You can find coverage of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church on twitter at http://twitter.com/secsynod
(It is me who is tweeting).
Questions welcome either to that account or to me on @thurible.
There are details of how to follow the synod over on http://www.scotland.anglican.org including details of the live audio feed.
What was the character of the debate? If one believes that the admission of women to the threefold ministry of the Church was an extension of an existing doctrine, not a doctrinal change, and that the dropping of the ‘filioque’ clause from the Creed wasn’t a doctrinal change either (nobody is compelled to deny that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son), the change to the doctrine of initiation was the most important doctrinal change made by the Scottish Episcopal Church not just in my lifetime but perhaps even in the SEC’s history. It amazes me that it seems to have been so uncontroversial.
(I don’t say I necessarily disapprove of the change. I’m quite happy not only for the unconfirmed but also for the unbaptised to be admitted to Holy Communion and would turn away no-one – except perhaps ++Judas Williams, and even then probably not – from the altar. But I can’t understand how a Church can teach two contradictory things at once.)
To a certain extent, saying two contradictory things at once is part of the consequence of having old liturgical formularies alongside modern ones, I think.
(If you are not going to say something new, what’s the point in producing something new after all).
The modern descriptions of marriage in the 2007 marriage rite don’t seem to me to be entirely consistent with the marriage rite of 1929, for example.
It is the way we live now.
Well, as I said, there were several of us who spoke against the change, for one reason or another but it was passed by a fairly high majority, I think.
It seems to me that there is just about every view about initiation into the Christian church that has ever been held is currently also held and practised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Indeed, there are varieties of practice and procedure within congregations and even within families.
There is a new Scottish Episcopal Blogger added to the list.Step forward and take a bow, Christine McIntosh from Dunoon.
Well, I’ve managed to stick to the discipline of posting to the Photoblog every day. There were doubters, there were doubters. One dedicated reader commented – too much nature. I never did take many photographs of people. People will never sit still when you ask them to, unlike trees, who do their best.Take a peek…
One of today’s activities is a meeting of the Area Council of local Episcopal congregations. Part of what we are doing tonight is reviewing the latest revision of the Baptism liturgy. This revision started some 31 years ago. We must be nearly there now.No, really.
This week on my day off, I went down to Edinburgh to see an art exhibition. It is a display of the all the art that has been collected by Sir Timothy Clifford over the last 21 years that he has been the director of the National Gallery of Scotland. I was wandering around, looking…
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