What is in Kelvin's Head?

Three links about mission

04/04/2013

Back to business. I’ve been having a quiet few days on the blog what with Holy Week and the joy of the resurrection to cope with.

Over that time, I’ve noticed a few articles appearing online which are well worth taking note of.

Firstly, the report which was headlined in the Sunday Times which was a survey of where the churches are. It is something of a tradition of the Sunday Times to carry surveys saying that the church is in trouble over the Easter weekend.

There’s a report about this one over on the Reuters site and it is worth looking at, together with some more analysis linked to over at Thinking Anglicans. Perhaps the least newsworthy item is that 76 % of Scots think the Church of England is out of touch. Well, you don’t say.

However, there’s things that are worth thinking about. The Sunday Times interpreted it all as meaning that there is a lack of moral leadership coming from the churches and that people are trusting clergy less. (Whether clergy are trusting the laity more or less is perhaps a much more interesting question).

Then over in the Spectator there is a rather depressing account of what it was like for Ysenda Maxtone Graham to go to a rural church for an Easter Day. It is worth a read even though you won’t like it. No, it is worth a read because you won’t like it. Before you click on the link, recite a bit of Burns a few times over. “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.”

Then, rather more positively but just a troubling is Andrew Brown’s very thoughtful piece on the Guardian website: How do churches get new bums on seats? Get rid of the boring old ones.

Really interesting analysis of why church-planting has worked for some people – because it produces the commitment in younger people that is needed to make the church swing which they are unlikely to throw at churches that are struggling which are full of older people wanting things not to change.

Now, the string that ties these three pieces of work together is a hunch that the two things which affect whether or not someone new will come back to a church and give it a go are firstly what happens there on a Sunday and secondly how they feel about those who are there on a Sunday. (And it is worth pondering for a moment which might be easier to change).

Now, is there any way we can talk about that? Does it fit neatly with the mission discourse of the Scottish Episcopal Church at the moment? I’m not so sure, but I rather think it matters that we find some way of having that conversation.

What do you think?

mission

9 responses to “Biobank – an ethical question”

Rev Ruth

25/10/2007

I’ve been asked too. And I got so excited – you know how I love all things medical. My mind had already raced off into the realms of them finding that I had some mysterious disease… But now that you put it like that, I guess I’d better give it some more thought.

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Raspberry Rabbit

25/10/2007

I haven’t been asked. Radical foreign clerics must not be on the list.

I’d be hesitant to do it anyway. Too much information is being stored about us in anticipation of the day when it might prove useful. Best to keep your head down.

RR

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Tim

25/10/2007

Eeek. I saw the phrase “Do you want to do something good today? Not just for yourself, but for our children and our children’s children?” near the top of the page and instantly the thought occurred, “what’s the potential cost? Where are the privacy controls?” Not as though anyone’s asked me anyway, but that sort of thing worries me from the outset too.

A little more investigation shows http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/faqs/confidentiality.php , particularly #5 etc; it seems too vague, just a gloss to placate the masses. I don’t want `computers unconnected to the internet’; I’d want a guarantee that they never will be, that no floppy disks or other methods will result in data coming off them, and that they’re well secured in a bunker somewhere.

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chris

25/10/2007

We’re involved. My sister-in-law first; she asked my husband; we discussed it and decided the potential for knowledge and research into – for example – the hereditary factor in clinical depression – made it something we wanted to do. Our sons have also expressed a willingness to participate. I personally don’t care about what happens to my DNA (other than its continuation in my family!) and if some good can come out of it then that’s just fine. I trust scientists every bit as much (or as little) as I trust anyone else.

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asphodeline

25/10/2007

Have you seen Heroes???? Sounds like a sneaky plot to find more 🙂

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kelvin

25/10/2007

I have not seen Heroes. Is it about eugenics?

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asphodeline

26/10/2007

Ah. It has a hint of eugenics. Part of the plotline involves some form of research into the DNA of people with supernatural powers!

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kelvin

26/10/2007

Ah, I see why you associated it with me.

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Andrew

19/03/2008

My wife I also each received one of the so called invitations today, my first reaction was anger over the wording of the invitation which by telling me I have a “provisional appointment” assuming I am gullible enough to fall for the use of false authority syndrome.

I am really concerned a lot of less literate people will not fully understand the “invitation” and assume it something they have to do.

What really makes my blood boil is the that even if you don’t want to take part you have to reply to get your name removed from the records, this raises real civil liberties issues.

The thing is if I had been asked to participate in I a nice way I would have been very keen to do so, however the whole tone of the letter stinks of authoritarianism and reminds me of the kind of thing the Nazis were doing in the mid 1930s.

If you get one of these invitation say no and tell them why — or better still rip it up.

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