What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon for Christ the King 2014

    Sermon preached on 16 November 2014 by Kelvin Holdsworth from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo.

    Well, I wonder how many of you have met the Queen. Or indeed any other head of state. For in a congregation that is as diverse as this one, we have people here from a variety of places – some from republics of various kinds, some from constitutional monarchies and some from states with forms of government that verge on the tyrannical. Some of us have always known some form of democracy. Others have come to this country seeking that form of government and the liberties that go with it. Some here want to change the way we are governed either by changing the configuration of the United Kingdom or by moving away from principles of hereditary succession and moving towards a system where the head of state is elected by the people.

    And how seldom the church thinks about the different forms of rule that even the people gathered here will have encountered.

    But I wonder how many of you have met the Queen.

    The Feast of Christ the King is a bit of conundrum and quite tricky to preach on.

    We often presume that the Feasts of the Christian Calendar have come to us from the mists of time, worked out long, long ago. But the reality about this feast day is that it dates back only to 1925 and was instituted for decidedly modern reasons by an Italian Roman Catholic church trying to stem the tide of secularism.

    All of a sudden a Feast was created which emphasised the image of Christ the King. Now that image of Christ as King certainly existed before that but it was a novelty to make a festival out of the monarchical images of Christ that we can find in the Bible and focus on his kingliness and majesty.

    We would be well to proceed with some caution with such a festival.

    Not all the political movements in Europe in general and in Italy in particular in the 1920s were benign. We should be a little wary of a feast which seems to focus on something that is very political and all about God being seen in terms of power. Monarchy can’t be anything but political in one way or another these days.

    But I wonder whether you’ve ever met the Queen. (more…)

    , ,

4 responses to “Explaining Blogging”

  1. Freda Avatar
    Freda

    Blogging
    Enjoy the whole process and let people know your url.

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Blogging – pictures
    As someone who enjoys the pictorial side do not forget Kelvin’s Photoblog at http://photoblog.thurible.net/

    A picture can communicate a thousand words.

    Reply
  3. Bishop David Avatar
    Bishop David

    Blogging
    I think what I enjoy is way in which you gradually develop a sort of parallel/virtual universe – disconnected in space and time – and invite other people to step inside it.

    On the more serious side, you need to be very cautious about people and situations. I note that, quite properly, Kelvin’s blog tells us almost nothing about how things are going at the Cathedral!

    Reply
  4. Brannon Hancock Avatar
    Brannon Hancock

    more advice
    Sorry for the late contribution here, but I could not appreciate blog culture until I realized the following, which I think every blogger should heed.
    1) Don’t take blogging too seriously – it’s not journalism, it’s not memoir, it’s not an academic journal (etc), it’s not an easy way to get your writing “in print” – it’s somewhere between an online confessional and a digitally-mediated small group conversation, especially when viewed not just individually but in relation to other blogs. And…
    2) DON’T TAKE BLOGGING TOO SERIOUSLY – either what you write, what other people write, what you comment, what they comment or what anybody comments! It’s not legitimate, intricate discourse, it’s pub chat online. It’s BS-ing around the ping-pong table in somebody’s basement.
    That’s all I’ve got.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Winning the War

    Seems like we’ve just lost a battle, but we’re winning the war. So sad to see the Archbishop of York standing up in the House of Lords to fight for the church’s right to discriminate against those who work for it. Extraordinary to see the Bishop of Winchester say that he “should be very surprised…

  • Feast of Change

    Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. The old joke is of course that its something worth praying for. However, I like to keep it. It reminds me that the most murderous and violent opponent of the early Jesus movement did do a complete turn around on the road to Damascus. Still…