What is in Kelvin's Head?

Reparations, the Churches and LGBT communities

10/12/2022

For one reason or another, I’ve been thinking about the idea of reparations for some time over the last year.

I’m one of the chaplains at the University of Glasgow and it made me think a bit when the University started to implement concrete policies in recent times by way of trying to make reparations for actions that were taken long ago in the past.

Like many institutions in Glasgow, including many of the churches, the University benefited from the slave trade and has embarked on a programme of reparations to acknowledge that its current existence was built on something that was evil. There’s various partnerships with University institutions in the West Indies and attempts to research the history of the local involvement in the trade alongside innovative ways of telling the stories that for so long have gone untold. This means that money is changing hands – the University is aiming to use £20 million of its resources in connection with this. It is about money but it isn’t just about money – it is about relationships too. And it is fundamentally about facing the fact that something very wrong was done.

More recently, whilst I’ve been on sabbatical, I’ve been spending time in the American South. In particular, I’ve been a guest of the Virginia Theological Seminary and again, a reparations programme is underway.

It does focus the mind to be a guest in a place where enslaved people actually built some of the buildings.

Part of the telling of these stories in Virginia has meant researching as much as can be known about these people.

Although this might seem a very long way from Scotland, the stories uncovered by researching the history bring us together. There are personal stories of people who are long dead being owned and exploited by Scots traders. And there are people around who are the descendants of liaisons between such traders and the people whom they owned. Indeed, one such is a seminarian in the place that I’ve been staying and I was much moved to learn that his ancestor came from Port Glasgow.

All of which means that I’ve been thinking about slavery and reparations rather a lot.

For the question of reparations is one that churches ought to have something to say about. If the story of Zacchaeus in the bible means anything, it means that taking steps to make reparations, is part of who we are.

I think that Scotland is very far from coming to terms with its past in this area. Glasgow in particular still has much work to do.

When I was a child I was taught that Glasgow’s fortune was built on tobacco and we were taught as 10 year olds about the riches and wealth of the Tobacco Lords.

And no-one mentioned the S word at all.

I’ve no doubt that my experience in the USA recently is going to keep needling away at me when I return to Scotland for a long time.

But it has me thinking about other injustices too and asking whether we should be talking about reparations for other crimes.

And I find myself asking in particular, should we be talking about the church making reparations for its actions against LGBT people?

One of the tragedies of reparations in connection to the slave trade is that they are being made so long after the events that no-one who was actually enslaved themselves is around to hear the apologies and to learn of attempts to face this horror. What can be done to those who are descended from those people should be done. But the fact that it has taken so long to try to face such things is part of the crime.

Most people that I know in the church could point towards people who were victims of the church’s disordered attitudes towards LGBT people. I can easily think of people whose relationships have been spoiled, who have lost their homes and livings and who have suffered mental health breakdown. And that is to say nothing of those whose personal faith in all that is holy, has been ruined.

I can think of particular dioceses where particular bishops had policies that were particularly cruel. One such diocese in the C of E comes particularly to mind but I’m aware that the stories that I know will just be part of a much bigger picture.

I am pleased that there are churches like my own which now offer to marry same-sex couples and who ordain clergy in such relationships. However, we underestimate our capacity to put right that which is wrong if we think this is enough.

I could name people who are still alive to whom terrible things have happened. Some of them are my friends and they are still in the church. Some are not and many have left the faith that once nourished them far behind them.

Most will not have descendants to whom apologies will ever be able to be made.

Shall we wait until all are dead before facing up to what has been done?

And what other injustices should the churches turn and face?

41 responses to “The Columba Declaration”

Edward Andrews

11/02/2016

As Anglicans get down to the important issue of the niceties of Theology, lets get into the broad brush situation.
The relationships between the Churches of the Celtic tradition and the Southern tradition have been fraught since the 7th Century (Whitby). Part of the whole question surrounding the war of Independence (and before with King David was teh independence of the Scottish Church.
The irony is that the present attempt is to bring the Churches of the united Kingdom together may well blow back on them. While the Kirk today doesn’t mean much in Scotland the most secular part of the UK I’m not convinsed that playing footise over Bishops is going to impress the older members – the ones who voted No.
The fact is that the Scottish Episcopal Church has the Anglican franchise in Scotland. It is an authentic Scottish Church (especially if you ignore the instances when it has gone to England for Episcopal ordination.) and to negotiate over its head about something so sensitive it at the best discourteous.
Those of the reformed tradition don’t get wound up by the antics of a few Episcopalians. We seek whatever degree of true unity is available to us, but do not see the need for uniformity. I spent some very pleasant years as a guest of the Scottish Episcopal Church when the climate of the Kirk became unattractive to me, and am grateful for the table fellowship which I received.
The site of two big boys presuming to set things up is not pleasing. For the information of those who want to get up tight about the real presence, that is what the reformed tradition believes, we are Calvinists not followers of Zwingli. I am not going to seek to discuss which Greer philosopher we get our understanding of existence from.

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Father David

12/02/2016

Father Ron: let us not forget that the great Arthur Michael Ramsey was born an ecumenical baby. His maternal Grandfather was Vicar of Horbling in Lincolnshire and his paternal Grandfather was a Congregationalist Minister. His Anglican Grandfather baptised him and when in adult years he visited Horbling parish church he was deeply moved when standing by the font – the place where this great man of God began his Christian pilgrim journey. However, as a child he worshipped with his family at the Congregationalist church in Cambridge. To the great benefit of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion – the kind of High Jinks that took place next door at Little St. Mary’s proved to be an attractive magnet and so the pull of Anglo-Catholicism brought to us a spiritual giant and a contender (in company with William Temple) for the title of the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury of the 20th century and a man who yearned and longed for Christian Unity.
Edward Andrews: Even as we all long and hope for the unity of all Christians your words are wise when you point to unity not uniformity.

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Keith Barber

12/02/2016

Cynic I may be, but my first response is to ask what is the hidden agenda. For I’m pretty certain there will be one, whether it’s about trying to create an ecclesiastical bulwark against disintegration of the UK or get ++Welby an ally or two in the aftermath of the huge and hostile reaction to the Anglican Primates’ decision to punish TEC (sorry Kelvin) for its moves towards inclusion of LGBT people.

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1. Jeremy Bates
  
  13/02/2016
  
  Or perhaps it’s like the Easter-calendar announcement–a convenient way of changing the subject, at Synod and elsewhere.
  
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Father Ron Smith

12/02/2016

Whatever the motivation for this ‘secret’ accord with the Church of Scotland; simple courtesy would require that the Church of England promoters consult with their Episcopally governed equivalent in Scotia.

Another point is this; do the Presbyerians realise that they may have signed up to the catholic premise of recognition of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion? Are they happy with that?

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1. Edward Andrews
  
  12/02/2016
  
  Well actually the Presbyterians believe “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.” You will see the word real is there. Don’t know what the 39 articles say you believe.
  Those of us who are big on the real presence use the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian understanding of reality.
  
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  1. Father Ron Smith
    
    12/02/2016
    
    Not believers, then, in con-substantiation? Freely translated as bread and wine ‘together with’ the Body and Blood of Christ? Note, not the more literal trans-substantiation, which would nean the disappearance of the bread and wine. (although as some of my more scientific friends would say, this is a tautology.
    
    What all must agree on, though, is that some members of the Church of England, and many of its constituent partner Churches of the Anglican Communion, do have a problem with the ‘Real Presence’ – a reality that, for me, and I suspect most Anglican Catholics, means that the substance of the bread and wine consecrated at the Eucharist is truly “The Body and Blood of Christ” in accordance with the dominical instruction: “This IS my Body, my Blood” (Not, you will notice, “this REPRESENTS my Body, my Blood”). ‘A Sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’ – this saying sums it all up pretty well, I think
    
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    1. Kelvin
      
      12/02/2016
      
      I think it is time to draw the discussion about the real presence to a close on this comment thread. It is hardly the main point and I’ve never ever known a comment thread about transubstantiation to be constructive.
      
      Comments on the Columba Declaration welcome. Comments trying to explain what transubstantiation *really* means – not so much.
      
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      1. Edward Andrews
        
        12/02/2016
        
        Thank you Kelvin. As I see it the C of E has come poaching in your preserves. This is wrong and unhelpful. If there were going to be Anglican/Presbyterian dialogue the SEC should be the lead player. I have my own problems with the declaration as a Member of the Church of Scotland who seeks an end to the United Kingdom. However as a Catholic Christian I am in solidarity with my SEC brothers and sisters who have been left out of the loop. Both the Cof E synod and the Kirk’ General Assembly should reject the document, but I don’t suppose that they will.
Augur Pearce

16/02/2016

A contribution to the ‘establishment’ discussion: In my book the terms ‘establish’ and ‘Church of England’ both have more than one meaning. ‘Establish’, for example, can mean ‘set up, bring into existence’ (sense E1), or it can mean ‘endow, privilege’ (sense E2).

Most people who use it of the C of E use it in sense E2, and they understand the C of E (in what I might call sense C3) as an association with its own rules, distinct from the English nation but privileged by law in various ways (with some concomitant obligations).

In fact I think this describes the C of S position fairly well, but is quite wrong as regards the C of E. The C of E (I contend) is not distinct from the kingdom of England, it is that kingdom ‘wearing its spiritual hat’ (sense C1). England, as church, has various spiritual responsibilities to discharge, and in order to do so, it establishes (=creates; sense E1), by its law, a complex of specialist institutions, offices, rules, and assets which itself becomes known derivatively as the C of E (sense C2).

One clear example of how the C of E (in sense C1) and the C of S have been differently understood from very early times is found in comparing Richard Hooker’s well-known words ‘There is not any man of the Church of England, but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth, nor any man a member of the commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England…’ with the Church Act 1567, declaring those ‘quha outher gainsayis the word of the Evangell ressavit and apprevit as the heidis of the Confessioun of Faith professit in Parliament of befoir in the yeir of God 1560 … or that refusis the participatioun of the haly sacramentis as thay ar now ministrat, to be na memberis of the said Kirk within this realme now presently professit’.

The Church of England, in short, is simply England; the Church of Scotland is a privileged sectional group.

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1. Seph
  
  17/02/2016
  
  If this be so, it strikes me as uncomfortably caesaropapist. This may be one of the things that makes me uncomfortable when I am down south and find myself in a C of E church.
  
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