What is in Kelvin's Head?

Not merely patronising

01/11/2012

Bishop Victoria Matthews is not merely patronising, she is actually wrong.

Wait, you want me to back up a bit? OK.

The story so far: We’ve been considering the idea of an Anglican Covenant for years and this year the Scottish Episcopal Church decided to reject it and did so in a very clear synodical decision. The Anglican Consultative Council is currently meeting in New Zealand and Bishop Victoria has been making statements about those who can’t agree with the Covenant that are, at best disingenuous. (Which is Anglican for “Completely Wrong and Verging on Deceit”).

Here’s part of the report from the Anglican Communion Office:
Bishop Matthews… was introducing a session on the history and progress of the Covenant as part of the 15th ACC meeting in Auckland.
She stressed the point that it was not the work of IASCUFO [The International Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order] to promote the Covenant, but rather to monitor its reception.
â€œAs we have sought to do that,â€ she told delegates, â€œI have often thought that the document people discuss and the actual Anglican Covenant are two different documents.
“One is the document that people have in their mind and the other is the Anglican Communion Covenant on paper. So I really want [people] to read the Covenant and be focused on that. Because often, when people start talking about the Covenant, what they describe in their mind as the Covenant is unrecognisable.â€

I have to say that I find the suggestion that we really need to read the actual Covenant quite insulting. No church could have done better at reading the thing than the Scottish Episcopal Church. We’ve discussed it at our annual General Synod over years. We’ve looked at each different version of the text. We’ve discussed it in dioceses. We’ve discussed it in regional councils. Some have discussed it in Vestries and in some places whole congregations looked at it. People preached on it. People studied it. We went over the text itself with a tooth-comb. The Standing Committee discussed and implemented every possible way of discussing the document. We talked about it until people were sick of talking about it. We printed it out so many times that people complained about the environmental impact of the Covenant process.

And then we finally made a decision and the decision was a resounding “No.” We really don’t need to go back and read the text. We read it plenty and we made up out minds very clearly and overwhelmingly.

Bishop Victoria also said, “Remember most of the Covenant reminds us who we are in Christ.”

You know, the predominant thing that we said was not that we were worried about the punitive sections. That was true for very many of us. However the thing I heard people saying again and again was, “This just doesn’t represent who we are”.

The claim that the Covenant reminds us who we are in Christ is a rather foolish one. The Covenant is an imagined identity which we have firmly rejected.

It is certainly patronising of Bishop Victoria Matthews to imply that we in Scotland just have not read the Covanant enough. More than that though, it isn’t true.

She’s just plain wrong.

Anglican Covenant

24 responses to “Good Vicar, Bad Vicar”

Josh

02/01/2014

Being a good vicar to stony, unreceptive hearts might require a pickaxe to reveal gemstones within. It must be tough to minister to jerks and meanies, no? We lose faith in people easily – I certainly do. But a good vicar – a loving parent – doesn’t give on up one’s children.

A good vicar might depend on the eye of the beholder. Whether you believe vicars and congregations are intrinsically good or evil might get you called a Pelagian or an Augustinian depending on who you ask. Faith in the work of a vicar or the reception of the congregation depends on good faith and co-operation – what then do we place our faith in? Hardly Protestant thinking, when faith is dependent on work, manifestation, and epiphany. A bad vicar might be sent to good people. A good vicar might be sent to bad people. Whether a vicar or congregation is subjectively or objectively good is a difficult question to answer.

It is then that I prefer to see both the vicar and congregation not as “good” or “bad” but rather as equally “beloved”. However large the congregation, or even the vicar’s skill shouldn’t matter then. But that raises the question: Who then do we love if we are so beloved by God? Perhaps love might be the answer. A vicar and congregation who sees and knows themselves as equally and lavishly beloved of God will love each other. Love makes congregations meaningful and precious, no matter how small they might be.

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Josh

02/01/2014

And if I might add to my previous comment – And love also makes vicars meaningful and precious, no matter how small the congregation might be.

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Rosemary Hannah

02/01/2014

Yes – things which make the practicalities of small congregations include:
the laity in most senior positions find it hard to see the inclusive love of God and to see the value of prayer and spiritual exercises, a shortage of laity with administrative abilities, a tiny handful of parishioners prepared to insist on unhelpful things all the time (the oldest liturgies every week, the kind of behaviour small children cannot sustain all service long, particular dress in those at church on Sunday to name but a tiny selection). In a larger church these things can be contained (one nasty comment for lady x outweighed by five or six lovely ones or simply finding somebody to be treasurer who can cope with the job). In a small church, however good the vicar, the nasty comment carries more weight, and the sorting out of the finances may take days of clergy effort. It is always hard to get from a tiny congregation to a large one.

That said, I have sat through sermons so mind-numbingly boring and inappropriate that I have actually moved to another church.

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Paul Waddington

04/01/2014

If one looks at the larger picture, the Archbishop’s optimism seems misplaced.

According to the 1851 census, about five million people attended a Church of England service on the census day (a Sunday). The population of England and Wales at the time was about 17 million. These are round figures and I know that there were difficulties with the religious census, but they are good enough to demonstrate my point. Roughly speaking, about 30% of the population attended a CofE that Sunday.

Recently published figures estimate average Sunday attendance at CofE churches at about 900,000. That is about 2% of the population of England. Wales is now excluded.

So taking the long view, the trend is rather depressing for the CofE. Compared with 1851, fourteen out of fifteen no longer attend church regularly.

As an aside, the 1851 census indicated a church attendance for Catholics of about 350,000. That is about 2% of the population. I understand that the current figure is very similar for Mass attendance is also around 900,000 or 2% of the population.

Other recent research has indicated that the age range of CofE congregations is skewed towards the upper end. Certainly in my local parish, it is unusual to see anyone under the age of 60. I do wonder how many there will be in, say, 15 years time.

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1. Kelvin
  
  04/01/2014
  
  Thanks Paul – I find that bishops generally tend to accentuate the positive when it comes to thinking about numbers in church. Whether that is because they only go to events that are comparatively well attended or whether it is actually because it is their job to be upbeat about possibilities is not clear to me.
  
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Pam

04/01/2014

It is complicated – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – poor adjectives. The rector is the leader of the congregation and needs support and trust. But, I think, no longer is the vicar held in such esteem as not to have to earn that support and trust. A good thing, mostly. Churches grow for all sorts of reasons – the level of involvement with non-believers, a prominent noticeboard and outstanding bikke and slice-makers all help.

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