Reignite

So the Annual Meetings have ended today. First I need to say that I wasn't there the whole time. Frankly it was very inconvenient and annoying that the meetings were in the week before Easter. We have a Maundy Thursday communion and this year we hosted the ecumenical Good Friday service (today), so there was no way I could be there the whole time. Frankly if I didn't have an official role in the being Chair of Ministry Strategy Group I wouldn't have gone at all. As it was I was there from Monday to Wednesday. So Tim Moore ( starting here ) has got a lot more detail than I have this year. Since I've got back Twitter has also been a good place to keep in touch: #GAUK . The meetings started, as always, with the John Relly Beard Lecture this year by Peter-Owen Jones off of the telly. A lot of people seemed to like what he was saying, but to be honest to me it was a bit of preaching to the choir. It was the kind of talk I would hear at Greenbelt , a basically liberal religi...

The issue of same sex marriage represents a different sort of conversation than previous conversations around queer rights. Before now GLBT people have wanted to be tolerated - not criminalised, attacked, fired from their jobs etc for who they are. Same sex marriage is different it's about more than tolerance. It's about same-gender loving people standing up and demanding that their they be treated in every way equally. It's about believing that in every way same-sex relationships are of equal value to different-sex relationships. Some might say that opposition to same sex marriage is homophobic. It isn't. It's not about people having a fear or hatred of GLBT people. But it is about heterosexism - it is about believing that same-gender relationships are of an inferior status to different-sex ones. There are plenty of people who are not homophobic, who would not wish any ill to queer people, who may think of themselves as quite liberal and open, but who nevertheless...

There's probably a few blogposts like this floating around, like this one . But I shall add to it, I am leaving the Liberal Democrats. I have been a member since 2007. Admittedly a non-active member, but nevertheless a member. I joined because I've always felt my faith calls me to be engaged with the world, and calls me to substantial financial giving to make the world a better place. For me this calls for more than giving to charities but also giving to organisations that can change the world, including political parties. Once my personal finances were somewhat stable as a young adult I knew that I had to join a poltical party. My family have always been solidly Labour, and I voted for them the first time I voted in a General Election in 2001. But I could never forgive Labour for the invasion of Iraq, by far the worst political sin this generation. So in 2007 the Liberal Democrats were the obvious choice, so I joined. I voted for Nick Clegg as party leader and supported them i...

Well there's been a lot of news about same sex marriage in the last couple of weeks, and you know what, I really welcome it. Certainly many Catholic and Anglican clerics have been making a big sound about being against it, but I sort of welcome that too, in a way. The conversation has started! And that has got to be a good thing. When I returned to the UK in 2005 after personally witnessing the first same sex marriages in America I was frustrated that marriage equality just didn't seem to be on anyone's agenda in the UK. It just wasn't on the table. Well it's on the table now. The UK government are launching a consultation very soon about marriage equality in England and Wales and they're already a step ahead of that in Scotland. We're having the debate, and I'm glad about that because it's the first time it's really happened. For most people this is a novel idea, so I think most people haven't really made up their minds yet, and are list...

It's that time of the year again. The Annual Report has been published, with the number of quota members of each congregation. Though again the total number hasn't been published, and I've had to do a quick calculation, which gives us a total number of 3560 . Unfortunately this represents a 3% drop in UK Unitarian membership in the last year. The Executive Committee were aiming for a 20% increase by 2016. The numbers have risen very very slightly in the last few years, but that looks like a blip now, as numbers have continued to decline. Here's how the numbers have been in the last few years: 2005: 3952 2006: 3754 2007: 3711 2008: 3642 2009: 3658 2010: 3672 2011: 3560 Now let's look at congregations with more than 50 members, and compare their numbers to last year (in brackets) Ashton 54 (54) Atherton 62 (62) Birmingham Hollywood 58 (48) Bolton Bank Street 58 (58) Bury 73 (75) Croydon 50 (51) Dean Row 70 (80) Dukinfield 52 (52) Eccles 60 (67) Hinkley 57 (59) Ke...

***Spoiler Alert*** I've been re-watching the American TV series Lost. It is one of my favourite TV programmes, it's very well produced on all levels. The engine of the storyline is mystery. As the viewer, you don't have any idea what's going on, and the drama happens when certain things are revealed. But of course every answer just brings ten more questions. The basic premise is that an airplane crossing the Pacific crash lands on a deserted island. Except the survivors soon discovered the island is not exactly deserted. There are "Others" on the Island, as well as all sorts of mysterious goings-on. Obviously re-watching a series like that is very different experience when you know most of the answers, and what's happening behind the mystery. In general the show knew where it was going, and planted some mysteries at the beginning that it solved at the very end six years later. This is not to say that there weren't some inconsistencies and plot dead-e...

I was really interested to hear the High Court ruling yesterday that it is unlawful for public prayers to be said in local council meetings. I was actually pretty suprised by it. It wouldn't suprise me if this was a story from the United States. Stories like this come from the US pretty frequently, such as this story about a girl's objection to a written prayer in a public (state) school. But this is the UK, a country with a State Religion. I can't remember a ruling having gone this way before. The ruling was only in relation to the Local Government Act 1972, but it may have much wider implications. Don't forget that prayers are said in Parliament every day. How long until they are challenged? Are we actually seeing a move towards the separation of church and state in the UK? Well, I hope so. I entirely agree with the people who brought this case. The principle has to be that councils, or any democratic body, have to be for all the citizens of an area. Council meetings ...