- The UK will begin leaving the EU on 29 March 2019. It will take 10 years to leave, 10 years for it to be evident to the whole country how stupid it was and 10 years to get back in, with none of our current special measures. (Hope this prediction doesn’t come to pass but fear it will).
- The only thing to make EU-positive lefty-liberals to have pause for thought will be the EU Elections in May which will result in big gains for the so-called populist right.
- No progress towards same-sex marriage in the Church of England, despite much clearer calls for it to happen.
- Significant concerns in many UK dioceses about the cost of bishops, and particularly their spouses, attending the Lambeth Conference in 2020. (Over £5000 each).
- Elizabeth Warren / Beto O’Rourke begin to emerge as the Democratic dream ticket.
- Stricter legislation in connection with drone operators.
- Steps towards legalisation of cannabis under serious consideration within SNP.
- No referendum on Independence.
- Cyber attacks merging with terrorist attacks
- One of Scotland’s daily newspapers ceases print publication.
10 responses to “Blogging”
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First, let me argue that Bishop Paul Marshall — who wrote that letter you cite — is not one of the great liberals of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. He is widely respected and regarded as a moderate. What he wrote in that letter is a frustration that many of us share: Why can the Archbishop meet privately with the most extreme conservatives of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., but consistently refuses to meet with our bishops assembled? I think that is a fair and valid question. I would urge folks to read Bishop Marshall’s whole letter and not just Ruth Gledhill’s biased “gloss” on it.
I agree the overall tenor of dialogue on U.S. Episcopalians’ blogs is worrisome. But I do not believe it’s the “liberals” that have gone out of bounds. If you want to read true venom, go to Virtue Online or StandFirm.
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It would be great to have a meet up and blether!
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Thanks for the comments
Lisa – it was precisely standfirm and virtueonline that I had in mind.
You’re presuming that I don’t have sympathy for Paul Marshall. I have a great deal of sympathy for his position. I think he is angry. And I think he is right to be angry. I deliberately linked directly to his piece rather than Ruth Gledhill’s stuff about it, which people can find for themselves.
Perhaps if I had written “Those of us with strong liberal convictions…” my own position would have been clearer.
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Sociability good. (And arguably good for online interactions too – there are several notable folks whose adventures I read, whom I could happily put in a room together with a football and lock the door 😉
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There comes a time to toss convention and start communicating. I have a tea party in mind.
cheers
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Kelvin, I think the whole blogging machine on the right in the U.S. has been set up for a good long while now. They’ve become proficient at it – the ‘blog storm’ if you like which sees itself quite self consciously as ‘generating’ public opinion for particular ends. The amount of support which ‘social conservatives’ will lend to religious conservatives as ‘deserving cousins’ allows those involved in the present TEC dispute access to an immense network.
I agree with the first comment about Bishop Marshall being middle of the road and not particularly liberal.
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Oh and with respect to SEC bloggers. A meeting might be a good idea
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Kevin: Just discovered your blog through MadPriest’s blog. I’ll add you to my regular visits.
It is exciting for me, an American far away from the Episcopal Church of Scotland, since I was confirmed at St Mary’s Glasgow back on Pentecost Sunday in 1988 – your church is where I became an Episcopalian – Fr John Turner was the chaplain at GU. Fr Malcolm was provost.
How exciting. Glad to find your blog.
Dennis
The world of political blogs in the US isn’t really that bad. The most important blog in the US for political progressives is DailyKos (www.dailykos.com) – I’m over there quite a lot – worth watching – it has a lot of voice and influence in the US Democratic party for supporting and raising money for underdog candidates last year who happened to win.
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make that Kelvin, not Kevin. sorry about that!
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I’ve corresponded privately with Kelvin about this, but let me make a few comments here in public.
I usually have to do my reading and writing on “things Anglican” after a full day at work. I regret to say that means I am sometimes too tired, and I miss the nuances. Which clearly happened in my public reply here. I apologize for that, and I apologize for making unwarranted assumptions about Kelvin’s stance.
One of the things I am realizing is that we in the Anglican Communion really do not understand enough about each other’s cultures and ethos. Over here in the U.S., we are very much hoping that the churches in the U.K. (and a few other provinces) will allow us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” as St. Paul urged. I fear that our colonial past [of which most U.S. Episcopalians repent most sincerely] is working against us. We do not want to “export” our positions to others in the Communion; we don’t want to tell others they must do as we have done. We simply want the space in which to walk the path that seems right to us — and that path already has a 30-year history of prayerful discernment, both about the place of women in ordained ministry and about the place of gay men and lesbians in the Church and ordination.
Unfortunately, in the larger U.S. culture now, both “liberal” and “moderate” are anathema. A very scary conservativism (verging on — dare I use the term? — fascism) is taking hold.
When folks say the Episcopal Church is “bowing to popular culture,” they could not possibly be more wrong. “Popular culture” now in the U.S. is strongly capitalist, imperialist, nationalist, sexist, and anti-gay. Our church is “bucking” that tide, and we are paying a great price for what we truly believe to be a Spirit-led, prophetic witness.
It remains to be seen whether others in the Anglican Communion will trust us to continue in this time of discernment.
These are very, very hard times for all of us. And I hate how the positions are being polarized.
At our church’s General Convention [Do you call it a synod?], several people spoke about how the “diverse center” had spoken. I hope and pray that the “diverse center” will find their voices in Tanzania.
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Cathedrals are growing. But so what?
I was interested, of course, to look through the press release this week about which churches are growing in the Church of England. One might have thought at a casual glance and by the way that the headlines were phrased that there was evidence that the Church of England was growing again but it isn’t…
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Back from hols and quick theatre reviews
I’m back to work at St Mary’s today after a post-Christmas (well, post-Epiphany) week off. I’m writing this at the point just before I go into work, say morning prayer and open up the emails that have come in to me whilst I was away. It has been a busy week. I managed to fit…
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The Equality Network Gets it Wrong
The Equality Network needs to be much more robust in condemning homophobic governments in Commonwealth countries during the Commonwealth Games
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Memo to Holyrood re School Chaplains
Dear Members of the Scottish Parliament Yesterday, one of Scotland’s schools sacked its school chaplain. It is a school very close to me and the reason that the Rev Donald MacInnes was sacked from the chaplaincy of Glasgow’s Gaelic School is close to me too. Mr MacInnes was sacked because parents in the school had…
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