What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Visitation and an Anniversary

    Today is the Feast of the Visitation. It also happens to be the anniversary of me coming to St Mary’s 8 years ago.

    Those who were around then will remember that my ministry started here with a hugely exciting service of induction and installation. I had to be made the Rector and I had to be put in my stall as the Provost. It was one of those services where we threw just about every liturgical trick in the book at it and it worked.

    To be honest, I find most induction services rather dull. We’ve got into the habit of using miserable liturgies for induction services in which there is a central drama of people putting gifts into the new priest’s hands to symbolise all that they are getting by coming to their new job. I hate it and tried to keep it to a minimum when it was my turn here. In particular, I refused to receive the keys of the church – one of the most silly symbols the church has ever invented, in my view.

    I remember saying at one point in the planning of the service, “Well, you can put the keys on a nice velvet cushion and process them up the aisle and bring them to me and bow deeply and offer them to me and I’ll still say ‘No, I am not receiving these keys’”. In the end they never appeared and I didn’t have to publicly say no to them.

    The giving of gifts symbolises things that I’m not comfortable with at all. It is an enactment of a system of power that exists in congregations which is very far from being healthy. (It is also a little bit of liturgy that doesn’t have a great deal of history to it).

    When someone becomes a Rector in a congregation, they find themselves given a load of power right at the beginning. And right from the beginning, their success, or otherwise, will be marked by how they chose to retain that power, give it away or share it.

    The appropriate letting go of power is one of the great themes of Christian ministry but one that is very rarely discussed when clergy are being trained.

    I find myself now, knowing less about what is going on at St Mary’s than once I did. You have to learn to trust people and let go.

    As it happens, I’m off sick for this anniversary and the church is coping without me. I wish I was around this weekend as I’d have enjoyed celebrating an anniversary mass this morning and would rather be worshipping at St Mary’s on a Sunday than anywhere else in the world. (We give ourselves permission to be excited by the worship in St Mary’s – when we are on form, the worship is allowed to be as interesting, moving, funny and passionate as it should be).

    However, even though I’m not there, I’ve every confidence that all will be well without me.

    Once upon a time, I’m not sure that would have been so. I’d have been off sick and still worrying about the place.

    Looking back, there have been wonderful high points since coming here eight years ago. I think that the church is a happier place than it was then too. And I never think happiness should be dismissed. It matters rather a lot.

    I’m happy here at St Mary’s too.

    Eight glorious years.

    Thanks be to God.

    ,

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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