement of the whole church but that we couldn’t have a new season without universal agreement but there we are. We all have our red lines.
The surprising thing about the Season of Creation though it that it is attracting considerable interest across different denominations. Churches of the Orthodox tradition, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism are all pondering what it means to keep a season or a feast meditating on creation. Significant elements of the world church do seem, this time, to be on their way to creating a new season or feast.
I’d be happy with a feast rather than a season, but that’s not the principle point that I’m interested in right now.
The thing that bothers me more than anything about this isn’t the intention to mark Creation in the calendar. It is how we mark it and what we say about it.
In particular, it troubles me considerably that the language that we use to mark the feast might be contributing to damaging ways of thinking about the created order in the face of the climate crisis. Our words form our thoughts and I’m not convinced that declaring a Season of Creation without thinking hard about what words we will use is really going to help.
I struggle most with the notion that it is a positive thing for human beings to be seen as Stewards of Creation. This idea inhabits many modern liturgies.
We currently have the following as a prayer offered for experimental use during the Season of Creation.
God give you grace to be faithful stewards of Creation,
rejoicing that you are made in God’s image,
and seeking justice for those who do not share in the earth’s bounty,
and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
be upon you, and remain with you always. Amen.
This is by no means unusual. The idea that we should become better stewards of creation comes at us in hymns and in prayers and, I suspect, in sermons preached around this time.
The trouble is, I think that human beings being stewards of creation is part of what has got us into the mess we are in globally.
It posits a God who has gone away, leaving creation to be managed (stewarded) by human beings.
Firstly I don’t think that God has gone away. And secondly, the trouble with a management model is that it imagines our role in creation to be primarily that of taming it, controlling it. It is as though we are here to turn creation into a park fit to live in.
That very idea of human beings being created themselves in order to manage the rest of creation seems to me to be deeply problematic. It puts human beings at the centre of the created order when all that we can see around us tells us that this is not so. Who stewarded the dinosaurs? Who stewards Alpha Centauri?
Placing ourselves at the centre of how we think about the world isn’t surprising. It may even, with a little side order of repentance be something that is forgivable. I think therefore I am very quickly turns into I think therefore I am right here at the centre of things and morphs into I think therefore I am in charge, all too easily.
Here in the Scottish Episcopal Church we’ve also been experimenting with the idea of being “priests to creation”.
…you formed humanity in your own image,
and entrusted us with the priesthood of your Creation.
It is a poetic image which comes from some serious theology but it is theology that predates the Climate Crisis.
And anyway, I have more of a sense that creation is a priest to me, mediating my relationship with God than that I am a priest to creation, somehow standing between the created order and divine love.
Creation is not ours to tame. The stewarding and priestly metaphors lead directly into a control mentality. And the outworkings of that are all too evident. At least one of the leaders of a political party in the UK came away from the Triumpian Banquet this week convinced that the best way forward was to extract all our oil and all our gas from the North Sea and use it. Note the possessive adjective used – our. In the face of the Climate Crisis, oil of ours might well take us closer to our destruction.
Deep inside, I think that most Christians know that Creation is not ours to tame.
There are currently many Christians coming on pilgrimage to Scotland. (When Jerusalem is closed, Iona is open). Many of them come via the church I serve either on their way to Iona or on their way back.
There is a sense when you talk to them that they have an instinctive urge to get to a place where human beings have not tamed the created order. As though God will speak to them there. I have many problems with that as I think that God is as present in the city as in the country and in the New World just as much as the Old. However, that sense of the goodness of creation being found in the wilderness is instinctive in the minds of many of the pilgrims that I meet.
Kierkegaard asked himself whether he should choose the monastery or the deer park – piety or pleasure. Our choice lies in whether we choose to see God in the crashing waves, the raging of the volcano and the struggle between the predator and their prey or whether we can only imagine God at work in some place where the wilderness has been tamed.
We may have been created for a garden and we may end up destined for a garden of delights, but here, out of Eden, we neither live in parkland nor are called to tame, pillage or plunder the world around us.
That notion of stewardship is trouble for it doesn’t allow us to think of ourselves as inherently creatures within creation. It always calls us to manage, interfere and control. It brings with it mentalities of harm.
Jesus has harsh words to say about stewards. They are seldom, in his thought world intrinsically good.
In Scotland, we use other vocabulary for stewards. Both in terms of managing highland estates or in terms of how we manage shared buildings in cities, the steward is called the factor. Factors are often disliked and often mistrusted. They are simply there to manage and steward property on behalf of others who are either absent or unable able to exercise the level of control that is needed to cope with property.
Such an image is a terrible one for how we think about creation.
Somehow we need language that stops us from thinking that human beings are in charge.
Should we pray, “God give you the grace to be faithful factors of Creation?”
Everyone who has ever had a factor will think we should not.
37 responses to “Keeping the faith”
It was an inspiring recitation. Following the English translation in the service sheet provided added insight to the life of Mary. All the more so as the cathedral is dedicated to St Mary. You are reminded of Mary every time you walk into the building with the Gwyneth Leech mural over the High Altar.
Kelvin is quite right. The very self-righteous defenders of the Bible (including the ones who trolled a brave young Muslim woman, for days, with the most vile language, and those who did not reprimand them) totally ignored the Biblical instructions for raising concerns with a brother in faith (Matthew 18:15; 2 Tim 23). Very practical instruction too! As anyone who has ever lived in community can verify. Could all these obsessive men *please* stop trying to divide our communities in Glasgow. We will not be divided. At the first sign of trouble we rush out to embrace one another. These abusers have much to repent of, even if *just* standing by while others throw stones.
I HATE it when the wrong tune is picked for a hymn … it is simply an abomination before God.
However, helping people to think about how we share hospitality, welcome and learn from each other is the WAY of God! Blessings on you Kelvin.
Some reasons why this time was different:
1. The other quaran recitations you mentioned happened at Nine Lessons and Carols, or special ecuminical and interfaith events. While 9L&C was originally a modified Evensong, nowadays it’s usually considered a seasonal community musical recitial with a religious tinge, so having a Muslim from the community recite something from their faith would seem natural enough. Civic and interfaith services will likewise naturally include representatives of every faith in the community. By contrast the Eucharist is the central act of Christian worship and people expect to hear ONLY Christian doctrine proclaimed in the Holy Eucharist. In other words, this was the wrong venue for showing hospitality to Muslim neighbors. You did not intend to practice syncretism, but I think the outcome was syncretic despite your good intentions.
2. Post Brexit (and post Trump) British Muslims are now seen as alien invaders rather than fellow members of the community.
3. Because hostility to Muslims is now fashionable, the Express and rest of the gutter press decided that this was a story worth reporting. Since conservative Americans often read the online editions of the British gutter press, the story then went global.
4. Because you are gay and out, your every action is scrutinized for any possible hint of heresy by GAFCON and Co.
Of all these reasons, only reason #1 is a legitimate criticism, but I hope you do think about criticism #1 as well as defending yourself from other, illegitimate criticisms.
Thank you for your comment Whit J – all the more because it is a thoughtful criticism.
I’ve plenty to reflect on about the how and the when we do things like that and I do hear loudly and clearly that many people think this was an inappropriate context. Though of course, I’d be bound to say that some are saying that the Eucharist is precisely the place indeed there are some saying that is what it is for.
I’m not going to get into a back and forth with all the comments on this post and I’m deliberately not letting through things that have already been said but be assured that I’ve heard the criticism and will reflect on it not simply now but over coming months. (I’ve learned a lot about where God is this week that will take a long time to process). I’m grateful for the way you’ve made your point.
I think there is a good deal in what Whit J says, although I am not sure the effect actually was syncretic. I think one does perhaps have to be a regular worshipper at St Mary’s to understand how totally orthodox the worship there is, and how much Jesus is the focus of worship – how utterly unlikely it is that anyone there would make the mistake of thinking he was not revered by the congregation as a whole as very God from very God. It would be impossible for them not to realise that all the clergy there rejoice in this belief. The congregation saw the words of the Qu’ran in an English translation which portrayed that book’s far-from-easy-to-follow account of Islam’s view of the conception of Jesus, in which there was nothing offensive, and heard a very beautiful voice singing in a strange and glorious language. These were clearly indicated to be the beliefs of another faith. We certainly neither saw or heard or understood any insult to the person of Christ. I am sure none was intended, either. Whereas, and this bears repeating, I am totally sure that many of those commenting (not of course by any means all of them, and nobody whose comments are published here) simply wish harm to relationships between the great faiths in Glasgow.
I have spent my whole adult life in dialogue with people of other religious traditions, it has been deeply rewarding. However I feel that what happened at this service was profoundly wrong. When we are truly ourselves we allow other people to be profoundly themselves. The truth of Christianity is not compatible with any other religion. To avoid that incompatibility is to avoid reality. Worship of Jesus is the fountain of our faith the Qu’ran is opposed to that. I love Jesus and therefore cannot conceive of reading the Qu’ran in an act of worship – no problem doing so in other contexts but not in worship. I am profoundly disturbed that you cannot see this Kelvin.
There are so many things aren’t there, not just around this issue which we hold dear in faith and which we can’t see from another perspective?
I can hear and see that people are upset by this and clearly there are many people not upset by it too. And obviously, at least I hope obviously, I love Jesus too.
The trouble with religious questions and the questions that religious people have I think is that so often that our love for our faith can make it impossible to comprehend others who also claim to love the same faith but who take different views about things. We can hear them claim that love but be intellectually unable to process it because it leads them to different conclusions.
I’ve found the same thing to be true in the sexuality debates very frequently though I perceive that to be changing sometimes now. Similarly with other identity issues and some political issues. Israel/Palestine conversations for example often seem to be conducted (when they are conducted at all) by people who seem to behave like ships passing in the night.
I happen to have views about Church Schools which are pretty intransigent and negative. You are one of the few people, no the only person, who ever made me really think there might be a point of view about them other than mine which might have an integrity I could respect. And I’m very grateful for that.
Kelvin, thank you for your reply. I have enormous respect for you. I have no doubt that church schools can be argued against from perfectly respectable positions. Worship of Jesus is simply a different order, it cannot include a reading from the Qu’ran. Worship is one thing, study, dialogue, relationship something else.
I am really grateful to Richard for the phrase “When we are truly ourselves we allow other people to be profoundly themselves” which reflects my experience of interfacing with sincere people of other faiths. Is a Christian Eucharist a place this should happen? I can understand some Christians feeling it is not, but as long as everything was clearly labelled as what it was and the integrity of the liturgy was intact, I can also understand some feeling it is.
Brother Kelvin,
Although I do not agree with allowing the Koran to be read in our Christian churches, I truly appreciated your firm and resolute stand for the deity of Jesus. He is our great God and Savior and I love Him very much. Blessings from Tennessee.
Just as a perhaps amusing point of reference, the 1982 hymnal of the Episcopal church in the USA has “Brightest and best of the STARS” (caps mine) “of the morning,” apparently so as to avoid offending any daughters who might be present, and the two tunes included are “Morning Star” by James Proctor Harding (1850-1911) and “Star in the East” from The Southern Harmony (1835). The Harding tune was also in the 1940 Hymnal, wherein the word “sons” was still used.
I am not clear as to whether the hospitality at St Mary’s anticipates infinite extension of parallel lines between Islam and the Church in Glasgow. Are you planning some opportunities for Glasgow Muslims to understand the Christian faith and prepare for Baptism and the glorious liberty of regeneration by the Holy Spirit? (In whichever order; no axe about that!) As you move around the Glasgow community and meet more Christians of Islamic background, why not invite such to participate in groups for new Muslim enquirers? The testimony of an ex-Muslim can express vibrantly “How I know He lives” (as your SA brethren would sing). You might find not only new hearts from a divine work of grace among your Muslim neighbours but in other neighbours too. Amen. Inshallah!
There are a small number of people in St Mary’s who are converts from Islam to Christianity just as there are a small number of people in local mosques who are converts from Christianity to Islam.
St Mary’s regularly puts on events and courses for people discovering and exploring Christianity. Most living religions do the same thing.