What is in Kelvin's Head?

St Andrews Debates

21/02/2013

Great night last night in Lower Parliament Hall in St Andrews. I’d been invited to join a panel debate (a bit like Question Time) on LGBT issues at the invitation of the Debating Society and the LGBT Society of St Andrews University.

I like going back to St Andrews, which was where I read theology from 1989 – 1992. I don’t get there terribly often.

There are people who go to university there who never leave. They hang around and can’t get it out of their system. I was never like that but it is still lovely to return. There is still an emotional thrill to be had peeking into St Mary’s Quad and thinking, “I was here, I was here”

So many things about St Andrews never change. However some things do. It was obvious last night that things have changed for gay students. In my time, the LGBT group met behind closed doors in a small room in the Chaplaincy on a Sunday evening. I never went. I would have been frightened to go but do remember walking past the steamed up windows and wondering what was going on inside. (They were probably boiling kettles to make tea, but the steamed up windows did make you wonder).

Now, the LGBT Society is a sub committee of the Union, like the Debating Society. That means that by definition, every student in the University is a member and they are responsible for providing a range of services. They say there are a couple of hundred active members and last night, LGBT and Debates were holding their first joint event. It is almost inconceivable to me that the Debating Soc, which was so macho, testosterone fueled and deeply conservative in my day should be doing this now.

It is quite moving to go back to your alma mater. Last night wasn’t just nostalgia for me though. I could see the real, material changes that have come to students like me. Things have changed, gloriously changed in the last 20 years. I’m proud to have been part of that and proud to have joined a great bunch of students last night for debate and socialising afterwards. (Though I gave up and headed to bed before they did).

6 responses to “Here or there?”

Gary

01/04/2007

Up there. High altar. No doubt.

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Tom Allen

01/04/2007

I am very much with Richard Giles on this one – there should liturgically only be one main altar – ideally this is achieved by romoving the former High altar and dedicating that space to some other purpose – where that is not possible as in historic cathedrals then it should be left dormant (covered in a simple cloth perhaps) and only the altar which is being used for worship should be dressed since this is in fact THE altar.

Despite all the reservations about removing former altars in the end it solves long-term problems, and provides a single visual focus for Eucharistic worship. At times when a high altar is needed then the new altar can moved there.

This kind of fuzziness illustrates that our liturgical practice has become dominated by hertiage criteria.

I am about to replace our main altar with something moveable and aesthetically more appropriate, but am facing a Registrars ruling that the current altar (and former eastward facing number more recently provided with wheels and moved to the chancel!) must be burnt, and that the wood frontal cannot be used for a screen.

Dont’ we get ourselves tied up in knots!
Tom

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Stewart

01/04/2007

A thought came to my mind this afternoon. At the Creed we all face east. This results in the choir turning their back on the Nave Altar and in most cases put the High Altar in their sight.

Considering Tom’s comments, another thought thinking about some English Cathedrals which have multiple altars around the building, it is not usually possible to see more than one at a time. Some have a chapel behind the High Altar – behind a screen.

Turning back to St Mary’s – all the action at the 10:30 service is centred and focused around the Nave Altar. However there is still the High Altar, the Pheobe Traquair Reredos and Gwyneth Leach mural of Our Lady at the East End. To my mind their presence enhances the worship around the Nave Altar and does not detract from it.

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Andrew

02/04/2007

The Altar is a table, where we commemorate a meal together. Clearly (to my mind) we should all be sitting round it, as we do (more or less) at present. The table reminds me that Jesus instituted the Last Supper when he was among us (HERE), not somewhere else (THERE).

I very much hope that the Altar in St. Mary’s can be left where it is.

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kelvin

03/04/2007

It seems to me curious that the practice that I inherited was to light and dress the high altar whilst using the nave altar. It makes no sense, except perhaps to highlight St Mary’s puzzling parallel worlds of deep conservatism mingled with radical liberalism.

Whist tending to agree with Andrew’s sentiments, it is worth remembering that the nave altar could hardly be said to have stayed in one place these last 20 years.

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Elizabeth

17/04/2007

Here. Both. Loving the paradox.

But maybe I only say that beccause the only church I’ve regularly worshiped in where there are clearly two visible altars is St Mary’s and that’s what I’m used to. I’ve never found it distracting that the high altar is dressed and lit, even though the nave altar is where the action is, so to speak. But then, would I notice if the high altar wasn’t dressed and lit? Probably not.

I do love the nave altar, peripatetic as it is!

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