What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Predictions for 2014

    1. Remember those people who used to say, “But what is a blog…?” Well this year you are going to be hearing them say, “But what is a mooc…?”
    2. Gay men are going to start shaving again. Now that so many straight men have bought into the idea that beards are hip, it is time to mess with their fashion sense again. Consider this the memo. (Next year, the end of tattoos!)
    3. Church of Scotland General Assembly will be unable to affirm last year’s compromise on a local option for ministers who happen to be gay.
    4. More revelations relating to Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien.
    5. Number of active bloggers decreases. Influence of those still blogging increases.
    6. The real purpose of the Pilling Report will be revealed with hindsight as evangelicals begin to argue about its contents. (May take a couple of years, but trust me on this one). Initially this will be in private – increasingly in public. Having been the great unifying factor for Evangelicals for the last 10 years, attitudes to gay people will become the source of greatest disunity amongst Evangelicals for the next decade. Unappealing and unsatisfying as it is, Pilling is a watershed – it was never designed to court liberal opinion so we might as well stop moaning about it. It was designed to divide evangelical opinion and is going to be jolly successful.
    7. The Independence Referendum will be lost here in Scotland but alas, not by enough to shut everyone up.
    8. Such terrible statistics in the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway that we lose at least 4 seats on General Synod.
    9. Lord Carey will say that Christians are being persecuted in the UK, that the church is dying out or that the sky is going to fall in, and will say it at the most unhelpful time possible – probably around one of the English General Synods or Easter.
    10. We will hear about our first UK gay divorce.

    Trends to watch

    • Continued meltdown of the Church of Scotland. Ceasing to be a national church before our very eyes.
    • Internet increasingly rewards those who know how to manipulate images.
    • Economic polarization of the UK continues.

19 responses to “8 Things the Churches Could Learn From the collapse of HMV”

  1. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    Fred and Leanne’s comments, way off the mark when it comes to St Mary’s but true to a large extent about other churches, make me realise that a vital element of the new militant atheism/ secularism (not to be confused with multiculturalism as it is totally intolerant of difference) is its online presence. Everyone likes being smug and to be a smug theist you have to spend a considerable amount of time in a good library but to be a smug atheist you need about 3 minutes online watching a video clip of someone untrained in ontology or ethics (but, say, a professor of biology) expound on Being and preach amorality. Bingo! An easy rant to borrow down the pub. It’s the Tractarian approach to evangelisation. Give it to em in byte sized chunks.

    Reply
  2. Fred Garvin Avatar
    Fred Garvin

    “totally intolerant of difference”? You mean the Mainline Protestant churches and semi-Churches (Unitarians and Quakers) of North America, who’ve been preaching “Celebrate Diversity” for over 40 years while still remaining over 95% White and middle/upper middle class? “We hope to represent the future of religion”; odd, you’ve somehow managed to have a median age of 57+. Barely 9% of any Mainline Protestant body is under 31 years old.
    The Tea Party and Republican National Convention are more “diverse” than these groups.
    About as vibrant and colorful as skim milk.
    Again, why bother? You either have the worst programs to “represent our neighborhoods in our churches” or you just don’t mean it.

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think it is very clear, Fred that Alan is not talking about mainline protestant churches in North America.

    It was very obvious to me that the issues over race and ethnicity there are very far removed from what we experience at St Mary’s and I think in the UK generally.

    That isn’t to say all is perfect but it is to say that things are very different here.

    Reply
  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    St Mary’s is very ethnically diverse, and a heck of a lot less than 95% white and does not draw its members from one income-bracket either … nor is our median age in its fifties, I would think. Nor have I ever heard any of us suggest that one has to be religious to be moral. It would of course be wrong to be smug about these things, but then – we are all a little wrong from time to time, aren’t we?

    Reply

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