What is in Kelvin's Head?

The sun comes up it’s a new day dawning

13/06/2015

At about 4.30 this morning I found myself awake, wide awake in my hotel room in Edinburgh. The sun was streaming into the room despite the curtains trying to block it out. And my first thought was words that we sang at morning prayer yesterday in the General Synod meeting.

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning.
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.

And I realised for the first time the impact of what happened during the synod meeting yesterday.

What we did was set out the pathway that we are on to be able to have the chance of allowing same-sex couples to be married in church.

I’m delighted, of course that we achieved that. No one would expect me to say anything else. But it was a day of much more than getting what I wanted – it was a day when those who disagree with me were kind and generous. People who were hurting were unfailingly godly and I see in them the love of Christ.

It was perhaps the first day I’ve spent at any synod when I couldn’t predict what would happen. There were many speeches that surprised me. Several folk whom I expected to speak against what I hoped for, spoke about their journey to a new understanding of sexuality. We witnessed one almost damascene conversion. And one of the most prominent people in the church came out as a settled married bisexual whom though now married to his wife had previously loved a man. And the thing was, that wasn’t the most talked about thing of the day. It was just something we learned that we didn’t already know.

At the end of the day, we made some strikingly clear decisions. We are moving towards removing the doctrinal definition of marriage from Canon Law that was placed there in 1980. This will then allow a move to enable the church to nominate those, and only those, who wish to celebrate marriages for same-sex couples to be able to do so. This may now happen in summer 2017.

It seems glacial to those of us who want change. It will seem terrifyingly fast to those who don’t.

But the glacier is moving. That is now undeniable. The vote to instruct the Faith and Order Board to prepare the new legislation was 110 in favour to 9 against.

Along the way we also decided not to go down the route of allowing Civil Partnerships to be registered in church. We’re going for marriage being possible for gay and lesbian couples.

Once upon a time I’d have leapt at the chance of getting Civil Partnerships in church. Now I hope for something immeasurably better.

There was drama yesterday at synod. There was passion and there was pain. But there was also love.

Within minutes of the vote being announced I saw someone predicting on a US website that three of our churches would leave the Scottish Episcopal Church over this and take 40% of our membership with them. It will be news for those churches that they represent that proportion of the membership of the SEC. Notwithstanding the strength of those particular churches they don’t represent anything near that percentage.

In any case, one of those churches which is near where I live is simply not of one mind about these things. The rector of another told us of the gay folk in his congregation and how clear it was that they were welcome to marriage preparation classes. The rectors of those churches tried to bring in the possibility of opening marriage to same-sex couples by a different route to the one we eventually chose. That was costly and generous of them all.

Today I awake to a new church. I believe what I believed yesterday morning – that it is the love of Christ that can hold Christians together much more effectively than a definition of marriage.

Yesterday though, I saw it happen.

For all Your goodness I’ll keep on singing,
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul,
Worship God’s holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul.
I’ll worship Your holy name.

6 responses to “Hillhead By Election”

Zebadee

19/11/2011

It would seem that the Lib Dems are a ‘busted flush’ with no plan to make any meaningful comeback which is very sad. The SNP were in a similar position in the 1980s but did have a plan which has been successful. Is there not a case for the revival of The Liberal Party? There is certainly a need for such a political party for the whole of the UK not just Hillhead. The Liberal Party could possibly unite the whole of the UK and not just Scotland.

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  19/11/2011
  
  Well, the Liberal Party has never gone away – it still exists and has some councillors. No doubt they feel that their time might still come.
  
  I’ve a feeling that there probably needs to be a clear attempt to do something new though. A New Liberal Party could be formed by a significant breakaway of disaffected liberal democrats but would probably need some significant hitters in order to get going. Given that part of the problem is some very unimpressive leadership in the parliamentary party, it makes it hard to see that happening.
  
  Reply
Zebadee

19/11/2011

Yes I know that the Liberal party still exists and understand that they have little or nothing to do with the Lib Dems. They too have no big names or ‘big hitters’ which is a pity. As you yourself will know out there in the real world there is a need for a centre party not right or left. I suspect that there is a large number of thinking people who would at least listen to a political message from the ‘centre’ and they are worried and concerned at the polarisation of the right and the perceived ineptitude of the left in todays political parties.

Reply
Caron

20/11/2011

Kelvin, a few weeks ago, we had a by-election win in Inverness. The evidence suggests that the Liberal Democrats have not become toxic, but where we work, knocking on lots of doors, having strong campaign messages and get our vote out, we get good results.

We had a first class candidate in Hillhead, but I agree that we need to look at how we get our message across.

I’m not for the Murdo method of abolishing the party just to set up a new one. We have good, liberal ideas, with good, liberal values, and an energetic leader who is so genuine, so likeable and very good at explaining what they are. Yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have our ropes and crampons ready and we’re already ahead of where we were a few months ago.

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2011
  
  Yes, I know Caron – I agree with a lot of what you have said. However, the big question is whether the party can get people out there working again.
  
  The win in Inverness was good though it was a pretty narrow thing. Still a win is a win in anyone’s book.
  
  However, whether the party can get doors knocked on etc now is the big question. I know I’m not the only person who has offered a lot to the party in the past who is questioning where the liberal tradition lies.
  
  I know Willie Rennie is likeable and I do believe he stands for lots of good policy ideas that I believe in, but he’s not even making a good job of running his own office at the moment. And his team are not responding online to criticism of him very well either.
  
  I’d love to feel I wanted to support the party – I believe in liberal values, understand liberal values and can articulate liberal values along with the best of them. However, so much of what good people worked for has been squandered so quickly that I just find it too difficult. (By the way, I say that as one of the 307, so I’m still hanging in there in the polling booth).
  
  And the problem is not primarily that the electorate feels betrayed by the Lib Dem brand. That is serious but summountable. The problem is that the activists feel betrayed. That is much, much more serious.
  
  307 votes out of 23243 on leafy home ground and placed fifth is terrible whatever way one looks at it.
  
  The Greens were trumpeting their result on twitter so much I thought they must have won, but they only had 120 or so more votes which doesn’t strike me as a particularly exciting ship to jump to, even if one were looking to leap. I’m not really interested in a party which thinks that getting 435 votes out of an electorate of 23243 is anything to crow about.
  
  Reply
James

20/11/2011

Hi Kelvin, I agree about the democratic disengagement – properly alarming. But the Lib Dems as they currently exist aren’t a Liberal party of the sort I think you want. They’re fundamentalist economic liberals, Orange Bookers determined to remove the social safety net. It’s not liberal as I understand it to make education the province of the rich, to cut benefits for the disabled to appease the Jeremy Clarksons of this world, to hike up regressive taxes like VAT, etcetc.

The really small-l liberal party in Hillhead did a lot better than the Lib Dems. The Greens.

Reply