What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Glasgow School of Art Fire – eyewitness report and pictures

    IMG_5854 blaze near roof
    As I sit down to write this, my clothes and hair smell of smoke. I’ve just witnessed a profound tragedy – the fire at Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building.

    There’s huge sadness in the city. I saw people openly weeping in the streets. This was more than just a building. Iconic in terms of the world’s built heritage, the Mack was also part of this city’s heart and soul.

    I became aware that something was happening when I looked out of my living room window at 1 pm and saw a plume of smoke rising above Garnethill. I picked up my camera and headed out and saw the worst of the blaze and so there are some pictures of what I saw below.

    Glasgow’s School of Art is more than a building. It is a complex institution in which beauty, hope and challenge are forever interwoven. The Mack was indeed a precious icon but it was a working building which produces the art of today and of tomorrow. As I stood with students mourning losses today, there was already talk of what could be saved; what could be rebuilt. None of us looking on know what to make of what we have seen yet everyone seemed to want to talk of what would yet live, even as the smoke of what was burning was billowing around us.

    For firefighters, emergency planners and police we give thanks. For students, alumni, administrators and staff we pray for peace. For bystanders, witnesses and for the whole of this creative, vibrant city, Lord we pray. Amen.

    There will be prayers for all involved on Sunday in St Mary’s Cathedral, and no doubt across the city.

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72 responses to “Baptism and the Churches”

  1. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Thanks Kelvin and all for the interesting discussion. As a member of the Episcopal Church in the US, I only ever used the Baptismal Covenant in an argument against the necessity of the proposed Anglican Covenant. For me, the Baptismal Covenant is an assent to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, so I saw absolutely no need of another covenant. In fact, I don’t see the Baptismal Covenant as something different from the New Covenant.

    With respect to whether Baptism or the Eucharist is a/the sacrament of initiation, wouldn’t the answer be both? In the early church, the person was baptized and received the Eucharist during the same service.

    Also, I wonder if people from other Anglican churches are aware of the great diversity of views held by Episcopalians in the US. That all the orders of ministry should be open to all the baptized seems to me simply a matter of the justice and equality that all Christians should strive for as members of the Body of Christ.

    Reply
  2. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Sorry, I’m posting on Erika’s computer, but the comment above is by me, June Butler (aka Grandmère Mimi).

    Reply
  3. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    It’s so refreshing to read a discussion where everyone’s listening and learning through that dialectical process. Here’s my tuppennyworth: the disparaging mention of magic by churchpeople always makes my hackles go up – mostly as our Christian legacy of persecution of wise healers as witches is still largely unacknowledged and certainly unatoned – but also because the RC in me hears this as a facile Protestant jibe against metaphysics (if you want my views on that buzzword look here: http://robertpirsig.org/Alchemy.htm ) and though Vat 2 officially u-turned on slavery (yay! who says the RC church can’t change, eventually) it didn’t move away from an essentially sacramental view of Christian ministry.
    I feel that underlying this discussion may be a difference in sacramental theology. I hold the traditional view that through the creation, the incarnation and ongoing sanctification, the Spirit of God is at work metaphysically in the world and that means neither solely spiritually nor physically but betwixt and between. The RC church is just as guilty of virulent hatred of non-clerical women healers as others but the convivial nature of the relationship which sometimes occurs between Roman Catholic and ‘curandero’ (wise traditional healer) in Latin America is for me an affirmation of the ecological connections inherent in both cosmologies – though often forgotten in the RC church it must be said.
    The part of the SEC liturgy I find most alienating is ‘Lord unite us in this sign’. This speaks to me of cognition not communion. In these words I feel the lack of belief in a metaphysical reality. I feel that this discussion may have brought up a similar divide in concept about baptism: is it or is it not efficacious?

    Reply

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