What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • This is a church for everybody

    Yesterday I reposted the It’s Time video from the equality network which features a 1 second cameo of me waving a sign. They filmed that over a year ago and as they collected those sign-waving people – religious leaders, celebs, couples, politicians etc they also asked them in front of the camera why they were involved in the campaign.

    They were aiming for just a couple of minutes so I had to think carefully about what to say.

    Here are the main points

    • This isn’t a gay church its a church for everybody and that’s why people like coming here.
    • Churches have an ethical responsiblity to promote equality.
    • What needs to be heard is the message of respect and love and inclusion and I know hundreds of Christians who are putting that message out.
    • Church is a place where the message is that you are utterly loved.
    • Churches are changing these days and thank God they are.

    Take a look:

    I’ll  be posting just one more video from the campaign tomorrow, just ahead of the vote in parliament. If you want to join in and let Members of the Scottish Parliament know you want change, it just takes 2 minutes (the same length of time as this video) and you can find out how to do that here:

    http://www.equalmarriage.org.uk/itstime

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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

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