- General Election in UK – Labour landslide. PM – Sir Keir Starmer. (No great change in policies from the Tory government that Labour will replace).
- US politics will continue to be dominated by Donald Trump
- In the US Presidential election in November there will be victory for the Republican Party.
- AI/Deepfakes have a significant effect in electoral politics.
- Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine unresolved by end of 2024.
- No progress for those wanting marriage equality in the Church of England.
- Twitter goes bust or is sold or both.
- The world will be warmer in 2024 than ever before.
- Another country will join Nato.
- A new agreement is reached between the UK and Greece on the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles that opens the door for at least some of them to be displayed in Athens.
15 responses to “I.D.”
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I’d always thought there were about 20,000 Piskies. The odd thing about these figures is they offer 4 ways of being Anglican in Scotland (Episcopalian, SEC, Anglican and Church of England.) Added together it looks like there could be around 100,000 Anglicans in Scotland (71k CofE/Anglican and 29k Piskie/SEC).
According to the Scottish Church Census of 2002, there were only 18,870 Episcopalians in Scotland – so looks like the SEC is doing OK. (Although in-house figures for 2002 put it at 45k). At the high point in the 1920s the SEC had supposedly 140000 members and touching 60,000 communicants – our decline in 90 years has been steep, of course, but has levelled, and, as others have pointed out, the damage has been far less severe than elsewhere.
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I wonder what the breakdown is of religion and Scottish/non-Scottish born is. If many who put down CoE were born and baptized in England and haven’t set foot in a church since (except perhaps to attend weddings and funerals) that might explain why they don’t know that north of the border the equivalent is the Piskies. They now live in Scotland and put down CoE as a reflex though for all intents and purposes they are non-religious.
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Absolutely. Confusing the SEC with the Church of Scotland is a dilemma that I have to deal with regularly within the African communities in Scotland.
I couldn’t agree more with your suggestions around mission and growth strategy. It’s not and will not work until, they are professionally redesigned in line with contemporary expectations and style.
I made the same points you are making in one of our frustrating TISEC meetings, the church is tarnishing away in the hands of people who are either to lazy to be imaginative or who simply don’t care about the future. I honestly have one prayer, people like you to become in charge one day!
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Love means love – a sermon for Midnight Mass 2018
It was the middle of the night. It was dark – the night black as pitch beyond the cold bright lights which shone in our faces. And it was surprisingly cold. Crossing the border should have been easy. But they made us all get off the train and queue up to have our passports stamped.…
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Here comes the Sun
The solstice is past. Here comes the sun.
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Sermon preached on 9 December 2018 – People Look East!
[Apologies for the poor audio in the video this week] “People Look East!” the prophet Baruch commanded in our first reading. And he wasn’t talking about Edinburgh. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look towards the east” says…
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Whither Mission?
It is the long-standing tradition of the Scottish Episcopal Church to dedicate its prayer on St Andrew’s Day to one particular thing. As it happens, it isn’t praying for Scotland though no doubt people have done that on this day for quite a while too. I know this will come as a bit of a…
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