What is in Kelvin's Head?

The University Sermon – University of Oxford – 23 February 2025

24/02/2025

I glanced up from my desk as I sat down to write this sermon and gazed at an icon that has been on my wall for the last 8 years. It is obviously an icon showing the garden of Eden. A green background. Two figures stand on either side of the tree of knowledge.

Although just an icon, painted by someone I know, it is a piece of art which does what all great art does. It inspires some people. It infuriates others. It throws some people into a rage.

And sometimes we must pay attention to rage and make up our minds what we make of it.

The gospel reading that we have set for today seems on the surface to be all about a nature miracle. A storm at sea. A boat tossed about. A saviour who calms the tempest.

In Glasgow, where I come from, we recently went through a big storm that pulled things from the ground and hurled them about.

It was a day where few dared to venture from the safety of their homes for fear of being battered by the stuff flying about as the city was battered by high winds.

But as I think about this gospel reading this morning, it is difficult for me to read it simply as a nature miracle. For the whole world seems to be beset by political storms this week. Even as we find ourselves here worshipping using familiar words and singing comforting hymns, the world feels changed. The ground is shifting beneath our feet. The advent of Strongman politics in the USA and with the apparent triumph of Trumpism has left many across the world breathless. And fearful. Things have changed this week. Old alliances feel as though they no longer hold true. The way the world was is gone. Security guarantees that seemed to be forever are no more.

And who in public life in America and nearer to home will dare to venture from the safety of their political homes to stand in the way of the unfolding events for fear of being battered by the stuff flying about as the world is battered by storm after political storm?

As I got this far in preparing this sermon, I looked up again at the icon above my desk. The garden of Eden. A dark background. Two figures stand on either side of the tree of knowledge. It is a familiar archetype yet there is something unfamiliar to this version of the icon of paradise. Something that draws the eyes. And then you notice the names above the figures.

The icon depicts something that is behind the rage that has led to the new political world order that we are watching unfold before our eyes.

It is a peaceful scene. And religious people tend to believe rather deeply that a world of peace and harmony is a godly world. We believe that a world put right is part of the mission of God in the world, a mission that we can be part of.

A world where the hungry are fed, the violence stops, the tears are wiped from every eye and everyone gets to sit in security in the shade of their own tree. This is emblematic of the paradise that we find in scripture.

Scripture begins and end with images of the peaceable kingdom being represented by all being well, in a garden.

I glance up at the icon again and read the names of the two figures on either side of the tree of knowledge. And I smile at the sight of their names.

Adam stands on one side. His name written above his head. And Steve stands on the other side of the tree. Also clearly named.

It is an icon and Adam and Steve in the garden of Eden at peace in the cool of the day. Two men. Naked and delighting in the world that God has made.

It is the kind of picture that raises cries of wokery from some and draws fascination from others.

It is the kind of picture that infuriates those of a conservative mindset and delights those of a progressive one.

I have little doubt that there would be some these days who would condemn it as degenerate art.

The fury of some in the face of such art is but one of the many things that has led to the political reset that we are seeing unfold before our eyes each day.

My icon says something to me. But what?

And as I read the scriptures to prepare for this sermon that icon speaks to me.

It says, read the chapter from Genesis again. Read it as though it is about more than the gender of the participants.

And I do read the chapter again. And I realise that I delight in seeing that Adam represents all people. And Eve represents all people just as much.

Adam represents the fact that we are all creatures – beloved creatures of a God who was always interested in our company. And Eve, the one created from Adam’s side represents the fact that we all need to be helpers.

And my icon undermines so many theological and societal presumptions about men and women.

As it happens, I was, I think, the first priest outside North America who was licensed to preside at the wedding of same-sex couples – an issue which still seems stormy in the Church of England.

As all kinds of couples have prepared to be married in my office over the last 8 years, the icon of Adam and Steve has been present. It could just as easily have been an icon of Eva and Vera too.

As I begin to draw the writing of this sermon to a close, I gaze up again at the icon before me. Two figures on either side of the tree of knowledge.

They are at peace.

And I believe that peace is our destiny.

Each created. Each beautiful. Each loved by God.

As we all are.

Each dependant on the other. Each created to help another.

As we all are.

And as the storm rages. I hold onto the hope of Godly people through the ages. The hope of a world put right by good people inspired and aided by a loving God who aim to build the kingdom of peace on earth. Where the hungry are fed, the fearful find protection, the sorrowful are comforted. And all is right with the world again.

And our true destiny, the peaceable kingdom of our loving God becomes our everlasting dwelling place.

And I believe that our God will be with us if we can grasp this vision.

For they went to him shouting, “Master, master, we are perishing.”

And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves.; they ceased and there was calm.

So may it be.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Adam, adam and steve, Eve, icon, Oxford, Sermon, steve, university sermon

47 responses to “Why saying No Thanks is the progressive option”

Richard

15/09/2014

Fascinated by the ethnicity/cultural comments so I’ll leave the economics alone for the time being. I’m a mongrel with a bit of Irish, English, Scottish thrown into the mix. I was parachuted into the Highlands from darkest Englandshire as an infant. My initial experiences at primary school were- well, an experience. I was ridiculed. Snowballs contained sharp objects. Someone setting light to ones’s jumper is an unpleasant experience, all the more so when one happens to be wearing it at the time.

Physical attacks- being pinned to the ground and punched in the face until it turns purple while a healthy crowd gathers round chanting “put the boot in!” Which they did. Freely and liberally.

High school would be different. Except on day one each child had to recite- in the music lesson- the poem “It’s a braw, bricht moon licht nicht the nicht”. At the end of the lesson I was thrown fully clothed from a bridge into the River Lossie.

The reason- accent.

Being stubborn, I became a Scots lawyer and devoted most of my spare time working for charities for the hardest pressed in Scottish society. I made lifelong friends with many Scots and am proud to be their friends. Together we climbed all the Munros, enjoyed the history and freedom of open bothies and howffs, and I had the privilege of fishing some of the finest rivers in the world.

The current referendum is a matter for each individual in the voting booth. I am clear and certain that many are motivated by a cultural love of their land and people, justifiably and rightly so. However, I am equally certain that many will be motivated by racism (look no further than the recent visceral response to the BBCs poor journalism, namely where to deposit one’s TV licence). The ballot box isn’t concerned with motives but in the totting up of yeses and nos, but I have lived the experience of racist bullying and I know it’s still there. I still tense up when I hear the “joking banter” of the rugby terraces variety.

It is right and proper that there is a referendum. We are all being asked to face up to a new reality and that is good, whichever way the vote goes. It is, however, important to recognise that there is an underbelly and that it is ugly. Polite society will deny its existence. I can tell you it is very real, and it is very painful.

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1. Ruth
  
  16/09/2014
  
  Yes it’s sad how even the nicest of people are turning spiteful, petty and vindictive, as fear of the promised utopia being snatched from their grasp swells to obliterate their rational minds. Their desire for a more just society in Scotland has been manipulated and exploited ruthlessly and as the feverish excitement rises it’ll be ugly whatever way the vote goes.
  
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  1. Tim
    
    16/09/2014
    
    It’s a natural matter of psychology that, once people make their minds up, they get more entrenched in their view and only seek evidence to support the adopted position. That some will lack the self-control to keep strength of feeling in check is certainly unfortunate but to a large degree inevitable, sadly.
    
    Reply
Paul Hutchinson

15/09/2014

I’m a Northern Englishman with exclusively Northern English ancestry for at least two centuries, living in Northern England. Whilst I can appreciate so much of the motivation for voting yes, I stand with Kelvin on this. Those of us who live north of the Humber need Scotland to be with us, and not across the border. We well understand that Scottish life (I think of church, law, and education, the three areas with which I have most contact) is distinctive, and we certainly can see all the frustration that arises out of government policy over the last 35 years; but Scotland is part of the solutions to the problems of Britain, and without it, the progressive case for the rest of us seems almost impossible to make. No, of course, I don’t have a vote on this, but I feel that the English elites have not made the case that Scotland’s nearest neighbours would want them to hear. Bravo Kelvin – of course I agree.

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Colin Souter

15/09/2014

http://t.co/AoNHm1g6JL

I hope you read these comments, that you read this link and that you understand you are buying into the propaganda machine that is Westminster. We can help people through a more socially just and equitable society but that means starting to “eat the elephant” in bite sized chunks. What we can achieve in an iScotland can be a catalyst for change elsewhere in the UK. It’s not about turning our backs, it’s about giving people the confidence to see what can be accomplished successfully…..

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Alan McManus

15/09/2014

I was about 7 when I learned the word ‘lemman’, when another little boy asked me in the playground in Scots if I had a girlfriend. He went to work in a soap factory as he couldn’t anglicise as easily as I could. I went on to gain more degrees than sense and encountered that word again when my sister was studying the Middle English. 300 years of aggressive anglicisation meant that when Scots children used our rich linguistic legacy from sources as diverse as Norman French and the Hanseatic League we were ridiculed not affirmed. That obsessive educational mindset has hardly changed today. The bland ubiquity of the White English middle class discourse exerts a normalising power of erasure of the cultural diversity of the UK. Racism is evil as is all oppression. We are not nasty bairns in some narrowminded kailyard masquerading as a school. We are a people striving to free ourselves from cultural domination. We are sick of charges of racism and tire of repeating ourselves that independence has NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING ANTI-ENGLISH!

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1. Tim
  
  16/09/2014
  
  My word you have a huge inconsistency error there. Objecting to a `bland ubiquity of the White English middle class’ and yet it’s not anti-English?
  
  You should supplement your identity-based argument with some other reasons, lest your path lead to the dark side.
  
  Reply
  1. Alan McManus
    
    16/09/2014
    
    Tim if you’re going to quote me (inevitably someone was going to play this victim card) then do so correctly. The last four words in your truncated quote are adjectival. The noun is ‘discourse’. Dominant discourse need not be bland but in its attempted erasure of the diversity of all other discourse, it becomes bland. Why? Because it relies on phatic communication: what is said is not important. What matters is that always and everywhere that voice is on the air.
    Critical theorists have identified the same phenomenon with Anglo-American discourses. Why is this news to the thinking people who read and contribute to this blog? Perhaps because naming the historical and continuing English colonial attitude to Scotland is such an inconvenient truth that people prefer to divert this discussion down the rabbithole of utter nonsense.
    An example of which is ‘our’ PM pleading ‘heart, mind and soul’ for Scotland not to leave the UK. Thus confusing 1707 with 1603. He doesn’t care about the difference because he doesn’t care about history. What he does care about is power. You’re uncomfortable because I dare to state clearly that there is an abuse of power in the UK and it’s based on class, race, accent, nationality (and all sorts of other categories). The White English middle class, at least those who are complacent in their performance of niceness, are surprised to find that others find their assumptions patronising. And by the way can we all stop using ‘dark’ and ‘black’ as synonyms for evil?
    This strategy of excursion from the unanswered issues brought up by Jo, Robin, Derek, Adrian, Christine and Cliff is a bore. Can we stop now? If you’re not going to address them, or even consider them, then read this written by a good friend of mine from Bristol living in Scotland (no it’s not JKR!): http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/09/13/drumchapel-conversations/
    
    Reply
Richard

16/09/2014

I agree with Kelvin’s suggested model of a more Federal union, and yes, Ruth, it is sad.

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Rosemary Hannah

16/09/2014

Of course most Scots are not anti-English. Of course a significant minority are. Of course this campaign has made more Scots anti-English and some already anti-English and Scotland, especially in rural areas, a harder place to live with an English accent.

But Kelvin’s arguments are not about this, and it would be good to get back to substance. I am an internationalist and do not see how voting for separatist nationalism can possibly be squared with that. We are not a colony. We have direct representation in the national parliament.

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Steven McQuitty

16/09/2014

While perhaps not decisive on this debate, one factor that should at least be taken into account is the impact this will have on Northern Ireland. What is left of the Union after a “Yes” vote will be unstable. I can’t imagine a de facto English Parliament in Westminster wishing to retain the union with Northern Ireland given the expense and trouble this has caused in the past. Those who may wish to de-stabilise things further in NI might well resort to the tried and tested [and successful, it turns out] means of politically motivated violence. A well placed dissident Republican bomb in England would no doubt encourage the English to say, right enough is enough – you are on your own. There is, in my view, a significant chance that Scottish independence might well lead to the collapse of the Northern Irish political settlement giving rise to a return to violence. Unionists in Northern Ireland will be feeling particularly vulnerable [which rarely leads to good things] and there will some Irish Republicans who will not be able to resist stirring that particular pot to see how things end…

I suspect most Scots won’t consider this their problem but it will be if they have to deal with an influx of Ulster-Scots “refugees” returning home after a 400 year sojourn in Ulster [with tongue only half in cheek].

I visit Scotland regularly, love the country, and see it as the most confident, progressive and beautiful part of the United Kingdom. I would love to live in Scotland. I wish the best for Scotland, whatever the outcome, it will always have a place in my heart. My children will continue to be subjected to Munro-bagging, beaches on Mull and Harris, the National Museum of Scotland and Blackwell’s bookshop on Chambers street!

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Tim

16/09/2014

Kelvin,
You once tweeted at me that [paraphrase] waiting to get everyone to get on-board was the opposite of progressive leadership.

Here, you’re advocating letting a massive opportunity pass by in a desire to improve the lot of a greater majority (with no mechanism for such on the table) – and yet you’re calling this progressive. I’m afraid this does not compute.

Wikipedia: “Progressivism is a broad political philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advances in science, technology, economic development, and social organization can improve the human condition.”

I guess it’s up to each to decide whether the current choice constitutes an advance, but that simply degenerates to affirming your position regardless of whether it’s progressive or not.

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Elizabeth

16/09/2014

I’m still undecided, but I appreciate the postitive, progressive vision for being better together presented here, after growing rather weary of negativity and fear-mongering.

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Alan McManus

17/09/2014

Outside Tesco, across Maryhill Road from McDonalds, along from the Police Station and the JobCentre, about half a mile from St Mary’s and half a world away, a group of YES campaigners and a smaller group of NOs, side by side, shout slogans and laugh and wave banners and flags and cheer passing car drivers honking in support of one or the other. North Kelvinside, the posh part, is content to display some YES and a very few NO stickers – it’s not done here to make a fuss. The scene outside Tesco only sounds raucous to ears unaccustomed to emotional display. What I hear and what I see is that the people of a place often considered a problem are alive to the possibility of making a difference. Their agency is sought after, Prime and First Minister appeal to them. Their vote counts. Whatever the result of tomorrow’s vote, whatever their continuing problems, this experience of agency is part of the solution.

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