Well we’re off tomorrow for a slight mini-break in the sun – some snoozing and some reading. I have to run the gauntlet of the Cambridge Union en route – defending the cause of ‘religion as a force for good’. If I get a coherent speech written, I’ll let you have a look. Trouble is that I’m not sure I agree with the proposition – faith as a force for good … probably. But religion …. Not so sure. Anyway I hope the lions have had a good feed of Whiskas.
Anyway this brings a temporary halt to a busy period. I sometimes feel like Gilbert’s House of Peers which throughout the years ‘did nothing in particular and did it very well.’
So I took part in the signing of the so-called EMU Partnership Agreement between ourselves, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church. Something positive to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. And it’s not just aspiration. We share an increasing amount of training and other interests.
I’ve just spent 24 hours in Dunblane at a meeting of our College of Bishops. It’s complex – so many relationships to work with. But we did get to the end of the Agenda.
A theological thought on the EMU… does ‘Sharing in the provision and deployment of both lay and ordained ministries of all the people of God’ mean: a) the episcopally ordained presbyter and the non-episcopally ordained minister are seen as exactly the same in practice; and b) that there is no point going for ‘being in communion’ on the Porvoo model where there is a mutual recognition of ministries but eventually all will be ordained by bishops in the apostolic succession.
Good luck in the lions’ den!
A pretty shrunken C of B, surely – maybe the full deck would have wrecked the agenda!