What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Peace and Unity and Order of the Church

12/12/2014

One of the things that I’ve occasionally raised in blog posts is the question of whose responsibility it is to promote the unity of the church.

I think this was focused for me particularly at the consecration of the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane just over 9 years ago when the preacher preached a sermon which was one of those sermons that you remember. It was one of those sermons that you remember because something about it niggles away at you. Sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes not so good. At this particular service, it was a sermon that I knew at the time I disagreed with but I couldn’t immediately work out why. The gist of the sermon was fairly simple – we were at the consecration of a bishop and the preacher, Lord Eames, spoke of the ministry of the bishop as being a particular gift to the church – that of being an icon of unity.

I remember thinking at the time that it didn’t just sound odd to me but foreign.

Years later I remember that sermon and I think I was right in what I thought. It is a foreign idea to us in the Scottish Episcopal Church. It doesn’t belong here.

In the Church of England, bishops are expected to be the focus of unity in their dioceses. Their Ordinal says so. In Scotland, our Ordinal says no such thing.

But it is more profound than that. You see the truth is, the responsibility for promoting the peace, unity and order of the church doesn’t simply rest upon bishops in Scotland, it rests upon all of us who are in authorised ministry in the church. It isn’t that this is their responsibility it is that this responsibility belongs equally to the rest of us who minister too.

If you enter authorised ministry in the Scottish Episcopal Church then you make a series of promises, one of which is this:

I will show, in all things, an earnest desire to promote the peace, unity, and order of the said Church….

It is perhaps worth thinking this weekend about what the peace, unity and order of the church look like and how we take seriously our oaths to promote each of them.

I take the promise to promote the peace, unity and order of the church very seriously. So seriously, I’m prepared to fight for them in ways that don’t always look peaceful. Indeed I know friends from other denominations who can’t understand how Episcopalians cope with saying what they think to one another in the ways that we do. Politeness is a sacrament in some churches but I don’t think it is so in my own. Kindness is worth striving for but I don’t think we tend to paper over the cracks when things get tough.

Things have certainly become tough this week. I referred earlier this week to a new document that has been published by the Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church which deals with the changes in the law regarding marriage in Scotland which come into force this week. I don’t think it is overstating the case to say that the publication of this document has seriously disrupted the peace and unity of the church. It was an attempt to say something about the order of the church which the bishops thought it important to say. The manner and timing of it though has caused more disruption to the peace of the church than I can remember for many years. (And I can remember more years of our church’s life than several of our bishops). It is my view that the bishops didn’t expect the sense of outrage which many feel about this. I also believe that it must be ghastly trying to do the right thing and be presumed to be malevolent in return.

I personally seek the peace, unity and order of the church.

I seek peace in the church by trying to bring the church to a place where all can stand united in our love of God and able to freely share that love with those who do not yet know it. I don’t believe we are in that place of peace at this time and I yearn for it, hope for it and pray for it.

And I am praying for that which my heart does not entirely desire but which my oath demands.

You see, what I want in my self is every church to be a welcoming and safe place for gay people, including those gay couples who chose to get married. My conscience demands that I hope and pray for that. But my oath to promote the peace, unity and order of the church demands that I put at least some of my own needs to one side and ask what will bring that peace to the church which will allow us to stand side by side.

The oath I’ve taken demands that I seek a place to stand for those who disagree with me. It demands that I defend their rights to be upset and grumpy and cross. It demands that I weep when they are weeping.

And in recent years, I think I can say that I’ve developed a far greater respect for those who say they disagree with me on gay rights than I do for many of those, particularly those who have power over other people’s lives in the church, who claim to me in private that they think I’m right. (Mind you, there are plenty who once disagreed with me who don’t now, so we can’t presume that these are two immutable categories of piskies).

I have to search for peace, unity and order in the church and my view is that we won’t have anything that looks like that until we have a church in which I can marry gay members of my congregation one unto another amidst great rejoicing whilst simultaneously defending the right of a sister or brother priest not to have to do so. And I have to hope that the desire to reach Scotland with the good news will allow colleagues who do disagree with me to search for the same peace that will allow us all a place to stand in order to reach out united to a world that needs the love of God.

I don’t believe and have never believed that the oaths to seek the peace, unity and order of the church are oaths involving any kind of conformity. And one of our troubles at the moment in my view is that our bishops have mistaken conformity for collegiality. The two are different. Collegiality is required of the College of Bishops. Collegiality is also required in a different way from the rest of us. Demands from any of us that look like conformity though do not look like the road to peace.

The sooner these issues that trouble us are resolved the better. It is my view that the bishops of our church have struggled to lead us towards peace. I pray for them, as I hope they pray for people like me.

Right now, the need to find peace, unity and order are becoming urgent. The mission of the church is compromised by our inability to live peaceably together.

I personally never renew my ordination vows at the annual chrism mass where such things are done. (Not least because we don’t have an authorised liturgy for such things in the Scottish Episcopal Church and I’m led to believe that doing things we don’t have an authorised liturgy for is somehow rather naughty).

I take my oaths more seriously than to think they need topping up once a year. I renew them daily as I live my life.

And today, as I see the peace of the church more seriously disrupted than I’ve ever known, I find myself reminding myself of my own vow.

I will show in all things, an earnest desire to promote the peace, unity, and order of the said Church.

And I will do so knowing that we will only get these things when we are ready to come together and accept that we all need a place to stand.

The church will have no peace whilst those who believe in the dignity of God’s gay and straight children alike are told that they belong to a church in which such a thing is impossible

This could all be resolved very quickly if people were minded to do so. Prolonging this argument is leading us further from the godly peace we need.

LGBT, marriage, order, peace, same-sex, Scottish Episcopal Church, unity

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.
  
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  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.
      
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      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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