What is in Kelvin's Head?

Charles, King and Martyr

30/01/2015

On this day, the Scottish Episcopal Church remembers Charles I – the king who was beheaded on this day in Whitehall in 1649.

There’s always services organised in Scotland to remember Charles. The Scottish Episcopal Church was strongly aligned in the Jacobite cause in times gone by.

I tend to remember this day not merely in terms of thinking about Charles but in terms of thinking about the violence and persecution that Episcopalians in Glasgow once suffered. (And also when they got the chance, doled out to others).

There was a time when Episcopalians could not worship terribly freely in this city and the congregation that was to become the congregation that I serve now knew real hardship. If you go to the Mitchell Library you can find ballads in song books celebrating the rabbling of the Episcopal place of worship – something which tended to happen at this time of year and which was almost certainly connected with the congregation remembering Charles and the Stuart cause.

Rabbling wasn’t much fun. It meant the destruction of the place of the worship and the scattering of the congregation. It was akin in its day to firebombing a mosque or a church these days.

In remembering Charles, I remember all those in this city of any faith who have been persecuted through the ages. I remember too those who kept the faith of my own congregation and eventually built a spectacular church in the respectable West End of the city – no doubt celebrating the fact that they were free to worship the way they wanted to at last. And I remember those who still do not have religious liberty today.

And I remember Charles’s words on the day they killed him too.

Introth, Sirs, My Conscience in Religion, I think, is very well knowne to all the World; and, therefore, I declare before you all that I die a Christian, according to the profession of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father…

I go from a corruptible, to an incorruptible Crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the World.

5 responses to ““Issues” is no more”

Cedric

16/07/2025

Oh I well remember the day ‘Issues’ landed with a loud thud through the letter box. I had been ordained for over 10 years by then. And I reeled in reading it.
Before then the general culture of conversation about sexuality in the Church was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. And most bishops acknowledged that among their most able and effective clergy many were gay men, some in relationships, and often deployable in parishes where others would not contemplate living and working.
But remember the context. This was also a period when AIDS was an international emergency and in Britain the Thatcher government sought to outlaw the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality through section 28 of the Local Government Act. And for sure, ‘Issues’ was a direct consequence of the passing of the amended Tony Higton General Synod private members’ motion declaring all ‘homosexual acts’ as sinful. The consequent noise of the shutting of closet doors was deafening.
In my diocese the bishop asked one of the archdeacons to convene regular confidential meetings with a few gay clergy to offer them an opportunity to talk about the effects of all this on their lives and ministry. Some would not trust the Church to participate in such enterprises. Understandably. And huge numbers of vocations were thwarted and lost. And are to this day, as the toxic debates continue in the C of E in a social context which has changed beyond imagining.
So thank you Kelvin, as ever, for your insightful questions.

Reply
1. Beth
  
  17/07/2025
  
  Cedric, I recall you speaking to the LGBT Network at the Cathedral about Issues and that it was reaffirmed by the C of E around about that time too. I wasn’t so aware of it when it was published (being about eight years old at the time and also a Roman Catholic), but I remember so clearly from what you said how devastating it had obviously been and still was. I remember thinking at the time of that reaffirmation, “oh, I can never go home”. It became so clear to me that the Church of England wasn’t somewhere I could feel welcome as long as it was allowed to stand.
  
  Reply
Ian Paul

18/07/2025

Kelvin, I can understand why you are glad that the offensive language of Issues has gone. Ironically, it was actually a statement written by liberals of the day; the main author was Richard Harries.

And conforming to Issues was never the real question. The real question is conforming to Canons B30 and C26, so that the pattern of life of clergy should reflect the doctrine of the Church ‘according to the teaching of Jesus’. All Issues did was make that clear and unambiguous (though in an unhelpful and obsessive way) with regard to sexual intimacy. Ironically, it was the liberal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy which cemented Issues in place as a response.

And of course, with Issues gone, the Canons remain in place, and the demand is the same. The good thing about GPCC is that it sets this one issue in the context of many others, which is much healthier.

But on the question in hand—nothing has changed. You seem to have missed that.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  19/07/2025
  
  No Ian. It isn’t that I’ve missed that. It is that I don’t believe that.
  
  Issues was a massively offensive document that coloured absolutely everything the Church of England had to say about sexuality. Changes to Canons will look significantly different in the light of its removal.
  
  A great deal is changed by its removal.
  
  Reply
Mike Burnett

16/10/2025

Jesus preached love, but he also forgave sins with the instruction ‘to sin no more’.
Deciding not to sin when the sin in question is something that we enjoy so much that life may feel miserable without it, is a real sacrifice. It really is ‘bearing your cross’ to follow him. But that is what Christians are called to do.
We may wish to question our translation of the Bible, or quibble over the exact meaning of a phrase we find challenging, but Christianity is not a ‘pick and mix’ faith where we just have to accept the bits we like and can ignore, or condemn, the bits we don’t like. We do not get to negotiate – we must take it or leave it.

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