FCA: what place is there in the Fellowship for women clergy and supporters of women’s ministry at every level of the church?

FCA appears unable to understand why, whilst having so much in common with its commitments, many Anglicans are unable to sign up to FCA.

FCA gives the impression that it is uniting in the face of certain aspects of the outworkings of the faith with which it disagrees. Many suspect one of these developments is ordained women's service. They seem to be a very political organisation and questions are being asked about just how schismatic they will be in practice even if their objective is for unity.

If you are wondering about the launch of FCA on the 6th July, it is worth reading this over at Fulcrum by Andrew Goddard.

Interestingly, Goddard wonders about the place for women in such an organisation. He writes:

FCA: what place is there in the Fellowship for women clergy and supporters of women’s ministry at every level of the church?

Here is where the claims to be a broad coalition and any parallels with Essentials Canada are currently hard to believe. Although it is claimed that women’s ordination is recognised as a “second-order” issue within FCA, many of those most associated with FCA are committed to “male headship” as clear biblical teaching and are firmly opposed to both women priests and women bishops. The concern is that one major factor in uniting those evangelicals and anglo-Catholics currently in FCA is apparently their shared opposition to these developments. Over half the speakers advertised for the launch - both anglo-Catholic and evangelical – are committed to the minority integrity but there is not a single ordained woman speaking (there is only one woman among the 12 speakers on the FCA brochure) or prominent in the Fellowship. The extent to which there can really be fundamental long-term harmony between Reform and Forward in Faith (given their major ecclesiological, liturgical and sacramental differences and the lay presidency sub-culture in parts of one constituency and the gay sub-culture in parts of the other) is a question that must be being asked within both those groupings but there is an even more important set of questions for most evangelicals: If the FCA is correct in its analysis that there is a need for a confessing fellowship in the Church of England because it could soon be headed down the perilous path of TEC, why do they appear so unconcerned that they are not viewed as a welcoming and nourishing place by the many orthodox women priests who share their opposition to such a development? Are evangelicals fully supportive of women’s ministry really as welcome in FCA as Anglo-Catholics opposed to it? Is it surprising - given its public face and most vocal supporters - that many looking in from the outside see FCA as a new alliance which will be resolute in opposing women bishops and create more places where ordained women and their gifts will not be welcome, no matter how orthodox and mission-minded the ordained women are?

Revelations

I present a few notes here on Channel 4's Revelations on channel 4, 7pm Sunday 28th June.

The programme will follow 8 people.
Ed is motivated to find out about God because friends of his urge him to do so.
Dave, a psychology student, has some serious doubts about Hell.
Mel has the sense that there is more to life and she has perhaps felt God in the difficult moments.

They reflect on the course and Ed is disappointed that there is no 'hard sell'. However, Ed doesn't like to be sold anything because as the program progresses, we discover that he raids supermarket bins for free food and is quite addicted to the thrill of getting something for nothing.

The table suspect Ed is the most likely to become a Christian but perhaps they are right, as one of the biggest barriers, I suspect, is our inability to accept that salvation is a free gift. Ed loves his free gifts!

Nicky Gumbel is compared to Tony Blair by the narrator, who goes on to explain how 'Young, pretty Christian women serve food to the agnostics', and this was part of Gumbel's vision!! I'm not sure that this would have been part of Gumbel's plan, would it? Haven't men served the food too?

We are told that 30,000 courses have run in 168 countries.

Ed discusses Alpha with a fellow psychology student who believes that testimonies about the presence of God can be caused by frontal lobe activity. But Ed is won over by how happy his Christian friends are.

Dave is beginning to doubt that happiness can be secured through alcohol and one-night stands.

Ed finds Matthew's portrayal of Jesus to be less than endearing and is worried by a Jesus who seems to condemn lots of people. He wonders if he is beyond redemption but feels that it is not bleak to think like this. He is testing things out.

The programme portrays the Alpha weekend as something quite mysterious and as the audience, we are prompted to anticipate that one of the agnostics will take a giant leap towards Christianity at the 'unexpectedly intense and strange Alpha weekend away'.

Ed declares an awareness of God's presence during two minutes' silence. But the psychology student was meditating instead on corporate silence and the affect it has on a group. Our psychology student does not believe in the soul.

The narrator begins to understand that powerful and emotional things happen in small groups. He dwells on the course's emphasis on the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and mentions Gumbel's reaction to the Toronto Blessing. He presents the Alpha weekend's objective as speaking in tongues as if this is its only aim. Some attendees are rather concerned at the prospect of the 'outlandish'. At the weekend, filming concentrates on worship where the Holy Spirit is invited to come.

(Personally, my own Alpha weekend was void of such a narrow objective and we were taught more about the numerous ways in which the Spirit makes his presence manifest and how he works in your life long-term. I did not speak in tongues on my Alpha weekend, however, I did fall backwards.)

Neal leaves the room. This is not for him. He was overtaken by fear at the unusual.

But Dave was moved, he enjoys the closeness; the music, but he's not entirely sure what's going on. Back in the room and the presenter watches Zita, who has talked earlier about speaking in tongues during her father's passing away, hand Dave a piece of paper which he suspects will change Dave's life. Dave is ministered to and we do not see Dave for the rest of the night.

The next day, they have Holy Communion. We are told that Dave is ecstatic but we also hear from someone who is disappointed by the Alpha course. Tongues has been too extreme. I think I agree with him. If people have no Christian foundations, I think it is a lot to introduce people to after only a few weeks, if they are making a commitment to Jesus for the first time in their lives. Neal makes some pertinent points, witnessing God's creation as an example of one of God's gifts. Mel goes as far as to say that the emphasis on tongues has put her off organised religion.

Ed, who took Holy Communion, is still unsure.

Dave was prayed for and he thinks it's 'nice'.

The narrator is won over by all the 'niceness'. He thinks that 'tongues' is a big risk but he admires the Alpha course for taking risks.

It would seem that the presenter is fairly open-minded. He is not mocking but he does make it sensationalistic by focusing in on a particular aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit. I think it presents a view of Alpha which is biased towards an objective which I do not feel has dominated the Alpha courses that I have attended.

I will continue to watch this series with interest.

As you know I am one of those 'Alpha changed my life' dudes so...

I'll definitely be tuning in 7 pm Sunday. Channel 4.

I wasn't agnostic before attending Alpha but I had become a Christian with a very under-developed pneumatology. I'm not sure why this was. No-one had ever really taught me much about the Holy Spirit. I had a relationship with God and Christ but the Holy Spirit, having always been described as 'ghost', in my child-hood, left me with some strange perceptions. My sister and I talked about God and about Jesus, as we grew up, but not the Holy Spirit.

It was Nicky Gumbel who first explained to me (via video link-up) the Holy Spirit's power and the effect he (or 'she' ;-) I've been keeping up with the Graham King poem controversy) could have on your life.

I then began to discover that thinking on the Holy Spirit is spread across a range of views. I started to get interested in Charismatic Renewal, not new by the time I started looking at it and never new really being an Acts phenomenon. I also started to investigate other views and read a magazine called 'Present Truth', which it took me a while to work out was presenting cessationist views.

I think that I have now settled, seeing the middle ground; that experiences need to be tested and prayed over but also that the Holy Spirit's power cannot be underestimated and it is to be celebrated.

Alpha helped me to understand just what it is that Jesus did for us. Alpha made me understand my own life as just a passing flit of time in God's great big story. It left me with a feeling of awe for the Almighty who could love me despite my sinfulness. I came to understand that the Spirit testifies to my spirit that I am loved by God. It made me want to understand God's nature better by studying the Bible and when I first attended the very first meeting 4 years ago, I knew right there and then that my life was going to change and that particularly September 2008 was going to be significant (it was, I started theological college).

It's such a journey and it is an exciting one in many ways. It is life-long and Alpha is one of the ways that I think God is using to bring a meaning to people's lives that is rooted in him and what it cost him to be in relationship with us. After Alpha, you will find you are rather bolder, and braver and yet also more humble and gentle. Old fears fade and past addictions weaken.

Alpha has changed the life of so many people - thanks be to God.

Jackson's apocalyptic vision of the cosmic reconciliation

Rev 21:4
'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Definitely an unmatched talent.

My girls and I have dropped in on this song recently on Youtube and they were very captured by it. We had been talking about the environment and I had been involved in a planning meeting about how we are to be stewards of creation and that this is our duty as Christians to not rule, as in dominate and exploit but care for our creation...and that this is God's will.

I have a friend who is an environmentalist/pagan and she finds Christianity difficult to understand because it does not seem to present itself as particularly concerned about the cosmos. She is also a vegetarian and cares deeply about animal welfare so I am seriously challenged apologetically by her questions about animal sacrifice in the Old Testament.

I had wanted to use the video above in church to talk about the reconciliation at the end of time of everything to God and how the end is the new beginning as it once was, in some ways, in Genesis and yet not even quite that either.

Anyway, it was thought the video might be a little lost on our traditional congregation but it's one in the bank, along with Queen's 'One Vision' for when I get to preach about Peter (just love that fried Chicken ending).

Maybe it's only in some kind of imaginary ministry that I will get to use these resources but it's fun to think about it, nevertheless.

Back to Michael Jackson. He definitely had the 'wow' factor and I remember when my sister was 13, she was so infatuated by him, my mum had to take her out of the room when she once sat glued to him on TV because she was crying so hard.

I think that there will be a kind of hysteria which will break out as the world reacts to such a loss. The appropriateness of such a reaction being a matter I will not go into, only to say that I think it's very tied up with a misapplication of worship. Micheal Jackson may have been a king to some but 'waking up to find yourself dead' (!) (See below) hardly compares to the God/man who through death, lived again and conferred on all his 'fans' eternal life.

Following Technorati thing again so ignore this one

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It all makes sense...all?...well, you have to work it out a little bit...

I'm reading through Deuteronomy today. It's a good read. I try to approach the Bible like I would a good book, after all it is THE GOOD BOOK. I find a comfortable place, stack up a few refreshments on the table besides me and just get stuck straight in. A few words for a bit of help and an Amen, access to the internet and a few commentaries for the tricky bits and a cup of coffee or two just to keep eyelids engaged.

Some of Moses' decrees (God's decrees) sound strange to modern ears although most of them do not, really. There is reasoning behind them, as we would expect. Some of them just seem to make such wonderful sense.

I'm rather fond of this one and think that it would be good to revive! ;)

New International Version
If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.

Are there any other deuteronomic decrees you think need reviving?

Well, they say Isaiah is like the Bible - but condensed. Even the 39, 27 split.
They also say Deuteronomy is the hinge of the Bible. Hopefully, I'll get to write on Isaiah next year but I think to end this academic year it would be good to get to grips with Deuteronomy. So I quite fancy this question now because it's quite wide and will just enable me to demonstrate, hopefully, what I have learnt regards historical criticism. Any tips would be greatly received.

Discuss the overall shape of the book of Deuteronomy, considering the key critical and theological issues that arise for Christian readers today, and drawing on verses or passages from different parts of the book to illustrate your answer.

Rhythm-filled ruminations on wiggleroom-ology

h/t Bosco Peters

Has reminded me again to get around to ordering 'Humane Christianity' by Alan Bartlett

Neda

Martyred

Friends had begged her not to go, but she replied that she was not afraid to die. "Don't worry, it's just one bullet and then it's over."

"She couldn't stand the injustice of it," said Mr Panahi. "All she wanted was the proper vote of the people to be counted. She wanted to show with her presence that, 'I'm here, I also voted, and my vote wasn't counted'. It was a very peaceful act of protest, without any violence."

Thirty-four million women demand to have female cabinet ministers, 34 million women demand to be eligible to run for president, 34 million women want the civil law to be revised, 34 million women want the family law revised.

Can you imagine !!

Sorry, guys, in that marriage we are all female!

Definitely worth a read.

I remember coming across the 'idea' of marriage continuing in Heaven with an onus on male headship and female submission. I think I thought it peculiar to CBMW and took little notice. It is particularly idiosyncratic of an organisation like CBMW to espouse such a thing. In a sense apologetics is not required. We understand that the Bible does away with marriage as we understand it, between human beings, in Heaven. The metaphor has currency, of course, hence Peter Carrell's amusing retort 'sorry, guys, in that marriage we are all female', wherein Christ is the groom and the Church is the bride.

If you do wonder about what you are being taught, there are some clues that theology might be complementarian. The Anglican Church recognises such teachings as having integrity and we are to listen to one another, which I think is one of the strengths of Anglicanism ie that we are a listening church but sometimes to engage in debate, there needs to be an understanding about where each other sit.

Churches which hold to male headship often also promote particular resources for study: Matthias Press, Cornhill teaching, Wayne Grudem's systematics, Oakhill training, many things Sydney and Jensen, Latimer Trust etc and a preferred version of the Bible would be the ESV.

There are many good things about these resources, they are orthodox and sincere but also tinged with a peculiarly complementarian flavour.

Many people's senses will not even detect the subtle sprinklings but for those of us who have a more developed palette, the seasoning is quite perceptible and sometimes causes a little indigestion.

Peter Carrell's culinary metaphor is more amusing than mine but you'll have to click on the first link for that.

5 books that influenced me

I've been tagged by David Keen at St Aiden to Abbey Manor about the five books that have influenced the way I read the Bible:

Here's the crack:

1. Name the five books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need not be your five favorite books, or even the five with which you most strongly agree. Instead, I want to know what five books have permanently changed the way you think.
2. Tag five others.

So, without further ado

1. I know that I have probably given this book a lot of mileage already but the first book which comes to mind is Gilbert Bilezikian's 'Beyond Sex Roles - What the Bible says about a woman's role in Church and family.' I had been exposed to lots of teaching which prohibited women in ordained ministry so during my process of discernment set out to read some of the arguments for and against. I read some Grudem and Piper and McCarthur and I read the Tom Wright lecture on 'Women's service in the Church:the biblical basis'. I also read Ken Bailey's work on women in 'Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes' but Bilezikian really inspired me. It was because he had purposefully set out to make up his mind on the issue over several years and alongside a whole team of people who met together to discuss the topic. There was a shortage of leaders and they wondered whether they could appoint women. A Christianity Today article, captures for me the reason why this book should be read:

Most Christians will not argue with the primacy of servanthood. But out of Bilezikian's concept of community has come another teaching, more controversial in its outworking: gender equality.

"I am not a feminist," Bilezikian says. "Feminism is about power, and I am about servanthood. I'm not pursuing equality for its own sake; there is no mandate in the Bible to pursue equality. But there is a mandate to establish community. And authentic community necessarily implies full participation of women and men on the basis of spiritual gifts, not on the basis of sex."

Bilezikian was one of the proponents of mutual submission long before it was fashionable in evangelical circles. "Mutual submission is a biblical concept," he says. "The words are used specifically in a number of texts but especially in Ephesians 5:21, where it says be mutually submitted to each other." The wife submits to the husband just as the church does to Christ, but there is a reciprocity, he says: "Christ submits himself in-depth to the church, and the church submits itself in service to Christ. But then the husband is also under submission because he has to love his wife as he loves himself, even to the point of self-sacrifice as Christ loved the church."

Both men and women, then, desire to serve the other rather than to control the other, Bilezikian says.

"Our natural tendency is to compete or take advantage of," he says. "The Bible says lay down your arms and instead extend your hands toward each other to help each other and to support each other; and for the relationship to be one of partnership and mutuality rather than one of hierarchy."

Bilezikian says he tries to live out these principles in his marriage, and they are also evident at his church. Not everyone at Willow Creek initially agreed with Bilezikian's position on women's ministry: among others, Hybels himself taught the traditional view of male headship. After months of study and debate, the church decided that it would support women in any position of leadership—teacher, preacher, elder.

2. The second author is Justin Martyr and I haven't read everything he wrote but I did read and think about THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. Justin the Martyr is one of the earliest apologists, writing c100-c165. He articulated ideas about the Logos. He uses the excellent analogy of the fire which can kindle another fire into life without the first fire being diminished, or the second fire being subordinate because it is derived from the first. Justin helped me in some ways with my apologetical urges against ESS (Eternal subordination of the Son) as espoused by Bruce and Ware. (Irenaeus is clearer in his articulation of the unity of the Father and the Son, though)

I loved reading chapter 54: The origin of Heathen Mythology in THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN, where he described how all the things that man-kind has ever expressed to know have their origin in Wisdom, Logos: the pre-existent Christ, it's just that humanity has not for most of time and history been able to understand from where their knowledge has its origins and it has become twisted by sinfulness. I also love justin Martyr because he sees the cross everywhere:

'For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics do not their work, except with tools which have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended, and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living creature; and this shows no other form than that of the cross. And so it was said by the prophet, "The breath before our face is the Lord Christ."'

Justin is most helpful when considering John's gospel.

3. The third book of influence is 'Recovering Jesus - the witness of the New Testament'by Thomas R Yoder Neufeld. I like this book because it gave me a lot of confidence. As I was preparing to start theological college, I had to decide that Moltmann was something I could return to. I was feeling rather out of my depth, so I picked up Thomas R Yoder Neufeld instead and loved it. He has a snappy style and fueled my interest in the recovery of the historical Jesus: Christology from below. He uses the archaeological tell as a metaphor, which captures my imagination and he takes the reader on a journey of discovery and detection as we dig down to get at the 'facts'. He was the first writer to introduce me to source criticism.

He has a kind of no-nonsense approach I can relate to:

4. The fourth book is 'The Spirit Comes as part of the package' by John Leach.

This book helped me to understand the difference a Church can make to people's discipleship when it really welcomes the Spirit, confidently anticipates the work of the Spirit and expects demonstrations of the spiritual gifts. It also helped me to understand more fully some of the movements of the Spirit that I have experienced in my own life. I think in some ways, like Leach, at the beginning of my spiritual reawakening, I was a reluctant charismatic, not because I didn't welcome the Spirit but because I found articulating the Spirit's work something that could cause disagreement. When I started to study the Spirit's power in Acts, I found a new way of articulating his work so that expressions of Spirit movement in churches today are just a natural biblical phenomenon and something to be celebrated. In a sense, I have come to enjoy the same kind of freedom which Leach describes in his book. I am aware that certain aspects of worship and witness will seem other-worldly to non-Christians or seeking Christians but I also trust that because God is in control, the worshipping community can express itself both boldly and gently to fulfil God's purposes. This book has enabled me to understand better the need to pray for the development of the fruit of gentleness and to pray for courage too and to also thank God for the freedom we have to worship him. It also made the Acts 2 model of the worshipping church very powerful.

5. The last book I would like to mention is Liquid Church by Pete Ward. This book is about mission and it has helped me to articulate my own interest in mission and internet evangelism, in particular. I like the way in which Pete Ward embraces rather than fears change. 'the church is not static and cannot make permanent the forms that prove effective in any particular time and place' 'Church is something that we make with one another by communicating Christ...church happens when people are motivated to communicate with each other.' Pete Ward describes how, 'In Paul's vision of the body of Christ, unity does not arise from living in the same place; rather, it comes from a common allegiance or connection to Christ. Pete Ward does not deny that the church is the body of Christ but he also wants us to understand and make more of the idea that the body of Christ is the Church.He does not accept that church is the only way to express the corporate Christ.
Pete Ward enabled me to understand in new ways just how radical is Paul.

So those are my five books and that was a really helpful exercise.

I see my sponsoring bishop today for the first time - now I've got something to talk about!

I tag John Richardson, David Ould, Peter Carrell, Molly Aley and Poppy Tupper

Defending the incredible

I will start to work now on my OT essay. I think I will write towards this title:
Analyse a passage in the Old Testament which would be considered historically problematic, discussing the historical issues that arise and explaining how the passage might be used with integrity by Christians today who are aware of the difficulties it raises.

If there are things which are historically problematic, ie they seem implausible or there is no substantiating evidence or written accounts that the event actually happened, then I think I am in the arena of 'form criticism' and I need to look at the genre of the piece, its purposes and intentions for those original authors and how and why we make meaning from it today.

The other option will involve me conveying an understanding of 'Source criticism'.
Analyse a passage in the Pentateuch which would often be regarded as a combination of earlier sources, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a source-critical approach to the text and explaining the relevance, or otherwise, of such an approach for Christian use of the text today.

So, better make a start...

The Bible is so cheeky ;)

ASBO JESUS

Now we have to deal with a lot of the above. I wonder sometimes if someone should design a cover and sell the Old Testament on its own, just as an option. I have a Gideon bible I was presented with when I was 14 and it only contains the NT and the Psalms and there was little outrage that the OT was not there.

Now, for this OT edition the jacket would reveal just how steamy some of the stuff is just so we might attract some of the Glitzy Chick-lit readers who wouldn't in a million years think to start reading the OT. The jacket blurb would perhaps single out some of the quotes from the book of Ruth and leave it all a little enigmatic so that readers can't wait to start turning pages.

This would be a good bit to quote:
When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down.

There is one bit of the OT, which perhaps more than any part (although lots of parts make me feel quite sick) makes me squirm and cross my legs and that would be the bit below from Exodus 4:24-26

24 At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched {Moses'} feet with it. [b] "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. 26 So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)

Zipporah, Moses' wife has acted very quickly here to avert disaster by circumcising her son and tricking Yahweh into thinking that Moses too has been circumcised (tricked? Yes, this creates theological difficulties, but anyway) by touching the bloody skin to Moses 'private regions', for which 'feet' of course, is a euphemism. But if feet is a euphemism then we discover that the actions of Ruth with Boaz were actually a little more risque than we might have thought!

Well, they say sex sells. Perhaps if people out on the street were more aware of just how racy the OT is, they would read it.

Of course Song of Solomon is where you really find the passion, but I'll leave analysis of that to Mark Driscoll, who has probably done a lot to promote people's interest in it!! ;)

Defiance

A really excellent film well worth viewing. Provocative and inspiring. Some excellent speeches.
'Our revenge is to live' - powerful stuff.

A helpful foundation for hermeneutics...

...and worth reading in full:

We can listen to the interpretation of others, but... we must not mistake the human interpretation for the actual meaning of reality. The lesson is that intepretation does not create meaning. Meaning precedes intepretation and not the other way around.

But I have now found what I am looking for...

No it's not my poorly attempt to refashion the U2Charist (the Fresh Expressions initiative employing all things Bono) - it's the very good news that I am about to purchase the following musical item from a reputable store.

I just hope my husband, who waits very patiently in the half-light for me to finish my prayers can put up with me now singing them as quietly as I can.

Thinking about the nature of ordained ministry

A letter came through the post this morning - Private, confidential from the Ministry Division etc and my stomach literally leapt, which made me laugh...

It tells me the names of the people at my panel. Reading about them and their backgrounds has been very interesting. As I think about the sorts of things that they might be asking me, I am doing a bit of reading to help shape my thoughts. So reason one million, four hundred and thirty four thousand for why I blog, I will record some of the snappy sentences here so that this might be a resource for my mulling a few things over...

Looking at back issues of The Church Times (Gee, I'm sad!), I've also discovered that in Bradford there used to be a counseling program for those who had been turned down by Bap so that they could talk it through and rebuild their confidence. But rather than going all the way to Bradford, in the event that this happens to me, I'm afraid it's you lot who I will turn to - I'll talk you to deathmyself to recovery...

I figure my pastoral advisor will probably be wanting to know what coping mechanisms I employ to cope with stress. I think I might feel a bit embarrassed explaining how my husband and I work our stress out....no it's not what you're thinking! We role-play ... I said it's not what you're thinking!! No, what I mean is, we act out the roles of the people in a difficult exchange that we might have had and we make each other laugh. We change the endings so that we say what we really wanted to say or we end up just saying really surreal things. You should try it. It works.

The other thing we do is make up newspaper headlines.

So for example, the other day, we thought we would make Chinese stir-fry for tea so we bought that 'seaweed stuff' which is really only cabbage with Chinese spice and brown sugar on top, and by accident I left it in the bottom of the trolley and forgot to add it to the conveyor belt. Thankfully my husband noticed just in time so we didn't get caught for shop-lifting.

As you can imagine, we punctuated the rest of our working day together (upstairs in the study, numerous laptops, one big table) with headlines from my husband particularly (I wouldn't be so presumptuous), like "Would-be first Female Bishop caught in Sainsbury's seaweed scandal" or "Christians caught up in seaweed saga", or "Christians catching disciples for Jesus steal seaweed as bait". So we laugh and we laugh a lot and I am hoping that this is how I will be able to explain my coping mechanisms and I am also hoping that this mechanism continues to work.

Anyway, back to the reason for the entry:
Collecting ideas about Church and what it is:


Christian Priest Today': lecture on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Ripon College, Cuddesdon
The view that the Church is essentially a lot of people who have something in common called Christian faith and get together to share it with each other and communicate it to other people 'outside'...looks a harmless enough view at first, but it is a good way from what the New Testament encourages us to think about the Church – which is that the Church is first of all a kind of space cleared by God through Jesus in which people may become what God made them to be (God's sons and daughters)(I love that bit), and that what we have to do about the Church is not first to organise it as a society but to inhabit it as a climate or a landscape.

(+A B of C)

The apostle is the one to whom responsibility is given for connecting this or that context, this or that community, with the fact of Jesus – and so of connecting communities with each other also.

The priest is therefore in the business of – as we could put it – immersing in Christ's action the gifts and prayers and love of human beings. These things, of themselves, are too weak and compromised to make peace, to sustain the loving relation of God with creation; so they are borne along by the one action that truly and eternally makes peace, the self-giving of the Word.

'The Church is declining', say some people, 'because of too much accommodation to the modern world'; 'no', say others, 'the Church is declining because of too little accommodation to the modern world'. The good priest will want to say no to both these bromides and turn to other kinds of reasoning.

There has to be in every priest just a bit of the poet and artist – enough to keep alive a distaste for nonsense, cheapness of words and ideas, stale and predictable reactions.

Along with whatever training to lead and manage that may be given in preparation for priestly ministry, along with instruction in theology and ethics, there must be active encouragement to nourish this seeing and listening, the novel and the newspaper and the soap opera and the casual conversation– even (especially?) when it looks like wasting time from some points of view. Otherwise, what threatens is what Christianity's greatest critics (Nietzsche above all) have homed in upon – a Christian discourse that is essentially about unreal persons with unreal desires and fears.

... it is about helping believers to see Christ in one another.

It is this familiarity with the face of humanity and this fidelity in prayer that equips us for the most demanding aspect of the interpreter's task. We can't uncover the face of Christ in people unless we have the habit of real attention to human faces in all their diversity – but also the habit of familiarity with the face of Christ. How do we recognise him, let alone help others to do so, if we are not spending time with that face, in the study of Scripture and in adoration and silence? Faithful and persistent looking into the face of Jesus is the essential condition for connecting people with each other; without that, all we can offer is human goodwill, human shrinking from the cost of conflict, our own limited skills of sympathy and listening. But if we try to remain familiar with Jesus, we believe that our listening and mediating has a sacramental dimension, mostly imperceptible to us, but real and energising. We are allowing some fuller reality in to the situation, the reality in whose climate we live: the priestly mediation of Christ.

Ever feel you're just getting away with it, by the skin of your teeth

I have always felt that when I have achieved something or done something to make those around me say 'well done', it was some sort of fluke, I just got lucky, you see, 'they don't know what I am really like' etc. I think we all forget to give God the glory. We do not do things in our own strength but in his. He can give us the words to speak and the patience to endure difficult situations. He can make us shine when we need to, if it is part of his plan. So I am working on being more grateful for the situations I am put in which I manage to cope with. I am trying to be less deferential. Because whether you are boastful or self-denying, it is all bound up with the same thing - self. Even humility can be about self. So give God the glory!

Getting away with it:

Identity

Been reading about the taking down of a blog which was written by a policeman whose identity was uncovered. I have been considering whether anonymity is something which Christian bloggers should think about from a theological point of view. Many of us have policies about not accepting anonymous posts.

David Clough (Grove booklet 'Unweaving the Web') has his reservations about anonymity for we communicate with each other with no sense of fixed identity. So how far is this freeing in that we see past the exterior and into the inner workings of someone's mind. We are unaware perhaps of their gender, age, skin colour, nationality etc. How far is this actually negating or marginalising our physicality and our identity when these things are sacred too and particularly our identity and name from a Christian perspective: Isaiah 43:1

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

In fact the Christian community is all about identity. We name at baptism – we give a Christian name in front of many witnesses as well as before a Holy God. As David Clough describes 'after this naming, the congregation are asked to take responsibility for supporting the new church member in their Christian life. Thus it is the bestowing of this identity that calls for responsibility on the part of the individual, and on the part of those who are called to recognize this new identity.' p. 21

For Israel, being chosen and known by God is to be responsible before God in covenant relationship – perhaps there is a threat to the covenant nature of relationship between human beings in cyberspace. Perhaps therefore it is up to Christians in particular to be as shaped by God in the virtual world as they are in the real world. God is a God of cyberspace too and for Christians his laws pervade this unchaterable space too. Ruth Gledhill, the Times Religion correspondent with her own blog called 'Articles of Faith' has come up with the 10 commandments for bloggers so that there might be the promotion of a shared integrity for those embarking on the discussion of their faiths on internet web-blogs. Divulging your identity in full truthfulness is an essential. There needs to be transparency for the promotion of relationship.

However, in the case of the policeman, it is understandable why he wanted to remain anonymous and in some ways there has been an infringement of his rights to express himself, for which we will all be worse off.

Krish Kandiah, executive director of Churches in Mission has said that:

“In the ever-changing information age, what we need is wisdom for life, and God communicates wisdom to our culture through the Bible on every issue from social justice to social networking.”

However, discerning what that wisdom is might not always be so straightforward.

I might get to discuss some of these things at my selection conference. I am talking about internet faith and the Anglican blogosphere. I've just got to fit it all into five minutes which will be a challenge for someone so: (?) emm

articulate, big-mouthed, chattering, chatty, effusive, eloquent, fluent, full of hot air, gabby, garrulous, glib, long-winded, loose-lipped, loquacious, loudmouthed, mouthy, multiloquent, prolix, rattling, slick, smooth, talky, verbal, verbose, vocal, voluble, windy, wordy

Robust in the face of challenges

I'm quite open at the moment to having the foundations of my faith shook-up a little. It's needed. And in a way - it's okay. The faith is robust.

So I have made a couple of mental notes that I need to pursue some of the thinking here in one or two places. What are your reactions - can we dichotomize (is that a word?) the text in that way?

EMM - Interesting.

Updates on dates, sources and multiple authors

Another enjoyable day at college. My friend and I even got a chance to coin our own theological method. Unimaginatively, we term it the trinitarian approach and we got to go up to the board and draw three circles thus:

Now it's no work of genius I know but it is our reaction to this pulling apart of the Bible with all these methods - source, form and historical critical. We decided that we are good as Anglicans at holding a lot of things in tension. So we will listen to what the historical critics have to say about their source JEDP theory and the form and their theories about parallels with the grand epics of other faiths and cultures but we hope to read the text, prayerfully with God as its author, Christ as its meaning and be open to what the Spirit is doing in applying these truths to our lives.

My friend and I decided that we need to constantly test what the Spirit might be saying against Jesus' teachings - he is the Word incarnate afterall and the Bible is a signpost to him. We also need to decide what God might have been saying to those original listeners. It is not that God's message had changed but with the onslaught of reader-response theory, there are those of us who will make the text 'mean' anything and so we need to look at what it meant for the original audiences in their context and what it means in its original languages. Test everything. I'm pretty sure I'm not finished here ;-) (as if!) and there's one thing for sure, I am more conscious now of the stuff that I just do not know and the inadequacies of my knowing than I would ever have realised. How does anyone ever feel like they are ever going to get their head around all this stuff in one life-time, it's a good job that God knows us completely and thoroughly for we are only ever going to get to scratch the surface with him. My lecturer has read the nineteenth century German critics in German, he can speak Hebrew and sing it! He can understand Greek and Accadian. He has read many of the Dead Sea Scrolls and been to rabinnic school. He is completing a Phd in Genesis one and two, and he says it's all a mystery and he has to rest back in his unknowing. Oh wow! I am only just getting started.

bibliolatry?

This is a useful part of a paper provided by Peter Carrell, my ever-trusty guide, at 'Anglican Down Under', posted here at 'Hermeneutics and human dignity'.

The most general statements of Anglicanism tell us that the scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation ... Other statements of the scripture may be cast in poetic or mythic modes, may reflect early cosmologies. This means they may well have an authority in establishing some large theological concepts about God as Creator or judge, without claiming authority as modern scientific statements. Thus it is possible to have a doctrine of the authority of scripture, as expressive of the authority of God exercised through scripture, and still to be able to make distinctions. There is still a hermeneutic task – to determine the nature and reach of that derived authority of specific texts, in the context of the full revelation of God in Christ; and coming to a deliberation about this will require further hermeneutical methodologies.

It's all quite helpful for tomorrow. I am finding my Old Testament Histories and Law module fascinating and my lecturer's stories are edifying and engaging. It is also all very pastorally enlightening and spiritually uplifting. I had never sung in Hebrew before and this is how we started our first class:

Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad Barukh sheim k'vod, sheim k'vod, malkhuto l'olam va'ed.

Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the lord is One. Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

(I so want to learn Hebrew)

He has an incredible relationship with the Bible and kisses it like a rabbi before we look at it, but last week I found I was only one of a few voices, gently saying 'no, no', to my lecturer's feelings that really, in his opinion, the Bible feels like the fourth member of the trinity. (!) I am much more captured and convinced that humanity is the fourth member of the trinity, and by that, lest you charge me heretical, I allude to the idea of deification - that as the body of Christ, we are lifted up to share in the life of the trinity by faith. Which early church father espoused this? I can't remember - they've all temporarily amalgamated under the academic pressure. But, anyway, I don't want to be a lone voice, shouting (well, not quite) 'no, no' at my lecturer, so it is best, if this is what I am going to be, that I go equipped.

Any advice?

(Woo-hoo - a friend of mine has just emailed me to say she got recommended at her Bap - yay!!!)

See...told you I could read John Piper

Actually because of his generosity, we all can here

'Other' to your brother

I had a really strange experience yesterday. I met my husband's business partner and his family for the first time. They do not know me but they have heard that I work for the church and I am at an Anglican theological college.

It became apparent that there had been preparation in the car on the journey for meeting me i.e. advice to curtail bad language from the wife to the husband, emphatic instructions about behaviour for the young children.

They said that I was not what they were expecting at all. What were they expecting?

He apologised very directly to me for saying 'shit'. I just couldn't help but laugh. They didn't mind me laughing and I told them how funny it was and a little embarrassing that they felt that they had to behave in a certain way to be in my presence.

Thankfully, this didn't last for long, and they were soon laughing too. You're so ordinary they said. Em - yep! You're not what we expected. I didn't really want to know what they did expect, so I didn't ask.

Now all of this was rather amusing but in some ways it was a little tragic too. The last thing I want to do is present this idea of barrier. I'm just as broken and messed up as the next person but perfect in Christ. I'm glad that my ordinariness makes me approachable. I think that they were quite relieved in the end about how ordinary I am and they said that the church needs more ordinary people - which I think is a compliment (?).

I was looking at my vicar deliver his sermon yesterday and became conscious of his gowns and it got me thinking. I wonder sometimes if these things are helpful. There are a mixture of reactions at college. One friend I spoke to said she's going to love the 'dressing up' bit - those gowns cover a multitude of sins (weight-wise). Then we had a rather bizarre conversation about the length of our necks and how really I was rather blessed to have a long one, she will find it hard to fit a dog-collar around hers. A few weeks ago, Bryony led prayer for my fellowship group and amongst other things we prayed focusing on a dog collar because many of the friends I have will be leaving to be ordained soon and that strange little bendy plastic thing just looked so weird and a bit hopeless on the floor next to the other much more colourful and dynamic objects and maybe that's the point...

The gowns and the collar conceal the person below so you are not looking at their body shape or what clothes they wear, how high their heals are or what design they have on the pocket of their trousers. You can focus more easily on Jesus (?). Can you?

But, another thought, isn't all of this disguising the body stuff a bit gnostic?

Jesus took his clothes off on Maundy Thursday and just wore a towel. His naked humanity was on view not for the first time in 24 hours. Now, I am not advocating that I will do my preaching in the buff- could be interesting! But really, all this did just get me thinking...

How comfortable do you feel in all your paraphernalia?

Okay, I know, it's not about you! In what way have you experienced other people's reactions to your paraphernalia?

Do you think the gowns and cassocks and dog collars are helpful?

How did the whole clothing thing get started? I mean, why the white collar? What does it actually signify? Teach me a thing or two.

Chris Moyles - gifted evangelist!?

Just over a week ago I linked to the full hour program that was aired on the BBC with the fantastic worship and the baptisms at Kingsgate Community Church.

You now must listen to this. Thank you Chris Moyles. Let's hope he continues to explore just what he found so fantastically attractive about these people in worship!

More on Corpus Christi

Sam Norton has thrown more light on Corpus Christi over at Elizaphanian.

It has got me thinking again about the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. I have just filled out my application form for theological college for training, should I be recommended, which felt a bit weird because I had figured I would only apply if I knew I had got through. This, however doesn't seem to be the way it works. (In fact, I wonder if I have been in a bit of denial about the whole thing. I kept meeting people at college who were visitors and I would ask them whether they were hoping to come here as an ordinand to which they would reply yes, I would then congratulate them and ask them about their Bap but they would tell me they hadn't been yet, they will go in July. It took me ages to wake up to the fact that I am in the same position. )

Anyway, so they ask in one section if I have any problem with the 39 articles and at first I filled it out essay style (typical!) discussing how I accept their theological truths but also see them as a product of their time; a statement of what the faith is 'not', as well as a statement as to what it is and also a reaction against a type of Catholicism which might not be practised today. On the last score, at this point, I have to say, I'm not sure.

I have attended Polish Catholic Church a couple of times a year with my husband's family and yes, it is a bit different. No Eucharist for me - ouch! No wine for them - em! So I am thinking again what are the real differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Transubstantiation - I understand it - but I have also heard my Catholic mother-in-law talk about how she understands it is not actually turned into Christ's body. Are there some subtleties between 'real presence' and the symbol which I am not quite grasping?

I wonder what explanations my husband is formulating for his family, I also wonder whether his mum (whom I dearly love and do not want to wound) will be upset by her son's decision.

A challenge for you:
Summarise the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism in as few words as you can.

Shouldn't LOL but did!

See an interesting exercise in writing!

Corpus Christi

The lectionary 2009 tells us that today is the 'Day of Thanksgiving for the institution of the Holy Communion' (Corpus Christi) so I've been doing a bit of digging around and have discovered about this festival to celebrate the Holy Eucharist that it parallels Maundy Thursday when Christ instituted the Eucharist and was introduced in the late 13th century. It falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which was on Sunday but wasn't really mentioned in the church where I worship because it was family service that day.

A century before Corpus Christi was introduced, Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, promoted a feast to honour the eucharist. All her life, this French Augustinian nun had longed for a special feast in its honour. She had a vision of the Church under the appearance of the full moon having one dark spot, which signified the absence of such a solemnity. She told her Bishop, later Pope Urban IV, of her vision and he ordered that the feast be celebrated in his diocese.

I have looked for a service to attend near to where I live but didn't find one, which is a shame.

My investigations into the festival's roots got me thinking about whether we listen enough today to the inspired visions of our Christian brothers and sisters. I guess there are a mixture of reactions to the idea of 'a word of knowledge' and they are perhaps associated more with the Charismatic or Pentacostal movements.

Personally, I have found it very encouraging to be in receipt of other people's 'words of knowlege'. I have one friend, who I only really got to know because of the visions he has had about my life. He frequently updates me as to what he has been given and the pictures that he shares are always edifying and interestingly meaningful, although I am still waiting to discern better the full meaning of one or two of them.

I have been asking for this gift lately. Paul does encourage us to eagerly desire the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 14). It is sometimes difficult to discern where my imagination ends and God begins but sometimes images are too powerful and meaningful to not have been inspired. However, I am still growing in this gift and I am not afraid to admit that I am slow to learn.

I think we need to ask God to help us to develop these gifts for the building up of the Church, and also personally, I pray for discernment and perhaps the courage to share what I have seen with people. Mostly up until now I have received pictures which have helped me to understand God's nature better and his direction for my life but just yesterday, I received a picture for someone else and I am not sure now what to do with it.

There might be a mixture of reactions to this post. I am simply on a journey and I share my thoughts as I go, so do feel free to share your experiences of this gift with me or give me guidance.

High church and the articles

...a reflection because I have been thinking about the 39 articles of late. Recently I was in conversation with someone about that most marvellous of articles - 26


Article 26: 26. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments. Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men. Nevertheless, it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty, by just judgment be
deposed.

I have a friend who will visit father somebody or other of an Anglo-Catholic Church for some experience of clerical and congregational life there. I have been thinking about how if, and perhaps when, I have to do the same, I will probably be okay with that. This is an indication, I think, of just how far I have come and how much I have mellowed. I still pay more attention, instinctively, when article 26 is discussed and I am reminded of Edward Norman, who said in 1987, in The Times, that 'If unworthiness in men does not, the divine distribution of sexual attributes certainly should not,' in relation to women administering the eucharist.

I still feel a call to women's ministry online and that I should engage with my sisters, in America, in particular, for there seem to be a great number of women there, living within a very stultifying patriarchal rigid expression of discipleship. But face-to-face, I think I am getting better at letting it go now. The other day I asked the organiser of a new mission initiative if there might be an opportunity for me to shadow him and understand what is really happening at the grass roots, where he is being called, but he suggested that it would be appropriate for me to shadow the mums and toddlers group because there are strong gender demarcations. I smiled and accepted what he said and even wondered, for the first time, whether God was perhaps smiling, saying to me, you know, you're going to have to travel into your discomfort zones and this might be one of yours because it's so acute, this gendered experience for you. So I am in a much better place than I was a year ago and I am excited about the future. I am grateful to Bilezikian, NT Wright and Kenneth Baker for educating me through my difficulties but I am far more able now than I ever was to also consider John Piper for an evening read. Who knows, maybe one day, you'll even catch me reading Wayne Grudem... then again...;)....don't hold your breath...

Getting all my historical periods and conquests confused

Post-exilic, pre-exilic, Babylonian, Persian, sources J and E and D and P. It's getting late and my braincells are frying. So that I can start afresh tomorrow, can anyone recommend a really easy but authoritive and trustworthy Old Testament Bible Timeline, online, so that I can refer to this when I mix up my epochs and peoples.

Thank you

Do you remember those wooden rulers you could get as a child with the history of all our Kings and Queens, which proved to be a great cheat in history classes, I could do with something like that!

Looking at The Old Testament and woah - it's not all faith-building

I'm looking at different methods of Bible study and realising that if I was ever after just straightforward exegesis, I'm not going to get it at college, I'm better off reading the commentaries and studying with my house group. It would seem, it is going to be a lot more complex than that.

At the moment, we are studying The Pentateuch and the different critical approaches scholars adopt. I have to try to train my brain to not read it so allegorically, Christologically or devotionally which is what I want to do driven by the instincts of my faith. I have to learn to start reading it 'critically'.

It is, however, a bit un-nerving. I'm looking briefly at the methods and discover that in applying a Historical-grammatical exegetical method, for instance, the statement of God in Gen. 1.26, 'Let us make humanity in our image', which, is interpreted by most of the Christians I know, as an address by God the Father to the other persons of the Trinity, since God is speaking of 'us' in the plural, becomes for exegetes of the historical-grammatical school nothing of the sort, They deny that the author of Genesis 1 knew anything of the doctrine of the Trinity, since Genesis was written well before the advent of Christianity and the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity; so any such meaning is denied.

I will comment more about my reaction to this later...

...evangelical views of the Bible―are actually too low...or lessons in humility

This in an interesting article by NT Wright for the following snippets which I have been bold enough to give my own titles:

Whose authority is it anyway?

...we imagine that we are ‘reading the text straight’, and that if somebody disagrees with us it must be because they, unlike we ourselves, are secretly using ‘presuppositions’ of this or that sort. This is simply naive, and actually astonishingly arrogant and dangerous.

...evangelicals often use the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ when they mean the authority of evangelical, or Protestant, theology, since the assumption is made that we (evangelicals, or Protestants) are the ones who know and believe what the Bible is saying.

...there is no biblical doctrine of the authority of the Bible. For the most part the Bible itself is much more concerned with doing a whole range of other things rather than talking about itself.

...scripture’s own view of authority focusses on the authority of God himself...If we think for a moment what we are actually saying when we use the phrase ‘authority of scripture’, we must surely acknowledge that this is a shorthand way of saying that, though authority belongs to God, God has somehow invested this authority in scripture.

... God’s authority vested in scripture is designed, as all God’s authority is designed, to liberate human beings, to judge and condemn evil and sin in the world in order to set people free to be fully human. That’s what God is in the business of doing. That is what his authority is there for. And when we use a shorthand phrase like ‘authority of scripture’ that is what we ought to be meaning. It is an authority with this shape and character, this purpose and goal.

Something old, something new

.. there is a sense in which the Old Testament is not the book of the church in the same way that the New Testament is the book of the church. Please do not misunderstand me. The Old Testament is in all sorts of important senses reaffirmed by Paul and Jesus and so on―it is the book of the people of God, God’s book, God’s word etc. But, the Old Testament proclaims itself to be the beginning of that story which has now reached its climax in Jesus; and, as the letter to the Hebrews says, ‘that which is old and wearing out is ready to vanish away’, referring to the
temple. But it is referring also to all those bits of the Old Testament which were good (they
weren’t bad, I’m not advocating a Marcionite position, cutting off the Old Testament) but,
were there for a time as Paul argues very cogently, as in Galatians 3. The New Testament,
building on what God did in the Old, is now the covenant charter for the people of God. We
do not have a temple, we do not have sacrifices―at least, not in the old Jewish sense of either
of those. Both are translated into new meanings in the New Testament. We do not have
kosher laws. We do not require that our male children be circumcised if they are to be part of
the people of God. We do not keep the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. Those were
the boundary markers which the Old Testament laid down for the time when the people of
God was one nation, one geographical entity, with one racial and cultural identity. Now that
the gospel has gone worldwide we thank God that he prepared the way like that; but it is the
New Testament now which is the charter for the church.

What's all this got to do with me and you?
...as Jesus said in John 20, ‘As the Father sent me, even so I send you’. He sends the church into the world, in other words, to be and do for the world what he was and did for Israel. There, I suggest, is the key hermeneutical bridge. By this means we are enabled to move from the bare story-line, that speaks of Jesus as the man who lived and died and did these things in Palestine 2,000 years ago, into an agenda for the church. And that agenda is the same confrontation with the world that Jesus had with Israel: a confrontation involving judgement and mercy. It is a paradoxical confrontation because it is done with God’s authority. It is not done with the authority that we reach for so easily, an authority which will manipulate, or crush, or control, or merely give information about the world. But, rather, it is to be done with an authority with which the church can authentically speak God’s words of judgement and mercy to the world.

Great stuff!
Authority in the church, then, means the church’s authority, with scripture in its hand and
heart, to speak and act for God in his world. It is not simply that we may say, in the church,
‘Are we allowed to do this or that?’ ‘Where are the lines drawn for our behaviour?’ Or, ‘Must
we believe the following 17 doctrines if we are to be really sound?’ God wants the church to
lift up its eyes and see the field ripe for harvest, and to go out, armed with the authority of
scripture; not just to get its own life right within a Christian ghetto, but to use the authority of
scripture to declare to the world authoritatively that Jesus is Lord. And, since the New
Testament is the covenant charter of the people of God, the Holy Spirit, I believe, desires and
longs to do this task in each generation by reawakening people to the freshness of that
covenant, and hence summoning them to fresh covenant tasks.

Gotta spare hour....and haven't read the book yet...

Trying Technorati again

This is a good exercise in a particular fruit - patience!

They want me to copy this code into a post so that they can verify my blog exists:
Technorati Profile

And on a lighter/heavier note...

God changed my life through Alpha...

Deconstruct to reconstruct

I just wanted to point people's attention to this excellent article written by Peter Carrell of Anglican Down Under and Hermeneutics and Human Dignity. At this particular point in my household's lives, where one of us is about to be accepted into the Anglican Church and the other is hoping to work for that same institution, this article is very helpful for how it helps both of us to articulate our pathway and the reasons why we sit within one particular denominational response to discipleship.

It also helps me to articulate that what I am experiencing at college is the latter rather than the former of the following definition of critical scholarship. Sometimes, it might feel as though I am engaging in the former but I just need to sit a little longer and open my ears a little wider and listen until the end of the sentence is spoken, both by myself, my class-mates and my lecturers.

...there is critical scholarship which destroys Scripture (i.e. diminishes, denigrates, deconstructs Scripture as Holy Scripture), and there is critical scholarship which reconstructs Scripture (i.e.like an engine rebuild, pulls Scripture to pieces, examines each piece, then rebuilds it).

Peter Carrell also does much to equip us with words for the apologetic task of presenting the continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Jesus cannot be understood apart the Jewish Scripture, Jewish Scripture cannot be understood apart
from Jesus; what is needed is an interpretation which relates the two – and it is this
that Jesus provides (Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself).

And his postured solution to our communion's divisiveness makes clear sense, but is, of course, marred by our inability to practise it:

One challenge Anglicans face is understanding how a world communion of provincial Anglican churches should organise its life. My argument here is that 1 Corinthians 11:17-12.31 (indeed, the whole of 1 Corinthians) implies the need for the "local" church to bring unresolved difficulties to the "universal" church in order for resolution to be found through teaching based on Scripture.

Thank you, Peter.

Technorati frustrations

Technorati has messed me about - big time
It looks like such a good way to keep up with who is conversing about what, as I discovered, coming across this, of which I was unaware

But Technorati will not let me claim my own blog

Frustrating but my husband is showing me some funny faux news reports on onion.com, which casts all our techie obsessions in a humorous light. Onion.com is also funny/tragic for the way that it represents Christians. I'll let you find your own way to onion.com just in case you think I am endorsing it ;)

Ah Technorati

Excuse the constant blogging - but I like this

I blog to take a break when I've set myself an all-day writing task. I know, some people walk, others drink coffee, I talk...talk...talk - it's therapeutic for me. I'm writing my Bap presentation on what God is up to on the web. I will talk a little about blogging, by the way, so I hope you do not mind me mentioning some of you to my panel...

Like this. Grove books send me their updated list of titles every now and then and always include jokes at the bottom:

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Can you think of any others, I could read during my next break?

I've definitely experienced sarchasm, because in my world, anything is possible, I'm quite often receptive to what people say and do not always get it when they are being sarcastic. I experience gullibility (is that even a word?) too for similar reasons. Gullibullity would be a better word, I reckon.

Happy day

On the 12th July, my husband will be received into the Anglican Church. Effectively, he's a Catholic, you know, on paper, that is. Now there lie our roots - in the catholic and apostolic Church. It has done me a lot of good to understand my heritage but equally we have thought about what happened at the Reformation too and Martin Luther's freedom through an understanding of God's grace, is a teaching that I will never forget.

There are many wonderful Catholic Churches out there and Catholic disciples of Jesus but my husband has come to realise that our faith, built upon the 39 articles and the BCP is his expression of discipleship. We have looked again at the thirty nine articles - the expression of protestantism. It breaks with Catholicism at several points. What I am left wondering a little, is if it convey's an impression of Catholicism, by its declarations of what it is not, which misrepresents today's Catholics. Do they believe that they can earn salvation? Do they still deny their congregations communion wine? I think that they have much in common with me. I imagine that their belief is in salvation through faith in Christ alone.

All I'm saying is that I have a deep love for my Catholic brothers and sisters but we will be celebrating as a family on the day that my husband becomes an Anglican and this will be a very special moment for us.