What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • A blessing for Vicky Beeching

    I see from my twitter feed that there is a big church story in the press just breaking as I write this. Vicky Beeching has talked about being a gay woman for the first time. It is a big story because she has a strong public profile which she has worked hard to build up and because a lot of her music is sung in big evangelical churches in the USA and elsewhere.

    Earlier this year she revealed that she was supportive of LGBT people and causes and received both support from some and condemnation from others. Vicky’s situation seemed particularly poignant since her income partly depends on her songs continuing to be circulated and sung by some of the very people who might be inclined to condemn her.

    At the time, she was quoted as saying:

    It’s important to me to retain evangelicalism as part my Christian identity. I don’t think the two [evangelicalism and supporting same-sex relationships] are incompatible. I don’t want to lose what evangelical means; there are so many good aspects of it. The Bible is as important as ever; my LGBT theology comes from a high view of scripture, not throwing the Bible out the window. People have accused me of watering down what the Bible says, but for me it’s about using the brain God has given us to put the verses [about homosexuality] into their proper historical context.

    I simply don’t know whether the attempt to retain evangelicalism as an identity whilst being lesbian or gay is possible – it wasn’t for me. However I’d want to wish her the very best in trying to work it out.

    My own experience of coming out quite publicly (ie in the pulpit) at a similar age is that everyone I heard from was supportive. If there were any who were upset or critical they managed to keep it to themselves.

    All this is highly pertinent to the post I wrote about what it means to be an Evangelical. There are people who attend Evangelical churches who wouldn’t recognise my description – for them the camaraderie and the music are far more definitive of who they are than anything about theology, the cross or the bible.

    I don’t know what will happen to Vicky Beeching’s reputation amongst Evangelicals now.  However, just as Alan Bennett famously said that Cranmer didn’t die for English Prose, neither is Evangelicalism defined by the sexuality of who writes its choruses. At least, one hopes not.

    I want to wish Vicky Beeching a blessing as she negotiates a new world. What she has done in being honest is a big thing. She must not be defined by whether others accept her or not. So, a big blessing for Vicky Beeching today, I say. She will have given lots of people a lot of hope and helped many to stay in touch with God simply by doing what she has done so publicly.

    Eternal God of truth and love,
    bless those who come out this day with joy and delight,
    bless those who fear honesty with greater maturity,
    bless those who look for love this day and every day.
    Amen.

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5 responses to “Tanzania”

  1. Raspberry Rabbit Avatar
    Raspberry Rabbit

    A bit picky, yes. Idris will no doubt correct them when he’s there.

    Reply
  2. Simon Sarmiento Avatar
    Simon Sarmiento

    Umm. So Northern Ireland is part of Britain is it?
    Four churches in the UK maybe.

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Well Simon, you are correct in your assumption that I was thinking of the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland, rather than perhaps the Church of Rockall.

    People who are being picky deserve to be picked up for slack talk. However, speaking as I do from the Second City of Empire, I hide behind this quote on the website for Number 10 Downing Street:

    http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page823.asp

    “The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles. Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic form the second largest island.

    The UK is just under 1,000 km long from the south coast of England to the extreme north of Scotland, and is 500 km across at its widest point. It shares a single land border with the Irish Republic. Despite its relatively small size the UK boasts incredibly varied and often very beautiful scenery.

    The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. They are largely self-governing with their own legislative assemblies and systems of law. But the British Government is responsible for their defence and international relations.

    On this site the term ‘Britain’ is used informally to mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

    I’d also refer interested parties to the Wikipedia page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute

    I offer this topic as a free gift to Bishop David.

    Reply
  4. Bishop David Avatar
    Bishop David

    As you would expect, I am all knotted up on this one. I am a citizen of Ireland – or the Irish Republic – or the Republic of Ireland. Nor Eire – or, as many of my parishioners in Portadown would have called it [never having moved on from 1922], the ‘Free State’. Meanwhile President Mary MacAleese is often termed President of Ireland which seems to me to be as notable a piece of ‘overlooking’ as when Ian Paisley refers to the ‘people of Ulster’ [which means some of the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland] and Gerry Adams refers to the ‘Irish People’ [which means not the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland]. I like Wiki’s rather coy description of Ireland as ‘currently split’ – meaning just the most recent 85 years. Which in the context of thousands of years of British misrule in Ireland is but a blink. And finally one comes to the interesting use of the term ‘mainland’ …

    Reply
  5. steg Avatar
    steg

    Must admit when I saw you were writing about primates in Tanzania I thought your blog was going to be about ape conservation………………….

    In my experience people from outwith the UK confuse Britain and England a lot. And they have a point. Do you always refer to the Netherlands or sometimes to Holland even when you are refering to the non Holland bits of the Netherlands? And how do you think that makes the Friesian’s feel? And so on.

    Reply

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