What is in Kelvin's Head?

Where does the Church of Scotland stand?

21/05/2013

It has been a pretty confusing 24 hours for the Church of Scotland. My prediction yesterday morning that the news would be reported inaccurately was bang on. There have been very many reports in the media about the Church of Scotland that have been inaccurate. And you know what? The media are not the ones to blame.

Yesterday afternoon after a very long debate the Church of Scotland thanked the Special Theological Commission that it had set up to examine whether blessings of gay couples could be permitted and issues around the ordination of gay clergy in relationships. Rather than accepting either of the proposals from that Commission, they adopted a hastily cobbled together deliverance which I think seemed to the Commissioners to be a compromise.

Then the press got hold of the wrong end of the stick, led by the BBC which reported the news entirely inaccurately. Robert Piggott was on the TV all last night saying that the Church of Scotland had changed its policy on gay ministers but that some congregations could opt not to have them. In fact it was the reverse – they accepted a proposal to bring plans to a subsequent 2 Assemblies to maintain the view that the Church of Scotland does not accept gay relationships but that individual Kirk Sessions (ie the elders in a congregation) could have a minister in a gay relationship anyway if they really wanted one.

I think it is one of the greatest attempts at Doublethink since the Church of England allowed women to be ordained but allowed some people in the Church to think they hadn’t been ordained.

This kind of thing does the churches no good. When decisions like this are made it seems like a compromise, which appeals to people who don’t want to hurt or upset anyone and who think that the fundamental thing that needs to be done is to keep the church together.

Yesterday the Church of Scotland decided to follow a path towards crucifying its own internal integrity. You can’t expect to flourish if you say that something is doctrinally wrong but that you’ll turn a blind eye to congregations doing it anyway. It means you’ve lost sight of what truth is. And that isn’t really suppose to be an option for God’s people.

As an Anglican, I obviously don’t say that from a position of any superiority. Indeed, we tolerate things in the Anglican Churches which are just as bad and worse.

The question was asked yesterday as to what happens if a congregation want a minister who happens to be gay but a presbytery doesn’t want a person who happens to be gay. The answer came from the top table that the presbytery could not overule a kirk session. I find it almost impossible to understand how this will work in practise. A friend gave me the example that currently a presbytery cannot refuse to ordain a woman – being female is not grounds for refusing to ordain or induct according to the highest court of that church so therefore such an ordination cannot be presented. I simply don’t see how a General Assembly can affirm a “traditionalist” anti-gay position and then insist that a presbytery has to ordain someone because a local kirk session demands it.

It is certainly the case that yesterday the Church of Scotland accepted that some people are gay. However, it didn’t really deal with it. It accepted that some people affirm gay people but still affirmed a position which condemns that affirmation.

The Moderator of the General Assembly, Lorna Hood is being quoted as saying “This is a massive vote for the peace and unity of the Church.”

It seems to this outsider looking in on the General Assembly that its own moderator hasn’t understood what it was she was presiding over yesterday. This is a decision that will be challenged next year, challenged at every presbytery through the subsequent year and challenged and fought over at the following Assembly. Then, even if it succeeds, it will be challenged inevitably through cases brought to further Assemblies. This isn’t peace, it is a vote to enshrine the war in the life of the church for the forseeable future.

Church of Scotland, gay, General Assembly, lesbian, LGBT, Lorna Hood, ministers, same-sex

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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