What is in Kelvin's Head?

Finding a place to be

11/10/2024

I heard of another church that is due to close this week. It is in a place some distance from me but a church community that I once knew and like many church closures, it seems incredible to me that this particular one is closing down. As it happens it is one of the very many Church of Scotland closures that are currently going on. The congregation in question, such as it is these days, will be invited to join with another congregation. It is a rare merger of churches which produces a church with the strengths of both congregational parties. The strong likelihood is that the resulting congregation will be less than the sum of its two parts.

My own denomination is not immune to this kind of thing. Some of our churches are very vulnerable. Some of them are coming to the end of their natural. However, our decline feels a little different to that of many churches.

Scottish Episcopalians have been here before of course. We’ve already been wiped out.

I’ve read articles recently that have been well trailed online suggesting that the Church in Wales and the Anglican Church in Canada face complete wipe out within a short number of years. Existential collapse is a real risk. Those writing the articles that I’ve been reading are firmly of the view that it is all the fault of the wicked liberals with their desire to stamp out the true faith by treating men and women alike and with their perverse notion that stability and love should be foisted on same-sex couples as a possible way of living on this earth.

Life is more complicated of course. Much more complicated and much more interesting.

When you witness these things from the perspective of a church that has already been wiped out, maybe they feel different. The Scottish Episcopal Church came within a whisker of being wiped out in the years following 1689. Politics started it. In the same way that trains stop because of the wrong kind of leaves on the line, the Scottish Episcopal Church pretty much hit the buffers because of the wrong kind of king on the throne. The organisational structure of the church died. But its spirit never did. And I want those who are in churches which face terrible demographic change over the next few years to know that. It is relatively easy to close church buildings. But the essence of a denomination is harder to kill off if it does its basic business and leads people into the presence of God.

One of the signs of organisational collapse in church structures is increasing desperation within regional and national jurisdictions.

The trouble is, desperation is not a successful mission strategy.

Few mission strategies are terribly successful to be honest, and I find myself thinking a lot about that.

Might God be telling us something in this area?

The mission strategies which seem to aim to turn every Christian into a little missionary to recruit more people into the fold seem spectacularly unsuccessful.

I think we need new and more interesting metaphors for doing all of this. If it is just about turning people into recruiting agents, I’m not sure I’m interested and from all I can see, God doesn’t seem to be all that interested either.

I think instead that Christian communities that provide the space and the resources for people to live life in all its fullness tend to be magnetic. The dominant way that faith seems to be being passed on now that Christendom (the expectation that everyone belongs to the faith already) is over, seems to be the simple force of attraction.

People are attracted to those living lives that are full of old-fashioned joys like faith, hope and love.

And people are attracted, deeply attracted, attracted more than most church folk can imagine, to places where they can find the space and the resources to simply be and find themselves loved by God. Some of that is played out in the “thin place” spirituality with which we are very familiar in Scotland. But church folk have lost the basic plot if we lose the idea that crossing the threshold of a church means something. To enter a holy place is a holy thing and there’s work to be done to tell people that the God of the mountaintop has a heart for the city and the God of the island pilgrimage is waiting for pilgrims back at home in the spaces we can find where the buzz of life is at its most exuberant. Churches have always been places where the experience of the unexpected and the uncanny can lead people to all that is holy and all that is true.

Pilgrimage may be a more useful word than mission for a lot of modern people. Conversion for a great many people seems to feel more like a walk in company to a holy place than the turning on of a light.

That’s not to say that everyone has the same experience. They don’t, and we should rejoice in those who find themselves suddenly experiencing the overwhelming and shocking love of God. But we should pray that the same love also gives them a heart to know that this won’t be the experience of everyone. It never has been in Christian history and I suspect it never will be.

Churches still have a purpose whilst they are places where people can discover the God who lurks in the world offering change for the better and good news and redemption for all.

From the perspective of a living congregation in a denomination that has been wiped almost off the face of the earth in the past, from the perspective of a city where Episcopalians were persecuted and still held fast, and from the perspective of a denomination that has more than its fair share of modern problems, I still feel remarkably and ridiculously hopeful.

It isn’t just that there’s work for us still to do. It is that there’s work for God to do in us. And God might well have some good news for those who have reason to pause in holy spaces and wonder for a while.

A distinctive glimpse of heaven managed to survive the organisational collapse that we faced in the past.

Will it survive current challenges?

Well, I wouldn’t bet against the Holy Spirit.

We’ve been here before.

church, decline, growth, mission, Pilgrimage

10 responses to “The Church of England and its Bishops”

Joan H Craig

20/11/2012

You put it well, and I agree with all that you say. In one sense it is a very sad day for priests who are women. In another, parity is crucial 🙁

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Patrick Smith

20/11/2012

I am not a regular C of E communicant now but have been so in my life and I unequivocally support the proper human rights entitlement of women to serve equally as Bishops.I think that the women priests appear to have been too inclined, cap in hand, to compromise that would still have deemed women bishops, as second class.This Vote, according to some of their spokespersons was as far as the talented women priests could get, amongst the conservative antis, in the C of E.

Surely,that in our enlightened world men do not hold a monopoly on either the aspiration to achieve good in their work or to eclipse human goodness in prayer,mission and faith in the ranks of the C of E? The Bishops and Clergy have seen that women are now do one third of active work in the C of E but do not have parity at the top table.

Why is it the case that women are ordained in the US and NZ and have served their communities equally, as men, over 20 years? Whereas, in the C of E at home, the vision of the Laity Synod threatens to derrogate the status of women, as if the clock had been turned back into Victorian times and before the Suffragettes had started their quest for universal suffrage and equality in work for women.

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Duncan MacLaren

20/11/2012

Nigel McCulloch said in the debate, “If you wait for the perfect piece of legislation, you’ll be waiting for ever.”
I can understand the principled position that you don’t want to pass flawed and discriminatory legislation: but I can’t help thinking this would be better than acquiescing for another 5 years in an even more discriminatory status quo.
Had women bishops been voted in, they would have had five years to demonstrate practically to their opponents that they were competent, valuable, indispensable, talented and undeniably called leaders in the church. Instead, we now have the task of creating legislation the opponents will like even less (because it won’t make space for their position), and then trying to get it voted through. And five years of practical experience – perhaps the best argument – wasted.
If there were six lay liberals (the margin of votes) who voted ‘no’ on principle this evening, I wonder how long before they will rue the day? Principle is all very well, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. Had women been granted this possession, we could have spent the next five years chasing down the discriminatory clauses: as it is, we are back to square one. Barren theological argument now prevails over the witness and example of flesh and blood women.

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1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2012
  
  I understand that view, Duncan. I’d agree with it if there was any evidence in the last 20 years of anyone either trying or succeeding to eliminate the flying bishops that were created last time around. It is much, much easier to create good legislation than to repeal, tinker and undo bad legislation.
  
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2. Augur Pearce
  
  21/11/2012
  
  As I see it part of the problem was the large number of Synod members who wanted to see women bishops but thought that unity was more important than principle, and were therefore prepared to compromise. The ideal scenario would not have been rejection of the Measure, but an amendment to get rid of the discriminatory clauses. That wasn’t possible because the ‘unity party’ (for want of a better name) would have allied with the fundamentalists to defeat it. I hope that those who made up this ‘unity party’ will now realise the time for compromise is past and support legislation which, as you say, the opponents will like even less because it wonâ€™t make space for their position. I believe such legislation would pass, but would lead the fundamentalists to dissent from the C of E and form their own conventicles (as many have done before them, for better reasons). There would then be some hope of the General Synod addressing other equality issues, such as marriage…
  
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Tim

20/11/2012

Could it be said that it spent too long cooking?

The impression I get is that the SEC was quite decisive in dealing with the Covenant earlier.
What I’ve seen with the CoE looks like internalized via-media meeting a half-open door – and no wonder some people use the word “irrelevant”. As such, I’m wondering if it shouldn’t have simply been “women bishops, yes or no?” a while ago and then there wouldn’t have been such clumsy inaccuracy of reporting, at least…

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Ritualist Robert

21/11/2012

I have to say, regretfully, that I am relieved it didn’t pass because, imho, it allowed for far too many ‘provisions’ for so-called traditionalists. Their arguments seem to be based on one of the most vile theological concepts ever invented – ‘taint’ – though, of course, nobody admits to it. I understand the Evangelicals’ objections (though I disagree with them), but I am flummoxed by things like the ‘traditionalist’ catholics’ demand for ‘flying bishops’ (a concept which fails any test for catholicity) and attacks the very basis of Anglican Church structure and order – that of a bishop acting as the Ordinary in his/her diocese. Choosing one’s bishop based on whether one likes their theological outlook is quite a novelty, but it’s one that the so-called traditionalists insist on being allowed. Moreover, to claim to be catholic surely means to support the Church. When the Church of England ordained women for the first time surely it was up to those catholics who disagreed to either (a) conform their minds to the mind of the Church – surely the duty of anyone who calls themselves catholic – or (b) to have enough integrity to part with the Church and find another spiritual home.

Instead we have so-called traditionalists promoting what are essentially congregationalist novelties whilst claiming – falsely, I believe – to be catholics, all the while arguing for a distinctly non-catholic version of the Church.

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Justin Reynolds

22/11/2012

If politics is ‘the art of the possible’ then surely all liberals should have backed the measure, whatever its flaws. The notion that one day we will all be marching hand in hand towards the sunlit progressive uplands is somewhat fantastic, I think.

Everyone who joins the C of E, or indeed the SEC, knows what kind of church it is: essentially progressive (as witnessed by the Synod vote) but with significant minorities opposed to change. And it isn’t like a political party where arguments are conducted in the field of political philosophy and politics with a realistic hope that the mind of the party might change decisively over time in one direction or other. In the case of the church disputes are necessarily more intransigent, concerned with the interpretation of revelation and long standing traditions. These disagreements take decades, indeed centuries, to resolve, in so far as they can be resolved at all.

Perhaps those who can’t live with compromise, be they conservative or liberal, should consider whether they are actually in the right denomination at all, rather than hoping that one day – sooner rather than later – everyone will agree with them. It’s often noted that conservatives can go Orthodox or Roman Catholic, as indeed some have. It’s less often suggested that liberals might consider Unitarianism or Quakerism. I say that as a liberal who has at various times wavered between those two – and others – and Episcopalianism. I’ve ended up as an Episcopalian, but I did so knowing full well the intractable nature of the disagreements besetting the denomination, and that I had to live with them or simply go elsewhere. It seems to me that Christians are far too sentimental and attached to particular denominations.

Also, with respect Rowan Williams’ tenure can hardly be seen as an ‘abject failure’. Everyone knew he believed in conciliation and compromise when he was selected. His liberalism on a number of issues only formed a component of his theology. And his intellectual contribution over the past decade to British national life has been significant, particularly in regard to political and economic issues. His archepiscopate has gone some way towards restoring Anglicanism’s intellectual credibility: witness the tributes from secular as well as religious quarters on news of his retirement.

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Seph

22/11/2012

Apparently Diana Johnson MP (Lab., Hull North) is planning to bring a ten-minute rule bill in the new year which will include a clause calling for women bishops. Parliament could succeed here where General Synod failed.

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Rosie Bates

02/12/2012

Check out Bristol Diocese action re Vote of No Confidence in Synod! How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him who brings Good News! Hope the rest take note and follow a fine example. Hope in this Advent message. Bishop Mike was an Area Bishop in Oxford Diocese and likely to be very clued up to certain of their Synod Reps games which cannot be stopped before July without reform or, at the very least, tough love.

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