What is in Kelvin's Head?

At Number 10

25/07/2012

There was something a little bit surreal about the party I went to last night.

It was as though one was having a dream in which loads of great people were gathered in a beautiful garden. You started to recognise people from past struggles. Then all of a sudden someone stood on a small stage and gave a speech that would not have been at all out of place at a gay pride rally. But then you realise that the person rallying the troops for Equal Marriage is not one of the usual suspects, not a drag queen, not one of your regular gay activists but is actually the Prime Minister.

I can honestly say that I was absolutely thrilled to have been invited to the PM’s reception to celebrate the LGBT Community. It was the most beautiful hot evening and the reception was outside in the Rose Garden at the back of Number 10. That meant going up to the famous front door (which opens for you from within) and then through the house, past some nice paintings, down the famous staircase with the portraits that presumably leads up to the formal rooms and then out through the back. There was wine and posh nibbles and people milling around on the lawn.

The interesting thing was that at first one recognised just a few people. Then gradually you realised that you knew more people there than had first seemed apparent. For we were, without doubt the gay twitterati. Quite a lot of us had engaged with one another either personally or through campaigns that we had run online and it was a delight to meet people in person whom one had known or known about for years.

I don’t know who had drawn up the guest list but they had certainly done their homework with the church. There were lots of dog-collars in evidence and lots for those of us there in that capacity to talk about. However it wasn’t all church shop talk. I also met people behind the online Equal Marriage campaign that has been running in England, the folk behind the out4marriage videos (who really seem know what they are up to), someone who does Schools Out and LGBT History month campaigning and of course some politicians and civil servants.

I was very pleased to meet Lynne Featherstone who will be piloting the marriage legislation. She is clearly determined that this will happen within the life of the parliament. Her determination over this shone through but she also had time to be generous in praising people from other parties who are passionate too.

And yes, I did get to meet the Prime Minister. It was a great chance to hear what he had to say. I was hugely impressed with his determination to see legislation enacted that will allow gay couples to wed. He was speaking more positively than I expected about religious same-sex weddings being made possible in England. He was also speaking very positively about his own experience of church and spoke very warmly about his vicar, Fr Gillean Craig. With some pride I was able to say that Fr Gillean had been my vicar when I lived in the East End.

I took the chance to challenge David Cameron on the often repeated notion that we must allow churches to opt out denomination by denomination. My position is that this isn’t equality and it is equality we are after. It was good to get the chance to say to the PM that what was needed was legislation on the same basis as straight wedding law allowing all religious celebrants to marry anyone legally entitled to do so or not and leave the question of whether they marry certain categories of couples up to the discipline of the faith groups involved.

I felt listened to and was 100% convinced that the political climate and culture in this country in relation to sexuality has changed utterly from what it was not so very long ago.

Most interesting was hearing the Prime Minister say that he had something to say to the churches. He said that the Conservative Party had got it wrong on LGBT issues for many years and was now changing and getting it right. Furthermore there were now people who wanted to vote Tory who are LGBT folk and their friends. Previously they simply found themselves unable to vote Tory. Very gently, he said, very gently, he has somethingÂ to say to the churches – if you want people to engage with the message you have and come back to the church, you can make that happen by learning a lesson from the Tory party on changing attitudes to gay people.

Then it was more socialising, more networking and trying to comprehend how far we have come and how much has changed.

And the real social contact I was proudest of making? That would have to be the chance to make friends with Larry on the way out.

David Cameron, LGBT rights, Number 10

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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