What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Antisemitism Notice

25/03/2026

Someone asked me to share the note that we put in our service sheets in St Mary’s about antisemitism. This has evolved over the last few years but the statement below is what it looks like at the moment. We’ve also changed the pattern of readings we use at St Mary’s. In particular, we no longer read the whole of the Passion According to John on Good Friday, preferring to intersperse some passages from it with others from scripture. We are also no longer singing the Reproaches as part of the Good Friday liturgies and are still looking for an alternative text.

Once I would have thought that these things didn’t matter. Right now I think they matter very much.

A Note on Holy Week

During Holy Week, there will be readings from the Passion narratives from the gospels, as has been the custom for Christians throughout the centuries. These texts need to be read carefully and thoughtfully. The term ‘the Jews’ in the Passion readings applies to particular individuals and not to the whole Jewish people.

There is some debate amongst scholars as to how the words which have been translated as “the Jews” should now be translated. Some would translate them as “the Judeans”. Others would retain the traditional reading whilst acknowledging the harm that has been caused by the ways in which these words have been used.

Whichever translation is used for individual words in the Passion Reading, Christians need to be aware that Holy Week has historically been a time of increased antisemitism and of antagonism and violence towards Jewish people. This is a matter of repentance for Christians.

References in the scriptures and in the hymns and prayers to those who accused Christ or killed Christ are references to historical figures. These people do not represent the Jewish people or Judaism.

At a time of increased antisemitism in the world, some verses in the Scriptures may be better dealt with in thoughtful study and reflection rather than the drama of public liturgy.

Members of the Christian community are invited during this week to think of the times when we have turned against Christ and to reflect on the possibility that had we been present at the time, that perhaps we would have found ourselves to be amongst those who called for him to be crucified.

antisemitism, Holy Week

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
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Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

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Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
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