Cultural Studies



nothing to do with General Synod. A complete excursis.

A new primate for Canada!

The final tally on the 5th ballot.

Fred Hiltz 60 / 81
Victoria Matthews 56 /56

A strong showing among the laity in the second ballot was obviously quite convincing. This is not unknown in episcopal elections, for example. I can think of at least two elections where the clergy house has moved quite dramatically towards the laity. It's not the result I had expected but then what are expectations but a very common blockage to good and holy movements in human experience. God's blessing on Fred Hiltz!

Heres the story from the Anglican Journal

Balloting in the Primatial Election 2

Second Ballot
Voting: clergy/lay

George Bruce 1 / 4
Fred Hiltz 49 / 69
Bruce Howe 1 / 5
Victoria Matthews 64 / 60

The next ballot will have only two candidates: Fred Hiltz and Victoria Matthews. Candidates come off when they pull less than 10% of the votes. I wonder if we'll have a third ballot result showing a clergy favourite and a lay favourite. In the two episcopal elections I have participated in where such a situation occured the movement was on the part of the clergy house towards the lay house [note at the end of balloting - this is exactly what happened]. I'm out for supper with my girlfriend tonight. We will eat quickly. I think we'll skip pudding.

Balloting in the Primatial Election.

1st Ballot
Votes Clergy/Lay

George Bruce 14 / 9
Fred Hiltz 40 / 57
Bruce Howe 5 /18
Victoria Matthews 56 / 54

Some rather succinct background on the four candidates written by an American priest studying for his Th.D at Trinity College in Toronto. This appeared on Fr Jake's website a number of months ago. A name will drop off the ballot after the second round. They gather again at half twelve CDT (6:30 pm in the UK) for the announcement of the 2nd ballot results.

I'm told that those voting for George Bruce and Bruce Howe would be unlikely to vote for Fred Hiltz. There may be a very few for whom gender trumps theological stance but very few indeed.

General Synod in Winnipeg (continued)

Two items from last night's (Thursday evening's) session as reported by one blogger-delegate from the Diocese of New Westminster and the Anglican Essentials folks who have some sort of observer status at GS. The new Prolocutor of General Synod (who acts as vice-chair of GS and chair of the Council of General Synod) is a 'relatively' conservative clergyman from the Diocese of Algoma. The author of the 'live blog' which Anglican Essentials Canada is hosting from General Synod got breathless at this point and, noting that the individual in question was 'Essentials-friendly', promptly spelled the man's new position incorrectly at least once.

This prompted the following comment:

Praise the Lord that Stephen Andrews was elected Proluctor (sic) of our General Synod. This a major step in the right direction. Now we need to elect a Primate who will call the Church back to the Authority of Scripture and defeat all motions which would allow same sex blessings in our church or even allow for local option. We need to come under the Authority of Scripture and not align ourselves with our culture. The church must always stand over against the culture of our time to call people to repentance and to new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, so it's not an easy word to remember. It's probably not even included in the spell-check so the poor blogger is really on his own.

One is hesitant to see this as a decision by General Synod to elect 'a conservative' to a senior position in the hierarchy of General Synod. Bloggers from Anglican Essentials Canada are looking constantly for the presence of 'their folks' in the wings, in the visitors' seats and potentially in key positions. Equally one might conceive that a blogger from the Diocese of New Westminster might be looking at the same possible evidence from an entirely different treetop.

Nonetheless, one does wonder what the 'conservative in hand' as vice-chair of General Synod and a potential middle-right Primate could possibly do with an eventual decision to proceed with the blessing of same sex-unions.

Synod also defeated an amendment to a motion to receive the report of the Windsor Response Group. The amendment called on Dioceses (such as New Westminster with its 8 parishes presently able to bless such unions) to abide by a moratorium on the blessing of same. This caused much discussion on what was implied by the 'reception' of a report - is it simply received or is it accepted? Speakers against the amendment noted that such a decision would prejudge the discussion and decisions to take place later at Synod and the amendment failed massively.

The Anglican Journal Daily Journal, - Issue 3, dated the 22nd of June is available HERE

A propos of nothing: Andrew Goddard was speaking to the Essentials folks about the Anglican covenant. The video of his presentation is here



The Primatial Election is to start at 11:00 CDT (5 pm UK time) !!

Do note the Friday updates to yesterday's post linking to various General Synod resources.

General Synod 2007, Winnipeg Manitoba
(updated Friday a.m.)

Live Coverage of some of the General Synod debates is apparently available HERE. Some of the plenary sessions will be broadcast courtesy of the good folks at Anglican Video.

Remember that Winnipeg's time zone (CDT) places it six hours behind the UK.

A series of articles which give some background to the issues (and not simply THE issue - sorry cyclops!) being dealt with at General Synod can be found HERE

Update Friday morning - The bloggers listed below were all out at the pub last night with the exception of one delegate from New Westminster who dutifully checked in. The Anglican Journal's Daily Journal covering General Synod 2007 is also available and appears to be the most comprehensive record of the events of the day. These are .pdf files.

Issue 1 - June 20th

Issue 2 - June 21st

Today (Friday) the balloting begins for the new Primate

Tomorrow - Canadian Anglicans vote Saturday on same-sex blessings - CanWest News Service

The sequence of these two events is either 'interesting' or infelicitous. There are an awful lot of people who have been flying the flag for Victoria Matthews, the bishop of Edmonton. She was forced to withdraw from the last primatial election because of a diagnosis of breast cancer. Having beaten the disease she is now back in the running. The bishop of Edmonton is not known for being of one mind with those agitating for a public rite of blessing for same sex couples. She is, in fact, on the conservative end of the spectrum on a number of issues. While the question of 'will be bless the unions of same sex couples?' and 'who will be our Primate?' are separate issues - they aren't completely. Victoria will be the one defending the actions of General Synod to the wider Church, to potential dissidents in Canada and the U.S. and to grumpy Primates of other Provinces.

The fourth video in the Synod on Demand series is now available. It is dated Thursday the 21st of June

The third video in the series, dated Wednesday the 20th of June, available via the Synod on Demand website. I'm not sure whether this site (an anglican.ca address) is going to include much blow-by-blow coverage of interesting debates.

I've listed some of the blogging delegates who appear online. There are other offerings from the two extreme ends of the spectrum but I can't bring myself to read them. If anyone knows any other delegates blogging from GS who haven't already met in caucus to discover what their opinions are meant to be on the proceedings, then please drop me a line and I'll link to those as well.

Bloggers at GS

one blog
two blog
red blog
blue blog

un blog
das blog

Do note that, as expected, these bloggers are busy being delegates and so there's not the real time blogging that one might want. After having unsuccessfully tried to blog from a conference recently in Derbyshire I realized that one either has a laptop equipped with the proper wireless technology or one must wait until the house computers become available at the end of the day - a time where one should probably be in the pub getting the skinny on what's really going on rather than poring over copious handwritten notes. I don't have a laptop with the appropriate bits. I'm not rich enough to afford one - I will have to think about getting a patron or running a lottery here on Raspberry Rabbit or maybe just begging the blogosphere for anybody's old (but not too old!) equipment once they upgrade. Would that the SEC took blogging seriously and equipped their clergy with proper equipment. I shall suggest this to Kelvin and get him to shake his finger at the Primus.

The Second of the Synod on Demand videos - dated Tuesday the 19th. Includes material from the Opening Eucharist and some background on the city of Winnipeg where the General Synod is being held.



The Rev'd Michael Fleming writes an article entitled Don't Tear Apart Our Church from yesterday's Ottawa Citizen

Anyone interested in following the events of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada which is taking place in Winnipeg right now might be interested in checking in on Synod on Demand which has some summaries and video clips.

The first of the Youtube videos can be found below. It's dated Monday the 18th of June and it is basically an introduction to General Synod.

My friend has a very high energy dog. It's one of these border collie crosses which lives in a perpetual state of agitation. It won't sit still - it whines all the time. I'd have sunk the thing to the bottom of the Tweed in a burlap sack with a builder's brick a long time ago. The dog has a young woman who loves it though, and her little boy loves it even more and so I understood long ago that she was a package - and that this package included the world's least obedient dog.

The dog wanders the house at night. Up the stairs, down the stairs, in the bedrooms and back downstairs again. Hopping up on the couch to look out the window lest a cat be walking by. Back upstairs to get a better view from the upstairs window. All night - every night - up and down and round about. When my friend is at work the dog sleeps. It makes it easier to be up and active and vigilant during the night. To make her joy complete my friend decided that she would baby-sit her friend's dog as well for a few days. A large and very dense chocolate lab. Together these dogs would wrestle and tussle the whole night through - glad of each others' company - glad to do things in tandem.

I tried to help. I loaned my friend a pair of really effective ear plugs made of cotton and wax. A good night's sleep would ensue and so it did. She slept like a log. The dogs whined and tussled and she slept. The dogs ran around in circles and she slept. The dogs dug away at the wall of the living room until there was a hole in the plaster four feet high which exposed all the wiring and still she slept.

It is perhaps unfortunate that her dog never discovered the joy of chewing those electrical wires. To have uncovered so much and not to have tasted the joys of copper wiring - to have stopped just below the crest of the hill but to have proceeded no farther seems a strange and self defeating thing.

My friend will phone her insurers. She will no doubt be told that the damage is not covered due to the fact that it constitutes an Act of Dog.

Have just witnessed a wonderful exchange between Andy Duncan, the Chief Executive at Channel 4, sitting alongside Mark Browning, the Programme Director at Heart Radio and a group of BBC types sitting in the audience.

They'd both had a good half hour each to explain to us the changes in radio and television - the explosion of new stations tailored to the needs of subgroups, the new role of ' the consumer' as the one who sets the agenda and plots the course and the media as those who merely respond to changing needs and tastes. Marketing in such an environment becomes an appeal to a small group - a gathering together of like minded people into a tribe - and not a matter of convincing folks to tune into a 'one size fits all' programme schedule.

One of the media type working for the Church of England asks why - given that 70% of the general population expressed an 'interest' in 'spiritual issues' there was such a paucity of such programming on commercial radio and television? Could it be that only 20% of those involved in professional media production had a similar 'interest'. The answer was that such programs had been tried and had received low ratings - Priest Idol was one example given by the Director of Channel 4

Another C of E clergyman involved in commercial radio pipes in that he considers it his job to find the interesting angle on a religious theme - to ferret out the people who can speak in such a way as to animate a subject. If it's simply a matter of responding to 'what is the case' then we should simply be broadcasting pornography since it has a market which can be demonstrated. If a religious program is poorly rated it may be the program which is at fault and not the audience which is disinterested. Many rumbles of assent from the audience. BBC Manchester man jumps the queue and suggests loudly to the two hapless guests at the front that it's their job to find a stimulating way of responding to the market and that their disinterest in the subject is more notable than the market

At which point the two speakers make the major error of the morning and state that the BBC hasn't fared any better in their religious programming - something which the BBC religious programmers in the audience - numerous and all sitting in a row - take great exception to and begin to list off the BBC shows - Monastery, Son of God - along with others in the process of sale to BBC 1 and 2 which they believed had more than adequately linked the 'interest' in spiritual matters.

Blogging from the Churches' Media Council

"A Future and a Hope"

Having just gotten off a plane from Canada I was not looking forward, initially, to hopping back onto a train but it happened nonetheless. By day I'm here in Derbyshire representing a little organization in Edinburgh in support of Local Broadcasting - here as well because I do a little broadcasting on commercial radio in Edinburgh. But by night and herein I am merely looking for all the good scoops, gossips and interesting personalities - of which there are several.

Every second person I've met so far is from either London, Manchester or with the Evangelical Alliance - lots of these latter. I shared a taxi from Derby with Joel Edwards, the Chairman of the Churches' Media Council and another fellow from Tearfund. We're starting in a couple of minutes with our first plenary. Plenty of workshops upcoming on New Media and Old Media. I'll tell you what happens

Long Beach on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I haven't been here for a while. Magical.




It just gets better.

An Ordination Sermon
preached in the Diocese of Montreal - 199?

John 21:15-22

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon
son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time “Do you love me?”
He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger
you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old
you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead
you where you do not want to go”
Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.
Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them
(This is the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and
had said “Lord, who is going to betray you?”)
When Peter saw him he asked, “Lord what about him?”
Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return,
what is that to you? You must follow me.”



Peter turns around and sees John walking after them
a few paces behind
humming one of his new hymns

What about him? Peter asks
Does he have to feed the sheep as well?
Does he have to follow too?
Does he also have to die in service?

There is a child’s question here
a question about Justice.
Am I the only one who has to do this?
What about him, what about her?

There is an adult’s fear of loneliness as well
will I have company?

And the answer – the grown up answer is – yes and no

Yes you are the only one who has to do ‘this’ and
No, you will not always have company while you’re doing it.

But maybe I need to backtrack:
Most of my early essays were filled with the words ‘this’ or ‘these’
circled by the professor
because it was no longer clear from the context what ‘this’ of ‘these’ referred to.

Jesus asks Peter – Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
These ‘what’?
More than ‘this’ life?
represented by the items of a fisherman’s life
scattered around on the beach –
these nets,
these spools of braided line,
these floats?

Or – do you love me more than these other disciples love me?
You, Peter, pre-eminent among my followers.
Do you love me more than these others do?

The question arising between a man and a woman, - a parent and a child could be playful or maybe it probes at some perceived weakness.

Do you love me (of course you do)
Do you love me (I want to hear you say it)
Do you love me (I suspect that you do not)
Do you love me (I wonder if you know what that means)

I’ll roll the dice and will hold that:

1. When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him more than these that he was referring to the other disciples gathered with them on the beach.

2. He asks the question three times because Peter has denied him three times and

3. That when he asked Peter whether or not he loved him he was wondering if Peter knew what that meant.

Because it is not clear
that we always know what love means.

The general moves to the particular. The general
whether it is love (in general),
ministry (in general),
the life of human beings (in general)
is something that can be talked about but never experienced.

You will never meet humans in general
you will meet Stan and Doris and Tabitha and Rex.

Or work in a neighbourhood which is typically working class
or typically old money.
You will work in this or that parish
with its particular population and its particular history.

God (in general) is the god of the philosophers
the idea of god,
the possibility of God.
We know almost nothing about God in general

The glory of the Incarnation is that God wrapped himself up in the particular life of Jesus of Nazareth and achieves His highest moment not in the solitary being of a point of light but tied up with the smells and sounds of the Middle East
the dust of the road,
the quiet of the Garden,
guests at a wedding,
the crowded roads of Jerusalem at Passover.

And so the story of one man and three women
trained in all the generalities of ministry
moves to the starting gate in a race
where the course ahead is not of any set length
and the path is as yet undetermined.

You want to be here
we take that datum as something assured.

You are suited to ministry and
will become more adapted to it with time
we take this as probable.

You are needed
this is certain,
whether or not the mainstream seems to want you or not.

(Look at the representation of clergy
in movies and on television.
There’s not one of them that has a chin!)

But it will not be only your inner core of parishioners who will call on you.
This seemingly unfriendly mainstream will also dial your number at all hours of the night and will call upon your counsels in the wee hours in ways you might not imagine.

The request will be similar in most cases.
What does the fact of God’s love mean here?
What does it mean for me?
In this moment in my life
and in the life of my family?
What does Christ say about this?
What does the Bible say about this?
Where is God in all of this?
In all this grief – in all this change?
In this weakness of mine
with respect to this son of mine?
This illness of mine?
This loss that I have incurred?
Will you translate the generalities of the Bible,
the generalities of the Mass,
the generalities that my child is taught in Church school
into something which can give me life?

Does this beautiful field of wheat,
blond, expansive and everlasting
ever become a loaf of bread?

And then ministry, like love, will become knowable and known:

When you can attach a time and a location and a situation and faces to the word
when you can remember the smell of the place
the expressions on the faces.
When you run afoul of the particular place
and make a significant mistake
and come to know why.

When you know that you have the choice of extending your personality
and your energy and your time
into the lives and fortunes of other human beings
and you decide to do so.

You do so not because you are impelled by some Ghostly force
(that would not be a gift on your behalf but rather an empty reflex)
but because you choose to
you want to
you feel you must.

That love is voluntary is evidenced by the fact
that not all are loving.
Love is a choice
and you will encounter families, marriages, institutions
and even the ministries of some of your colleagues
where the path of love has not been taken.

When there is a price to be paid
and there is a price to be paid
for wrapping yourself in the life and the environment of another person.
Acts of love take their toll on your person
on your time,
on your innocence
and on your sleep.

When another person is changed by an act of love
and you yourself are changed by it.

You must love yourself – and take seriously your own horizons.
You are not called to suffer for suffering’s sake but for Christ’s sake.

You must love your families.
Don’t be professional with them. Let them be who they are
in all circumstances
and at all times.

But don’t take this as an invitation to be reserved.
We must take it as axiomatic that you are up for a little adventure
the demolishing of a few horizons
you want to see things go ‘boom’
You have a healthy and godly curiosity about what people are like on the inside,
you entertain the fancy that maybe – just maybe – the parish or the ministry you serve might turn a corner and bring the whole Church with it
and that you might have had some small part to play in that transformation.
And why not?

I’ve heard plenty or ordination sermons which describe to the candidates all the limits which exist to what they can and ought to do in ministry.
That it won’t be all they have expected it to be
that they must remember to sleep and eat lots of whole grains.
God knows that we’ve waited long enough for something more than this:
that we should simply preserve ourselves at all costs.

We’ve been there – we’ve done that
and now we propose that we are ready for something more.
That we would be able to participate in what God is about in the world.
At the risk of seeming foolish, or credulous
at the risk of falling flat on our faces.

John likens it, in the larger story, to fishing
We have cast our nets the better portion of the night
and have gained only questionable purchase
on anything remotely resembling a school of fish.

So why not now – with you – in your particularities of history and personality?
Why not in those particular ministries to which you will be called –
that in your ministries at the beginning of a new millennium,
you would cast your nets for the five hundredth time
this time at a different angle
and at the behest of something akin to a voice which you hear within yourselves
that something would, in fact, pull back –
that to your surprise your net would actually grab on to something
and you would find yourselves hauling in a miraculous catch of fish?

We wait the unfolding
(in time and space and within the company of real men, women and children)
of love made manifest
in your words and your actions
in your failures and in your successes.

Will you have company – in the church,
yes and among your colleagues as well.
Can anyone answer for you and live the particularities of your situation of ministry? None can – these choices for and against love, for and against risk,
these choices are in your hands.
It will cost you everything.

But do remember that Peter is not told to go forth
but rather to follow.
And the abandonment of self which he embarks on
is not an abandonment of self to the void, or to nothingness,
but an abandonment of self to the care of Christ who walks out before him.

That you would abandon yourselves
to the tasks of love
and the mystery of the history of God in the world

Saltspring Island, British Columbia



Okay. So it is paradise. Weather has been lovely - being serenaded by a chorus of frogs every night has been the icing on the cake. The parents are having a 50th wedding anniversary which is the occasion for the visit. Family are all arriving in the next day or two so there are decorations to put up, music to sort and caterers to cajole.


Everybody here has a hobby. A number of people sail or play golf. A few do pottery or fancy woodwork. There's a fellow down the road from my folks who raises Tibetan Yaks. I find myself wondering whether this was a long term goal of his - the sort of thing one does after having spent 20 years selling stocks and bonds - was there ever a dreamy expression on his face as he looked out of his office window. Yaks, he said, that'll be just the ticket!

So now all of a sudden I'm wondering whether I''ve been shooting below the mark with my little flock of ten hens and a cockerel in Penicuik. Yaks! Maybe a few Yaks in the Rectory garden would be just the ticket. A memorable way to put the church on the map. The rector of Penicuik - right, him, the fellow with the Yaks!

Holidays

Following a (hopefully) stonking good Pentecost service on Sunday (baptisms and red helium balloons!) we are hopping on an airplane for a flight to the country of my birth. For those of you who haven't been to Canada I helpfully regurgitate the following public information video on real Canadian life.

Don't let anyone tell you that Canada has changed and that most of the country lives in quite typical North American suburban bliss. That's bollocks! Canada is still the land of great expanses, Indians, French Canadian trappers, Mounties, the lot. We've got 'em all. The mounties still sing to girls in the forest. I don't know where they hide the orchestra - probably behind trees.



Saltspring Island (where my folks live) is perhaps populated a tad more extensively by retired folk wearing pastel golf shirts. I shall post a few pics when I get there.

Flesh and Spirits. New Album by the Gena Rowlands Band. The title song. One one hand it's about somebody staring dreamily at a waitress. On the other hand there's lots of philosophy there. Flesh and Spirit - the limits and frailty of flesh but their ability to be a vehicle for Spirit. Good stuff.

Ah! A reasonable day. A warm wind. A Scottish vista. Holidays in the offing. Electricity bill paid. Concord between the sexes. Concord with one's children.

"Loud and Clear"

- Pink and Noseworthy (Shanee Pink and Mark Noseworthy - what did you think the band's name meant?!?!

Is anybody else going to the Churches' Media Conference at Swanwick from June 11th - 13th? If you are then please drop me a line beforehand and we'll get together and drink a few, erm, Lemonades! The list of contributors looks very interesting.

Just a brief message of hope to musicians in their fifties that creative life doesn't end there.

Da Vinci Horse Manure

There was a medieval 'fayre' on the grounds of Rosslyn Chapel this afternoon. It's only a couple of miles down the road from where I live. We've had a few weeks of great weather - generally our quota for the year - and we decided to chance it. It was rained-out, of course, and we huddled under umbrellas and queued for a burger and watched the rather sad spectacle of damp folk in period costume pretending to fight with swords. A number of people took refuge over at the Chapel itself with its new Welcome Centre and Souvenir Shop. The Rosslyn Trust has spent a lot of money on the place since 'the film' came out and people are flocking to the site from around the world. Here it is only May and there were already several cars in the parking lot sporting number plates from other countries. It now costs £7 to visit. There were three of us and it seemed a little steep just to stay dry. Members of the Scottish Episcopal congregation which actually meets in Rosslyn Chapel on Sunday mornings were in one of the tents outside running a cake stall - overpowered by the bright colours and heraldry of an adjacent stall with a group pretending to represent the Knights Templar. I didn't see much evidence of communication between them. It was that sort of day.

The owners of the neighbouring farm who share an access with Rosslyn Chapel have presumably had their fill of the esoterica addicts all filing up the lane wearing newly-purchased tartan scarves and announcing proudly that their grandparents were 'Scotch' (or perhaps French and therefore indirectly related to Mary Magdalene). The sign above, which they placed at their gate in full view of the tourists, pretty well sums up the situation.