What is in Kelvin's Head?

Inspection of TISEC

23/04/2013

TISEC – the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church has had the inspectors in (from the Ministry Division of the Church of England, since you ask) and they’ve just released their final report.

There is not much for anyone’s comfort in the report as the inspectors indicated that they had no confidence in the governance of TISEC and in its formational ability. Both of these are hugely significant. The later means the ability of the institution to form people appropriately for the ministries that they are being trained for.

I’m not going to say much about this at the moment. There will be many things said and many words spilled over this before the year is out. It is minority interest no doubt for most people who belong to the Scottish Episcopal Church. However, how we train people for ministry is fundamental to who we think we are. There’s a sense about, that this report means significant change – not only for TISEC but also for the church, not least for the Mission and Ministry Board who have the responsibility for overseeing this work. There are funding implications and pastoral implications to this and that’s why, even though I’ve never been shy of speaking about TISEC, at the moment, I’m saying little other than to suggest that anyone who cares about the Scottish Episcopal Church needs to read the report in full for themselves.

And it can be found here:

http://www.scotland.anglican.org/media/organisation/tisec/resources/TISEC_Final_Report_18_Feb_13.pdf

MinDiv, Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church, TISEC

7 responses to “The Archbishop, the gays and their sins”

fakepete

25/02/2015

Nicely put, he seems to feel entitled to freedom from criticism. It’s a censorious attitude that I thought the CoE put behind it when most of us learned to laugh at the Life of Brian and it is contradicted by the church’s own call to participation in democracy.

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Andrew

25/02/2015

The poor old Arch. He really is an old school establishment man who cant really understand where the deference has gone. The Green Report, the other Reports on the ‘future’ of the Church of England and the ‘Conversations’ all speak of a deeply controlling man who is deeply frustrated that there is no control to be had any more. When the split comes he will probably want to make what is left into a more confessional and defined group (the evangelicals have always wanted that) but I suspect the Church that will emerge will be more liberal than he likes even if it is outwardly more evangelical and enthusiast than the Church of England has been for a very long time

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1. fakepete
  
  27/02/2015
  
  @Andrew I’d switch that around. Justin Welby is someone who does not show deference to what has in Western society become The New Orthodoxy (definitions on a postcard please), this is why he provokes such puzzlement, and thus consternation and anger.
  
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2. Daniel Berry, NYC
  
  03/03/2015
  
  Andrew, I don’t see how that can be, really: he hasn’t the pedigree to be “an old school establishment man.” He’s a late vocation who had been a high-power figure in the corporate world–meaning he’s undoubtedly accustomed to having the last word.
  
  As to his attitudes toward gay people, I’m disgusted with him and the many others who accept the natural sciences’ contradiction of bible, but just can’t bring themselves to the same place with the behavioral and social sciences, and even with medicine itself–ignoring along the way that homosexuality is found in upward of 450 animal species besides our own. Otherwise they seem perfectly comfortable with dispensing with the savagery found in much of “holy scripture.”
  
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Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

26/02/2015

I love the line “who am I to judge them for their sins, if they have sins” makes us seem angelic compared to those who have children. Only one problem we, according to the bible commit sin just by being together. Does this mean that he is disagreeing with orthodoxy, and we are not sinning by being together.
God bless all and may his words of love bring more, troubled, souls to him.

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1. JCF
  
  28/02/2015
  
  “Only one problem we, according to the bible commit sin just by being together.”
  
  I *think* you meant “according to false translations/interpretations of the bible…” (or should have meant).
  
  “Being together”: can we call sex, “sex”? If not, why not? [And can we call marital sex (same- or opposite-sex) “marital sex”?]
  
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Daniel Berry, NYC

03/03/2015

best line for me:

You say that stuff and you are going to get people observing that there’s a lot more archbishops who claim that gay people are their friends than gay people who claim archbishops are their friends.

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