Is Mark Driscoll just confused over his atonement theories

The Mark Dricoll here for all of the things he has to say about men and men and men and men, articulates at the end a really victorious Christ.


He is pretty much describing Christus Victor model.

Mark Driscoll is also known for his reactions against a 'limp-wristed', overly effeminised, 'herbal tea drinking' 'hippie' Jesus (not my words, his) but really he subscribes nearly exclusively in most of his teaching to PSA. The problem with PSA is that it can present Jesus in terms of those characteristics which Driscoll so wants to remove from this portrayal. With PSA, Jesus models 'being a voluntary, passive, and innocent victim, who submits to suffering...' So with Mark Driscoll, he might be actually promoting this portrayal to just the same extent as he finds it embarrassing.

J Denny Weaver argues that Jesus' death was not something willed by God. 'Death does not pay off or satisfy anything. On the contrary, it is a product of the forces of evil that opposed Jesus and opposed the reign of God. The real saving act of and in and with Jesus is his resurrection.' (Bartley and Barrow', Consuming Passion, 'Jesus' death and the Non-violent victory of God', p.57).

Narrative Christus Victor

It is based on the old 'Christus Victor' model but I'm glad it is at variance with it. I was never very convinced by the idea of God tricking the devil and our debt being a debt to Satan. God doesn't have to resort to tricking Satan, pretending to pay him a debt in God's son's sacrifice because I understand Satan as a created creature like us,(Ezekiel 28:13) not there from the beginning of time. Satan can't hold power over God.

In Narrative Christus Victor, the devil is envisioned as those earthly structures outside of the reign of God. This is what Walter Wink calls 'the domination system'. Jesus saves us from the domination system through his life, death and resurrection. So this goes much wider than just the cross of the Penal substitutionary atonement theory. Jesus came to make the Kingdom visible, invite people to be a part of it and he challenged it in his own life, challenging all the oppressive structures (like violence, exploitation of the poor, sexism, classism, racism, etc) that run counter to the reign of God. Jesus' exposure of the oppression of the domination system resulted directly in his death at its hands. This death was anticipated by God and Christ, but not desired by God for the balancing of some cosmic equation. The law which is supposed to work to promote good was exposed in its inadequacy for having killed the Innocent. Jesus submitted to this evil act done against him and did not repay violence with violence and the reign of God rather than 'the dominant system' was seen as victorious in its vindication of Jesus in his resurrection. Death is impotent.

Jesus has challenged violence at every point and triumphed over it. How this model impacts us is in its asking us to confront the domination system with Jesus with the absolute certainty that we will be victorious, even if we have to suffer like Jesus did. We live as a transformed community, after the pattern of Jesus. We are also aware of our own sin in that is is our participation in the structures that are kingdom-limiting: sexism, oppression, violence, classism, racism etc

This model is not so explicit in its articulation of justification and there is no talk of an actual divine exchange. Christ is not the sin offering of PSA. It's very different altogether.God invites us to live a Kingdom-life despite our co-operation with the 'dominant system'. This is grace. God also makes it possible for us to choose his Kingdom (pre-destination) but we must choose to accept the invitation (free will).

And so it's how this works alongside PSA articlated below by Driscoll, or not, as the case may be, that I seek to fathom:

The other side of the coin

I have now completed a lot of reading defending PSA and now I begin to read the counter-arguments. These are very compelling. I wonder how my Packer and Stott can remain unswayed by some of the objections, if PSA has really shaped human culture to be so pre-disposed to violence and retribution as a consequence of our theology of retribution. Or is it that the authors of these counter-arguments are missing something about the cross and painting a caricature of the theory and exposing instead how much sinful humanity can twist something beautiful into something which it uses to prop up its own evil bent. I'm not sure yet (still so much more reading and thinking to do) but currently only captured by the emotion and a little afraid to read quotations like the following:
Blake: 'Every religion that preaches vengeance for sin is the religion of the enemy and avenger and not the forgiver of sin and their God is Satan.' (Barrow and Bentley, Consuming passion, p.17).

Vic Thiessen makes a very interesting contribution to the collection of essays 'Consuming Passions', in which he explains how Penal Substitution:the motion picture is the very popular 'The Passion' by Mel Gibson. Exponents of PSA often concentrate on this theory of the atonement to such an extent that it over dominates teaching on sanctification - modelling our lives as a response to Jesus and teaching of the gospels. It would seem that churches with a very passionate doctrine of PSA, seem also to be churches who greatly stress Isaiah 53, Paul's teaching and the Old Testament. They teach the doctrine of the church more than they teach the words of Jesus.

This is though problematic to claim. If we are happy to claim the above then are we also questioning the power of the Holy Spirit in its communication of such doctrine over the centuries. I always get back to this bottom-line - what was of God (the Holy Spirit) and how much of the faith has been corrupted by man? It is a very difficult thing to answer. My faith and maybe even my optimism and naivety and my difficulty with depravity means I really want to believe that the all powerful Holy Spirit has been efficacious in communicating the gospel to sinful humanity and our creeds and understandings are correct. However, as I read about how much the doctrine of PSA might have damaged the already damaged and possibly polluted our idea of God, I am left wondering.

It's no easy business going to theological college, it shakes away at your foundations and you're left with a pile of bricks instead. As you look at them some have had the corners chipped off and the wall you rebuild will not be quite the same. I just hope it is chinks of light that I will see through the cracks and not an ill wind blowing to threaten the structure again.

Thank you but No thank you Mrs Lilian Mojoh

A letter I received this morning:

Hello Beloved One In Christ.

I greet you with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, It is true that this letter may come to you as a surprise. Nevertheless, I humbly ask you to give me your attention and hear me well.

My name is Mrs. Lilian Mojoh from Australia. I am married to Dr. Williams.F. Mojoh who worked with our Embassy in Ivory Coast ( Cote D'ivoire ) for a period of 8years before he died . We were married for 12 years without a child. He died after a brief illness. Since his death I decided not to remarry due to my religious belief . When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of US$6.5m(Six Million Five Hundred Thousand United State American dollars ) with a Bank in Cote D'ivoire. Presently this money is still in the custody of the Bank in Cote D'ivoire. Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Four months due to cancer illness.

Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church, organisation or good person that will utilise this money the way I am going to instruct herein.

I want a church, organisation or good person that will use this money to help the orphans, widows and other people that are in need. l took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money . Moreover, my husband relatives are not close to me since I devolop a Cancer and it had been their wish to see me dead in order to inherit his wealth since we have no Child. These people are not worthy of this inheritance. This is why I am taking this decision..

I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my ill-health. As soon as I receive your reply I will give you the contact of the Bank in Cote d'ivoire where this money is deposited. I will also issue a letter of authorisation to the bank that will prove you the present beneficiary of this money. I also want you to always put me in prayer.

Any delay in your reply may give me room to search for another good person for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.

Hoping to receive your response soonest.

Thanks and Remain blessed .

Yours sister in the Lord,

Mrs. Lilian Mojoh.
scam

Leadership and perceptions

I'm always interested in what is going on in the life of Jacqui Smith because she was my teacher for A Level Economics. At that time she was running for local leadership in Redditch which meant that as students we didn't quite finish the whole curriculum and nobody in our class got above a C level, even though there were a couple of really bright kids (at Economics) in the class (I wasn't one of them).

She raises interesting questions for me about 'leadership'. Her life is constantly under the microscope. She is now in trouble for her husband having watched a couple of films and then charging them to expenses 'by accident'.

I had a conversation today with someone at church who told me, that in many ways, life as a clergy-person is not your own and I understand that theologically it isn't because your life belongs to and is 'in Christ' and also belongs, to an extent, to the people whom you serve, but I wonder how much paranoia might accompany such a life. Are clergy people scrutinised? Are their lives inspected under microscopes? Of course, the Bible tells us that a church leader must be

...someone who is above reproach, faithful to their spouse, with children who are believers that cannot be accused of being wild or disrespectful...not self-centered, short-fused, given to addictions, violent, or unethical. Instead, they should be hospitable, seeking the good, sensible, fair, pure, and self-controlled...(Titus 1:6-9)

So what sorts of things should one worry about - is it just the above, which is a lot anyway or are there other things too? For example, one of my husband's best friends drives a beautiful red farrari. If he picks him up in it when (if) I work for the church as a curate, would it be a stumbling-block for other people, who might judge us for having a wealthy friend?

Should I choose a particular type of car to drive, avoiding certain badges (I'm not about to buy a sports car, I hasten to add)?

What about if you bought 'Emporio Armani' Jeans (not from Harvey Nics but from Oxfam) and wore them, would it be assumed that you had sold your soul to materialism?

Holiday destinations? Restaurants? Clothes? Hair-styles? Make-up? Shoes? I could go on mentioning many of those things which are shallow and empty of meaning but which the world rates. What if over the years you have collected some of these things too, not out of a deliberate questing after them but just because the safe and sensible car is also a nicely-branded car and it would actually cost you more money now to replace it with a 'less of status symbol type' car?

So what happens to all the worldly stuff?

A Christian life is a distinct life. We don't value the same things as the world but we also live in the world and we drive around it and live in houses and clothe ourselves etc.

I'm starting to become more and more conscious of the ways that we are all perceived and I am realising that there is nothing that I want to do to misrepresent the life of a Christian. We carry a huge burden here but if it means asking my husband's best-friend to park a few streets away, that's not right either.

You know, it took me a while to talk to the Ferrari-driver, even though we stood next to each other most days in the same queue. His car had become a stumbling block and I didn't at first want him to think that I was only talking to him because I was after something so I know we all make these judgments but I got over it, realising that barriers to friendship should be overcome, whatever they are, but I'm still aware it delayed friendship and that I had built up ideas about this family because of their car which turned out to be very untrue.

How much more am I going to have to think about everything I do? I suspect I will need to deeply consider everything and I probably should and I already do, thinking about what does and what does not bring glory to Jesus but as a minister can we really resist thinking about these things even more and is that right and will it be quite exhausting?

Today's image competition

It's the weekly competition for Christian reflection on an image.

Entries need to be written up in less than three sentences and they need to be about the Christian life in some way.

Winners can display this badge on their site.
Our last winner was Gill of Churchianity.
It is hoped that the ideas will be used to develop part of a scheme of creative prayer station ministry resources.

Polarising

I'm getting the impression that there is a lot of polarising going on between reformed evangelicals who emphasise PSA as the dominant articulation of the atonement and those they accuse of pseudo-evangelicalism or even preaching another gospel.

The so-called pseudo evangelicals accuse the neo-calvinists (if I've not just invented the term) with an individualistic gospel which is all about 'I', about doctrine, packaging everything into doctrinal formulations because they are in some way products of enlightenment thinking when mystery was sacrificed to reason. They are into the 'saving moment' - justification and are 'saved' and are not happy to communicate that they are also 'being saved' - sanctified.

I think we need to hold a lot of things in tension instead and not align ourselves with either extreme - for it would seem that they are both reacting against each other. Interestingly at college, I think that there is a fair spread of those who emphasise PSA as a doctrine and those who do not.

I get the impression that very few lecturers would deny PSA and most of us in the lecture room over the last few weeks in discussion about these things understand that God's justice IS God's love and do not have a problem with the wrath, however we are aware, as people who aim to be missional about the gospel that when it is a stumbling block to others because of a combination of their own life-experiences and perhaps the Church's failure to communicate PSA clearly, it is healthy to explore how we articulate it and perhaps reassess not what happened on the cross, that can not change but how we talk about it without compromising the scriptures. A real challenge!

I listened to Al Mohler after Joel Green and the juxtaposition between the two was interesting.
(If you can get over the fact that this is a guy who likes the sound of his own voice, sponsors his radio show with adverts about buying gold and goes on and on initially about housing down-turn, there is a lot here that is interesting).
Al Mohler

Recovering the Scandal of the Cross

MP3 interview with Dr Joel Green 'Recovering the Scandal of the Cross'

Easter poster sorted at last

I design the posters for my church's services and holiday clubs and I am teaching myself some graphic design packages as best as I can. The package I use is GIMP and it's free with UBUNTU LINUX platform. All my software is free because it's open source.

I downloaded brushes today which will create butterflies and trees etc for me so at last, after a lot of thought and a bit of uneasing distraction after coming across the Mars Hill stuff this morning, which wasn't very good for me psychologically because my head is so full of the atonement theories which I've been researching for an assignment, I couldn't help but produce something which hints at the new life we await, the resurrection life! We offer up our tears and thanks on Good Friday, with hearts of heaviness tempered by what we look with hope towards.

The blood!

Just researching some ideas for how best to design the Good Friday poster for our church and I came across this from Mars Hill. Just wondered what your reactions might be to it. It certainly isn't something that I could show my children. They understand what happened on the cross and have asked questions about it but this could really frighten them. I remember when I was eleven and I comprehended for the first time properly, I think, the horror. I understood as best as an eleven year old can what had happened on the cross as I began to think about preparing for my confirmation.

I remember last year, the almost agonising wait for Easter Sunday as we all took part in the live drama around the estate at Le Abbey playing out the events and the Good Friday event was very profound. Christians at Mars Hill must really go through it at Easter time and whilst, in contrast, many British Anglicans, hide their emotions behind their stiff upper lips, I wonder if Mars Hill might be taking things a bit too far.

Easter at Mars Hill

MARCH 25TH

THE ANNUNCIATION

John McArthur claims that Anselm's Cur deus Homo? (Why did God become Man?) is an articulation of PSA

John McArthur, in his essay, 'Open Theism's Attack on the Atonement' claims the following about Anselm:

'Until Anselm, no leading theologian really focused much energy on systematizing the biblical doctrine of the atonement. Anselm’s work on the subject,Cur Deus Homo? (Why Did God Become Man?), offered compelling biblical evidence that the atonement was not a ransom paid by God to the devil but rather a debt paid to God on behalf of sinners, a satisfaction of divine justice. Anselm’s work on the atonement established a foundation for the Protestant Reformation and became the very heart of evangelical theology. The doctrine Anselm articulated, known as the penal substitution theory of the atonement, has long been considered an essential aspect of all doctrine that is truly evangelical. Historically, all who have abandoned this view have led movements away from evangelicalism.'

Whilst I agree that Anselm refuted the idea that the ransom was paid to the devil and I agree that the ransom was paid to God instead, on behalf of sinners by Christ, is this really penal? Anselm borrowed from the idea of feudal lordship and wounded honour rather than the law courts and the judge exacting punishment, didn't he?

I've already dismissed much of McArthur's work regarding ministry and role of women, I think I have to reject his interpretation of Anselm too.

Here is Anselm from Cur deus Homo?

'If it be necessary, therefore, as it appears, that the heavenly kingdom be made up of men, and this cannot be effected unless the aforesaid satisfaction be made, which none but God can make and none but man ought to make, it is necessary for the God-man to make it.'

In McArthur's essay he is almost saying that a rejection of penal substitutionary atonement is a rejection of substitutionary atonement - it isn't. McArthur and the Calvinists seem to be very anti the post-modern mind-set. I think the post-moderns succeed in holding things in tension, there are a few ways of viewing the atonement with each helping to reveal one of the facets of the gem. Calvinism and the reformed evangelical mindset seem to always have to prove it is the right and only mindset.

(Dear me, I'm going off in so many tangents in researching this essay)

Is it not anachronistic to attribute to Anselm the doctrine of PSA?

Subtleties of the atonement

Has God acted as the subject (through Jesus Christ) to cover and forgive sins, removing the uncleanness or defilement of sin? He has absorbed all our sin into himself and dealt with it and its consequences (death) on the cross.

OR/AND (?)

Is God the object receiving the offering for sin (Jesus Christ's sacrifice) which then in some sense pacifies His anger and meets His holy need for justice? The reward being eternal life?

“Is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross an expiation or a propitiation – or both?” What is the difference? If it is a propitiation is it then a penal substitutionary atonement? Has Jesus expiated my sins and removed them or did Jesus propitiate the wrath and anger of God against me?

Is it in fact both and expiate and propitiate should not be set against each other? Do some churches emphasize more the expiation and some more the propitiation, whilst still actually confessing both?

In 1935 Dodd, Bible translator, translated 'hilasmos' as expiation rather than propitiation. The RSV translates atonement as expiation rather than 'propitiation'. I use the NRSV. I also use the NIV. Neither of them make it clear with :He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2)

ESV and KJV - he is the propitiation

Reading Brow and McArthur

I don't think I could have chosen to look at anything more controversial. Well, ideas about who are the elect (Calvin/Barth) would have been interesting or justification and sanctification (Piper/Wright) would have been stimulating too. But this is fascinating. According to McArthur and Brow there was a megashift occurring in evangelicalism about 20 years ago to which I was oblivious, having only been 14 years old at the time, but understanding this is helping me to make sense of some of the divisions I have encountered in churches and through the internet between open and conservative evangelicals. It would seem that the difference is often referred to as one between 'old-model' and 'new-model' theology ('open theism' described by John McArthur). There was a shift in emphasis from a wrathful God to a fatherly God and with it an exchange was made in the theories of the atonement from the law-court model of Jesus being inflicted with punishment for sin to Jesus 'absorbing' sin on the cross. I remember once being in a bible study that was being led by someone who declared that she had to remember that God was also a loving God and I remember being quite shocked at this and realising that for me I suffered the opposite problem - that I needed to remind myself that a loving God could also be an angry God and I think I realised at that point that there were two quite different theological stances in that room and this was going to cause me some dis-ease. I'll keep blogging my thoughts along the way.

This is certainly no modern debate, it goes all the way back to the differences between Anselm (PSA) and Abelard (moral theory) or so I am being led to believe, Actually, I have reservations about this - are there really Christians who deny the atoning value of the cross? There surely aren't many Christians, who like Abelard, simply believe that Christ provided us with the supreme moral example to imitate so that we might secure salvation - this would be a kind of works-righteousness, wouldn't it? I'll keep copying you in on my thinking.

Okay so it isn't an either/or. One can hold to substitutionary atonement, against Abelard without holding fully to Anselm's penal substitutionary atonement? Substitutionary atonement doesn't have to be 'penal' for many Christians. There is a difference in people's minds between Christ suffering 'for us' and Christ being 'punished instead of us'.

Books to help me understand the atonement. Any other suggestions?

Holmes S The Wondrous Cross. Atonement and Penal Substitution in the Bible and History, London, Paternoster, 2007

Jeffrey, S., Ovey, M., & Sachs, A., eds., Pierced for our Transgressions: rediscovering the glory of penal substitution, Nottingham: Intervarsity, 2007

Barrow, S., & Bartley J eds., Consuming Passion: Why the Killing of Jesus Really Matters, London, DLT, 2005


Hilborn D.,Thacker J., Tidball D., eds., The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement, Michigan, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008

Mann, A., Atonement for a Sinless Society, Carlisle:Paternoster, 2005

Terry, J., The Justifying Judgement of God: A reassessment of the Place of Judgement in the Saving Work of Christ, Nottingham, Paternoster, 2007

N T Wright on PFOT Fulcrum

Recommended by Bishop Alan - thank you:J. Denny Weaver The Nonviolent Atonement (Eerdmans 2001)

I'll send off to Amazon for 'The Nonviolent Atonement' and also J. Goldingay's Atonement Today: A Symposium at St. John's College, Nottingham, London: SPCK, 1995

In the light of the question:

'To what extent can a coherent defense be made of penal substitution in the face of contemporary criticism?'
is there any other reading, you learned people out there can recommend?

Blogging is a meaningful way to procrastinate

I have taken ages writing the last post on the link love meme, convincing myself of its importance - 'I would be letting people down' - it has been a happy half hour in procrastination.

These are the things that I need to really do

I have only 104 days to prepare myself for BAP - how one quite goes about preparing for this I do not know - lots of prayer and reflection, writing and reading...and just living I guess. If anyone wants to share with me anything that they found particularly useful I would be grateful.

I have to begin writing a defence of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. This will be an interesting academic exercise, which I have chosen deliberately because I am interested in the debates which surround this and what it means for evangelicals. This is so heavy, it is the reason I have been procrastinating. It's just how I begin to organise a structure for this which is troubling me.The question is 'To what extent can a coherent defense be made of penal substitution in the face of contemporary criticism?'

I have to deliver holiday club for the under 5s on April 6th on Easter so if anybody has any resources that would be great so that I can do something fresh, rather than relying on the stuff I have made a while back.

I have to write a theological reflection for my DDO between 500 - 750 words long on something undertaken by me or my church. Can any of you already ordained people out there remember doing this and if so give me a few hints please on the sort of thing you found it interesting to reflect upon.

I need to rewrite certain sections of my BAP forms because I sound a little too pioneering! I need to write to persuade the BAP team that I am interested in sustaining the more traditional expressions of church too, which I am - honest! No really, I am. I am not a pioneer in the modern-day church sense of the word. I want to be involved in the traditional and the more creative.

So.... exciting and nerve-wracking times. God is so good - this is all so great I keep praying that this might all happen and I forget that I am making steps forward. When I have constantly got my eyes fixed on the future, I need also to look behind me to see the footprints I've already left and the extra ones where God was walking with me. I'm now running and feel a little out of breath but I just keep on going, I can see the path and there are hurdles but hopefully I'll clear them.

LOVE LINK

OK so I think I get this.
Gentle Wisdom has tagged Tim who has tagged me for Link love so here are Tim's latest postees websites, followed by my ten latest postees websites. Your job is now to do the same, if I've linked to you. This, whilst giving exposure to sites we might not have come across before, is also revealing how some of us really are in network with each other. Great to fellowship with you all (if I can use that as a verb).

Tim's latest 10 postees' websites:

Radical Evangelical
Revise Reform
Fibrefairy
Peter Ould
David Keen
Pluralist speaks
Steve's Pencil Dreams
Phil's Treehouse
Jane Stranz
All I do is dream

My latest 10 postees' websites:(disclaimer: do not endorse all opinions on websites below but faith and brain stimulated by what I read there)


Chipping Away At Chuchianity
Bishop Alan
Fibre fairy at Strands of Life
David Rudel at Fire in the Bones
Dave Warnock at 42
Singing Owl at The Owl's song
John Richardson at The Ugley Vicar
Peter Kirk at Gentle Wisdom
Tim Goodbody at Friends Meeting House
Fibre Fairy at Strands of Life

Happy Blogging!

After the baptism Jade said her sons have "got Jesus around them now".

Jade passed away on Mother's Day. There is little one can add to that. She died at 27 years of age, after having only been married for 27 days. Jade Goody seemed to represent the worst and the best things about humanity and her racist comments on Big Brother certainly didn't go unpunished. She lived loudly and ungraciously but died graciously and courageously. This time she used her fame to promote not the message of self but the message of salvation and that like the thief on the cross next to Christ, it is never too late for us to respond to Christ's gift, repent and secure eternity with him. One of her last public acts was her baptism with her two sons at the Royal Marsden Hospital chapel at which she said afterwards that her sons have "got Jesus around them now". Her testimony was one of her ever-growing reliance on the Bible and so she might have made us think a little more about each other. We need to look at our neighbours through God's eyes. Those who seem so far away from God are only a breath away in reality and he is forever calling us home to him. Through the media glitz, the bling and the press, through the highs and lows, our infamies and strivings for reputation, he knows our yearnings and sees our brokenness and has dealt with it all and he waits for us to surrender ourselves to his care and become like little children once again. I am glad that at last Jade will come to understand just what it can feel like to be the daughter of the most loving parent.

She has also done a great deal to publicise our awareness of cervical cancer. There is that 'immortality feeling' one has in your twenties and she might perhaps have saved lives in that young women might think more before making excuses not to attend their cervical smear checks.

Rest in peace Jade.

Smith on baptism in the Holy Spirit

My reactions to this interview are varied. First of all I'll disclose some of my own presuppositions. I find Mark Driscoll's style difficult and so I come to watch this interview about Smith, who preaches in Driscoll's place when he absent, with this in the back of my mind. Tim Smith spends a lot of time here talking about his influence, in effect how important he is. 'Primary worship leader',...'I have a lot of influence' ... 'fingers in a lot of things' etc but he does recover from this. I know that Driscoll has admitted that he hasn't always presented himself with humility and I guess it's a problem we all face as fallen individuals.

As regards the picture Smith paints of family life, it is only to say that he has had to build a 'man cave' 'a retreat to the den of masculinity', where 'the colour pink is banned' because there is so much 'oestrogen in his house with his wife and three daughters. That's where he keeps his theology books, guitar, and cigars. Doesn't this kind of imply theology books, a guitar and cigars couldn't possibly be anything that would interest women – cigars maybe ,but theology books – oh typical. But I'll stick with it. I've noticed that Warnock has filed this under Baptism in the Holy Spirit and so I'm interested in what he has to say. My presuppositions go like this – 'this guy is going to be one of those near-cessationists for whom it's all about doctrine and correct teaching and there is an underdeveloped pneumatology' but I know these are my presuppositions so I'll hang in there.

I'm reminded of my own baptism in the Holy Spirit. The complete helplessness I experienced in the face of such power, a power that literally swept me off my feet and had me fall over. A power that didn't start to drain away for about a week and where it was experienced again the following morning in just about the most traditional, high church, liturgical setting one could imagine. The next day I visited my parents' church for Sunday worship and had to grip the rails. It was a feeling that left me in agony of sorts for a while, I wanted to just be there already with the trinity and away from this earth, so beautiful and empowering had been the foretaste of the inheritance that awaited me. I have had two other very memorable experiences like this – two when someone prayed over me in tongues and the third in prayer ministry when a feeling of the most intense and amazing heat filled my back, travelled up to my neck and then down each of my arms. I remind myself of all of these experiences of the Holy Spirit if ever I feel unsure or a little disconnected from God – they are so important to me.

Anyway, back to Smith.

He has some good things to say about the glory of God. He speaks about our preferences. Mars Hill is antithetical – it reacts against charismatic expressions of evangelicalism. They are theoretical charismatics, he underlines they are not cessationists but they sometimes just don't understand what is going on. He claims that charismatics aren't always biblical!

He talks about how the Church of England is dead, 'hollow religion', he says.

It isn't where I worship, thanks be to God.

He says that sometimes in the Church of England we go so far in reaction, we have a 'holy ghost' party!

Woah, not too sure how I feel about what he's saying now!

Acts 29, CCK, New Frontires and Mars Hill hope to correct this in some way!

They have much to learn regards their pneumatology – I'm glad he admits this.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit – he discusses his reactions to teachings on this. He admits he's dismissed this. He's reacted against it, doesn't want to be associated with it because it's a more American expression. But he admits that there is something biblical about it. He was really convicted hat he has avoided baptism in the holy Spirit and so he has read up on it. He was deeply moved – he had gone so far as to avoid asking God for anything more. He doesn't understand how the Holy Spirit works, none of us do, but he admits it can't be wrong to ask God for more of his power through the Holy Spirit. The empowering work of the Holy Spirit needs to be talked about more. 'I believe it can happen' he says. The body of Christ is so diverse and we can speak into each other's lives and sharpen one another. Hooray! Absolutely!

They need pneumatology lessons! Great!

He goes on to talk about mission next. The gospel sits above culture and we can't compromise it but it can be contextualised. This makes sense and seems to be fairly obvious. He does harp back to the effeminised music which Driscoll and Smith seem overly concerned about. Love is above gender just like the gopel is above culture, I would say.

But he uses 1 Corinthians 14 appropriately, in that yes, we need to adjust our worship and behaviour so that it doesn't become a stumbling block to the seeker or the newbie Christian. Adrian is right, Smith is not saying anything new. We do need to constantly proclaim the gospel through our worship music afresh so that one particular style isn't deemed a worthier form of praise.

People, place and time – we need to dwell on these things – match what we do to whom we are reaching and when. We need spirit-filled preachers and musicians who aren't looking to simply copy Christian worship culture.

So, I leave it there. I'm glad for their epiphany. We can ask for empowerment. God wants to shower us with gifts.

Another prayer resource

Like buses, they all suddenly come along at once. God always provides, when we ask him for help.

Sacred Space Prayer link

I'm experimenting with my rule of life. I spend a lot of time at the computer, thinking and reflecting. I probably more often use Bible gateway than a book Bible, although I feel quite differently about a book - that somehow it's more comforting - the solid weight of it in your hand, the fact that it is all there in front of you and you get to explore it and learn how to navigate it like the most beautiful of maps.

But our God is everywhere. He can speak through all mediums and so I have been supplementing my prayer life with Sacred Space and Jesuit prayer. They are both very different. But I'm really enjoying them.

Interesting events at Wycliffe

Wycliffe has been interesting in the last few years for how it has fared under Richard Turnbull. Open evangelical Elaine Storkey resigned. Many complained about a very hierarchical management style. Turnbull has made many criticisms of other training methods apart from traditional and full-time, but it seems as though the theological education that Wycliffe offers is not perhaps all it should be. There are questions marks over the teaching of pastoral and practical theology.

The college doesn't seem to attract many female ordinands. Out of 66 ordianands, only nine are women.

The CEN reports on the inspection of Wycliffe, as does Anglican Mainstream.

I wonder what will happen.

Today's image competition

It's the weekly competition for Christian reflection on an image.

Entries need to be written up in less than three sentences and they need to be about the Christian life in some way.

Winners can display this badge on their site.
Our last winner was Gill of Churchianity.
It is hoped that the ideas will be used to develop part of a scheme of creative prayer station ministry resources.

LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE

Life is an adventure.
No matter what our calling
Surely we have to be brave
Reach out to creation and the people around us
And Not fear rejection because we can never be rejected by God.

My cousin and his wife are just about to set on the Pacific Crest Trail. They are doing this so that they can return to lead others in a ministry in which they help people to strip away the clutter of life, come more closely to understand themselves and God and move on to a better place for the experiences of extreme outdoors and dependency on God and the minimal comforts.

Wow! Awesome!

A book review I'd like to read in full

Kevin Giles reviews Wayne Grudem’s Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism.

Here's a few snippets of the full review

If the hierarchical complementarianism “men and women are equal, yet role-differentiated” gender paradigm of Grudem, John Piper, the True Woman Movement, CBMW and others is so biblically sound and “divinely inspired,” why can’t it stand up to scrutiny? ...

When an author claims that one’s interpretation of God’s word is God’s word without any caveats, then, by implication, one is claiming to speak for God. The
author is asserting that what he says the Bible says is what God says, and, thus, if you disagree with him, you are disagreeing with God...

Evangelical egalitarians do not reject the authority of Scripture; they reject an
interpretation of the Scriptures that suggests that God’s unchanging ideal is the subordination of women...

Here's Giles' response to Grudem's charges:
1. Egalitarians endorse the authority of Scripture, but not the authority of human interpreters. To dispute an interpretation is not to dispute the authority of Scripture itself.

2. We do not embrace the several secular feminist agendas. We are motivated to work for the full emancipation of women on exactly the same ground as other evangelicals have opposed unjust rulers, slavery, apartheid, racism, human trafficking, and ignoring the poor. It is not secular humanism, existentialism, Marxism, or any other “ism” that motivates us, but the Bible.

3. We embrace sexual differentiation; what we deny is that the permanent subordination of women is God’s unchanging ideal. No evangelical egalitarian is arguing for a dreary unisex society or church and never has. We want the equal contribution of women as women and men as men, complementing each other.

4. We accept without question or dissent what the creeds and confessions actually say about the Trinity: the divine three persons are one in being and authority. They are “co-equal.”

5. On male “headship,” the situation is more complex. I, for one, hold that the answer lies in a sound method of interpretation that fully acknowledges cultural contexts. Paul lived in a world where the subordination of women was taken for granted and patriarchy prevailed. Paul subverts this patriarchy by saying that
“headship” in a Christian marriage involves serving one’s wife with agapē love, even to the point of giving one’s life for her. The challenge for both hierarchists and egalitarians is how to apply these words in a culture that insists on the equality of the sexes.
It is my hope that the erroneous arguments put forth in Evangelical Feminism will be overcome as more and more Christians discover, firstly, that the partnership understanding of marriage advocated by Jesus and Paul as the ideal is the most enriching, and, secondly, discover that allowing women to use the charismata that Paul insists are given without discrimination to men
and women will enrich the life of the church.

Oh Barth - that's it!

Well, I don't think I can do anything more with Barth. I have lived and breathed the guy for a few weeks now. Time to put the last full stop in place and submit my work. His articulation of Christ is so abstract and the critics who write about him set him within a context which I am only just starting to grapple with, so the whole thing has been extremely challenging but I like the guy, or at least the version of the guy that I have constructed, for some of it might be error.

He is so positive. I put it like this:
Barth's ''The Humanity of God', begins with a synopsis of his evangelical heritage, presents his Christology and ends with a reflection on humanity's ethical response to God's generosity. Barth's theology centres on the person of Jesus Christ who is God and Lord, King and Head, Reconciler and Redeemer, reflected albeit imperfectly in the Church and its people. Jesus Christ was given for humanity and we delight in his divinity made human and we rejoice in our own humanity, for however imperfect, it has been redeemed. God's grace is triumphant because he has put to death the 'No' to sin in Jesus Christ's crucifixion and raised up the mighty 'Yes' to new life in his resurrection. The gift poured out is the Son; it is the YES! It is the affirmative which defeats the negative. At its recognition, man praises the giver and loves those who share in its acknowledgement. Hence, the commandments are satisfied to love God and our neighbour. For Barth, the Christian life cannot help but be an ethical life if it is a life led truly in response to its giver.

He is so inclusive. I put it like this:
Christ is the answer to any 'otherness' of God. God in his 'majesty' is notintending to confirm in man a feeling of 'hopelessness', just as God in his humanity does nothing to rob God of his glory. God, in love transferred his divine expression to humanity. This Jesus Christ is fully human (bar sin) and fully divine and this is to the glory of man. Therefore for Barth, Calvin's insistence on humanity's depravity becomes a judgement too harsh for what it says about our humanity. Barth exhorts us to rejoice at God's having chosen to 'be man's partner'. In God's freedom he chose to be so generous so that the reader can hardly denigrate that which was created and called good and God has chosen to father. Pastorally, the Church would affirm the members of its congregations and indeed those outside its walls too. There is no doctrine of a predestined elect here, instead it is our job to treat every human being 'as one to whom Jesus Christ is Brother'1 and make known to each their sacred sibling connection if they are unaware of it. Barth has been accused of Universalism because for him Christ is the rejected and the elected and we are all recipients of salvation, whether we know it or not. We are encouraged even to view what might be considered monstrous as something with a potential to reveal God in his goodness. Pastorally, the implication for the Church is that no-one is beyond its reach.

I also reflected on Barth's fedeism: that he starts with the presupposition that God does indeed exist. He does not engage in apologetics. I also reflected on how there is also something very post-modern about Barth. For Barth revelation lies in something beyond the powers of human reasoning, tradition and experience. Any human system fails to articulate God. Barth is suspicious about how we arrive at truth if the investigation starts with man. All words fail, apart from the Word (Jesus Christ) to reveal God. Perhaps today we would better capture the attention of a people whose natural hermeneutic is one of suspicion, if we sought less to investigate and corroborate systems which will only ever be suspected and presented more a God who is revealed simply by Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, where in effect only God can reveal God! Like today's post-modern audience, Barth was always questioning the worldly foundations upon which the Church proposed so certainly to 'know'.

1Barth K, The Humanity of God, p.53

Ministry through Bishop Alan's 'Over the rainbow snow'

God works through people when they are not even aware of it. Isn't it amazing that we might be impacting people's lives in such significant ways through the power of the Holy Spirit and we are not even aware of it.

One day I would like to communicate to all the people who have had an effect on my spiritual journey just how important they have been - to Peter and William and Jill and David and Helen and Mark and Diane and Dee and Pee and Joy and Sara and Clive and Lizzie and Dan, Mat and Nat and the special people at Lee Abbey and countless others I have failed to mention.

Sometimes I nearly do and fears about being considered rather gushing sometimes hold me back. The other day I really had to fight against an overpowering urge to declare aloud - I love you family - as I reflected back from the comfort of a lovely sofa in someone's front room as we all reflected together on Christ's Passion at house group. It's a shame we can't say these things more often but sometimes our Britishness and the Britishness of those around us prevents us.

So here I am, late on a Saturday night still wrestling with myself and those forms for my DDO. I have swung all week between joy and fear and still can't bring myself to say the 'O word'. I don't use that word at all, when explaining it to people, only that i have to fill out some forms so that the church might be able to discern if they can one day employ me in some guise.

I am yet to really commit to ink the things that have shaped me spiritually but it's already written up in my head.

That I will tackle tomorrow.

So I just read through what I'd written already and I have such worries. Does it all sound too idealistic, do I really know what I am talking about? Why am I doing this? Ah - I'm making myself so vulnerable etc.

I then came across Bishop Alan's video of his grand-daughter (correction daughter) (that's me thinking all bishops are of a certain age when they aren't) in the snow and it was wonderful to watch.

I feel just like her, overwhelmed by all the wonder of it and daring to step out in anticipation that whilst it might feel a little strange, it is very beautiful and though I might slip up, there is someone walking with me, watching my every step, not holding onto me quite because they trust that I can do it but ready to catch me as I fall.

So I will try to carry this with me as I move to Friday and the day I go back to the DDO to hand in the forms which underline my commitment to this sense of calling on my life.

Thank you Bishop Alan.

Weekly metaphorical image competition

Hi
I'm starting a new weekly competition for the best application of a particular image to a theological or spiritual/Christian situation.

Entries need to be written up in less than three sentences and they need to be about the Christian life in some way.

Winners will be able to display the badge at the top on their site. There will be a new image every week.

Image for Friday 13th March:

unbibliocentric Barth

Like John the Baptist, Barth has God's Word in his hands and points to Jesus Christ.

What I am enjoying about Barth is his refusal to worship the Bible, as seems apparent in some reformed evangelical circles and yet at the same time, the Bible remains highly honoured and indeed the starting place for all that Barth has to say - there's a fine distinction. However, the purpose of the Bible is to point to Jesus Christ and he is revelation. The Church, in turn, points away from itself and to Jesus Christ in its proclamation of the incarnate and living Word. Our knowledge of God is through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, indirectly from Scripture.

The Bible isn't to be reduced to systematics, scripture's purpose is to mediate knowledge of God by its witness to Jesus Christ, it isn't to be employed as some kind of theological system rationalised and fixed for consumption.

It has been helpful to meditate on this today.

This morning I was in some kind of calm state of panic, in so much as I only realise, now the waters have calmed that I was panicking. I was full of self-doubt, wondering how I am ever going to get to grips with all this theology and with the Bible. I was imagining taking a couple of years off just to read the Bible over and over and every commentary on every one of its 66 books (I'd need more than a couple of years!!). When the study gets too much and my Abelards and Anselms, Barths and Brunners are all getting confused, I find that rooting myself in God again helps - so I usually go to church or chapel or just anywhere really, where I can talk to God and hear preaching about his word rather than theories about atonement or recapitulation etc.

It is at these times that I sense God loving me despite my heresies, my insecurities and my desperation. Here God welcomes me like the child I am and tells me you'll never understand me until the next life, treat yourself as gently as I treat you - I have all the time in the world, so do you.

Now, I'm not sure how open you lot out there are to 'pictures'. Generous God is so good to us, isn't he? At communion tonight, a chap in college had a picture about me and it tallies with a picture that a very good friend had two weeks ago on a similar theme. Tonight, it was a piece of fruit and around it the words 'God's word' were written and the fruit was divided up into segments so that they could be eaten one at a time. I was very grateful for this picture for it speaks hugely into my situation. There is time. I am so desperate to understand God's beautiful story about himself and our relationship with him but I can eat slowly, savour each segment and there is something that cuts through the panic, like the knife through the apple and says rest, breathe, calm down, wait.

God's womb

I have to write again on a topic which generated a lot of posts: the feminine imagery attributed to God in the Bible. I described a few days ago that if I were to preach on Mothering Sunday, I would preach on God's presentation of himself in imagery that is feminine, in descriptions of God as mother.

God as mother captures the sense of the fierce protective instincts which mothers have about the welfare of their children. This nurturing impulse is a divine impulse. We are God's chldren and God helps us to relate to God as to a mother and father so that we might come to understand God better.

The word for 'compassionate' in the Bible in Hebrew is 'raham' which means womb and there are so many places in scripture where God is described with imagery which we associate with the feminine. Our God is compassionate, womb-like? Well, he certainly created us and labours and suffered for us through his Son Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 49:15

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!

Job 38:8
"Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

God transcends gender, as we are all aware, God is spirit and yet God includes what we understand about men and women in descriptive imagery. We are all so used to envisaging God as patriarch, would it really harm our theology to envisage God as matriarch too? If it does damage our faith to envisage God as matriarch, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves why this is. What else is going on in our psychology for this to make us feel uncomfortable. Dwell on God's feminine side.

The Church has worshipped God the patriarch, God the warrior, God the judge, God the rock, God the bridegroom/husband and I am certainly not suggesting that this is not what God is - God is. But we need to widen our view to include all of the other ways in which God is made known to us.

Jesus presents us with a radically inclusive God. Jesus was radical in his treatment of women as was Paul with his 'let her learn' and his corrections to the traditional idea that women were owned by their husbands. Christian men are exhorted to treat their wives as Christ treats the church - this was all radical stuff against a patriarchal, first century back-drop.

God made us male and female in his image and so God is understood in both male and female terms, for only male AND female reflect the image of God.

Tom Wright and Stephen Travis on the atonement

I think if I have understood them correctly Stephen Travis and Tom Wright are presenting a model of the atonement in which Christ is suffering the consequences of our sin, he isn't being 'punished' for our sin. God allowed people to experience their life as alienation and Christ does not die to avert God's wrath but he restores people to God who is grieved that they are far from him and wants to be reconciled and so all of the sin exhausts itself in Jesus Christ. We must be careful in describing atonement as penal – our primary thought must be not God's wrath but his triumph over sin – the wrath of God is not retributive but preventative.

All the evil converged onto this one point - onto Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on the cross defeated violence. He disarmed the principalities and powers – God wanted to liberate the whole of creation and so he exhausts evil, he has it all dealt with by Jesus Christ.

Col 2
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

If we take Penal Substitutionary Atonement alone and out of its biblical context – then we have a warped view – we need instead to see PSA within the framework of a victorious view of God.

Are we a Tom Wright college and Oak Hill is a John Piper college?

So do we read 'Justification' by Tom Wright or 'The Future of Justification by Piper'?
I guess the answer is we read both!

Has Steve Chalke got a point?

Steve Chalke talks about how in the parable of the prodigal son, 'the father is not presented as angry or vengeful or as seeking justice and retribution - instead he simply runs to greet his wayward child, showers him with gifts and welcomes him home. The father in the parable is wronged, but chooses to forgive in order to restore a broken relationship - there is no theme of retribution. Instead, the story is one of outstanding grace, of scandalous love and mercy - how different it would read if penal substitution was the model of atonement.'

Is God's punishment of Jesus really a form of cosmic child abuse?

But Jesus went to the cross voluntarily 'of my own accord' (John 10:17). God forgives us through this substitution. We gain. In abuse, only the abuser gains. Only a someone who was fully man and who was also fully God could nail our sins sufficiently to the cross and then raise us up to partake in the community of the trinity. For Barth Jesus in his humanity deals with God's No and turns it into the yes in his deity. Jesus is both the cast away and the elect. We are the prodigal, are we not? We receive the grace of the father, his love and his mercy because the father looks at us and we are perfect in his eyes, clothed in Christ's righteousness because he has washed our sins away by his blood.

Have I constructed some kind of dodgy theory of the atonement (I've not really started the reading yet, so this is where i am before I educate myself) in which yes, Jesus is put to death in the most terrible way for us but had to and yet did this not to pacify the anger or wrath of the father but simply so that we could enter into the presence of God and be acceptable to him.

Feel free to put me right - just thinking out loud as I read some extracts about the atonement in prep for tomorrow's lectures.

Interesting and short http://www.todaysprophecy.com/Loraine Boettner The Atonement.pdf

In contrast to the Calvinistic thinking of the pdf, Steve Chalke talks of Christ atonement in terms of a 'ransom' paid (Mark 10:45) to the devil not to God (Irenaeus, Greg.of Nyssa, Origen). The devil is tricked - he thinks he has killed God on the cross but what actually is killed on the cross is death and sin. Christ lives, he is resurrected three days later and the devil is defeated. This is the Christus Victor (Gustav Aulen).

I don't think I 'get' Steve Chalke. I don't understand the 'abuse' bit. To put it very simply, if I stood in front of the bus that was about to knock down my children to save their lives, I would have given my life for theirs voluntarily. It wouldn't have simply been taken violently from me. Whether I have to imagine that it is God driving the bus, I don't know. If I do then if I have ensured my children eternal life, by stepping in front of that bus, and I had been born with the purpose of stepping in front of it, and then I got to go and live eternally in the best bus depo forever with my father: God the bus-driver and everyone who ever knew me would get to live forever and come to live in the bus depo too, and I got to live again three days later so that I could tell everyone that they were going to live forever so live now with this knowledge, then the whole 'getting run over by a bus' thing would be good news - wouldn't it? (Now there's a long and silly sentence).

Oh Karl - I'm just not getting it am I?

Well, I have a week to go before I hand in my review of Karl Barth's 'The Humanity of God'. It has been a serious struggle. I'm going to have to settle for less high grades than I did doing my first degree. I kind of feel more at peace about it now. I just can not shut myself away with a pile of theology books when there is so much real theology to be done, if you're with me. When I returned from college on Monday, no matter how contemplative I was trying to be, there was then something very life-givingly real about calling in at a friend for our meeting about the youth group to discuss our Youth For Christ material and which bits we all thought would work. I am also realising that God would not want me to ignore my children for the sake of five more pages about antiomianism or whatever it's called so Karl Barth was dumped tonight for a game of 'Pack your lunchbox - the board game' instead.

I used to think it kind of ironic that there seemed to be a tension between my voluntary work and my college work, I am beginning to realise that the tension is a four way split - family, prep for practical church stuff, prep for academic Christian stuff and now prep for DDO about all of the above. There is one thing which really worries me about ministry- how do you get the time to do all the stuff you have to do for all the people there are to love in this world, as well as making sure you remember to love God and yourself at the same time. Ahhh! Too much to do - too few hours - right Rach - back to Karl Barth!!!

Trying to be contemplative

Linguist Andi Bowsher had us exploring language and creativity this morning. This was a nice juxtaposition to the sombre and weighty words of BCP Morning Praise. We looked at the place for creativity in spirituality. I am very at home with this way of thinking, having looked at language as sign and signifier in linguistics during my first degree.

I also belong to a church which shows real flair in connecting people with God through creative prayer stations. I'm also interested in language in the way we have certain words function in an iconic capacity. We were asked to contemplate a routine object and make it 'other', see it afresh. We were then asked to understand it as 'good'(Gen.) - something created, even if were by man. We were asked to think afresh about naming and how God shares in the creative process with man in his asking Adam to name the animals. In the Koran, in contrast, God instructs man as to the names that he has given. God wants for us to be creative and there is an artist in all of us. The artist in all of us is that being of community - who creates with the tools given by the community and in turn produces something for the enrichment or appreciation of the community.

So I contemplated a pen and here is the poem that sprung up - I only had five minutes.

A PEN
Communicator, memory maker
Incessant scribbling, life shaper
Epistolary tool and lover's waffling fool
Bleeding ink and emotional fillings
Bic and Biro, Parker spillings
Soon replaced and forever dying
Ever needing ink supplying
Threatened by technology
Ubiquitous in shop stationary
Never found when ever needing
To the page your colour feeding
A necessary companion, friend
To our thoughts your blood you lend
Plastic, silver, posh-engraved
So our thoughts salvation saved
Rudely crafted in days of old
From flint and stone, your materials bold
Lighter now and clicked and carried
Not feather from the bird who's tarried
Straight and lean and smooth you lie
So language – it might never die

Stephen Kurht on Women Bishops

From the BBC

"I think they'll make a fuss...[evangelical opponents] They will try and throw their weight around financially - they're large churches generally with quite a lot of money but mostly, I think they'll probably just ignore bishops in the way they always have."

He warns: "I think it'll be very difficult for the first women bishops because I think there'll be all sorts of subtle ways in which some churches will try to undermine their authority.

"I think the first draft of women bishops is going to want lots of prayer and support.

"What I hope will happen is that people will see the blessings that come from women's ministry and they will say, 'Yes - that's what God intended - how did it take us so long to wake up to it?'"

Well said!

You know I can't help but add some ideas here on the famous 1 Tim 2:11-15, for those of you who still remain unconvinced-

I Tim 2 11-15
An NIV footnote explains that the reference to 'women' (1 Tim 2:15) should be translated as 'she'. There is confusion over singular and plural pronouns in these verses. Paul' is not prohibiting women in ordained ministries, just one particular person from teaching falsely (didasko). This woman lacks appropriate education because of women's limited first century opportunities and Paul is being counter-cultural with his 'Let her learn'. It is only because she has been bullying her husband and teaching false doctrine that she should be rebuked. The word authenthein has more the sense of a usurping authority in the Greek. Whatever their gender, Christians should not lord it over each other; Christ is lord. He is prohibiting a 'lording it over each other' attitude, not preaching by women.

Paul's 'Let a woman learn', in the epistle to Timothy, echoes Jesus' own affirmation of Mary when she sat at his feet to learn (Luke 10:42). Kenneth Bailey describes how Mary is 'seated with the men and...the traditional cultural separation between men and women no longer applies.'¹. Tom Wright describes how you would do this 'in order to be a teacher, a rabbi yourself.'² The gospel does a great deal to undo gender demarcations. Priscilla was a teacher with her husband Aquilla. Her name is mentioned six out of seven times before her husband's, (except in 1 Corinthians 16:19) implying she was the more influential. In Paul's letter to the Romans (16:3), he calls her his fellow worker as he does two other women: Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3).

1BAILEY, K.E., Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes. Cultural Studies in the Gospels, p.193-194.

2WRIGHT, N.T., Women's Service in the Church, p.4

We will get there and I'm sure we'll look back on these times as simply a period when a very great number of us, however sincere and godly, were in error. We will need to repent of the Church having ever marginalised women just as we need to repent of the fact that God's precious Word was ever used by Christians to justify slavery.

Jade Goody becomes a Christian today

As I said the Daily Office this morning, I thought about how it was quite weird that all my prayers for the things that I usually pray for were overtaken by thoughts of Jade Goody. I don't really watch much TV so I have only really caught her story through a few radio 4 insights and faith blogs. Anyway I just found out that she has become a Christian today from twitter and Damien's holy smoke link, so there must actually have been a lot of people praying for Jade today. She is attaining more dignity as she leaves this world. She's very brave.

Just had a chance to witness to the 'witnesses'

Interesting this morning. I invited a Jehovah witness in at 10.30 for a conversation about the trinity and John 3:16. It would seem for them Jesus is very much a created being. Interesting nevertheless and she admitted all the problems of their false prophesies about the end of the world. If anyone has any resources for me to witness better, I'd appreciate it.

Rosie Ward on Women in Leadership

Rosie Ward spoke about the call to leadership and how those claiming to be reading scripture at face value cause women hearing the call to question their obedience to God. This was her experience and has been mine. Faith Forster, at Spring Harvest, led on women in the ministry and from listening to what she had to say, women were able to understand what was going on. It would seem Faith Forster was a real gift. I found Gilbert Bilezikian's book freeing in the same sort of way. In her book Rosie references Bilezikian. I know I've waxed lyrical on this blog about Bilezikian but there you go, I'm not the only one. You must read it.

We are to be grateful, to this generation of writers, for all the work that people have put into this area, analysing scripture and looking to the bigger Bible picture to free women to serve. Rosie wrote her book to encourage and inspire women leaders. Many books about leadership have been by men and the resesarch that has taken place in a secular setting into leadership hasn't infiltrated ministry thinking. She attempts to integrate the two.

We have to take a wider view than the difficult passages to avoid slinging the proof-texts at each-other. There is an egalitarian direction to the whole trajectory of scripture and this is at last recognised by the church. This is not a modern debate because Margaret Fell wrote a defense of women preachers in 1667.

Reflecting on what Rosie said, she confirmed for me that we are too hung-up about so-called differences in gender. We do need to think instead about personality and giftings.

Rosie explained how leadership has been seen in male terms and there is a juxtaposition between women and their 'qualities' and leadership 'qualities'. Women have to work out how they can authentically be themselves when the role has been filled by men for the most part.

The idea of power and service is a difficult one. Jesus was a servant leader but some women have been forced into servant roles when this was not a choice. Power is problematic for women. How do we respond to positions of power? We don't want to look exploitative, we are not competing for power, we want to give it away and encourage and build up others if we are truly Christ-like.

There are only 13 women archdeacons and women make up only 8% of senior posts in churches. They are usually not in stipendiary, senior posts. The further on one might think, the more complex things get. It is not women's lack of confidence, it is the system within the church.

Women's voices are heard at Parish level but not so much nationally. Women need to be in these senior posts alongside men. There is a marked lack of women leading larger evangelical churches.

A review of Rosie's book suggested that she did not suggest how we go forward and so she proposes that we work on the following:

Modelling and mentoring

Supporting women

Building self-esteem

Keep praying – change takes time

The issues around women now are different to issues 15 years ago when women were first ordained. We are getting there. But there is a way to go. The church is still learning to accomodate female vicars who have children. Part-time working can marginalise women if we're not careful. It is, however, normal now to see women in ordained ministries. They are simply getting on with the job. At first there was an expectation that women were going to change the Church and this has not happened in the way that was expected. The first generation of women had to prove themselves and it is good that the Church is not burdening women with the responsibility for changing the Church. Rosie discussed how Willow Creek's Nancy Beach had once described 'the freight of being iconic' and how the first ordained women had carried the responsibility for the whole of the ir marginalised group. Judgements about people's experience of one woman preaching perhaps badly were applied to all women, in a way that would never happen with men. It is crazy, isn't it? We would never say that we once heard a man preach and he was dreadful and therefore think all men must be terrible.

John Coyne (Dean of college) soon to be working for CPAS, asked questions about collaborative ministry. We need to think more about men and women working together. Personally, I think that this has to be a better reflection of God's intention for us at our creation and of our mutuality and complementarity. We need to think about how we can make this more effective. Teams should be about integrating personalities more than they are about integrating the genders, gender has to be secondary.

We were encouraged to ask questions and when Rosie was asked whether she thought there are ministries that are more effectively led by men or women, she gracefully answered that we have to look to giftings and not gender. She also confronted the idea of the so-called feminisation of the Church. Men at the front of churches have not led more men than women to church so why the hang-up with the feminisation of the church, women are not bringing more women into church. It's illogical.

I asked whether Rosie felt that provision should be made for traditionalists and let's just say I didn't get the emphatic response I once got from Christina Baxter. Rosie, perhaps wisely, avoided commiting herself to an answer. She did say later however that sometimes for change to happen, people have to be upset.

These are just some of the aspects of Rosie's presentation that impacted me and I have not captured everything she said and it is very much my interpretation of what she said. It is what I heard. (What a postmoden defence! ;))

She spoke in seminar afterwards with female ordinands and it was very interesting to hear the stories of those securing their curacies before I embark on the journey. Some women were finding it hard to secure stipendiary positions because the Church sees them also in the capacity of wife and mother and so prefers to secure NSM women or pay a part-time stipend. Women whose husbands are ordained seem to be in an even worse position. There is the problem of stipendiary ministers having to live in the parish where they serve to contend with, which would ultimately require married couples to live apart if they were both each in charge of a church! There is also the Church's desire to only want to pay one stipend which usually means the female vicar in the pair will not be remunerated.

I will not face this problem, having a husband in secular employment but I do have young children. Of course, in no other area of life would employees offer women less of an income to live off because they will also be caring for children. It's amasing. But then the Church is a very original employee! They do not pay salaries. They pay stipends – a sum of money to live off so that you don't have to work and can dedicate yourself to the Church. They do not have to conform to many of the policies and legislative frameworks that normal employees have to.

And so God made us child-bearers and God calls us to serve him and so the question remains, can the Church affirm women so that they might be everything God has called them to be and serve the Church? I hope so.

Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from the Methodists.

Rosie Ward comes to college tomorrow to talk through Women in leadership roles

This should be great. Rosie is very encouraging. She once visited me when I was going through rather a hard time discerning my calling amongst a fog of voices, real but probably exaggerated by all the reading I was doing (Grudem etc), about how I couldn't possibly have got it right because women can not lead: 1 Tim 2: 11-15 etc!

I am reading her book 'Growing Women leaders' again. It's a shame she didn't publish it a couple of years ago because I must admit it took me a very long time to work through Bilezikian and Tom Wright and Kevin Giles and Elaine Storkey etc and all of those Biblical problem passages - her book helps hugely by summarising the issues. She also touches on ESS Eternal subordination of Jesus - used by some churches to justify limited and subordinate roles for women. My site has explored ESS before, although I think Grudem might not quite be articulating what he is charged with articulating, pushing it to Arianism takes things a bit far but I must admit his arguments for ESS are so subtle, they slip out of any real definition. What exactly is he saying and it is what he does with ESS that causes the problem.

So looking forward to this lecture and seminar.

Reading Pritchard's 'Life and Work of a Priest'

This is lovely:

Gracious God
you have given us the privilege of an open door to your presence.
When life is shining and full, inhabit our joy.
When life is grinding slowly on, touch us with your life.
When we long for a clearer vision of you, open our gauze-covered eyes.
When we studiously avoid your gaze, tempt us with your forgiving smile.
Lead us inexorably to the fulfilment of our lives in the service of your Son,
so that, dipped in God and cherished by your Spirit,
we may come to you, three times blessed,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

And this

One of our fundamental theological convictions is that men and women are made in the image of God, are endlessly loved by him, and will find their fulfillment supremely in him. no matter what they think of Jesus, Jesus thinks they are worth his life, and the priest is an agent of that inexhaustible love. (p.44)

The agony of the now and the not yet...

We live in the 'inbetween times'...such a familiar Christian expression of our state of being, we have to be careful that it doesn't lose its significance. Ministry-shaping is joyous and yet painful and I think that there is some relief to be felt in the fact that the shape will never be finished. When I was a child, I was absolutely enchanted by a story called 'The magic paintbrush' in which a beautifully drawn Chinese boy in traditional dress was given a paintbrush by his artistic and sagacious uncle. The boy began to paint the most beautiful pictures, watercolours of the things which he saw around him, beautiful birds and creatures. As he put the last brush mark in place there was this kind of agonising joy come sorrow, as the bird would come alive in his picture and fly freely away, leaving the boy only with the memory of what he had painted. He decided to leave some of his paintings just slightly unfinished so that they could attract the attention of curious onlookers by being exhibited in a gallery.

We are exhibited and unfinished and there is something very painful about this. We are not quite free whilst we are earthed, because we are not all that we could be, we are free in Jesus, yes, but this freedom is still yet to be fully realised because we are not free from those little hooks which fix us to the wall and we are still awaiting the last brush-stroke which will be given to us when we are glorified.

I have just sat, this morning, listening to a very eloquent man, not bashful about being humble, encouraging in us a humility and an acknowledgement of our unfinishedness which is freeing in itself.

David Runcorn had us meditate on a sculpture of the half-completed Adam which hangs in the north porticoe of the Chartres Cathedral south-west of Paris. In it Adam has his head in God's lap and Adam is not complete. He is being formed. The hands are those of a midwfe, for allegedly they are in exactly the correct position, and they cup Adam's head as a midwife might in delivery of a child. God here is patient and unhurried. He doesn't work under pressure to bring forth the finished article. He has all the time in the world!

So may I, and you, come to see, that we are in process, being made, we are unfinished. God doesn't call for us to be the finished article, he has all the time in the world.

We are part of something still emerging – it is unfinished. Adam is a becomer and the sculptor presents Adam as only half emerged into life – half-way between dust and glory and life and death and heaven and earth.

1 John 3:2

1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.

We are not human beings - we are human-becomers!