What is in Kelvin's Head?

Advent and How Religion Works

16/12/2017

Religion is a funny thing. It is on the one hand about doing what comes naturally to people. And on the other hand it is about doing the very opposite.

Let me explain.

Some aspects of religion are about what comes naturally and easily to people – things like prayer and things like the way we celebrate joys and sorrows. Other aspects of religion are more hard work – they are about doing the unexpected thing ranging from the apparently trivial (wearing your hair like this rather than like that) to the extremely serious (“In the name of the Holy Spirit and of the Church of Christ we call you to serve in the order of presbyters. Do you accept this call?”).

The former are to do with the way we are wired as human beings. The latter consists of a whole range of things that can shape life profoundly and change it utterly.

I know it is a bit counter-intuitive to say that prayer is easy. In many respects, prayer belongs with the things that build up a spiritual life. But prayer comes very naturally when we are up against it in the world. When we are frightened for ourselves or even more likely frightened for others, many people find an impetus to pray, whether or not they believe in a God who meddles in the ways of this world.

It is the same when it comes to joys and sorrows. Often we do spiritual things not because that is part of a coherent spiritual life but simply because for some reason we have a need as human beings to mark significant moments in life. For some reason, human beings have evolved to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in ways that other sentient beings have not. We buy champagne or flowers when we celebrate and we find ways of marking tragedy that are unexplained and untaught. The sea of flowers that appears when tragedy strikes tells us that people care a great deal about the well-being of others. They tell us that compassion is real. They tell us that people simply couldn’t help themselves from expressing the better part of what it means to be human.

Much religion is built from such sentiment.

The Christian calendar mostly arises from people’s need to remember significant things that people have done through the remembrance of anniversaries of one kind or another. It might be the anniversary of the death of someone special, the anniversary of a birth or even an anniversary marking the oh so human moment of actual conception. These festivals have the original character that shares something very much in common with our own desire to celebrate and mark significant moments.

But Advent is different somehow. It isn’t about the anniversary of something. For all it is a countdown to a birth, pretty much everyone who takes Advent seriously is in agreement that it isn’t really about celebrating that birth at all. We’ll get there, but only once we’ve prepared ourselves.

Advent is a bit of an effort.

We’re in the middle of Advent now. And I love it.

There was a time when Advent and Lent were regarded as much of a muchness – penitential seasons that came before a big festival.

In recent years, Advent has changed a bit I think – more about preparation now than penitence. However it is much under attack as the commercial Christmas has taken over the month of December.

Some churches have capitulated and now don’t keep Advent as anything other than proto-Christmas. Thus, plenty of churches are already festooned with decorations and carol services are going on this weekend, just two weeks since Advent began. It is hard to criticise people for this. May those who sing joyful things experience joy in their hearts. However, keeping Advent as an actual spiritual discipline has much in its favour too.

Here at St Mary’s, we keep as full and proper an Advent as we can. That means we don’t sing Christmas carols or put up decorations or anything like that until we’ve kept four Sunday Eucharists of Advent.

This year, with Christmas on a Monday, 24 December is Advent 4 (which takes precedence over Christmas Eve) and so we’ll not be keeping the big feast until later on that day. I’ve little doubt that we may have some people turning up on 24 December in the morning expecting lots of ho ho ho, but what they will get is a bit of Advent ho-ho-holiness instead.

Once that fourth advent Eucharist is done, we might go a bit Christmas crazy and I’m expecting that to be a lot of fun.

Keeping Advent like this is intentional, deliberate and yes, sometimes difficult. It puts us at odds with everyone around us including plenty of other Christians in other churches.

It is that side of religion that is about spiritual practise – holy habit forming. It is about trying to do something in life that affects the soul. The hope of the spiritual life is that it leads to deeper joys than a life not cultivating the soul. Keeping Advent these days and not caving into the tinsel is a metaphor for much in religion.

Would it matter much if we just gave in and sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night before the event? On the one hand, of course it wouldn’t. But on the other hand…? Does it matter if you keep a kosher kitchen? Does it matter if you pray five times a day? Does it matter if you turn up to join in receiving communion with others or would receiving it by post do just as well instead? Does it matter if you say morning and evening prayer every day? Does it matter if you practise honesty at work? Does it matter if that child is baptised or not? Does it matter if you fast on a Friday or if you don’t?

The root that people are trying to get to with any spiritual practice is a life filled with joy and overflowing with compassion for others. The habits of religion are a funny mixture. A very great many of them don’t matter that much at all in absolute terms. But it remains the case that religious people believe that adjusting life and doing deliberate things that are counter-cultural and which must seem just plain odd to many, can help someone find a life of greater happiness, empathy and care. That’s what spiritual practise is about, whether or not it is learned within or outwith the confines of any organised religion.

Keeping Advent in the determined, deliberate way that we keep it here is a signpost, a symbol, a marker that at our deepest level we need not dance to the tune that the rest of the world might be singing. Humming along to the Fairytale of New York as I may do in a shop on a Saturday, I know that I belong to a way of life that sometimes chooses to sing from quite another hymn sheet from that of the world around me.

Advent is hard work if you keep it these days.

Hard and holy work.

And I love it.

advent, no carols in church

10 responses to “Where does the Church of Scotland stand?”

Robin

21/05/2013

I understand your sentiments, but both on this issue and on the ordination of women in the Church of England the weary words of Mrs Boyle in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ in reply to her son, who scorns the Irish Free State and wants an Irish Republic or nothing, are inclined to come to mind:

“To be sure, to be sure — no bread’s a lot better than half a loaf.”

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Nick Brindley

21/05/2013

I think you’re right to think this is a disastrously wrong-headed attempt to avoid having to think the issue through, although we may not agree on what would be involved in such thinking (almost nobody agrees with me!)

I think we need to revisit some pretty fundamental problems on the nature of the moral authority of the Bible, the meaning of “salvation” and what ministry is to make any real progress with this issue and there appears to be depressingly little appetite to do this in a spirit of mutual trust and of trust in the leading of the Spirit guiding our interpretation of scripture

http://loveswork.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/failing-to-be-biblical-reflections-on-church-of-scotland-sexuality-debates/

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Frank keefe

21/05/2013

This is what happens when you water down Gods truth so the secular world will think what a progressive church you are.When a small secular wedge is pushed under a church door you can bet a larger one will be pushed under it in the not to distant future.I believe a liberal minded church like the Church of Scotland is more dangerous to the Christian faith than atheists like Richard Dawkins and his followers. Jesus found it hard to convince the Pharisees of their misguided beliefs if He walked our earth today He would find those modern day Pharisees in the Church of Scotland even harder to convince.

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1. Rosemary Hannah
  
  21/05/2013
  
  Well, there you go – I think the exact opposite – that Jesus, who plucked corn, and healed, on the Sabbath, would be out partying tonight with all sorts of disreputable people. The Pharisees were the people who stuck rigidly to the law, breaking it even as they kept it. Jesus was the one who re-interpreted it.
  
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  1. Frank keefe
    
    21/05/2013
    
    I find it amazing how those who look for sin to be accepted would try and use Jesus to back them up.First Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.The Pharisees abused Gods law with their legalism.Its why He said about the rescue of a sheep on that day.He didnt re-interpret it He was showing them how it SHOULD BE KEPT as God ALWAYS intended it.Its the church who is doing the interpretation and Jesus certainly wouldnt be “out partying” such disrespect of our Lords holiness is often the way with liberal ” Christians” Instead of the church being a light to the world that worlds darkness is putting out that light.
    
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    1. kelvin
      
      21/05/2013
      
      Bless you for your faith, Frank. May it bring you happiness and joy.
      
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Graeme Cowie

21/05/2013

It’s a fudge, no doubt. And one which, far from preserving the “traditional” Kirk actually serves to undermine it in a number of ways, particularly concerning the status of “doctrine” and who gets to determine what it is, or at least what practical meaning it is for something to be “doctrine” rather than merely a personal religious sentiment. Explicitly to permit complete deviation from “doctrine” by congregations is not very Presbyterian, and the “traditionalists” either didn’t seem to realise that, or they care about preserving substantial doctrines at the expense of, well, what makes the Kirk the Kirk.

To an extent, though, you could see it coming. I think the traditionalist wing sensed they would lose if it was a straight choice (unfortunate phrase) between 2A and 2B, and so tried to push for something that retains a symbolic attachment to historical doctrine whilst letting liberals have the lion’s share of the cake they want, which is to be able to ordain those in committed same-sex relationships and to be done with it. I know for a fact that a fair whack of liberal commissioners were swayed by 2D (not including my parents, who are CofS ministers who voted with option 2A), many seeing it as a way of letting the traditionalists have some sort of phyric victory whilst in fact enabling ministers to be in civil partnerships without any lasting problems. It is much more likely that 2D will make it through Barrier Act procedure now that it’s got the traditionalists’ name on it, and notwithstanding the extra year it’s going to take to turn it into a proper overture, I think the consensus of the Kirk is that they really want to stop talking about this.

The new system ought to be fairly robust once the Legal Questions Committee have had their teeth dug into it. The clear intention was conceded by the movers that they did not intend for Presbyteries to be able to discipline or annul decisions made by Kirk Sessions seeking to be allowed to appoint ministers in civil partnerships, and for a lot of liberals (and actually, a lot of those on the conservative wing too) this will be seen as a critical part of the compromise if it is to be laid to rest. My only real concern is that if the traditionalists are for any reason unhappy with the implementation by LQC it could lead to the whole debate re-opening in GA 2014.

It’s clearly not enough for many liberal ministers, elders and members of the Church of Scotland, for whom this still presents a partial sense of “separate not equal” for congregation and minister alike, and it probably makes it more difficult for the theological position of the kirk formally to be moved away from same sex relationships being sinful, now that the “practical harms” are in a significant sense out of the way, but by Church of Scotland standards, it’s a major step forward for a very broad church, and one which has probably saved it from a major schism (though a handful of churches may still leave over and above The Tron and Gilc South). For those of us in the Kirk 5 years ago, this would have been virtually unthinkable, and momentum has picked up since the Rennie case 4 years ago. The good fight goes on, and hurdles remain, but if it gets through Barrier Act procedure I think the practical objectives, in a Kirk which already offers substantial liberty of personal opinion in matters of doctrine which do not enter into the substance of faith, have largely been met, albeit in a roundabout way.

For more of my thoughts on this matter, see:

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/church-of-scotland-religious-progress.html

and

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/presbyterianism-cracking-at-seems-cost.html

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Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

22/05/2013

And it still does not properly address how LGBTQ people (single or in civil partnerships) will be dealt with (dealt to?) when they offer themselves to Presbyteries as feeling called to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. Will they be asked about their orientation? Questioned? Interrogated? What responses will allow them to or prevent them from pursuing that call?

Who is this Albert Bogle anyway – is he about to become the first to be beatified by the Kirk and for what exactly? By-passing (even disregarding) Kirk “Order”, convincing his important friends to let him bulldoze ahead and his less important friends to print off 700 and something copies of a Deliverance which is incoherent and unimplementable.
Off to read Revelation for other signs of The End Times…
.

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Peter W Nimmo

25/05/2013

Kelvin, you make lots of good points in your post. But just to clarify- what is the doctrine and practice of the Scottish Episcopal Church on this issue? Does your doctrine approve of persons in civil partnerships being clergy, and is that put into practice?

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1. kelvin
  
  25/05/2013
  
  Yes – there are quite a number of clergy in civil partnerships. In England, Anglican clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to declare that they are “celibate”. That isn’t the case in Scotland.
  
  The pension scheme in Scotland recognises Civil Partnerships by giving such partners the same benefits as wives or husbands in marriages. Civil Partners also are treated in the same way with regard to housing as a straight spouse if a relationship breaks down.
  
  Any candidate for ordination who is in a Civil Partnership is expected to be honest about that at selection.
  
  The bishops of the church announced a few years ago that they would not consecrate anyone as bishop who was in a Civil Partnership. They were clear at the time that this was a moratorium. However it is not clear to me whether that moratorium still stands. I do expect there to be questions about that at the coming Synod.
  
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