What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • New Year Predictions 2016

    1. Following recent revelations, this will be the year that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey finally shuts up. Expect no silly press releases on the eve of Church of England Synod. (From Carey anyway).
    2. The Columba Declaration recently leaked to the press will not in fact be adopted unamended by both the Church of Scotland General Assembly in May and by the Church of England General Synod in February.
    3. Solid vote in favour of first reading of legislation for removal of definition of marriage from the canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church opening the way towards a final vote in 2017.
    4. The Anglican Communion will move back towards being a fellowship of autonomous churches following the Primates’ Conference in January. Justin Welby will do the right thing for the wrong reasons. (ie he will accept the inevitable loosening of ties that stems from the global domination fantasies of his predecessors but not speak up for LGBT friendly churches).
    5. The SNP will win a landslide in the Holyrood Election. There will be UKIP representation in Holyrood for the first time.
    6. The SNP will continue to work for their preferred outcome in the European Union referendum – an overall majority in the UK in favour of staying in, a massive majority in Scotland for staying in and a majority in England for leaving the EU.
    7. The Democrats will retain the White House.
    8. Jeremy Corbyn will still be Labour Party leader by the end of 2016 and become a little more popular within the Labour Party the longer he is there.  The Labour Party will still seem unelectable at the end of the year. No major defections along the way. (There’s nowhere to go).
    9. A successful cyber terrorist attack on a major Western financial institution. (It is only a matter of time).
    10. Amateur drone crash causing loss of life.
    11. 3D printed food experiments in restaurants.
    12. More major news outlets closing down the comments sections on their websites as open comments become unmanagable.

One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • All the Livelong Day

    Very commonly, people find it hard to get a handle on how St Mary’s hangs together and I suspect it is because of days like today. No-one gets to see everything that is going on. The organisation of it all is a series of interlocking systems which, by some miracle, mostly work well together. I…

  • Consultation on Civil Partnerships and Same-Sex Marriage

    This week the Scottish Government’s consultation on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage comes to a close. The Scottish Episcopal Church’s response has been prepared by the Faith and Order Board which Bishop Gregor convenes and that will be published some time in the next few days. It would be surprising if that formal response contained…

  • Pestilence, Famine, War and Death

    When I was speaking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the pulpit on Sunday it was with some hope that they might be regarded as merely allegorical figures. Alas, now I have heard the news that Harry Ramsden’s is to close. Not the johnny-come-lately chain that bears the name, but the real thing,…

  • Eclectic

    Last weekend was one of those minor extravaganzas that happen at St Mary’s that one should never quite get used to. On the Saturday afternoon we had an extra Evensong which the assistant organist Geoff Woollatt brought together. A bunch of people who’ve never sung together before appeared under the label – The St Mary’s…