What is in Kelvin's Head?

Advent and How Religion Works

16/12/2017

Religion is a funny thing. It is on the one hand about doing what comes naturally to people. And on the other hand it is about doing the very opposite.

Let me explain.

Some aspects of religion are about what comes naturally and easily to people – things like prayer and things like the way we celebrate joys and sorrows. Other aspects of religion are more hard work – they are about doing the unexpected thing ranging from the apparently trivial (wearing your hair like this rather than like that) to the extremely serious (“In the name of the Holy Spirit and of the Church of Christ we call you to serve in the order of presbyters. Do you accept this call?”).

The former are to do with the way we are wired as human beings. The latter consists of a whole range of things that can shape life profoundly and change it utterly.

I know it is a bit counter-intuitive to say that prayer is easy. In many respects, prayer belongs with the things that build up a spiritual life. But prayer comes very naturally when we are up against it in the world. When we are frightened for ourselves or even more likely frightened for others, many people find an impetus to pray, whether or not they believe in a God who meddles in the ways of this world.

It is the same when it comes to joys and sorrows. Often we do spiritual things not because that is part of a coherent spiritual life but simply because for some reason we have a need as human beings to mark significant moments in life. For some reason, human beings have evolved to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in ways that other sentient beings have not. We buy champagne or flowers when we celebrate and we find ways of marking tragedy that are unexplained and untaught. The sea of flowers that appears when tragedy strikes tells us that people care a great deal about the well-being of others. They tell us that compassion is real. They tell us that people simply couldn’t help themselves from expressing the better part of what it means to be human.

Much religion is built from such sentiment.

The Christian calendar mostly arises from people’s need to remember significant things that people have done through the remembrance of anniversaries of one kind or another. It might be the anniversary of the death of someone special, the anniversary of a birth or even an anniversary marking the oh so human moment of actual conception. These festivals have the original character that shares something very much in common with our own desire to celebrate and mark significant moments.

But Advent is different somehow. It isn’t about the anniversary of something. For all it is a countdown to a birth, pretty much everyone who takes Advent seriously is in agreement that it isn’t really about celebrating that birth at all. We’ll get there, but only once we’ve prepared ourselves.

Advent is a bit of an effort.

We’re in the middle of Advent now. And I love it.

There was a time when Advent and Lent were regarded as much of a muchness – penitential seasons that came before a big festival.

In recent years, Advent has changed a bit I think – more about preparation now than penitence. However it is much under attack as the commercial Christmas has taken over the month of December.

Some churches have capitulated and now don’t keep Advent as anything other than proto-Christmas. Thus, plenty of churches are already festooned with decorations and carol services are going on this weekend, just two weeks since Advent began. It is hard to criticise people for this. May those who sing joyful things experience joy in their hearts. However, keeping Advent as an actual spiritual discipline has much in its favour too.

Here at St Mary’s, we keep as full and proper an Advent as we can. That means we don’t sing Christmas carols or put up decorations or anything like that until we’ve kept four Sunday Eucharists of Advent.

This year, with Christmas on a Monday, 24 December is Advent 4 (which takes precedence over Christmas Eve) and so we’ll not be keeping the big feast until later on that day. I’ve little doubt that we may have some people turning up on 24 December in the morning expecting lots of ho ho ho, but what they will get is a bit of Advent ho-ho-holiness instead.

Once that fourth advent Eucharist is done, we might go a bit Christmas crazy and I’m expecting that to be a lot of fun.

Keeping Advent like this is intentional, deliberate and yes, sometimes difficult. It puts us at odds with everyone around us including plenty of other Christians in other churches.

It is that side of religion that is about spiritual practise – holy habit forming. It is about trying to do something in life that affects the soul. The hope of the spiritual life is that it leads to deeper joys than a life not cultivating the soul. Keeping Advent these days and not caving into the tinsel is a metaphor for much in religion.

Would it matter much if we just gave in and sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night before the event? On the one hand, of course it wouldn’t. But on the other hand…? Does it matter if you keep a kosher kitchen? Does it matter if you pray five times a day? Does it matter if you turn up to join in receiving communion with others or would receiving it by post do just as well instead? Does it matter if you say morning and evening prayer every day? Does it matter if you practise honesty at work? Does it matter if that child is baptised or not? Does it matter if you fast on a Friday or if you don’t?

The root that people are trying to get to with any spiritual practice is a life filled with joy and overflowing with compassion for others. The habits of religion are a funny mixture. A very great many of them don’t matter that much at all in absolute terms. But it remains the case that religious people believe that adjusting life and doing deliberate things that are counter-cultural and which must seem just plain odd to many, can help someone find a life of greater happiness, empathy and care. That’s what spiritual practise is about, whether or not it is learned within or outwith the confines of any organised religion.

Keeping Advent in the determined, deliberate way that we keep it here is a signpost, a symbol, a marker that at our deepest level we need not dance to the tune that the rest of the world might be singing. Humming along to the Fairytale of New York as I may do in a shop on a Saturday, I know that I belong to a way of life that sometimes chooses to sing from quite another hymn sheet from that of the world around me.

Advent is hard work if you keep it these days.

Hard and holy work.

And I love it.

advent, no carols in church

20 responses to “Apologies have consequences too”

Andrew Cain

15/04/2016

You say so often and so eloquently what I feel.

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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!
  
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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?”

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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.
  
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  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.
    
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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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Mark Falby

16/04/2016

Apologies mean nothing if not backed by action.

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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.

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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.
    
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    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.

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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.

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