What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon for Advent 1 – 29 November 2015

30/11/2015
Here’s the sermon I preached yesterday

You can’t beat a good quiz on the internet. Two minutes completing a set of multiple choice questions and some computer somewhere out there gives a verdict on what kind of person you are.

Thus is was that this week I followed a facebook link and found myself looking at an interesting quiz about attitudes to religious and philosophical questions at just the moment when I probably should have been settling down to write a sermon.

Oh goody! I cried. A diversion.

The first question was rather profound:

“Why are you good?”

I wondered briefly whether I was in fact good at all. I’ve a hunch that it isn’t the first attribute that people think of when they think of me. But there it was – the first question in the quiz. “Why are you good?”

And the answers were these:
a) Because if I’m bad I’ll be punished in the afterlife. (No – that couldn’t be right, I think God loves me anyway).
1. b) It’s how my parents brought me up
(No, I’m not convinced by that either – I think parenting is about relationships that are very much more complex than a polarity between goodness and evil)
1. c) I’m just playing the game.
  (No – I think it is worth trying to be good even if I don’t know I’ll always succeed).
And d) I’m good to others because I think that’s the best way to be.

Yes! At last an answer I can wholly agree with.

I clicked d and moved on.

The next one was What is the purpose of life and my answer was “It’s up to us to give meaning to life. I want to help other people and make the world a better place.”

Goodness – I think I’ve preached that a few times from here.

And with almost all the questions, I was lucky – there seemed to be one each time that I agreed with.

The next one – Should everyone be treated equally?

Yes – there’s my answer: every person deserves equal respect and opportunity, irrespective of what they believe.

Click!

And so it went on.

I completed all these questions. Moral. Ethical. Personal.

And at the end – one final click. And the verdict.

YOU ARE A SECRET HUMANIST.

This is perhaps not surprising. Not because of my views but because when I looked again at the top of the webpage I realised that I was on the page of the Scottish Humanist Society. Indeed, before I left the site it had invited me to sign up.

Soemhow the humanists had produced a quiz where the most reasonable answers to the questions resulted in the inevitable view that the person answering is in fact a humanist.

It was a bit of fun and I was amused. And also very much aware of the longstanding tradition of humanism amongst religious people.

After all, I believe in my heart that God put us on earth to spread holy wisdom which also goes by the name of holy common sense. God puts us here not with a mandate to impose God’s will upon all we encounter but put us here with a mandate to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God all the length of our days. God put us here not to impose a monolithic view of God on one another but with the divine gifts of discovery, discretion and delight in what is good that lead us not into enslavement, conformity or repression but into ultimate freedom.

You can call that humanism if you like. I’ll not be upset if you call me that. But it won’t stop me being convinced that it is what God has been up to from the beginning.

But this I do know – that the days are surely coming when all this will matter very greatly.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.

There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and on the earth distress amongst the nations.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming to the world.

The days are surely coming and will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.

It seems to me that this Advent as we read of the portents in the heavens that there will be rather a lot of preachers who go on and on about how relevant it all seems this year.

For there is real fear about. There is war and talk of war. The clouds do seem to be gathering. The end times sometimes seem to be being played out on our television screens.

And people want real answers as to what to do next. And there are really difficult questions that are worth wrestling with.

Why are you good?

How do you do good?

What does goodness look like in this complex and perplexing situation?

The days are surely coming for wrestling with these questions.

Because of Isis? Because of Syria? Because of talk of war?

Well, yes and no – the situation we are in does demand some religious thinking – a much greater understanding of the religious understanding of those who would do us harm is essential to dealing with that which threatens us now.

But the truth is, advent comes around each year and each year it seems appropriate.

It is always the time to work out ultimate questions and to remind ourselves that Christians have answers as to how to deal with them.

Stand up says the gospel – don’t be cowed down. Stand up straight and raise your heads – for your redemption is near.

And that isn’t a threat, it is the promise of something good.

We see street preachers sometimes bearing placards saying “that God’s judgement is nigh”. The truth of the gospel is that is not that threatening things are nigh but that God is near. Peace and love and justice and joy are near at hand. That’s the promise we believe. So we hold our heads up and live the reality of knowing God is near.

Jesus says in our gospel that his generation would not pass away until all things have taken place. That’s at the heart of my existential version of how to live as a Christian. It isn’t that the apocalypse is around the corner it is that in every generation the things that religion talks about are all true. Yes – for some this day the apocalypse is real. No doubt for those fleeing from Syria it feels as though the end times are upon them. Yes – for some this day redemption is nigh – for people live through the rollercoaster of betrayal, death and resurrection that we call holy week in their lives all the time – sometimes in a single day.

And yes – reality is always true –that God is near. That love is near. That God can be known. That life is good and wonderful and precious.

God is near to you and near to me.

The day of the Lord is nigh.

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply