What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon – The Proud Young Man

    I was preaching today for the first time in about six weeks and had a lot of fun doing so. You can hear what I had to say here or read it below.

    There is something terribly tricky about young men who get excited about religion.

    I remember a number of years ago. I was training to be ordained and was doing an internship in a congregation in Edinburgh in Scotland. Like very many Episcopalians, I did not grow up as an Anglican. I’d come from a background in the Salvation Army and been through many different types of congregation on my journey. I’d been baptist and non-denominational. I’d been just about everything as I searched for the truth.

    And finally, I found what I was looking for in the Scottish Episcopal Church. There I found a church which in which beauty mattered, holiness mattered, worship mattered. It was a church which could cope with the radical theology that had excited me at college and it was a church that had the exotica of every liturgical practise of the ages.

    You know how it is.
    (more…)

    , ,

5 responses to “Review: Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt – Richard Holloway”

  1. Tony Whatmough Avatar
    Tony Whatmough

    Like you, I found Richard’s book greatly moving. It reduced me to tears on many occasions. But one thing I’ve found interesting over the years, is the effect on so many priests of the Kelham training. I’ve met many over the years, with different styles of preaching, but there is something distinctive about them all. Not all of them regarded Kelham with approval: one described it as a theological Borstal, but whatever, it made an impression on them, and like Richard, it has been life long. I wonder how many other theological colleges have done that?

    Reply
  2. John MacBrayne Avatar
    John MacBrayne

    Am reading it now. Not quite sure what to make of it to be honest, although thus far I have detected the age old problem of an individual confined by the strictures of an organisation….and a desire to move beyond that and back to a simpler life…not finished yet though!

    Reply
  3. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    ‘It is a book that must come top of the list of recent books which someone seeking to understand the modern Scottish Episcopal Church needs to read.’
    What a teaser! What other titles would you place on this list?

    Reply
  4. Allan Avatar
    Allan

    ‘Consummate attention seeker’, eh? Well, well……
    And it’s ‘He who’ not ‘whom’. Just saying.

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      It takes one to know one.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • General Assembly Vocabulary – Lesson 2

    Lord High CommissionerThe Lord High Commissioner is the reigning monach's observer at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when she herself cannot be present. He or she is effectively treated as the Sovereign for the week and ranks above everyone in Scotland except the Queen herself and the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip)…

  • General Assembly Vocabulary – Lesson 1

    Crave       1   verb               to beg, to desire eg “Don't you just crave strawberries in May?”2   noun (rare)   the fundamental intent of a Petition or Overture in Scottish Presbyterianism eg “If the crave of the petition be granted, the General Assembly if so advised shall instruct the Presbytery to take the candidate o­n trials for licence.”

  • Sermon – 16 May 2004

    A few years ago, I spent an unexpected holiday in the Aegean hopping on and off ferries and hydrofoils visiting the islands and enjoying the food and the sun. It was a peaceful holiday moving up and down the Dodecanese islands. And the highlight of the holiday was a trip to the island of Patmos…

  • Church of Fools

    I remember about 10 years ago visiting someone in a university department who was working o­n virtual reality computing. Then it involved putting o­n goggles and walking about in a virtual world which, if I remember, was based o­n Egypt. (Pyramids were easy to do in those days). Now there is the Church of Fools…