Glimpsing Heaven through the Haar

This is a rather niche post, but as a bishop attending the Lambeth Conference this week, I have been giving much thought to the publication last week of a document containing text of ‘Lambeth Calls’ https://www.lambethconference.org/programme/preparing-for-the-lambeth-conference-a-lambeth-calls-study-document-is-released/ . These have the stated purpose of guiding the careful discussions at the conference.   I’m maybe a cynic, but I was a little suspicious of a process where each ‘Call’ is rooted in ‘ …what the Church Catholic wider teaches on this matter… ’ and then giving ‘ …a summary of what Anglican churches have taught about it… ’ (p.3 of the document).   Even that is a nuance of guidance from June 2022 https://www.lambethconference.org/lcalls/ , which said that Calls would contain ‘…a summary on what the Christian Church has always taught about these matters… ’ (my emphasis). This felt like setting up the same old conflict on matters of culture and sexuality.   B...

  I just read a social media post from a retired church leader, asking for forgiveness from God for the decline in numbers of their church during their time as a leader.  This leader appeared wracked by the anxiety about their failure. In Scotland (and most European and some US 'mainline' churches) there is, indeed, a story of decline in those who belong to these Christian denominations.  The pandemic was a shock to Scotland - zero 'in-person' attendance mandated by law - but the reality in most denominations is decline. The Scottish Episcopal Church overall is declining, and has been for many years.  The numbers dying, or drifting away are not being replaced by new people walking through the doors, either connected to existing members or 'converts' from either other denominations or from a position of no faith.  A great deal of anxious discussion takes place (like the social media post described above) about 'what are we doing wrong?'.  The comments on ...

​I’ve blogged on and off for years - but the last three years or so since starting as a Scottish Episcopal bishop have been quiet. I’ve used Facebook in a rather corporate-photo way to communicate (thinking that is an alternative to regular short-blogging) - and my usual dabbling in Twitter etc. etc. But on a few days off after this second pandemic Christmas I’m concluding there is a space for deeper reflection, for short essays, maybe book reviews.  Will anyone read or care? Well, that’s not the point of blogging for me.  I am well aware of the risks of a bishop blogging when things can be tense or charged in church politics - a blog post can inflame or be just so bland, why bother? But let’s have a go in 2022. Themes may be: pandemic reflections, models and pitfalls of church leadership, clashes of ecclesiology, theologies of abundance, contextual engagement with scripture. For starters!

Today I visited the diocesan archives.  That sentence maybe isn't one that would fill the average Scottish Eposcopalian with excitement (or maybe it would...). But today's visit felt really rather significant. Scottish Episcopal churches haven't been part of anything like the establishment for many centuries, in fact one could argue they have never been anything other than 'outsiders' in Scotland, a small grouping of non-conformist churches who insisted on their historical leadership by bishops and having a deep and engaged encounter with theology in their liturgy.  So why care about where our church registers, minutes and dusty old books end up. Well, in large part because we have been built on things like this: This is a 1744 publication of Bishop Thomas Rattray's 'Liturgy of St James', a book that explores the ancient and primitive forms of worship in the earliest days of the Christian church in Jerusalem.  He was the Primus of the Scottish E...

Three weeks ago today I was consecrated as the Bishop of Brechin, a diocese in the Scottish Episcopal Church.  The diocese is centred in Dundee, and follows (more or less) the coast from (nearly) Aberdeen to (nearly) Perth.  This blog will be an occasional space to reflect on my ministry in Dundee City, Angus and the Mearns and the Carse of Gowrie, the proper names for that geography. So what have my impressions been of the past three weeks? Welcome. People smiling as I meet them for the first (or second, or third) time.  Communities (church and other) that are busy with their internal life and wondering about their external life.  Places that are a mixture of hope and prosperity and despair and darkness.  People who are wondering a) what a bishop is and b) what this one might be like or even do. I described the first few days to someone as being a bit like boarding a speeding train without waiting for it to stop.  So much is going on, there is b...

This space will be my blog as I start my ministry as the next Bishop of Brechin in August 2018.  I have blogged at ' Dances with Midges ' for the past few years, as I ministered in Argyll.  And now to the east coast, to the joys and challenges of this next season.