Best Man's speech at the Wedding of Kevin Foster and Hazel Noonan

Ladies and Gentlemen, and I suppose MPs as well,, we all know why we are here today. It's is a very special day. As we all know today is World Gin Appreciation day!

No, no, I am mistaken we are here to celebrate Kevin and Hazel being joined in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

I first met Kevin when I was chairman of City of Coventry Conservative Future and he was chairman of the Warwick University branch. Despite that fact that he was attending Coventry’s second university we became firm friends and served together on Coventry City Council for a number of years including the opportunity to be the cabinet together and I served as Kevin’s Chief Whip when he was Leader and deputy leader.

Kevin was my best man when I got married and it is an honour to return the favour. Although any chance of a stag do was wrecked by a certain national event that happened a couple of days ago.

It is lucky that the General Election was not next week otherwise Kevin would have had a leafleting and canvassing session rather than a reception!

I’m sure we are all delighted Kevin was re-elected to parliament with a hugely increased majority, which is wholly down to the fact he is such a hard working representative.

Although I met Kevin when he was at university in Coventry he, like me, was a first generation immigrant to Coventry and originally came from Plymouth.

As he always remained a Devonian in his heart it is no surprise that his second love, politics, brought him back here to be the MP.

I say his second love of course, because his first love is Hazel whom he married today. Even if he didn’t realise that for a while!

I first met Hazel on a hit squad delivering leaflets. (it is amazing how many different people you meet over leaflets as a political activist) That year, 1999, was also the year we both first stood for the council, although we both had to wait another year to actually contest a seat successfully.

When Hazel took the first Cheylesmore seat off the Labour party she was keen to take the other two as well so turned to Kevin to do so. It’s wonderful that years later these two former ward colleagues have decided to become life colleagues. That’s what an interest in politics does for you. Certainly we all wish them a landslide of happyness!

I’d like to thank Fr John and the team at St Mathias for such a good service today. St Matthias was the Apostle chosen by lot to replace Judas. We are all glad there were no lots needed last Thursday! I believe Kevin is involved with parish, so well done for managing that. When I first met Kevin he told me on a Sunday morning he religiously observed his lie in.

If you believe what you see in Disney movies then marriage is all about bluebirds dropping showers of hearts on you. In real life marriage is not like. There will always be disagreements. Indeed in the Chronicles of Narnia, the great theologian and philosopher CS Lewis wrote “They had many quarrels, but they always made up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarreling and making up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.”

Marriages work when two people are so atuned to other, and their souls are so connected that the bumps in the road are just that an annoyance that is easily overcome rather than something that throws you totally off course. Anyone who looks at Kevin and Hazel can see that this is the case with them and I wish them many happy years together.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bride and Groom.

We need Local Hustings not National Debates

With a surprise General Election coming upon us there has been discussions of whether or not to have national televised debates, and concerns that Mrs May, the Prime Minister has said no.

I think it is right we are not having debates these are an import from the American political system and are not needed here. We are not directly electing a Prime Minister, we are electing a local MP.

I'd like to see more local hustings rather than national debates, and a chance for people to put the questions to their candidates directly. This is much more important for democracy than a sterile stage managed televised debate with a hand picked audience.

The House of Lords and EU Citizens

The House of Lords has recently voted to amend the Brexit bill to guarantee the right of EU nationals to remaining the UK continued residency.

While some may say this is a good thing and the Lords are doing their job, let's actually stop and think about this.

If the House of Lords is to do their job as a revising chamber properly, why are they passing amendments supporting the rights of the EU citizens in Europe to remain in Britain, but saying nothing about British Citizens in EU?

In actual fact of course both sets of people should have their existing rights grandfathered.

So why has this not been done? Well the EU does not wish to discuss anything before Article 50 is triggered. They say they can not discuss anything until then. This is sheer hypocrisy. If Donald Tusk and the European Council were prepared to, they could easily come to an agreement with the UK government to allow those people who already are living across the forthcoming EU / UK to remain with grandfathered rights in their current country of residence.

It is right and proper that EU citizens in the UK should be allowed to stay post Brexit. However this can only be guaranteed if the UK citizens elsewhere in the EU have the same right. This could be sorted now if the EU were prepared to discuss this now ahead of the main Brexit negotiations. They won't do this for dogmatic reasons. It's the EU that is stopping a clarification of expats status. This is an example of what's wrong with the EU. They are more interested in their processes and dogma than real people with their concerns. This just shows that we are right to leave.

Disappointed the Bishop of Coventry admits voted in error

Disappointed that the Bishop of Coventry admitted his vote against was accidental.

I had hoped that the Spirit had moved him to listen to those who called upon Synod to vote against.

The Diocese of Coventry, the Laity of which I represent on the General Synod, has always been at the forefront of reconciliation, led by Coventry Cathedral. It is a shame Bishop Christopher had missed such an opportunity for reconciliation with LGBT people within the dioocese and indeed throughout the whole church.

I look forward to my home diocese through the work of cathedral, where I worship every Sunday, taking a lead in the radical inclusion the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke about yesterday.

General Synod - Speech for take note debate on the shared conversations.

Disappointed not to be called to speak at synod this evening.

Here is what I would have said :-

Mr Chairman,
Thank you for inviting me to speak on this item.

Last weekend when talking to my Scots Presbyterian mother and told her that I was here at Synod this week, she asked me "Are you talking about sex again?"

She then proceeded to tell me that the problem was due to bishops and she didn't believe in bishops. For once I almost had sympathy with her.

Seriously though her response to hearing I was going to Synod undlerlines the problem we have as a church, people think the Church of England is against the inclusion of gay people.

This is a major challange to mission. Why do we allow interest in people's intimate relationships get in the way of the people about Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection?

How many people have been put off from attending church because of a perceived over interest in the fact that they were built in a way that meant they came into a loving relationship with someone of their own sex.

This report will do nothing to change this. People have told me it puts them off attending church again, or makes them consider why they do come. It could be the last straw for many people who were looking for a better outcome from the shared conversations.

I urge Synod not to take note to send a message that they are welcome.

Finally let us remember, we are warned in the scriptures that if you turn people away from Christ it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.

With this report we are in danger of doing just that.

Why a Nave Altar does not work at Coventry Cathedral

This morning, as often happens on Sundays, I served Mass at Coventry Cathedral. The service went really well unlike last week.

Last week we used a nave Altar.

Now in some cathedrals such as Peterborough Cathedral, where I was a server for a year in 1997-98 during my industrial placement year at Perkins Engines (Peterborough) Ltd, you need a nave Altar as due to distance and architecture since you can't actually see the High Altar.

However in Coventry there are no thick pillars, there is no rood screen. The High Altar can be easily seen from anywhere in the nave.

In actual fact a nave Altar is harder to see as it is on the same level as the nave so if you are not sitting at the front your sight line is blocked. Do people not realise that the High Altar, being raised several steps above the floor is designed to be seen from the back of nave.

It is therefore clear that, in Coventry's case anyway, there is no architectural need for a nave Altar.

So why use one?

Clearly it can only be for theological reasons.

So therefore, having established there is no architectural reasons for a nave Altar at Coventry we need to consider what theological point those clergy who support a nave Altar are trying to push.

The general theory seems to be that bringing the "action" closer to the people is a good thing. However as we have established above the use of the nave Altar actually blocks sight lines and therefore moves the "action" away from the people.

Therefore we must ignore the reason stated and look for the real reason.

Unfortunately we must then consider the only reason is because people are wishing to downgrade what we actually do.

Let's stop a moment consider what we do in Eucharist.

Bread and Wine becomes the actual and real Body and Blood of Christ to us. So therefore then just standing around a nave Altar rather than kneeling at an Altar rail means we are not considering what we are doing. We should kneel. This is Christ himself we are receiving. As Cardinal Arinze said with regards to receiving the Eucharist kneeling. "If we believe, if we truly believe that it is Jesus, the Son of God, then why don't we kneel, why don't we crawl?"

This is God himself we receive. Ignoring our architecture, standing around a small table that is hard to see apart from the first few rows at the front, is this really a foretaste of the heavenly banquet? Is this really the House of God? Is this really the Gate of Heaven?

Now some people might say, it's only planned for a couple of times a term, why not be flexible. That is fair point. But are the cathedral being flexible or are they pushing an agenda? If they truly believe that this is about being flexible in our worship, then I would hope to match the twice a term nave Altar that twice a term we have the Eucharist celebrated at the High Altar with the celebrant facing east.

Yes that's right, not a service with clergy behind the altar looking out over the congregation, making the Mass look like a coffee shop, but the Mass being celebrated by a priest facing the same way as the people. A priest leading his/her people to God not being the star of show. Or, as I fear, is all the flexibility just one way?

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General Synod, York, July 2016

At the start of July I headed up to my first York General Synod group of sessions.

I was able to share a taxi from the station to the University of York (where the General Synod takes place) as I heard the person behind me in the queue saying "Convocation of the Province Canterbury" so I was sure we were there for the same reason!

We were all staying in Halls of Residence at the university and I was really surprised with my room - it was even en-suite - much different to Coventry's Priory Hall where I spent 2 years.

The first item on the agenda was a debate on Brexit. I was hoping to speak in this debate, as someone who voted to leave in the referendum I felt it was important to make it clear that it was OK to be Christian and believe in leaving the European Union. Unfortunately I was not called to speak Jayne Ozanne (Laity, Oxford) covered most of the points I wanted to make.

After a good debate both those for and against the EU in chamber voted for unanimously for the following motion :-

That this Synod, recognising the result of the recent referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, welcome the Archbishops’ call for all to unite in the common task of building a generous and forward looking country, contributing to human flourishing around the world, and encourage all members of the Church of England to play their part actively in partnership with everyone in Civil Society in pursuit of this task.

There was a request that a recorded vote be taken, but a number of people (including me) had voting machines that were displaying the wrong name. Rather than vote the old way (by walking through doors just like parliament still do) the request for a recorded vote was withdrawn.

There were various other technical debates and items discussed a full set of decisions made cane be found at http://ift.tt/2aUt2wJ

The next day they had been fixed and were back in operation.

There were various other technical debates and items discussed.

One interesting debate was on moving legislation forward to the next stage. This covered two items a change in the (ecclesiastical) law to remove any remaining restrictions on church burials for those who commit suicide and a change regarding the rules of vesture for Divine Service. As I support the former but not the latter I and many others did not understand what these had to be taken together. After these have been through a revision committee they will of course come separately.

It was a curtailed synod due to the Shared Conversations on Human Sexuality which were held in private from, Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning. (On Sunday morning there was an opportunity to attend Mass at York Minster. I enjoyed the service and was particularly pleased to see that York have a number of children servers. This is something I have been pushing for at Coventry Cathedral and we have just starting doing.)

I was a bit unsure about the shared conversations (or as I heard some people refer to them as “The dreaded shared conversations”) But I think they went reasonably well, probably helped by the fact I appeared to have a reasonable group. I don't know how the other groups were.

I can't really say anymore about the shared conversations as what was said was confidential.
Following the end of the synod I travelled back to Coventry on the train Tuesday evening and then started a new job on the Wednesday!