• Predictions for 2014

  01/01/2014

  1. Remember those people who used to say, “But what is a blog…?” Well this year you are going to be hearing them say, “But what is a mooc…?”
  2. Gay men are going to start shaving again. Now that so many straight men have bought into the idea that beards are hip, it is time to mess with their fashion sense again. Consider this the memo. (Next year, the end of tattoos!)
  3. Church of Scotland General Assembly will be unable to affirm last year’s compromise on a local option for ministers who happen to be gay.
  4. More revelations relating to Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien.
  5. Number of active bloggers decreases. Influence of those still blogging increases.
  6. The real purpose of the Pilling Report will be revealed with hindsight as evangelicals begin to argue about its contents. (May take a couple of years, but trust me on this one). Initially this will be in private – increasingly in public. Having been the great unifying factor for Evangelicals for the last 10 years, attitudes to gay people will become the source of greatest disunity amongst Evangelicals for the next decade. Unappealing and unsatisfying as it is, Pilling is a watershed – it was never designed to court liberal opinion so we might as well stop moaning about it. It was designed to divide evangelical opinion and is going to be jolly successful.
  7. The Independence Referendum will be lost here in Scotland but alas, not by enough to shut everyone up.
  8. Such terrible statistics in the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway that we lose at least 4 seats on General Synod.
  9. Lord Carey will say that Christians are being persecuted in the UK, that the church is dying out or that the sky is going to fall in, and will say it at the most unhelpful time possible – probably around one of the English General Synods or Easter.
  10. We will hear about our first UK gay divorce.

  Trends to watch

  • Continued meltdown of the Church of Scotland. Ceasing to be a national church before our very eyes.
  • Internet increasingly rewards those who know how to manipulate images.
  • Economic polarization of the UK continues.

  New Year Predictions

Previous Posts

• Random advice to someone newly ordained

  04/09/2007

  Treat everyone as though they are an adult. Especially children. When any hand is held out for communion, think WWJD? Don’t diss the Mothers’ Union You have been given the power to bind and loose. That means you have to say yes to everyone all the time, sometimes by saying no.

• Guild of Servers

  02/09/2007

  To Hyndland yesterday to the annual festival of the Scottish Guild of Servers. Having previously chuntered to the guild office bearers about having the service in far-flung places (including our companion diocese of Argyll and The Isles, over the water), I decided that I had better turn up yesterday when it was just a couple…

• Most commented

  31/08/2007

  Someone said to me that yesterday’s post looked like the most commented upon post on the blog. Not so, in fact. Most discussed posts so far have been: The Advent Candle Controversy – 47 comments and counting Two Literary Questions – 42 The Episcopal Brown Shoe Scandal – 33 Collecting things (the Collaborative Ministry thread)…

• Liturgy should say what it means, and …

  29/08/2007

  The chiasmus that is so often quoted about liturgy these days is that liturgical writing should say what it means and mean what it says. By and large, I agree with that, though we do have to allow space for the times when we cannot grasp or explain all that God is. However, I have…