What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Antisemitism Notice

25/03/2026

Someone asked me to share the note that we put in our service sheets in St Mary’s about antisemitism. This has evolved over the last few years but the statement below is what it looks like at the moment. We’ve also changed the pattern of readings we use at St Mary’s. In particular, we no longer read the whole of the Passion According to John on Good Friday, preferring to intersperse some passages from it with others from scripture. We are also no longer singing the Reproaches as part of the Good Friday liturgies and are still looking for an alternative text.

Once I would have thought that these things didn’t matter. Right now I think they matter very much.

A Note on Holy Week

During Holy Week, there will be readings from the Passion narratives from the gospels, as has been the custom for Christians throughout the centuries. These texts need to be read carefully and thoughtfully. The term ‘the Jews’ in the Passion readings applies to particular individuals and not to the whole Jewish people.

There is some debate amongst scholars as to how the words which have been translated as “the Jews” should now be translated. Some would translate them as “the Judeans”. Others would retain the traditional reading whilst acknowledging the harm that has been caused by the ways in which these words have been used.

Whichever translation is used for individual words in the Passion Reading, Christians need to be aware that Holy Week has historically been a time of increased antisemitism and of antagonism and violence towards Jewish people. This is a matter of repentance for Christians.

References in the scriptures and in the hymns and prayers to those who accused Christ or killed Christ are references to historical figures. These people do not represent the Jewish people or Judaism.

At a time of increased antisemitism in the world, some verses in the Scriptures may be better dealt with in thoughtful study and reflection rather than the drama of public liturgy.

Members of the Christian community are invited during this week to think of the times when we have turned against Christ and to reflect on the possibility that had we been present at the time, that perhaps we would have found ourselves to be amongst those who called for him to be crucified.

antisemitism, Holy Week

9 responses to “Who we are”

Susan Sheppard Hedges

26/10/2012

I have a question… What were the genders of these two persons?

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1. kelvin
  
  26/10/2012
  
  Person 1 was male. Person 2 was female.
  
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Suz Cate

26/10/2012

I arrived here in June, after graduating from the fine institution where you are visiting now and my subsequent ordination as transitional deacon. When I am ordained to the priesthood in December, I will be the first woman to serve as priest at St. James. I have sensed a growing excitement, especially among the women here, about the ministry of a woman priest–not unlike the the frisson expressed in the visitor’s statement: “Really? Wow! All this, and divorce and women priests.” We are figuring out together what difference it makes who we are, and on most days it is exciting!

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Calum

26/10/2012

I think the exchange is completely adorable. But also bang-on accurate. The Piskies are indeed “the ones with woman priests” – it’s not a bad moniker to be known by, is it? Although progress is still to be made in certain parts, I think it’s positive that that might be how some people identify and distinguish Episcopalians.

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Tracey

26/10/2012

The first time I attended an Episcopal church (in California), and they invited me to a picnic afterward on the church grounds. I agreed to stay on, but was kind of dreading it… and then I saw the ice chests full of cans of lager. So yeah, I have to admit that it was at first beer and later, divorce (both of which had caused me to become ostracised from my family) and women priests (i’d been brought up in a fundamentalist church where women were to keep silent in church) that made me become really interested in finding my way into this wonderful, welcoming, non-judgemental, and inclusive group where hell-fire and brimstone and damnation and punishment were never a part of the lovely, uplifting and inspiring sermons.

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NÃ¤dine Daniel

26/10/2012

Well in one way, the lack of awareness is pretty depressing, but the willingness to give the Cathedral a try would be encouraging, where it not for the perception that divorce made a denomination more acceptable. Frankly I don’t care what brings someone into a Church, any Church; just so long as we make them want to stay and discover the love of Christ once they get there.

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Rosemary Hannah

26/10/2012

I come to this from another angle – a liberal church background. It does not come to me as a surprise to hear women preach, teach and lead. I rejoice in it but the equality of women is no news to me

Divorce – well, to me it is never more than an admission of failure. Not something to be celebrated and welcomed, but a sad admission that things which started so very happily and hopefully and with such love, have ended in heartbreak. That my sometime husband left me for another woman in the church came pretty close to breaking my heart, and was one of those knife-edge things. A thing where either there will be just damage and misery and loss, or one day a resurrection, and you do not know which. That for me the balance finally tipped to life does not mean that divorce is something I want to rejoice in as I do in the ministry of women.
That God can turn evil to good is a blessing. It does not do however to continue in evil that He gets a better opportunity at such transformations. I would a jolly sight rather we were known for work for social justice, for respect for the environment, and for really positive things.

Beauty however – whether sound or image or architecture or the spoken word – yes I love us to be known for that and I rejoice in it.

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1. kelvin
  
  28/10/2012
  
  I suspect that what we may really talking about here is not actually divorce, but the question of whether divorce and remarriage bars one from communion.
  
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Rosemary Hannah

28/10/2012

Recently our Government had the stunning idea that ‘victims’ ought to be choosing the sentences of those who had offended against them. This is my idea of a utter nightmare – to have not merely the need to undertake one’s own recovery, for which one is of course responsible, but to then have to undertake some responsibility for the rehabilitation of those who have offended one strikes me as a bridge too far. I could never ask that somebody is turned away from communion because of an offence against me, and therefore I cannot ask that they are turned away because of a sin against others. I don’t really believe in that kind of God.

Yet there is a problem. Of all the bad moments I had over the divorce, one of the very worst was the moment I walked alone into church and saw in a prominent pew my husband, who had left but from whom I was not yet legally separated, sitting shoulder to shoulder with his new partner. I ended in the nearest pew on my knees, helplessly sobbing, unable to hide my distress. That should not happen to anybody and it should not be up to the ‘victims’ (however much we espouse a doctrine of equal blame for marriage failure) to protect themselves from such a thing.

I took communion every week with the lady with whom my husband now lived, and every week I had to forgive her anew in order to offer the Peace and forgive her. It was, to put it mildly, a big ask. That, to me, is the essential reality of divorce, and I really, really, really do have the right to say that we may have divorce and we may have to live with it, but the reality of it is pain and hard hard work. I find no ‘Wow!’ anywhere in it. It was hard and bitter punishment for all the stupid things I had managed to do in 30 years of marriage.

There is always a cost to be borne for such things. We believe in forgiveness and fresh starts, and I must suppose the ‘Wow!’ is for that – but such things are costly. I believe they are always costly for God, and most usually they are costly for humans too. I don’t want humans judged, but – but where the joy of person A is bought at the price of the pain of person B we need to tread exceedingly circumspectly.

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