Studying theology is a spiritual experience...

I had talked earlier of the need to balance the study with worship but actually the study is almost a kind of worship in itself. To be absorbed in explanations of the Word made flesh and having his dwelling amongst us; The hypostatic union; The homoosios where there is no iota of difference in ousia or substance shared between the Father and the son, where there is not a likeness of substance - (homo i (iota) ousios) but a sameness of substance (homo ousious) is just revelatory (thanks Athanasius).

The hypostatic union (thanks Cyril) is the Word incarnate and the Holy Spirit too is another hypostasis sharing in the essence.

All of this strengthens my faith in the one eternally begotten by the Father. It all strengthens my faith, where at one time it had been rocked by concerns about the subordination of the Son, from the things that I have read and the conversations that I have had with other Christians. This glorious equality in the God-head, this beautiful trinity at the heart of the Christian faith is such an amazing and incredible thing to contemplate.

It also makes me realise that great truths can come out of our wranglings with each other. Perhaps sometimes the birth of the truth is painful. I do not set myself up on this blog as someone who sits on the fence or lambasts against the divisions between us. We need each other and our differences of opinion, so that we might grasp the truth more nearly or at least as near as is possible with our imperfect brains. The debates that we involve ourselves in today in the UK over the three streams of evangelicalism or the ministry of women or the inclusion of homosexuals, or the appropriate time for baptism etc are really rather tame compared with the horrors and the hatreds which developed between the early church fathers. Where we share our thoughts peacefully over the blogosphere, they shouted theirs in Councils which contained the sweat of the bloodthirsty and the jealousies of the power-hungry. We should look to the past to learn lessons that we keep up the spirit of debate but conduct ourselves with love and listening ears. One man's heresy can be another man's tonic, if it causes the latter to quest for a better understanding of the truth as a result of coming into contact with it.

If I write it I'm more likely to commit to it...

6 days of solid revision starts now...my poor family!

So Philippians, yep...not too bad on that...now those 'lovely' Church fathers!

Compare and contrast Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria on the indwelling of the Word in Christ (Jn 1:14) and assess their soteriological ramifications.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,^[a] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

- okay break it down - two guys to swat up on.

A beauty to Cyril's words that quite took my breath away in college this morning - so if he's got my heart, my head should follow!

Theo ...em...I think I get this whole 'well pleased' mindset. I can see why he thought the way he did and soteriological ramifications- wow - what a great phrase - em, now, let's consider (posh voice) 'what might be the soteriological remifications of such and such...! Well, okay.

Cyril - the beauty of the hypostases. Christ can only save us if he were fully divine and fully man, consubstantial with the father and consubstantial with us - yes?

It is not enough for Theo to argue that the indwelling occurred because God was so pleased - that the Logos did the indwelling and Jesus was indwelt because even though subtle, this is edging towards a 2 sons theology? Yes?

(Can I invite John Piper around to tea? All is forgiven!)

Next exam choice: How much was at stake in the controversy between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople? Whose account do you find most theologically compelling and why?
That I can write on Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, is great because as I understand it, if I am correct, Nestorianism is Theodore's thinking reductio ad absurdum. I must therefore guard against repeating myself. For Nestorius, who took Theodore's thinking further there is a divine and human nature to Christ that are distinct to the extent that Mary can not be the Theotokos only the Christokotos. She cannot be the mother of the divinity but only the mother of the Christ fused divinity/humanity. So Cyril addressed this problem of his day and coined (I think) the term hypostasis so that the Godhead contains one essence (ousia) but three hypostases. He wanted to preserve the idea of three persons in one. Mary is the theotokos, the mother of God because it doesn't diminish the father who has his own hypostasis.

I so hope I'm on the right lines here - some bits of my thinking need seriously tweaking.

Seems so strange to be having to intellectualise God in this way. It really makes you appreciate worship-time though when you can just be still and know that he is God with your heart and soul rather than those aching brain cells.

Conversatio morum...a useful Latin phrase

Conversatio morum is a Latin phrase often translated ‘conversion of life’ or ‘reformation of life’.

It is one of the three vows made by the Benedictine monk - the others being obedience and stability.

“Obedience is the first virtue of Christ. It is listening in love to someone else so that what they want seems to you more important than your own will - as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. Stability is a promise to persevere in this particular community - it is a promise of loyalty. ‘Conversatio morum’ is often left untranslated since it is hard to find English words that are adequate. It is a vow to a continual change of heart, a daily reshaping of the mind and heart according to God’s plan for us “. (Ampleforth Abbey)

This was explained on the blog of someone who has recently started to follow my blog. This follower speaks into some of the theological stances that this blog wrestles with, that I wrestled over because of a sermon preached in a particular church in Putney last year, in which there was a certain heckler - long-haired and leather-clad, that I continue to wrestle with, as I did this weekend just gone, in conversations with a passionate Christian who articulates his brother's homosexuality in terms of a gift to him because it enables him to connect with the 'other', 'the marginalised' and become an even deeper recipient of God's grace... so the wrestling and reflecting goes on, neither advanced nor set-back by the voice, was it mine? which spoke in an ethics essay of late on homosexuality and the Church of England. Welcome friend- dialogue will always enrich and cause us to grow.

Hundred words...probably the start of many more

I have to write about a hundred words for my vocations officer about myself to send to my potential DDO (director of ordinands). As I write this, I have a small gut churn so I know I'm excited but outwardly I feel a little flat. It's almost as if which ever way it all turns out, it's all going to be hard.

If I do get to Bap and I'm rejected, there will undoubtedly be a kind of grieving before the will becomes overtaken by grace and faith is restored in a God who must know what he is doing, no matter how painful it is!

If I'm never recommended to go forward to selection conference in the first place, then I will continue in this strange place I'm in - 'the inbetween times in the inbetween times' as I've come to think of it and I groan with creation.

If I am successful, and I am prepared for Bap, then this could take a long time - I mean just the preparation itself and then there is the study after the Bap if you are successful and that means more preparation - practical, spiritual, academic - some of which I'm doing now under my own steam as an independent theological college student and then if one day I do get 'the o word' then that too is going to be all about learning, growing, thinking, being practical, reaching out, loving, being and accepting and challenging and changing, teaching, reaching and preaching and probably more groaning.

Sometimes I think about running away, it's always to Australia, I don't know why - perhaps the other side of the world has something to do with it. I am then always quick to laugh at myself, looking out for the whale that God will send to swallow me up so that I end up conforming myself to his will again. This calling will not go away, if I go away, it will follow me.

...so I will write my hundred words and it will be the beginning of a dialogue which goes on forever with people and God as my story becomes mixed up with the stories of all the other people on this planet, as we all practise speaking the lines of the parts that we have been given in God's play, which is all about his Son and our homecoming. What God guarantees, but the world doesn't, is that there will be applause at the end as he watches his people journey towards him, certain are we, of our acceptance into the arms of a playwright, who loves us unconditionally, no matter how badly we have spoken our lines in his play.

The Christology of Philippians 2 5-11

I have to write on this for an exam and it is beginning to dawn upon me how widely this Christ-hymn has been written upon. There is no way that I can cover all of the strands of thinking so I am going to have to concentrate on what is resonating most.

Rob Bell's 'You' is helpful, in that to declare 'Jesus Christ as Lord' is something truly radical to do in the context of where your loyalties were expected to lie as resident of the Roman colony Philippi.

Authorship of the hymn is a mine-field I won't get bogged down in but this passage's resonance with Stephen's prayer at his stoning is interesting.

The Christology of a pre-existent Christ I had better cover and the arrangement of the sentences and their chiastic movement of descent and ascent (exaltation) is interesting. Hopefully, I will be able to produce some sort of written response in half an hour covering its (i) context, (ii) Christological content and (iii) what it tells us about the origin and character of NT christology - origin - Isaiah suffering-servant motif - yes? NT character - look at Col 1 and John 1 - yes?

I've got about 5 days to cram this and a couple of the church fathers into my brain for spewing out next Wednesday. It's all pretty intense and I couldn't sleep last night for stress.

Very vivid dreams ...

Last night I had very vivid dreams. There was very rocky ground, rubble and shale and I knew that the ground, if I stepped on it would move all around me. As I looked at the ground and gripped the hands of my children, I said to them that it would be alright if they had faith. They nodded and so we stepped forward, expecting our feet to slip and preparing ourselves for a fall but as we stepped our bodies elevated just a little, a few feet and we were hovering/flying just above the ground. It's the faith keeping us up I told the children so just keep believing and they nodded and we continued on like this over ground that gave way to what might habe been sea beneath and over rubble-land where houses lay in piles. We were in a warm country. Other people were there and afraid and slipping all around us on now what was very chalky coloured rubble, interspersed with bigger stones and fissures all falling away into something I couldn't quite make out below and I was shouting at them - it's just faith, it's not me, I don't do it, it's just faith that keeps us up, you can do it too, have faith ...and people from everywhere began to travel with us, and we were all just hovering and yet this was quite normal and yet also very wonderful...and then the scene changed and I was in a city-scape, some kind of outside bar and there was loud music and people there, they were scruffy and hung-over and there was a menacing feeling about the place, desperate and depressing. There was a girl there and she had a baby to care for but she was so young and so desperate and alone and her dark hair was scraped back and her eyes were hollow and her face was tear-stained. She wore a blue denim jacket. I couldn't get near her. I was trying to get to her but there were too many people in the way. I was trying to talk to her but the music was too loud and then suddenly I was beside her and the music was gone and she was reaching up to reach a bottle from a shelf and time seemed to freeze. I reached out with both my hands and held them gently aloft, one at each side of her. I didn't touch her and I prayed and prayed and prayed for her. And time was still frozen with her reaching up and I became aware that everything in the bar had frozen in time and so no-one was aware of what I was doing and I had no need to be self-conscious. I was the only person moving, speaking in prayer, and then I sensed she was receiving the spirit of God, something was changing and I started to worry that she would become unfrozen and turn around and ask me to stop praying but she didn't and then I put my arms down and as I did time became unstuck and I looked at the girl and she looked at me and there was a change there and I was about to speak to her but I woke up.



These dreams have stayed with me all day today. We had cousins Dan and Anna visiting and lots of interesting conversations over lunch and a walk. On the way back from our pub lunch, we walked through the field near our house and the ground was so treacherously muddy and boggy and just oozing and marked by the footprints of wellington boots and dog paws and I slipped and fell, one hand landing in the thick mud. I wished that I could have done what I could do in my dream and as we navigated our way down thin, muddy tracks and steep mud-covered steps, I held tightly onto Franny's hand and said it's okay, we'll be fine... So weird.

I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise.

Yesterday at college, we were visited by Mike Pivalachi and Nicky Gumbel. In the evening sermon, I had a little foretaste of what the spirit had in store for me as Nicky Gumbel preached. God either gives me a little more than I anticipate as he did on the Alpha weekend a couple of years ago or he warns me gently with part of the present that I am going to receive before-hand, which seems to be what happens of late. So it starts with a gentle shaking and hairs standing up on the back of my neck and it travels to every fibre.

We are then invited to rest back as a community and wait and so we wait and we wait and there's heat and light in the blackness of my eyes and more warmth coming in wave after wave after wave and tears as if from nowhere. We are invited to minister to one another but I can't really move, only to my knees and then back up again. But there is someone behind me, ministering to me, praying over me, asking for the spirit to rest on me perhaps because I am aware that hands are near me and there is a fire in my back and my neck and travelling down my arms - a heat like you sunbathe under, or sit by after you've come in from the cold, if I was on a beach, I'd apply sun tan cream. So I rest, just rest in it, and it is warm and it is wonderful and it is a taste of what heaven will be like, it's chasing away my monsters and it's engulfing me with love and I am perfect in its sight and it loves me, loves me, loves me and I never ever ever want to leave this place and I don't, not for a while....And then I come back...to the floor... to the ceiling...to the walls...to the the place...to the temporal and the constrained and the limited and my sinfulness and my awkward body and face and matter in all its glory and depravity... I become aware of the people around me, some are shaking, others standing and crying, others speaking in tongues, others silently praying, soaking in the spirit and I am hungry, so hungry for more...I want to stay up all night and read the Bible...I want to run out onto the streets and dance with people...I want to absorb God's statutes by osmosis so that they drip from my very pores and I am full, so full of hope ...thank you God .... More please!

But God insists I'm gentle and he's helping me. I have met a friend, who I take to college for evening services. And she is 'a child's drawing of a stick figure with zigzag waves of pencil and yellow scribble all around her - the light'. It is dripping from her pores, her love for God and she helps to release something in me - the charismatic, the reckless loving one, the joy, the exuberance, the delight which is otherwise hibernating, afraid it might offend... thank you God!

And thank you God for giving me a husband who I can share this with, who wants to go on this journey with me.

Oh Lord, I'm a bubblin'-over!

My monster....

My monster

My monster says no, no, NO!
His grip is so firm and he won't let go
He's perverted my Bible and highlighted some texts
And I quake here afraid of what he'll do next
He breathes out a fire that engulfs me and smothers
He has me cast stones at my sisters and brothers
He causes me to polarise, pervert and put down
People who have put on my Lord's robe and crown

What will I do with him, I want him to leave
There's a bit of me dying here and yet he will cleave
He's sucking the life from me, darkening my light
He's drying the day and making restless the night
He won't convict with kindness but hangs me out on a line
And the garments he's drying here I know now are mine

Get me down from this place Lord, set me free, I'm enchained
I ask for the indwelling of your spirit again
I'm crying here and dying here and I want to be free
For the smoke and the fuzz, I am straining to see
There's a place I can go, I know, but I'm finding it hard
For my body is broken and my mind is all marred

Let go, you strange creature, I scream and I drown
If I have to keep carrying you, don't press me down
Shrink please to some smaller weight I can bare
Or leave altogether, I don't want you there!

I aim to try really hard to get beyond where I got stuck, polarising Piper and Grudem and Driscoll with my focus too heavy on their views about women - I have created this monster and I am getting tired of carrying it around.

Updated post...

This blog has now taken on a different kind of a life of its own...

Well, I think I'm finally prepared to do this. This space is now going to become my confessional, almost, if that does not offend.

I start a journey as from today, that started a long time ago - but I'm now prepared to admit it to myself.

I'm prepared to be tested. I'm prepared to listen to objections like the following:
a)The Bible prohibits women in ministry in 1 Tim 2 and Cor 14
b) You're not suitable
c) You've got a young family
d) You're misguided

I'm hoping for affirmations:
a) The Bible does not prohibit women in ministry
b) You are suitable
c) How wonderful this will be for your young children
d) We're all called and this is how your calling will be played out

I've tried so hard to make the first set stick - but they aren't - I don't know why - I like to think God has something to do with it. Some of you will think that this is not the case, but that's okay. I rest.

The second set is so exciting, it's almost difficult to set down in black and white. It feels dangerous and delicious and wonderful to contemplate.

So we will see. I'm prepared to be vulnerable now - to invite you to witness what might be, by the world's standards, a journey to failure - the journey of a woman forging out a career for herself that wasn't to be.

From a Christian perspective - I actually have nothing to lose. Whether I work for the Church in an official capacity or not, I am still loved by God, I am still someone in a relationship with the triune God, living with Jesus as Lord. I have a very certain future in him. I will still work for the Church, his body, in what ever way I can because to this I am called and this is what I am made for and that can be in a multitude of roles. I trust God to show me the way.

So journey with me if you will.

Update 23rd - I need to rewrite this - 'iron sharpens iron' again. I'm asking the wrong questions. I sound like a politician - I'm skewing things - it ain't so darn black and white Rach - try again

Testing

a)People interpret the Bible to prohibit women in 'ordained' ministry. Ahhh!

b)Nicky Gumbel preached yesterday at our college - he spoke of a requirement in leaders of capability, integrity and relationship with God .....(?)

c) Can I balance ministry responsibilities, study and family?

Wow - maybe I have to even amend again after some point - these are revisions for today.

Affirmations?

a)The fact that people interpret the Bible to prohibit women in 'ordained' ministry, is something I'm going to have to get over - I'm getting there but I'm not yet there.

b)Nicky Gumbel preached yesterday at our college - he spoke of a requirement in leaders of capability, integrity and relationship with God - Ordained ministry is a job and a Bishops Advisory Panel will decide on whether I tick those boxes and I so hope that I do. I'm scared of what it would feel like to get rejected!

c) I am hoping that God helps me to balance ministry responsibilities, study and family because this worries me.

Excited to start knocking...

It's up to God - he knows.

Really weird - I can't actually even say the 'o' word yet. It's making for some really bizarre conversations or none at all - because I can't speak the words - I'm weird. If you don't know what I'm talking about - that's okay...

Finished Church Fathers stuff - would love to look at modern heresies but perhaps actually they haven't really changed in 2000 years and that's why we aren't covering them - I wonder if there are any new one!?

Unsure, confused, feel guilty, having a bad day...

Hairbrush tantrums with small children
10 Early church fathers in a row
A chicken that needs roasting
And toilets that need cleaning
And too many places I have to go

Exams to be swatted for
Homework to be done
Small children tied to text books
And us all missing out on fun

Too many fees needing paying
Procrastination wins again
Evening meetings and ships passing
In the corridors til ten
I'm out Wednesday, Thursday
but Monday, Friday, I'm at home
So you're out when I'm in
And when you're out, I'm home alone

Books full of hard concepts and days that are too short
Their needs, my needs and those that we have stored
The life I seek, the life I live, the life I have sought!
What's your will Lord?


To be alive means dealing with tohu w' bohu. Absolutely!

Up and coming Feb General Synod

Women Bishops

Last July, the Synod agreed that draft legislation be prepared, including special arrangements for those who would not be able to receive the ministry of women as bishops (or priests) in a statutory national code of practice. The Women Bishops Legislative Drafting Group (chaired by the Bishop of Manchester) has completed its work on this basis and the Synod will be giving First Consideration to the draft legislation required to admit women to the episcopate.

It will not be possible to move amendments to the draft legislation at this Group of Sessions; the issue before the Synod will be whether to agree that the draft Measure and draft Amending Canon be referred for consideration by a Revision Committee.

See C of E website

hupotassomai each other...

Believer 333 contributes carefully and engagingly to the debate.

Yiex - exams...

I have exams coming up on Christology in Philippians 2:5-11 and on the early Church Fathers - here comes a somewhat stressful 3 weeks - it's how to revise whilst also seeing to the family's needs and Church commitments. There just aren't enough hours in the day - I could do with not going to college in order to revise for college - ridiculous!

Anyway - getting there - and the pressure certainly gets you reading. I guess I would be reading up in these areas without the deadlines - but the deadlines help. You don't procastinate so much but you don't relax so much either. It's kind of ironic that sometimes you've got your nose so stuck in books about the beauty of God that you fail to partake in the events that might have brought you to experience the beauty of the living God all around you - so that decisions to go on a walk with your family in the beautiful crisp sunshine of a perfect winter's day are replaced with all four members of the family, united, but in something less exciting - all completeing our homework at the dining room table - there are probably more households than we realise who all do homework together, including mum and dad. This afternoon Franny was phonics blending, Hermione was learning spellings, dadddy was writing IT reports and mummy was revising. Oh well, there's a beauty of shared experiences, I guess.

Humility?

I found this interesting about Mark Driscoll - it seems he's making quite a name for himself but is he really presenting Christ-likeness?

"Not only are those who do not hold to Calvinism seen as rejecting the true gospel, but those who are not complementarian are also seen as holding to a belief that rejects the true “complementarian” gospel which keeps women in their “proper” place. Like many New Calvinists, Driscoll advocates traditional gender roles, called “complementarianism” in theological parlance." (W I M)

Driscoll's preaching has the flavour of something I don't like about it. It is aggressive, authoritarian, he doesn't like being questioned and his hot-topic is the feminisation of the church and what should be done about it.

There is hope for Driscoll though, as there is for us all. Driscoll is aware of his faults. He says:

I believe that humility is the great omission and failure in my eleven years of preaching. I believe that this is my greatest oversight both in my example and in my instruction.

I therefore do not claim to be humble. I do not claim to have been humble. I am convicted of my pride, and I am a man who is by God’s grace pursuing humility....And so I’ll start by asking your forgiveness and sincerely acknowledging that this has been a great failure.

Will we see a meeker man? Emmm. Not sure.

And so maybe the lesson for me here is to not worry too much about Driscoll but to admit that we are in process, in the making, pursuing by God's grace, humility. Should we expect our pastors, preachers etc to be further along? Again, not sure.

The Americans reflect self-consciously on their breeding of celeb Christians. Does Britain have celeb Christians? Perhaps. Nicky Gumbel will preach and teach at St John's on Thursday 22nd January. I expect though, he'll be quite different to Driscoll. I have met the year 2000 version Gumbel through those famous Alpha DVDs. I wonder if he'll be slightly different, 8 years older.

Mark Driscoll's apology

Charismatic and dynamic Christianity juxtaposed by Africaans Calvanism

'Around the World in Eighty Faiths' is fascinating tonight. I liked the African charismatic church. They really celebrated the power of the Holy Spirit and were unabashed about letting go. Interesting how living in constant danger, they are full of optimism. The Calvanists, of opposing temperament, but united in beliefs on the whole, predicted the end of the world is coming in 2020. They live in prosperous circumstances and yet are pessimistic.

The Restafarians believe that we are living in the second coming now and God's judgment is being poured out all around us.

Ethiopia has been a Christian country since the 4th century. Peter Owen Jones worships in a church which has been hewn out of a rock. He dresses as a priest and is taught by a young deacon to chant. He is awed by the way that they have kept their faith through such testing times of drought and hunger. There is a rationed but beer-fueled agape feast of sorts and then they pray all night. They have prayed for 18 hours. Here he catches a glimpse of man's earliest connections with the divine. For these people their faith breathes light into their existence. They feed on Christ's holy Spirit and have not the same need for food. It's a wrench for Jones to leave, touched by these Christians' generosity and kindness - he's moved to tears. He reflects on the Golden Rule and how he's really experienced it here - 'it's so important...for people to share what little food they have with you is a humbling experience.'

30 faiths through and he reflects on the tolerance of 'the other' that he has experienced. Next week, a different geography will highlight faith and conflict.

Prayers answered

Reform and Kephale

The Church Times, last week, (I know I'm a week behind with my newspaper reading!) discusses how Reform has predicted that the proposed draft legislation for Women bishops to be debated at General Synod next month will lead to secular court cases being brought. Reform object, that what ever the measures, 'female ‘headship’ will remain intact, despite our understanding of the Bible’s teaching to the contrary. Ultimately, therefore, since inade­quate provision has been made to safeguard our ministries, we are bound to oppose what is on offer.”

No discussion of 'headship' happens without also a discussion of Kephale. On the most basic of levels, I still fail to comprehend how the term can be bound up in definitions implying 'authority' when our whole gospel is about servanthood and about humanity coming under the authority of God. Is there really a hierarchy of human persons? Paul exhorts us to submit to governments because by doing so we can glorify God, our real master, and not bring the gospel into disrepute but governments rule. The Church shepherds! Can not a woman shepherd and serve as much as a man?

I found it very interesting that when Irenaeus talks of the 'head' which has been translated by some Christians as 'authority over', he doesn't describe it in a way to convey such a meaning but only as a part of the body, that is the body of Christ. Christ is the head and we (humans) are all each a unique part of the body. There is no option for favouring some parts of the body over others. If that is so should not each function be filled based on giftings rather than gender?

Against Heresies. Book III

Iranaeus

19.3

Iranaeus says the Word, the Son of God, our Lord, the son of Man did:

...descend to those things which are of the earth beneath, seeking the sheep which had perished, which was indeed His own peculiar handiwork, and ascend to the height above, offering and commending to His Father that human nature (hominem) which had been found, making in His own person the first-fruits of the resurrection of man; that, as the Head rose from the dead, so also the remaining part of the body— [namely, the body] of everyman who is found in life— when the time is fulfilled of that condemnation which existed by reason of disobedience, may arise, blended together and strengthened through means of joints and bands (Ephesians 4:16) by the increase of God, each of the members having its own proper and fit position in the body. For there are many mansions in the Father's house, (John14:2) inasmuch as there are also many members in the body.

It seems to sit awkwardly with my understanding of the gospel that a 'proper and fit position in the body' is also to be determined by gender.

A letter in The Church Times, which asks similar questions:

From the Revd Oliver Harrison
Sir, — Many thanks for your illuminating Back Page Interview with the Revd Rod Thomas of Reform (2 January). It was particularly interesting to note two things.

First, he regards “the Bible as being the living word of God”, which struck me a higher view of scripture than scripture itself warrants and bordering on bibliolatry. Second, he believes in “male headship of the local church because it’s a visual aid of Christ’s relationship with his people”. Really? Surely there are stronger and better arguments to be made for male headship than that. What about scripture and/or ontology? If those reasons don’t convince me (and they don’t), I’m hardly likely to be swayed by an appeal to “visual aids”.
OLIVER HARRISON
Holy Trinity Vicarage
Glascote Lane
Tamworth B77 2PH

Again the image of Christ's relationship with the Church just isn't a convincing enough argument supporting male headship. Something is missing.

Logos

Contemplating Christ: Logos, today has been mind-blowing intellectually but spiritually, exciting. To see common grace at work in the pre-existent Christ making his ways known to the whole world who have of course on the whole distorted them and failed to recognise him as Lord and set up other idols in His place, is actually very humbling. Christians can't claim that they have it all sorted, the Old Testament bears witness to it and the New Testament too and time. Our churches are setting up reflections of Jesus that aren't quite Jesus and we will never, of course, understand Jesus until we meet him face to face.

But what love, what amazing love is demonstrated by our God who has so desperately wanted to communicate with us, the creatures that he made in his image, through his Son and oh how very much in need we are of his grace. It is a sheer hunger that needs feeding, this desire to know him more and more and that in itself is God-given.

A good day!

Thank you, if I do not often say it, to all the people who are reading these rambling thoughts and responding to them and showing me the light of the gospel, Christ-given and dwelling-in-you.

Goodnight.

This blog's got a life of its own

Still don't understand why I'm generated under Links on so many sites, when often the posts I've written do not relate ... working on fixing it - sorry.

How to square this with predestination (election)

The idea of there being an elect - some of us are born to believe and some of us are not - I'm not sure where I've picked up this idea - Calvin? Conservative evangelicalism? How do we square this idea with Justin Martyr's descriptions of the following:

But lest some suppose, from what has been said by us, that we say that whatever happens, happens by a fatal necessity, because it is foretold as known beforehand, this too we explain. We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, and chastisements, and good rewards, are rendered according to the merit of each man's actions. Since if it be not so, but all things happen by fate, neither is anything at all in our own power. For if it be fated that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil, neither is the former meritorious nor the latter to be blamed. And again, unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be. But that it is by free choice they both walk uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. We see the same man making a transition to opposite things. Now, if it had been fated that he were to be either good or bad, he could never have been capable of both the opposites, nor of so many transitions. But not even would some be good and others bad, since we thus make fate the cause of evil, and exhibit her as acting in opposition to herself; or that which has been already stated would seem to be true, that neither virtue nor vice is anything, but that things are only reckoned good or evil by opinion; which, as the true word shows, is the greatest impiety and wickedness. But this we assert is inevitable fate, that they who choose the good have worthy rewards, and they who choose the opposite have their merited awards. For not like other things, as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by choice, did God make man: for neither would he be worthy of reward or praise did he not of himself choose the good, but were created for this end;(2) nor, if he were evil, would he be worthy of punishment, not being evil of himself, but being able to be nothing else than what he was made.

Perhaps these things are not in opposition. ?

Today I am mostly learning about a bloke what is called Justin....!?

Justin Martyr

Period of discernment...

Found this interesting - having a little chat with myself about some of these ideas...

“It’s a personality trait that accompanies the sense of divine calling,” said Mr. Hickle, 58, who has been the pastor at Fairmont United Methodist Church in Raleigh for 19 years. “You’re feeding your need to be liked, your need to be valued, your need to be needed.”

“The tendency of clergy, for the best of reasons, is to be self-effacing, to take care of others before taking care of yourself,” Mr. Southern said. “You’re the ‘suffering servant,’ you’re the ‘wounded healer.’ It’s hard to set boundaries.”

“What’s probably true ... is that we’re all people-pleasers,” one minister said, generating both murmurs of assent and knowing laughter, according to the transcript. “I know there’s preachers out there that aren’t people-pleasers, but I haven’t met any of them. And so that inherently creates anxieties. You can’t please everybody, and you’ve got that anxiety to cope with.”

Emmm.....

A counter-balance to earlier ramblings...

It's a strange thing blog-writing. You perceive your own mind in its strangeness. Thoughts come and go but once blogged, you can reconnect with them and think afresh. Maybe 'postmodern God' was taking things a bit far. I'm answering my own reflections today. The Bible does have meaning and this has been interpreted over time by Christians and theologians under the guidance of the holy spirit. Maybe the holy spirit isn't always of the kind of thinking that I did yesterday - you know - the whole - postmodern - it means one thing for you and another for me.

I've been listening to John Stott on my headphones as I shopped at Sainsbury's, which is, in itself, something of a strange but not unpleasant experience. He has a very delicious way of saying the word 'authority' and the sort of voice which makes me think of afternoon tea with scones and jam and cucumber sandwiches - comforting and very British. I also listened today to Ian Paul at college on Evangelicalim and the centrality of the cross, justification and sanctification, proclamation and conversion. There are some holes, he admits - what about more emphasis on the resurrection, which I flagged up yesterday and waht about social action as mission. Are there giftings from our pre-Christian days which we shouldn't have let die off - these can be redeemed and used to God's glory. Should we define ourselves at all, he wondered. There was a lot of suspicion in the room - and the general consensus is we shouldn't. But he wondered if sometimes it can actually be useful. I am beginning to wonder if I am an evangelical - in - denial. I want to find reasons why not to be an evangelical, flaws in the arguments etc but the more i try to fight it, the more it seems best fit. I can see so many things wrong with tradition and reason but nothing wrong with the Word of God and it is to this that I want to conform my life.

Postmodern God

The more that I think about it, the more that I realise that our unchanging God is very post-modern.


As well as studying the Bible, we should focus too on what God is doing today through Jesus. When I speak of a postmodern God, I speak of a God who sets his characters in motion, in the Bible and today and then has their lives slowly unfold. Our Bible contains characters who take varied and winding paths. The pathways are so diverse. God presents us with the story of Himself and us and our relationship over time but his story speaks into our lives in so many different ways. There is no one way to interpret the Bible. The story of Daniel will speak to me in one way and to another person in quite another way. God is big enough to let go of his characters, he doesn't force us to find a particular and fixed meaning.

The story hasn't finished. It goes on and on and on....

Okay, let me explain and these are rambling thoughts that came to me in the shower before church this morning. We would never tell our children the story of Little Red Riding Hood and stop at the point where the wolf gobbles up Grandma, no we always continue the story on to the point where she is brought back to life by the efforts of the woodman. Neither would we leave Hansel and Gretal being fattened up in the cage, we instead read on to their eventual reunion with their parents.

Therefore, we should, of course, be a church which focuses on the cross - no doubt, but shouldn't we focus more on the empty tomb?

Nouslife blog has caused me to wonder whether the cross hanging around our neck is perhaps just one choice, how about someone developing an empty tomb icon. Would you wear one of these?

So the story is continuing to unfold. Revelation didn't finish with the Bible. God will always be a God of sometimes new and surprising things. Let's celebrate this and let go like God. Look for God's work in the world, don't walk past all the burining bushes which surround you. Be open to the Spirit, to prophesy, to new revelations, be discerning, of course but not closed-minded.

Fantastic - enquiry into the false claim on the London buses that there probably is no God

Ruth Gledhill points our attention to the investigation that might go ahead into the false claim that there is no God.

The man inspiring the investigation (inspired by God, no doubt), points us to the scientific evidence for God's existence.

He points attention to Sir Stephen Hawking, who said,

"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life" (p. 125)... "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded... It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty." Hawking said this was evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125).

Considering subordinationism again as a theological concept...

Peter Kirk is raising the issue of subordinationism on his blog. I am very interested in this subject.

Is it a modern heresy with some very ancient echoes or am I in error?

I've posted a comment at Peter's blog, with a link to the debate in America, which at some point soon I hope to reflect on as part of a college project.

If anyone has any other resources which would inform this debate, please let me know.

It is the nature of the second person of the Trinity to acknowledge the authority and submit to the good pleasure of the first.- J.I. Packer in Knowing God (1973)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth hasbeen given to me. …”- Matthew 28:18 (TNIV)

How do we square this?

The idea of subordinationism in the trinity has been rather hijacked by the complementarians. For Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem, the subordination of the son necessitates the subordination of the woman to the man. It supports their construction of a theology of male headship which they then seek to describe in its practical outworkings. This has huge implications, especially for women's work in the church and the world.

Women and men are complementary, this I am very sure about. They are equal. But does subordinate mean inferior? This is what I am wondering. Now, maybe inferior is the wrong word. How do terms employed like ontological, functional, eternal etc work in this debate? Can anyone fill me in on exactly what, in a nutshell, is proposed by Grudem, Packer, Ware etc?

The reason I think subordinationism, in its practical outworkings, feels like inferiority is that when I was doing research on the theology behind women bishops, I looked at Grudem and Rainey’s ‘Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and Womanhood’. They describe how the ‘Biblical View of Submission …requires her to submit to him…, while no passage indicates that a husband should be subordinate to his wife.’ I think that in the casual exchange of the word submit for subordinate, significant problems lie. These two words are not synonymous because the former is theological and about ‘dying to self’, the latter is worldly, denoting inferiority.

I have no problem with the idea of Christian submission but I am a little suspicious about the idea of Christ’s subordination - something doesn’t add up because of what becomes its logical extension.

For example, John Piper has a list of jobs that are suitable for women and some that really are not - I find this very difficult and I don't think it's because I'm post-modern.

There was a very interesting live debate over in America where this very idea was being debated and Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem were putting forward their case for subordinationism.

For links see
http://hrht-revisingreform.blogspot.com/2008/10/considering-theological-reasons.html

Back to college for Christology...

'What's that then ... the study of crystals?' said my husband to me on the phone during a break between lecturers and I laughed. But as I laughed I must admit I wondered if I also heard God laughing, not in a mocking way, God wouldn't have that in his nature but in a kind of ... what are they all doing?...kind of a way. We had teaching on all these concepts and heresies and practices and thinking of the early churches and early church fathers and I couldn't help but wonder why we do it? I know we are being taught all the time that we will never understand or fathom God - I'm comfortable with that, but we still all feel under a lot of pressure sometimes to learn a lot of jargon.

In Feb I will sit an exam on 'The person of Christ' and it all just feels a bit weird. I feel very out of my depth and that there is such a lot that I don't know - but then on the other hand I keep thinking how weird all this theorising would sound to a lot of Christians who are actually out there on the streets of foreign cities, feeding the hungry and counseling the broken. In the middle of one of my lectures today I just wanted to run home and to church where I encounter the living God...I just didn't want to be in that classroom learning about Athanasius, Ignatius, Chalcedon...Nicea isn't so bad - I think I know things about that...but wow - I need to read soooo many books and when you're thinking of cutting down on the other pasts of your life which are about people, community and sharing bible stories with youth, under 5s etc so that you can read more books about Iraneus or whatever he's called, something's not quite right is it?

Ah theological college student having slight inferiority 'I'm not clever enough' for all this' complex crisis! Get me out of here! No, I want to stay, really, it will get better - yiex - talking to myself now - sign of madness?! HEEELLLPPPPP!

What's going wrong with my blog?

My blog is getting generated under links on other people's blog posts - I can't work it out. It's getting embarrassing. My most recent post below is a link on a Suzanna's bookshelf post and so many of my posts are links on Adrian Pluralist's latest thoughts. Links to posts are automatically generated I think but why is this happening? I just don't get it. I certainly haven't created these links. I apologise but continue to be completely clueless about how to fix these strange occurances.

Why my church models the New Testament model

Yes, we're an Anglican church and so we exist within an organisation that has a three fold sense of orders but on a practical level there is a lot that the church where I worship does to uphold the New Testament model.

Paula Fether at Fether.net deconstructs what it is to have a sense of calling and what the early church was called to be in the New Testament. She takes on John McCarthur and his very unbiblical view of ministry and by doing so has opened my eyes.

What actually qualifies someone to preach? She wonders. It is not some mystical experience as claimed by some of the 'called'. In fact, she questions the use of this word. This comes as a huge relief to me because when people ask me about churchy stuff and college and ask why, I sometimes feel as though they want me to recount some single lightening bolt moment, some big hand in the sky, you know, like the pointy finger coming down in gold on the National Lottery adverts saying 'It's you oooo'. I can't do this.

Paula explains 'Biblically, all believers are “called to ministry”. We are all priests (1 Peter 2:9), all “preachers” (Mt. 28:19), all servants (Acts 2:18, Rev. 1:1), all “called” (Eph. 4:1, 2 Thes. 1:11, Heb. 3:1, 2 Peter 1:10).'

'...scripture puts us all on the same plane, gifted by the same Spirit for each other’s benefit...' and this is what the church where I worship is successful at doing, even within the constraint of the traditional structures of the Church (universal). It is a church which seeks out and releases people's gifts. If you volunteer to have a go at something because you think you can, it's an area you love to work in, or a skill that you have, they will use it. We're a great big team of people, all playing our part, some in more visible roles, others in less visible roles, whether it be outreach, singing, making, am-dram-ing, reading, praying, preaching, teaching, organising children, organising youth, organising events, organising church furniture, church decor, finance, etc.

There is never the sense of a pressing chain of command. There are instead people who represent the place, who fit it, whom you know to work there, serve there etc but not a boss in the really authoritative sense of the word. God is in charge, the people in the church are facilitators, enablers, encouragers, (if there's such a word), role models to learn from.

Some churches get it so wrong, because the Bible, in their hands, squeezes the life out of their church, when God only ever means for it to be a life-affirming text. Some churches have done such damage to the laity with their interpretations of 1 Tim. 3:1-2.

Some church's translations render this text:

1These are true words. If a man wants to be a leader of the church people, he seeks a good thing.

2For a man to be a church leader, people must speak well of him. He must have only one wife. He must be able to control himself. He must use good sense. He must behave himself well. He must be kind to strangers in his house. He must be a good teacher.

Paula Fether explains how man is incorrect, the Greek pas means anyone, if it were aner or andres it would mean man.

Also being a leader in the sense of filling an “office” is not in the Greek at all.

Some churches have leadership limited to men but even in the translations where men is used, readers need to be aware that 'grammatical gender is not indicative of biological gender'.

Churches support their thinking that only men should lead churches with reference to 'He must have only one wife, ' but Paula very helpfully explains how

The phrase following, “of one wife the husband”, was seen even on the graves of women in the first century. It was an idiom meaning “a faithful spouse”. There was no point in telling women of the day that they were to be faithful, since it was presumed already, while men were expected to have any number of female consorts.

And so there is no mystical or gendered prescription for ministry, we are all called into ministry which can take a million different forms. As Paula explains 'All who serve must do so from the purest motives; the only difference is that those who are to serve as examples must have first been already proven to have reached spiritual maturity (1 Tim. 3:10 ref. “deacons”). The context here is not emphasizing the desire but the service.'

Titus 1:5 reveals that there are always to be a group of people serving. And so the type of team ministry that exists at the church where I worship, is something I feel I can really believe in.

And so if you're in a church where the leadership 'rule' rather than serve, have you feel that they were elected, predestined or somehow picked out as God's favourites or where they preach at you, a passive audience, leaving you feeling as though you can't disagree or ask questions, you really do perhaps need to wonder if you are in the right church.

Women Bishops update...

See Thinking Anglicans and also The Church times.

So not flying bishops but complementary bishops - what is the difference really?

In this Code, the complementary bishop is able to function fully as a bishop for any “petitioning parish” that has requested alternative over­sight on the grounds of theological objection to women’s ministry. These functions include presenting candid­ates and appointing clergy, recom­mending candidates for ordination, and exercising discipline.

A new Canon A4 is proposed, with the additional clause: “The Church of England affirms that its members may, with a good conscience, hold theological convictions which render them unable to receive the ministry of female bishops and priests. In mak­ing arrangements to respect those theological convictions, the Church of England nevertheless ac­counts and affirms those who are made, ordained or consecrated as de­scribed in paragraph 2 [i.e. lawfully] to be truly bishops, priests or deacons.”

I suppose though it is all in accordance with what happened in July:

The motion carried by the General Synod in July 2008.

‘That this Synod:

(a) affirm that the wish of its majority is for women to be admitted to the episcopate;

(b) affirm its view that special arrangements be available, within the existing structures of the Church of England, for those who as a matter of theological conviction will not be able to receive the ministry of women as bishops or priests;

(c) affirm that these should be contained in a statutory national code of practice to which all concerned would be required to have regard; and

(d) instruct the legislative drafting group, in consultation with the House of Bishops, to complete its work accordingly, including preparing the first draft of a code of practice, so that the Business Committee can include first consideration of the draft legislation in the agenda for the February 2009 group of sessions.’