Scotland: Bible and beauty
Alasdair Paine
Where better in Scotland to combine a
holiday with great Christian encouragement than Oban, on the beautiful west
coast? This August saw the third Argyll
Convention, a Bible-teaching event started
by an enterprising group of local ministers,
aimed at both locals and holidaymakers.
The format is a morning Bible reading at
11a.m. and an evening talk at 7.30p.m.,
over a period of three days. This gives plenty
of time to relax but there are afternoon seminars to choose from as well.
Women bishops - really?
Alasdair Paine
There was much media interest in the Church of England’s General Synod vote in July about women bishops (see August’s EN).
It is well known that Synod has been considering this for some time; part of the question has been how to provide for those churches which disagree. The significance of the vote was that it set a course for the ordination of women as bishops, which makes no legally binding arrangements for dissenting congregations. More than that — but less well-known — is that the proposed legislation would also remove the right of a local church to specify that it wants its own minister to be a man.
