What is in Kelvin's Head?

A Christian Country?

28/04/2014

I’ve been watching the various debates about whether “we” live in a Christian country with interest over the last 10 days or so. I’m inclined to agree with the notion that the UK clearly has such a great heritage from the Christian tradition that it makes sense to speak of it as having been a Christian country. I also think that we have moved beyond Christendom and that it is obvious that the UK is not a Christian country in the sense of being a country of people who are either united by Christian belief or practise.

What surprises me a little is how little comment there has been about this in Scotland. After all, in Scotland we are currently thinking very precisely about what kind of country we want to either be or belong to.

I remain unpersuaded by the case for independence for Scotland. I don’t think myself that separating from the rest of the UK would be good either for Scotland or for everyone else involved. However, I rather like the fact that in Scotland we are talking about what kind of country we hope for. There are clearer lots of people who want a fairer society. However, I’ve no real interest in building a Scotland that is fairer than England. I want a fairer society for everyone. Compassion has no borders. I care for the poor family in Carlisle as much as the poor family in Aberdeen. (Carlisle is nearer in any case).

What interests me most this week though is that there has been so little discussion of whether Scotland should be a “Christian” nation if independence were to come upon us. I’m quite clear myself that if there is any talk of a draft constitution for Scotland it must be a secular one. I have no problem being part of a historically Christian country and working to make it more secular. I do however have a big problem with starting up a new country and writing Christianity into the constitutional definition of what that country is.

Should independence become a reality, then we have to have a real debate about what kind of country we are talking about. I certainly don’t want to be part of a new country which has a National Church written into its constitution. Members of the Church of Scotland can’t presume that the rest of the Christian communities are going to back any attempt to keep their particular position in society. Similarly, it cannot be presumed that issues like eduction funding will be unchanged in a new country. The settlement by which the Roman Catholic Church is funded by the state to run often excellent schools can’t simply be presumed to be what the people of a new country will want.

I’m very aware that some want to make a case for an established or national church on the grounds that a broad, moderate church is a force for good in society. However, I think that the mainstream Christian churches are currently presumed to be promoting a morality that people who think they are good, decent, upstanding members of society simply abhor. I don’t think there is a long term future for churches to be established or privileged in any way by the law if they are associated in the public mind with discrimination against woman and people who happen to be gay.

In England, I suspect that disestablishment will come about by erosion. In Scotland where a new constitution is on the table, things may be rather different.

I think that a secular Scotland is probably one in which churches like my own will thrive. We all have things to fear from anything else.

23 responses to “What if this is the end of the Eucharist?”

Thomas Scott

06/05/2020

Just noticing here that DGD (of happy memory) seems to have left out of his catalogue of joyous, sad, perilous, and solemn occasions any instance of celebrating during a plague or pestilence. I’m not worried about the mass. The eucharist need not be celebrated as though it were a car battery, as if not offering it now would somehow allow the power to run down. It is not at risk, we are, which I think is your point. The questions asked are worth asking, of course.

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Mo Nicholson

06/05/2020

Mo Nicholson. This is an intriguing discussion and what I would like to add to it is the observation that I have had to learn the hard way that participation in the Eucharist being made impossible in no way diminishes an individual’s ability to worship God or be in fellowship with other believers. I am barred from receiving Holy Communion in the Catholic church because allergies make this impossible for me. The pain induced by this has little to do with feeling separation from God, in fact nothing at all as I do not feel that. It comes from feeling excluded from the community, different sections if which regard it as desirable or tolerable that a member of the community should be excluded in this way. This experience has made me understand as never before that if we place prime value on liturgical celebrations, ir indeed anything else, above charity, compassion, welcome and inclusivity, in other words love, then we have become the sounding gong which St Paul warned against. If we truly believe that God is love, as I do, then it is obvious that it is love for one another which makes us true children of God our Father, and in light of this we could begin to look at these present challenging circumstances as simply an opportunity to love more, to reach out to one another in whatever way possible in the knowledge that this is what actually matters and always did. Only perhaps we were tempted to almost make a fetish of our rituals, sacraments and so on. And perhaps this can show us a better way more adapted to the world we are supposed to serve.

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Lynsay Downs

06/05/2020

You and your conversation with Dave Roberts prompted me to write this. Does it resonate for you?

https://astonishing.community/2020/05/06/conversations-in-coronatide/

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1. Kelvin
  
  06/05/2020
  
  Thanks Lynsay – yes, it does resonate with me very much.
  
  I’ve shared it on facebook. I think it is really helpful.
  
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Fr Keith

06/05/2020

Thanks again for such a thoughtful piece. With the Eucharist central to much of, at least Anglican/Episcopalian, worship in recent generations, we perhaps forget that the Church in these islands was, between the Reformation and the liturgical revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries, sustained by Mattins and Evensong as the regular diet of worship on Sundays. I’m not advocating a return to such times, but there is, as you suggest, work to be done on non-Eucharistic worship (though not defining it as a negative). Thanks again.

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Fenland Boy

07/05/2020

For the record, I’m not in favour of lay presidency at the Eucharist. I believe, for better or worse, in an ordered church.

Why are you concerned about lay Presidency?

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Chuck

08/05/2020

May I say respectfully, lighten up. Many Anglicans/Episcopalians lived on the edges of civilization in the nascent U.S. and various elements of the British Empire. Priests to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and to baptize were seldom seen, at most twice a year in many areas. (Bishops, only every several years.) The Church carried on in this manner decade after decade. If circumstances require, the Church will carry on again despite our profound sense of loss.

I should add, to those who grew up under threat or reality of war, persecution, oppression, famine, other disease, etc, the present difficulty is not unfamiliar in many respects.

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Miriam MacCarthy

08/05/2020

Thank you! It is wonderful to read these serious, personal thoughts about the Eucharist. My feeling is that it has become celebrated to the point of boredom. Church, and what we do in it, is in danger of becoming simply a habit. It could just as well be crackerjack for a fast-asleep congregation. My heresy is that the direction Jesus gave is to “do this in remembrance of me”, and that means everything we eat at any time, whether alone or with others, in thanksgiving. If that is seriously done, it has vastly more meaning. It really gets ones attention and requires preparation. Would not become popular or usual, I predict!

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