You can find coverage of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church on twitter at http://twitter.com/secsynod
(It is me who is tweeting).
Questions welcome either to that account or to me on @thurible.
There are details of how to follow the synod over on http://www.scotland.anglican.org including details of the live audio feed.
How about the wife of Jesus, airbrushed out of the story by later misogynist Christians? See Starbird, M “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar” and other books by her. She is an ex-Catholic who set out to refute the Holy Blood, Holy Grail story and ended by being convinced that Jesus and Mary were a married pair (and an archetype of the male/female balance principle). There’s a wonderful window in Kilmore Church, Mull. Check it out – whoever created it intended it to represent J and M as husband and wife, and M is clearly pregnant. Of course, there is no unchallengeable evidence that Jesus was married, but what I would like to ask the sceptics is why, given that He was the word made flesh and dwelt among us, is it unacceptable for Him to have been a sexual being? Why have later Christians considered sexuality, even in a loving relationship, to be something disgusting? Because they have, we are now stuck with the nasty views of the NotW brigade that sex is either an acceptable leisure activity or something gross. As Margaret Starbird points out, if we restored Mary as Jesus’ beloved consort we would be creating a much more wholesome myth!
It is a little like the arguments that might be made of the relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple though, isn’t it? All very attractive and neat if you come from a particular point of view but not really backed up with enough evidence apart from modern presumption, presupposition and desire.
I think the arguments on Jesus being married are very far from being liberationary. Rather, they’re the natural end-point of the Evangelical mindset that homophobically (and unbiblically) divides the world into Normal Heterosexual Married types and the demonised Other. “It is better to marry than burn” might have some mysognistic readings conducive to the fundamentalist world-view, but it hardly most naturally supports the idolatarisation of particular heterosexual relationships.
If I had a pound for every time a nominal Sola Scriptura type had told me that St.Paul had to have been married (presumably because Our Lord’s asceticism and disinterest in heterosexual marriage is bad enough) then I would be a very rich man indeed 😉
Interesting post Kelvin! Had no idea that St.Mary M even had red hair Perhaps she could be reclaimed as the Patron Saint of Gingers and Other Persecuted Minorities? 🙂
Oh, her hair was red, Ryan. Flaming Red I believe.
How reginal! 😉
There is a new Scottish Episcopal Blogger added to the list.Step forward and take a bow, Christine McIntosh from Dunoon.
Well, I’ve managed to stick to the discipline of posting to the Photoblog every day. There were doubters, there were doubters. One dedicated reader commented – too much nature. I never did take many photographs of people. People will never sit still when you ask them to, unlike trees, who do their best.Take a peek…
One of today’s activities is a meeting of the Area Council of local Episcopal congregations. Part of what we are doing tonight is reviewing the latest revision of the Baptism liturgy. This revision started some 31 years ago. We must be nearly there now.No, really.
This week on my day off, I went down to Edinburgh to see an art exhibition. It is a display of the all the art that has been collected by Sir Timothy Clifford over the last 21 years that he has been the director of the National Gallery of Scotland. I was wandering around, looking…
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