- Following recent revelations, this will be the year that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey finally shuts up. Expect no silly press releases on the eve of Church of England Synod. (From Carey anyway).
- The Columba Declaration recently leaked to the press will not in fact be adopted unamended by both the Church of Scotland General Assembly in May and by the Church of England General Synod in February.
- Solid vote in favour of first reading of legislation for removal of definition of marriage from the canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church opening the way towards a final vote in 2017.
- The Anglican Communion will move back towards being a fellowship of autonomous churches following the Primates’ Conference in January. Justin Welby will do the right thing for the wrong reasons. (ie he will accept the inevitable loosening of ties that stems from the global domination fantasies of his predecessors but not speak up for LGBT friendly churches).
- The SNP will win a landslide in the Holyrood Election. There will be UKIP representation in Holyrood for the first time.
- The SNP will continue to work for their preferred outcome in the European Union referendum – an overall majority in the UK in favour of staying in, a massive majority in Scotland for staying in and a majority in England for leaving the EU.
- The Democrats will retain the White House.
- Jeremy Corbyn will still be Labour Party leader by the end of 2016 and become a little more popular within the Labour Party the longer he is there. The Labour Party will still seem unelectable at the end of the year. No major defections along the way. (There’s nowhere to go).
- A successful cyber terrorist attack on a major Western financial institution. (It is only a matter of time).
- Amateur drone crash causing loss of life.
- 3D printed food experiments in restaurants.
- More major news outlets closing down the comments sections on their websites as open comments become unmanagable.
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.
Previous Posts
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All the Livelong Day
Very commonly, people find it hard to get a handle on how St Mary’s hangs together and I suspect it is because of days like today. No-one gets to see everything that is going on. The organisation of it all is a series of interlocking systems which, by some miracle, mostly work well together. I…
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Consultation on Civil Partnerships and Same-Sex Marriage
This week the Scottish Government’s consultation on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage comes to a close. The Scottish Episcopal Church’s response has been prepared by the Faith and Order Board which Bishop Gregor convenes and that will be published some time in the next few days. It would be surprising if that formal response contained…
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Pestilence, Famine, War and Death
When I was speaking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the pulpit on Sunday it was with some hope that they might be regarded as merely allegorical figures. Alas, now I have heard the news that Harry Ramsden’s is to close. Not the johnny-come-lately chain that bears the name, but the real thing,…
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Eclectic
Last weekend was one of those minor extravaganzas that happen at St Mary’s that one should never quite get used to. On the Saturday afternoon we had an extra Evensong which the assistant organist Geoff Woollatt brought together. A bunch of people who’ve never sung together before appeared under the label – The St Mary’s…
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