What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Guides and God

    So, am I all up in arms about Girl Guides dropping their promise to love [their] God[s]?

    No, I don’t think so. I suspect God can take it.

    This is what the Girl Guides used to promise:

    I Promise that I will do my best;
    To love my God,
    To serve my Queen and my Country,
    To help other people
    And
    To keep the Guide Law.

    Now they are going to say this:

    I promise that I will do my best:
    To be true to myself and develop my beliefs,
    To serve the Queen and my community, 
    and
    To keep the Guide Law.

    This doesn’t seem to me to be particularly troubling. It looks as though Guiding wants to be modern and inclusive. I’m just a little surprised they’ve kept the Queen in there which surely must exclude republicans.

    I don’t expect that Guiding will change significantly by changing that promise except to allow some girls to take part who might once have thought that it was not for them because they were not religious.

    The “self” has a complex relationship with religion. And Christianity is something of a mixed bag when it comes to the self. On the one hand it is all about losing your self and being lost in God and service of others. On the other, we are told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, which sounds a bit like a good starting place for a lot of modern therapy.

    “Unto thine own self be true” is an injunction that sometimes is wrongly attributed to the Bible. It isn’t, it is a misquote in any case and comes from Polonius speaking to Laertes in Hamlet: “This above all- to thine own self be true”.

    I think that God will survive the Guides’ change of wording and I hope that Guiding will flourish as a result of trying to keep up with the times.

    However, you can see an enormous shift in ethical thinking taking place between those two versions of the promise. The self is paramount in modern thinking. I think that’s an inevitable thing. I also think that it is a good thing. We’ve not thought nearly enough about the self in the past. Somewhere inside though, I find myself thinking that focusing on the self is not an absolute good. Some things within the self may not be good. Presumably the injunction to serve the community in the Guide promise is an attempt to mitigate that.

    If I’d been a Guide taking part in their big consultation about the promise, I’d probably have wanted something included about preventing harm. I think that’s a good direction to follow for ethical thinking and can cover the self and others.

    I like the new Rainbow promise though:

    I promise that I will do my best to think about my beliefs and to be kind and helpful.

    You can find the inside skinny on this from a Guide leader at Some Random Bint’s blog.

    , , , ,

8 responses to “A Christian Country?”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Reality is pluralist; a secular basis is good to level the playing-field.

    I think Cameron is not so much failing to live in `now’ but hell-bent on dragging the country back to the 50s (mostly the 1850s).

    One of Blair’s very few positives was “we don’t do God”, or at least postponing doing God until mostly after he was out of Number 10.

    Reply
  2. Fr Steve Avatar
    Fr Steve

    Very good analysis. In Australia I still find I get prickly when people tell me I belong to the C of E! (It has not been formally such since the the 70s)
    It is good not to see ourselves in the light of another nation…England…but it is good to recognise to recognise our heritage …Anglican.
    I spent part of last year in Hawaii as a locum…..when asked last week by the Mothers’ Union..”What was the difference?” I was a bit glib…but could confidential say “Nothing at all!” Given the fact that 1/3 of the congregation were Filipinos it is an interesting reflection.
    Don’t think we should overstate it, but being Anglican is a great thing. But there is much about it that needs a good kick up the backside too!

    Reply
  3. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Though we ought to, maybe proudly, remember that the SEC is not a daughter Church of the Church of England. I’m afraid Cameron isn’t doing himself any favours with the way he’s made these statements, and as far as Scotland goes there’s a large part that has been disenfranchised by any statements that Cameron or any English person says, because they view them as ‘english propaganda’. Sadly, I don’t view the Scottish Government with much love either, having used their position to unfairly tout their party’s stance. Between two opposite poles, both backed by Government, how is one to hear a balanced view, instead of that great love of Blair’s Government, spin.

    Reply
  4. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    ‘I do however have a big problem with starting up a new country and writing Christianity into the constitutional definition of what that country is.’ I agree totally. I lived for 26 years in a country where the constitution, in respect of family matters, reflected the views both of the majority RC church and the Church of Ireland. For example, in order to make divorce possible, an amendment to the constitution had to be passed by a majority voting in a nation-wide referendum. This was only achieved in 1995, and only by a margin of 50.28% to 49.72%. Constitutional definition of religious matters always leads to discrimination.

    Reply
  5. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    > ‘I do however have a big problem with starting up a new country’

    I have a big problem with seeing Scottish independence (if it were to be re-established following a YES vote in the referendum) as ‘starting up a new country’ . . .

    Reply
  6. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    I loathe the smug fortress mentality of many of my co-religionists in RC schools while noting that these schools perform at least as well as non-denominational. I loathe the cowardice of the Reformed churches in failing to speak out against the violence and prejudice associated with a certain group of charitable organisations every July and the complicity of local authorities who DO NOT assure the safety of citizens and of international visitors unused to the historical hatreds of the Scottish central belt. While the latter is true, I continue to support the former and look to Canada as a model of multicultural accommodation than to the aggressive laïcité of France.

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar
      Kelvin Holdsworth

      Like this?
      [vimeo 69307025 w=500 h=281] 20130623 Kelvin Holdsworth Music Sunday from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo.

      Reply
  7. Allan Ronald Avatar
    Allan Ronald

    Given the choice between the venomous and literally murderous hatreds of Central Belt sectarianism and ‘aggressive laicité’ I’ll take the latter any day.

    Reply

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