What is in Kelvin's Head?

How did I do with last year’s predictions?

31/12/2025
Here’s a run down of how I did at last year’s predictions.
- Good results for Nigel Farage following the English local elections in May. Terrible results for Conservative Party.
Exactly what happened. YES
- No progress towards the marriage of same-sex couples in the Church of England
Exactly what happened. Indeed, I think things may have gone into reverse. YES
- Turbulent year for WordPress, which powers about half of the internet.
The year began with Automattic dramatically cutting its contribution to development leading to stagnation in development and much acrimony. Subsequently restored. Deep divisions remain about Gutenberg. I’m claiming this as a YES.
- 2025 will be the hottest year on record.
Final figures yet to be calibrated but all reports indicate that this, unfortunately is a YES.
- No trade deal for UK with US. Increasing talk of re-aligning economy closer to EU.
Well, there was a trade deal in May called the Economic Prosperity Deal but it doesn’t seem to much and some of the basics have already been reversed. I suppose I have to be honest and say I didn’t get this quite right so it is a NO. But…
- Ceasefire in Russia-Ukraine war but no long term solution.
Hard to assess this one. No long term solution, certainly. There have been a series of ceasefires proposed but none seems really to have been fully implemented. Partial YES.
- “Assisted Dying” aka doctor assisted suicide becomes legal in at least one of the jurisdictions of the British Isles.
I have to put this down as a NO as it completed its parliamentary journey in the Isle of Man but hasn’t received Royal Assent yet, so not technically legal.
- Turbulent year for economy but stock market higher at end of year than beginning. (FTSE currently at 8,173)
Stock market at 9,931 today and there was quite a lot of volatility in the first part of the year. So this one is a YES.
- There will be fewer Commonwealth Realms (ie countries which share the monarchy) by the end of 2025 than there are now.
This one is a NO though there has been significant progress in that direction in Jamaica and moves that way in Grenada.
- Philip Mountstephen.
Well, I was pushing Philip Mounstephen’s name as he appeared to be the only senior bishop in the C of E who actually believed the [absurd] position of the C of E bishops on same-sex relationships. But it is a NO – nothing significant to report.

So – five and a half out of ten this year. Not as good as some years. A couple of near misses.
new year, predictions. 2025

40 responses to “Fact checking Sandi Toksvig”

Elizabeth Lloyd

05/08/2022

If this is what Archbishop Justin needed to say to preserve the Anglican Communion, is it worth preserving? It seems that it will be a very long time until there is unity on this, and all that time we are damaging and hurting our LGBTQI + siblings (some of them living in the global south), and our faithfulness to the loving and inclusive gospel we are called to share.

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David Coleman

05/08/2022

Thanks for using the visibility of the blog to clarify outcomes and more.

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Tom Bell

05/08/2022

The exact facts of Sandis arguments maybe up for debate but the sentiment is surely not. Any other business organisation that said, hopefully these words will move us towards inclusivity as if it some long distant unachievable goal would be taken to court and ripped apart for its blatant failures and unethical practices. The Anglican church apparently gets a pass on this because its a religion, what me and most of the rest of the secular world don’t understand is why this ever was and should continue to be the case. And the more you defend it the less relevant Christianty will become in a modern society.

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1. Kelvin
  
  05/08/2022
  
  Thanks for your comments, Tom. There isn’t anything that is “The Anglican Church” though, just a collection of churches around the world, held together more by bonds of affection than anything else. There is no rule book. There is no Anglican pope who can just decide things.
  
  I know that seems like a cop out, but it is the legal reality. There’s no The Anglican Church that can make decisions, no The Anglican Church that anyone can sue if it doesn’t like something and no The Anglican Church that can make homophobia disappear in every place around the world.
  
  The Scottish Episcopal Church, which I’m a member of is as inclusive as we can make it right now. I’m happy to perform the marriages of same-sex couples and they are generally fabulous. (Straight couples can marry too and also have fabulous weddings – we really are inclusive).
  
  We worked hard on making it so. It took a long time. I’m glad we put the effort in and did it.
  
  But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want me to advocate for the same processes to happen in other parts of the Anglican Communion – ie in the other Anglican Churches around the world. I’m certainly not claiming they should get a pass. Far from it – I tend to be known for shouting for inclusion quite loudly.
  
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Alex Staton

05/08/2022

Hi Kelvin, I’ve seen a few folk giving the AB of C a bad press in light of Sandi Toksvig’s letter and have shared your blog in response. Like much of what you write, it’s well thought out and balanced. Sadly well thought out and balanced is in short supply these days and you end up upsetting everybody. From what I’ve seen of the AB of S, he strikes me as a good and honourable man doing with almost impossible task. One might be inclined to believe it justifies his fairly large salary. Either way, it’s too easy to kick the wrong people.

I had the great misfortune lately of encountering Lisa Nolland via an article she wrote for Christian Today. The gist seems to be that the gays are hell bent on subverting all that is godly and are riddled with disease. The rhetoric is frighteningly familiar. She dismissed reports higher suicide risk among young LGBT people as “a pretext”. Chilling. She seems to have some following although others I’ve spoken to accept she’s an extremist that latches onto some instance of supposed bad behaviour and tars everyone with the same brush. I can live with the fact that Christians may be opposed to SSM, say, but I really struggle with those that insist “gay Christian” is an oxymoron. For all their claims of orthodoxy, they’re actually denying the very core of the gospel, that we are saved by grace. What the thing has done is revealed how toxic the discussion in parts of the C of E has become. Frankly, you’d be hard pressed to find such extreme language in my own Free Church of Scotland; excepting David Robertson, of course, who is far from universally respected.

Graeme and I are now members in the C of S. The denomination’s recent decision to allow C of S ministers to perform SSMs is pretty earth shattering. It had been expected over the last couple of years but ten years ago it was all but inconceivable. It’s as if once the thing had gathered momentum, the outcome was inevitable. Of course many will be hoping the tiny steps taken at the synod could be the start of something. But only a fool would expect Anglicans in Uganda or Nigeria to embrace the more inclusive approach. Of course that’s Welby’s difficulty. He isn’t just primate of all England but the figure head for millions of Anglicans world wide. Insofar as it depends on him, he needs to preserve the unity of the church, even when disagreements are profound.

Here in Scotland, we have the national church, the SEC, Methodists, URC, Quakers, Unitarians and others performing or ready to perform SSM. Who would have thought it just a short while ago. That has to challenge the sometimes quite lazy assumption that Christians are against LGBT+ people. Some are, perhaps many are, but many are not. Is it too much to hope that after being excluded for such a long time, LGBT people will be drawn to church? But even then, we need to encourage unity. What we really want is a church where progressives, evangelicals, conservatives are all welcome. I suspect Justin Welby thinks that too. Perhaps AB of C is a poison chalice but as Christians surely we want to support him as best we can.

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Bernd

05/08/2022

always lovely to have someone – Sandy, Christian extraordinary – who hasn’t made the slightest contribution to “Church: now feels compelled to tell it off. Sigh

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Christopher Shell

06/08/2022

She has already decided which particular direction of travel counts as ‘moving on’. That is precisely what the discussion was supposed to be about. In arrogance, she thinks she can bypass the discussion without venturing an argument rather than an assertion, and in the meantime label all who disagree with her as regressive (rather than not subject to the vagaries of fashion, and having more robust principles undergirding their decisions).

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the Rev. Brynn Craffey

06/08/2022

I think the crux of the dispute here is this: is an “accurate description of reality” from the purported head of one of the largest Christian denominations in the world what is called for at this historic moment in time? Or, is taking a moral stand to protect the most vulnerable–namely, LGBTQ2S+ people in both the global north and south–what is called for? I think it’s clear which one Jesus would choose, and it’s not the one the archbishop did.

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The Rt Revd Dr Keith Riglin

07/08/2022

I’m here at Lambeth as a diocesan bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church – what Kelvin has written is the case (what was actually said and done). Which is why the queer married bishops from the Episcopal Church in the USA were the first to stand and applaud +Justin. We are a Communion of churches not an international Church; there’s much more to do, but this week has been a significant step towards full inclusion of those of us who are LGBT.

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