What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Review of Last Year’s Predictions

    Well, clearly it behoves me to consider last year’s New Year Predictions and see how I did.

    Remember those people who used to say, “But what is a blog…?” Well this year you are going to be hearing them say, “But what is a mooc…?”

    Well, I think I got that partially right. Lots of people have been getting online education and training from moocs and mooclike environments. Coming to a church context near you in the future. I claim a partial hit with this prediction.

    Gay men are going to start shaving again. Now that so many straight men have bought into the idea that beards are hip, it is time to mess with their fashion sense again. Consider this the memo. (Next year, the end of tattoos!)

    Oh, I got this so, so wrong and beards have become so, so absurd. How long, O Lord, how long?

    Church of Scotland General Assembly will be unable to affirm last year’s compromise on a local option for ministers who happen to be gay.

    Well, I got this one wrong too. Looks as though the Assembly will affirm last year’s compromise though there is disagreement about whether the provisions regarding civil partnership should also refer to marriage. I expect this one will run on for a bit.

    More revelations relating to Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien.

    Yes – we have revelations about where he is living and how he is funded. I expected more about his time as bishop, but that may come yet.

    Number of active bloggers decreases. Influence of those still blogging increases.

    Yes – blogging has become much more intentional and is clearly for the committed. However, I’m pleased to see an end of year boost in Scottish Episcopal blogging once people realised they had something they passionately wanted to talk about.

    The real purpose of the Pilling Report will be revealed with hindsight as evangelicals begin to argue about its contents. (May take a couple of years, but trust me on this one). Initially this will be in private – increasingly in public. Having been the great unifying factor for Evangelicals for the last 10 years, attitudes to gay people will become the source of greatest disunity amongst Evangelicals for the next decade. Unappealing and unsatisfying as it is, Pilling is a watershed – it was never designed to court liberal opinion so we might as well stop moaning about it. It was designed to divide evangelical opinion and is going to be jolly successful.

    Not Proven must be the verdict on this one for the year that is past – partly true but the bit about Pilling remains to be seen as I expected. We’ve have some interesting debates within Evangelicalism and Vicky Beeching’s coming out. This one really will run and run.

    The Independence Referendum will be lost here in Scotland but alas, not by enough to shut everyone up.

    Yes – bang on. I was right. I was right. I was right.

    Such terrible statistics in the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway that we lose at least 4 seats on General Synod.

    Yes – did we lose 6 or was it more?

    Lord Carey will say that Christians are being persecuted in the UK, that the church is dying out or that the sky is going to fall in, and will say it at the most unhelpful time possible – probably around one of the English General Synods or Easter.

    I’m claiming this is a hit. He came out in favour of allowing assisted suicide (against the Church of England’s stated policy) on 11 July 2014. Synod started 11 July 2014.

    We will hear about our first UK gay divorce.

    No – surprisingly, I don’t think I can find headlines about this.

    Trends to watch:

    Continued meltdown of the Church of Scotland. Ceasing to be a national church before our very eyes.

    Internet increasingly rewards those who know how to manipulate images.

    Economic polarization of the UK continues.

    Yes. Yes. And, sadly, Yes.

    Mixed bag this year.

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5 responses to ““Issues” is no more”

  1. Cedric Avatar
    Cedric

    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 Avatar
      Beth

      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
  2. Ian Paul Avatar
    Ian Paul

    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 Avatar
      Kelvin

      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
  3. Mike Burnett Avatar
    Mike Burnett

    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.

    Reply

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