What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Love your church minister

    No – not me. Well, you can if you like. But more an invitation to head over to Malcolm Round’s blog and read a post that he wrote a couple of weeks ago which has now been read by thousands of people, being copied and referenced all over the web.

    Malcolm has really hit a nerve in writing about how congregations treat their clergy – beginning with this:

    Sadly the Christian church is littered with good people who have left the ministry because of the pain, the criticism, and the lack of support they’ve got from congregations. Some Christians assume they can behave in a church setting in a way they’ve never be allowed to in a work setting. Minister abuse is much more common than is talked about.

    I know exactly what he is talking about and very many clergy will know it all too well.

    Malcolm raises a number of very pertinent questions that I think need a lot of talking about. The most striking questions this piece prompts for me are these:

    • What level of discipline should exist in a voluntary organisation like a congregation, particularly when the congregation has an ethos of inclusion and welcome? After all, churches tend to exist for the purpose of adding more to their numbers. How do they manage anti-social and particular anti-clerical behaviour?
    • In my own denomination, what part does the anti-clericalism that is the unfortunate and entirely unnecessary product of so many of our conversations about affirming lay ministry play in this?
    • Who cares for the pastors of the church and how?

    The bad behaviour that Malcolm talks about leaves him saying:

    Such treatment sadly has become normative in the ordained church life.  Which is one of the reasons I personally will virtually never support anybody going into full-time ‘ordained’ parish ministry.

    When a senior church leader says that then the rest of us ought to be paying attention and carrying on a serious conversation about it. This is important and significant stuff.

    So, hop on over to Malcolm’s blog and take a read.

    , ,

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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Previous Posts

  • Promoting Marriage

    Have spent much of the day at the Scottish Weddings Show promoting marriage and particularly the idea of getting married in church. Parts of the day were a blast and it was fantastic to meet so many people. The impetus for this came from the stall that the Scottish Episcopal Church had last year at…

  • Keeping the Feast

    Over the mountains, and over the waves, Under the fountains and under the graves. Under floods that are deepest which Neptune obey, Over rocks that are steepest, love will find out the way.

  • Sermon – Lent 1

    The gospel reading that we have just heard is an important one. Like the reading from the book of Genesis that we heard earlier in the service, it takes us straight into a deep strange place. For these readings take us into the strange world of myth and mystery. And if you doubt that, can…

  • What am I listening to?

    Oh, thank you for asking again. It is a long time since you did. I’ve still not exhausted the wonderful Harmonia Mundi 50 Years Boxset that I bought at Christmas. 30 fabulous CDs for about £30. Glorious If I’m bopping, I’m probably bopping along to Elvis Ain’t Dead and sniggering at the phrase Scouting for…