What is in Kelvin's Head?

How shall we pray for our elected representatives?

18/01/2019

Last Sunday morning there was a service from St Mary’s Cathedral on Radio 4. It was my job to write the script for the service.

To many people’s surprise, the service goes out live, meaning a very early start.

One of the features of doing a live broadcast like that is the necessity of listening to the news at 7 am and 8 am before the service starts at 8.10 am. Should something significant have happened, it is not unreasonable for that to be reflected in some way in the service.

We had a really tough one a few years ago when we were doing the same live broadcast on the weekend on which there was a terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport. This had taken place just before we had a rehearsal on the Saturday and it meant rewriting the service throughout the evening to reflect the unfolding news story. One of the clear things that I remember was that I wasn’t allowed to use language to describe what had happened until the newsroom had used it. Throughout a long evening, we went from “unexplained incident” right through to “terrorist attack”.

I also remember a time when the choir had rehearsed the South African national anthem before a broadcast as it seemed entirely possible that Nelson Mandela might die at that time and we had to be ready.

This week there were no sudden incidents. There were no unexpected deaths announced on the news and no particularly shocking incidents in the 24 hours before we went on air.

The script was unchanged – though a huge amount of thought had gone into how we were to pray at this time.

How are we to pray in any religious community at a time when the country is divided and our elected representatives are thrust so entirely into the spotlight?

How do we pray about Brexit at all?

It seems to me that one of the characteristic things that Christians do is to pray for those whom we have elected.

I suspect that this means very different things to different people. For me, I think I’m holding them before God and hoping that they will be blessed with wisdom, generosity and understanding. I know others who pray that God with cause elected politicians to implement particular policies but I don’t really see God doing that much so that’s not for me. It does seem reasonable to pray for the places that we are associated with and again that seems a very long tradition indeed. The book of Jeremiah seems to give a strong steer:

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Jeremiah 29:7

I rather like that – seeking the welfare of the city seems practical and active alongside the injunction to offer prayers for the city too.

But we don’t always know or agree about where or who we are.

Last Sunday for the radio, I wrote a prayer which went:

Saviour of the world,
we remember all who have decisions to make which affect the lives of others.
We pray for elected representatives in our parliaments in
Strasbourg, Westminster and Holyrood
as decisions are made which will affect all our lives.

We pray too for this great city and pray that you will let Glasgow flourish.

God in your mercy

ALL: HEAR OUR PRAYER

Now, that’s a fairly uncontroversial prayer to pray here in St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow but it is entirely possible that a Brexiteer might have spat out their morning cup of Earl Gray with something of a splutter to hear our European politicians being prayed for.

I think it is significant that Europe has been rather absent from the intercessions of a great many churches. After all, I often hear people in churches praying for the Queen, Ministers of State, the Government, MSPs at Holyrood, the First Minister, the Prime Minister and so on but I don’t ever remember hearing anyone pray in a church in the UK for Donald Tusk.

If collectively, as a people, we had been more thankful for the EU, would we have prayed more for its welfare?

Praying for leaders can be controversial too. Within the history of Episcopalians in Glasgow there were those who very much didn’t like the Hanoverian monarchs to be prayed for. It was said that at one time people snorted snuff in order to provoke a sneezing fit at the weekly mention of one of the King Georges in the intercessions. In other places, people slammed shut their prayer books at that point.

I don’t really know the historical truth about this, but it was said in Perth when I lived there that St John’s Episcopal Church still regularly prayed for the Queen on a Sunday as they had essentially been a Qualified Chapel, whilst St Ninian’s Cathedral did not normally pray for the Queen on a Sunday as its congregation was formed from the Jacobites (and wannabe Jacobites) of the town who refused to Qualify.

[Please sprinkle a load of Scottish Episcopalian Rose Tinted History Petals upon the last couple of paragraphs as you read them]

Prayer is a complex way in which we define ourselves, even as we couch our prayers as supplications to God.

I remember being in the Middle East in a large congregation once and someone nudged me and pointed to a couple of well dressed men wearing sunglasses. “Look,” I was told, “the secret policemen – they are here every week to make sure we are still praying for the President”.

Prayer – or lack of prayer, can be dangerous.

I like to know my Member of Parliament and other elected representatives. I know what it is like to stand in elections after all. I’ve done it.

When I meet politicians, I sometimes say to them – “Don’t forget we pray for you”.

Generally speaking they seem grateful.

I suspect that thinking thoughtfully, carefully and kindly about our elected politicians right now might be a rather important thing to do.

God bless them.

praying for politicians

20 responses to “Apologies have consequences too”

Andrew Cain

15/04/2016

You say so often and so eloquently what I feel.

Reply
1. Father Ron Smith
  
  16/04/2016
  
  Food for serious thought, Father Kelvin. I don’t suppose there has been any objection raised by the Church of England Bishops about the liberalising ativity of our Norwegian partner’s in Christ. It is this continuing double-mindedness that exposes us Anglicans to the charge of structured hypocrisy. Keep up the good work you are doing on your web-site. Christ IS risen, Alleluia!
  
  Reply
Alan Wilson

15/04/2016

Thank you, Kelvin. It’s certainly a change of the mood music going on, but self-lacerating apologies are subject to the law of diminishing returns unless they indicate what we call “Metanoia” – change of mind, aka repentance. This means things real change. Without it, apologies breed cynicism, not hope. When, for example, a bishop tells us he is ashamed whenever he encounters homophobia in the church, curious minds want to ask him “when did you last encounter what you call homophobia in the church? What was it like? How was it separable from the ideology that validated it? And since it’s such a shameful thing, what are you going to do about it?”

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  16/04/2016
  
  The real disconnect for me is that Justin Welby is someone who clearly does know something about what reconcilliation is. He can’t have done that job in Coventry and not known and he can’t have named reconcilliation as one of the key strands of his time as Archbishop without knowing that metanoia is part of the deal if that is what you are chasing after.
  
  However, I can only come back again and again to the possibility that there are those who simply think that LGBT are indeed actually worth less than real people.
  
  Reply
  1. June Butler
    
    18/04/2016
    
    Kelvin, after I read your words about the empty apologies by authorities in the church after which their behavior does not change, I could not help but think what you stated in your comment, that the leaders, with exceptions like Alan Wilson, believe LGTB folks are lesser. What else can we think? My advice would be to stop apologizing and be honest, which would be a step in the right direction, because at least the hypocrisy would end.
    
    Reply
adrian copping

16/04/2016

Thank you for this. Something similar has been happening here in Wales in the past week or so where our Bishops have apologised AND issued some prayers which are authorised for use in connnection with ministry to LGBTI people. This is to be welcomed as a sign of a step in a positive direction but, at the same time, leaves a lot of questions and many disappointed.

Reply
Bob Webster

16/04/2016

Saying it is a “constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality” is not an apology. At best it is a request that someone should stop making him feel bad. That could be the people doing the persecuting, or it could be us who should just be quiet and preferably go away. An apology would be “I apologize for the hurt I have caused and as a consequence of recognizing my sin I will cease that behaviour and do everything I can to get others to stop as well.”

Reply
Ruth Richards-Hill

16/04/2016

Kelvin, you are an expert at stating things so eloquently that makes everyone else in the Anglican communion squirm.

I was not oblivious to the fact that as a lesbian woman I entered a family of churches with a huge diversity of attitudes towards my sexuality. It was only because of the grace and love of Jesus Christ that I felt safe to come into the church despite my “flaws” and receive baptism. Is my baptism any less valid because I am a lesbian?

As a convert from Orthodox Judaism I suspect that I am sometimes more acutely aware than others at what should be in my mind a glaring hypocrisy. Rabbinical thought always looks for an alternatives to explain why a certain situation does or does not apply according to halachah (ecclesiastical law – much like the canons). But the balance either exists or it doesnt. Jesus speaks about divorce and makes it quite clear that its not really an option, while in rabbinical law, it certainly is an option. We are taught that he came to fulfil the law and yet we his church are part of a new covenant are we not? The church seems to have taken the easy way out and will marry people who have divorced, but will not marry gay couples. So if divorced people are part of the new covenant, why arent us gay folk?

I could get into all the biblical quotation arguments and as someone that reads Classical Hebrew better than most Anglicans I know, I have no fear in taking a stand on my point. (My Greek needs a little more work however.) That said, I dont see a balanced biblical foundation for excluding some that are automatically excluded by literal translation of scripture, but not others, but rather an inherited bigotry and hypocrisy that continues to thrive simply to satisy the whims of member churches whose societies havent quite experienced the journey that ours has. While that doesnt invalidate their position, neither does it invalidate the position of our society and our spiritual progress should not be hindered to satisy the agenda of those religious leaders that appear to be pandering to the demands of those churches that have not walked the path of ours.

I have arguments that cover more than simple translations and exegesis particularly surrounding what the rules were both before and after the death of Christ, but those are for another day. I know that I am a baptised Christian and Jesus loves me as much as any other, not because I am gay or straight, but because I am one of his, and therefore he wants me to thrive within his covenant rather than the stifling, unreasonable and hair splitting laws that came before – Ones that I personally know how incredibly impossible they are to live by, no matter what your sexuality, or colour, or intellectual ability. – I was there once.

When our Bishops and leaders realise that Christ died exactly to make the Christian lives of the likes of me equally valid as straight people, then perhaps we’ll make a little more progress and not see these “apologies” as merely lip service. Its almost embarrassing to LGBT people for whom their faith is a core part of their lives. It certainly is for me.

Reply
Ruth Harley

16/04/2016

Any child in my Sunday School group could tell you that repentance is not just “saying sorry” it is “saying sorry, being sorry, and changing”. Possibly ++Justin’s words make it as far as the first of these, but I’m not convinced they signify the second, and the third is nowhere in sight. Perhaps I should send my 5 year old theologians to Lambeth and/or Lusaka to explain! Or perhaps it’s just that those who are issuing these ‘apologies’ aren’t really thinking in terms of repentance, or seeing the need for it, at all.

Reply
Mark Falby

16/04/2016

Apologies mean nothing if not backed by action.

Reply
Junia

16/04/2016

Well I did recently get brutally and spectacularly dumped by an American lesbian, so perhaps they just are naturally more wicked over there…

In seriousness though, thank you for this wonderfully elegant post, Kelvin, summarising so much of what I have felt since ++Justin’s statement in January. I’m starting to get a little sick of being apologised to.

Reply
1. Cynthia
  
  17/04/2016
  
  Speaking as an American lesbian, I’m sure the Norwegian lesbians are much better people, and that we are “naturally more wicked…” 😉
  
  Kelvin expresses well the debacle of January. But interestingly, Justin just delivered an amazing sermon at ACC-16 that marks a major change of heart and theology if he’s sincere. We’ll see. A lot has happened since January.
  
  Have a look at the sermon, it’s in the Anglican Communion news. I’d hate to think that those are just empty words. Time will tell. But I want hope.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    17/04/2016
    
    Could you point us towards the sermon, Cynthia. I’m not seeing anything at all that’s new in relation to the things I’ve written about above.
    
    Reply
    1. Cynthia Katsarelis
      
      17/04/2016
      
      Here it is: http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/04/new-calls-for-new-times-archbishop-welbys-presidential-address-to-acc-16.aspx
      
      To me this seems like a new direction, born of recent realities, and perhaps inspired by the Holy Spirit.
      
      Of course, my hopes could be typical, off-the-charts American optimism. We wicked American Episcopal lesbians just know that the Promised Land is at the end of the next rainbow.
      
      Reply
      1. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Cynthia – this is what I was writing about above. It isn’t a new direction. It is what I’m complaining of. Talk of reconciliation whilst not engaging in it.
        
        There’s not a word in it about a new direction on the way the ABC relates to the Anglican Communion’s troubles. Not one.
      2. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        It seems like he was asking people to focus on the major characters, climate change and religious violence, and to work together within our diversity. That sounds like a new tack. Of course, it will be interesting to see if this translates into action. Will the discrimination against married clergy stop? Will the ABC stop pandering to the primates who didn’t show up to ACC-16?
        
        You might be right, you seem very prophetic to me. But I want you to be wrong this time. I want hope, and to work together on things that actually matter.
      3. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        There are simply no signs of what you hope for, Cynthia. None.
      4. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Perhaps not. But I was recently a TEC delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women where I met a posse of awesome women from the Anglican Communion Women delegation. We had great interaction and they affirmed a “walking together” statement they wrote in 2007. It says they are staying in communion, no matter what the guys do. We women in TEC are drafting a response, graciously receiving and affirming the statement. Against this, Justin doesn’t stand a chance and he might as well change his tune.
        
        PS. One of the awesome delegates was a Rachel from St. Andrew’s, Scotland.
Richard Barnes

17/04/2016

I was really hopeful about the Anglican Communion’s purpose from reading Rachael’s blogs from UN CSW last month. But not for long. ABC Welby’s Sermon reads like a random speech generator and says much the same as he’s been doing for months in global fora.
It’s like a couple who talk about the garden and the difficult neighbours because they don’t want to talk about their sex life.
Clever way to end ACC with everyone apparently united by talking about bigger issues.
But to read ++Welby asking for nuanced theology, when he’s totally binary (Christian=happy, healthy, wealthy & wise) just made me laugh.

Reply
Robin

19/04/2016

> In the last week we’ve had the latest document on family life to come from the Vatican and it is very clear that there’s a change in tone from the current pope and it is hard not to welcome that.

I don’t see any change of tone in the following, which is the beginning of paragraph 251 of “Amoris Laetitia”.

> 251. In discussing the dignity and mission of
the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as
for proposals to place unions between homosexual
persons on the same level as marriage,
there are absolutely no grounds for considering
homosexual unions to be in any way similar or
even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage
and family”.

I’d call that a monumental snub, deliberately administered, or an equally deliberately administered drenching with cold water.

Reply