Testimonies

This weekend I told part of my testimony at the church where I am serving on placement. I felt very ambivalent about it but I did it. Mine was nothing compared to that of the guy in my formation group, last year, at St John's. You can read his here.

DRAFT BISHOPS AND PRIESTS (CONSECRATION AND ORDINATION OF WOMEN) MEASURE Explanatory Memorandum to the draft Measure as revised in committee Clause

See here

Not sure if I am surprised or not about Tom Wright thinking we should wait before pushing ahead with the consecration of women. If my memory serves me correctly, he was affected by Stephen Veneer's reaction to the proposal in June 2008 and wanted the church to exercise caution. I suppose what we have to admit is that we can not describe this issue as adiaphora because it really is threatening to split the communion, I wonder however how big the wing of the church is that would consider leaving, they are probably smaller than we imagine.
How do we bring theology into this?

Article 34 states:

'It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like, for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, [yet] so that nothing be ordained against God's word.'¹

Hooker describes:

'Canons, Constitutions, and Laws which have been at one time meet, do not prove that the Church should always be bound to follow them.'²

There are interesting implications in Hooker's reasoning for the debate currently impacting Anglicanism, the consecration of women. Although Atkinson³ uses Hooker to support his conservative stance, Hooker reasoned that the church must change if change is justified by considering 'the ende for which it was made, and by the aptnes of thinges therein prescribed unto the same end.'⁴

Hooker's appeal to the Puritan conscience, disturbed by episcopacy, might speak today to those whom, for matters of conscience, can not accept the episcopacy of women. Hooker describes how if 'Things were disputed before they came to be determined; men afterwards were not to dispute any longer, but to obey.' Hooker calls for an obedience to the majority decision as 'ground sufficient for any reasonable man’s conscience... whatsoever his own opinion were as touching the matter before in question.' ⁵

So Hooker's call is for obedience, except if there is 'any just or necessary cause'⁶ against it. However, necessary causes must not be those that can not be substantiated by everyone else's consciences being equally disturbed. He explains, 'Neither wish we that men should do anything which in their hearts they are persuaded they ought not to do, but,' and the “but” betrays, with what follows, that he will not look kindly on individual dissenters, when 'my whole endeavour is to resolve the conscience ... [to] follow the light of sound and sincere judgement, without either cloud of prejudice, or mist of passionate affection.'⁷ Passionate affections can lead people astray, is the implication, and dissenters are to be guided by the majority opinion on a matter of possible controversy.

Hooker's aim, in the middle of controversy, is for unity. 

For Hooker, the unity of the Church centres around its ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4:5-6).

Hooker encourages unity in all things and just as he describes how, 'the Church and the commonwealth... should always dwell lovingly together,'⁸ unity within the church is essential and motivates the way Hooker addresses his opponents with a 'Charity which hopeth all things, [and] prayeth also for all men'.⁹

Aware of the divergent hermeneutical approaches groups brought to the scriptures in his own day, Hooker, like Rowan Williams, would have valued indaba¹⁰ because we have every need to keep listening to one another. Anglicanism, if it really is imbued with Hooker's theological method is a modest, generous and listening church. Although a gifted polemicist, we can perhaps, with a less cynical approach, detect a genuine hope for fraternal unity, and sorrow at the prospect of schism, in Hooker's writings. He trusts that although,

...contentions are now at their highest float...that the day will come...when the passions of former enmity being allayed, we shall with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfeignedly reconciled love, shew ourselves each towards [the] other...¹¹

1 C of E, The Thirty Nine Articles

2 Hooker, Op. cit. BOOK VII, Ch. xv. 14

3 See Atkinson, 'Hooker’s Theological Method and Modern Anglicanism'

4 Hooker, Op. cit. BOOK, III, Ch. x, 1

5 Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Preface, Ch. V. 3,

6 Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Ch. vi. 5, 6

7 Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Ch. vii. 1, 2

8 Hooker, Op. cit. BOOK VIII. Ch. i. 5.

9 Hooker, Op. cit. BOOK V. Ch. xlix. 2

10 See Appendix

11 Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Ch. ix. 4.

Unity must be the aim. Is it possible to see unity preserved and the consecration of women to the episcopate, I hope so. 

Testimony-telling

This is a really strange one for me. It has come up and I have to deliver my testimony, in terms of how God helped me through a difficult situation.

The thing is, my testimony is not radical or earth-shattering. I didn't live one kind of life and then suddenly another. I didn't have addictions that were suddenly removed or failing health that was restored. God took me into a situation that was difficult so that I could work my way through it. God's very Word and the very church he called me into caused me at the same time to scrutinize that very Word and that very church to test the very calling I wondered if I was hearing.

So I will speak about my lack of self-control and God's grace, his faithfulness to his promise, despite my foolhardiness. I will speak about one young woman's response to a sermon that caused her to race wildly around a church carpark clutching her defence, from the Bible, for women in ministry and leadership roles; a defence she posted under car windscreen wipers to be read or discarded as people chose. I will speak about my apologies afterwards, not for my thoughts about the Word and the Anglican church's understanding of it but perhaps for the way I expressed it. I will talk about the grace of God in nurturing me on my journey and putting me in touch with people who understood the agony of his call and its reception in some parts of the church and my developing understanding of how my experience was just one of many over the centuries and slight, really, in comparison to the experiences of most.

It will be strange in the telling.

How do people relate to it and what baggage are they bringing? If they come culturally-ensteeped, they will side with me straight away. You can do anything these days, as a woman. If they come with a particular hermeneutic from the Bible they will frame their thinking by it and yet be able also to support women in servant-leadership positions. If they exercise a particular hermeneutic, they will support women's ordination. They might not support me in my reaction to the opposition. If they exercise a particular hermeneutic, they might not support women's ordination and yet they might support me in the decision I made to speak out.

In a sense, it does not matter whether they agree with what I did or not. I am still ambivalent about it to some extent. It is probably the same with anything you have done in life which crossed cultures or boundaries of what is acceptable and yet was also the occasion by which you came into a renewed or vivified relationship with God. For those whom Jesus set free from addictions or lives of crime, they must regret what they did and yet see it also as the occasion of their meeting with God and being transformed.

So this was my painful time, my standing at odds to the theological position of my local community, the aftermath and personal struggle, the learning and study during and as a consequence. The call continues and the struggle too but the evangelical defense for women in servant-leadership positions in churches is being asserted more confidently as time goes on, that it is also the call of our culture does not help us really. We are, despite this, becoming more adept at articulating it, not as the result of our culture or a liberal expression of the faith but from an evangelical perspective as people with the highest view of Scripture. Two integrities, so much in common. A label wide enough to house us both yet narrow enough in that by it we mean to communicate that through the written Word we meet with the Living Word through the power of his Holy Spirit.

Need resources for 1 Timothy 2: 11-15?

See here for an excellent review on Zens' book about Paul and women

Next challenge

Critically evaluate the causes and consequences of the 18th century "Great Awakening" and assess its legacy today.

Any ideas?

Hooray, pretty sure I will get to explore the Holy Spirit for this one so should be good.

One huge excruciating privilege

Just an update because I felt like it and the work is piling up to such an extent, it will probably be a while before I blog again. Unless I blog my work as I think, which I often do.

Life goes on and decisions get made. We have changed the children's schooling. We have become a one car family. We are probably going to sell the house. We are slowly selling a lot of the contents of our house on Ebay.

It is a time for pruning back, for taking a long hard look at our lives and allowing God to invade every element, for as he gets bigger, his embrace becomes stronger and his perspective is the one we consult. My husband will stay home to support us over the final year, which I will complete as a full-time ordinand. It could mean we will have to move sooner than we had hoped, we will wait and see. If he works away, he earns, if he stays home, we rely on bits of work here and there (and Ebay). It's going to be quite tough. If he works away, the childcare swallows up a lot of what he earns so it all becomes a vicious circle, really.

I think our love-language is 'presence'. I have not actually read the book yet about this way to analyse your relationship but I am happier when he is around. Husbands working away to earn money to keep families in a particular life-style but never to see their famililes - we just don't get that! It works for some, I will not deny it, but the 'well-off and miserable' doesn't compare for us to the 'poor and happy' and by most of the world's standards, we are not poor: food, clothes, roof over our head (for now), what more do we need?

So it's five days hols in a tent rather than two weeks abroad, hardly a trauma!

College life progresses. We are all more comfortable in one another's presence now, a big family, sometimes squabbling but most of the time enjoying each other's idiosyncrasies. We are all so different and it is amazing, beginning to see the passions that God is giving people for particular ministries so that when they talk, they exude vision for that particular hobby-horse, that particular goal, and you can see how they might be used in the future. Some missional, some so evangelistic, some for children, others the marginalised, some exuding the Holy Spirit's effect on their lives, others with a passion to revive liturgy and rediscover the old. We are high church and low church, Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical, Charismatic and earnestly desiring, reluctant charismatic, conservative and open, mainstream middle-England, called to rural, inner city, UPA and suburbia.

The curacy process is beginning and Bishops reports are slowly making their way into our inboxes for our scrutiny. I have not received mine yet and I wonder if anything will surprise me or whether I will instead sense with amazement how well they know me and that rather than being this person indistinct and ordinary, there are particulars about me that distinguish me from other people. I have always found it a little strange to realise distinctness and individuality, it is as if you can see it in others, but living inside your own head every day and waking up in the same body every morning, you wonder if there is anything really distinct about you. There is, I guess.

So reports and CVs will be sent to prospective incumbents and we can only view one church at a time. It is not like you can keep your options open and hedge your bets, keeping one on the back-burner while you investigate another to see if it is better. No, you must see each church through to the end of the process and if you think you discern you are being called somewhere else, you must end relations with one church before investigating another. So I will be praying hard. I have had experiences of God speaking directly into situations, sometimes with surprising answers and so I will trust he will do the same again.

In July, I will work for two weeks on placement with an outreach program to the homeless, the drug-addicted and the marginalised. Before that, I will preach my first proper sermon as an ordinand, on the book of Jonah to about seventy 18 - 40 year olds. In July, I will lead my first service for a congregation of about 300 people in a Charismatic Evangelical church and in August, I will attend 'New Wine' and partner my spiritual director on the prayer ministry team, which always feels like such a huge privilege. It is amazing to see people coming into the presence of God and spend time listening to their angst and desires. Mike Pilavachi preached last Saturday at Trent Vineyard and the Holy Spirit just swept through that place and people came to know Jesus, some of them perhaps for the first time.

The children are taking it all in their stride, too young yet to be embarrassed by the whole thing or even be aware that there is another way to live. It is all normal - God and church and prayer and yes, we are not immune to the occasional complaint but for now, we are enjoying their open-mindedness, the love they have for God, even when they pray prayers like 'Huh, God, thanks for the worst day ever!', when they get a telling-off or can not stay up as late as they were hoping.

Blogging is still a way of keeping in touch, exploring half-baked thoughts, reacting to things that tick me off as carefully as I can. I can usually predict the Australian annoyance at some of my more gender-centred posts. I usually encounter some sort of feedback when I blog about manifestations of the Holy Spirit. It is a great way to research essays and follow links across the world, and keep up with the latest Synod developments before they hit the newspapers, which I find it harder and harder to find time to read these days.

It gives me great joy when blogging friends send me extracts of their latest books or articles I might be interested in. I have just received this part of a book from 'Jesus says Hey', which I really enjoyed:

So God and God’s people go back and forth over the centuries. In fact the metaphor of “lovers” is used by God’s spokespersons to try and get things worked out. They water, they cry and they prune. To no avail. In the last great effort to get things worked out God puts flesh on the Word and Jesus comes into our midst. I like to think about it as the greatest attempt to love ever made. After all is said and done, some of Jesus’ people even see it as a “second start” for creation with Jesus being a new and perfect expression of the first of humankind.


The good stuff balances out the criticism and I do not mind the criticism, it sharpens up my thinking. It helps me to take a long, hard look at myself.

So one more step along the road I go...
and it is all going so fast...
and in many ways it is all a huge excruciating privilege...

...excruciating because it is cruciform - cross-shaped - it is glorious but painful, costly and fulfilling...but I am glad in it!

Wait and then....

h/t B Peters

Glossolalia and the body of believers

“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name(Jesus) shall they cast out devils, they shall SPEAK WITH NEW TONGUES; they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not harm them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” - (MARK 16: 17-18)

‘And they were amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another what meaneth this? Others mocking said these men are full of wine.” - (ACTS 2: 12-13)

This idea that they are full of wine, is this because they are also speaking utterances of otherly prayer language in praise of God? We know, of course, that the gift of tongues was also the gift of diverse languages so that those near to them could hear the gospel message and understand it. 

“The multitude came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled saying one to another; Behold ate not all these which speak Galileans? and now hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born.” - (ACTS 2: 6-8)

It is scriptural, yes, that we lay hands on members of the Christian community and ask for God to fill them with the Holy Spirit, after the pattern of scripture:

“Prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost: for as yet he was fallen on none of them: only they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost.” - (ACTS 8: 15-16)

And here the Holy Spirit empowers these believers and then they are baptised afterwards.

“While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word, and they of the circumcision were astonished as many as came with Peter that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter. Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptised which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” - (ACTS 10: 44-47)

“When they heard this they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them and they spake in tongues and prophesied and all the men were about twelve.” - (ACTS 19: 5-7)

I am realising the extent to which I might have damaged my own acceptance of the Holy Spirit. I seem to have stepped up the act of discernment to such an extent, in the face of the suspicion that is out there (I have read too much cessationist stuff on the net), that I am constantly asking myself whether I am not being emotional or living out of too experientialist a theology. 

Anyway, I continue to wrestle with these things, seeking earnestly to worship in Spirit and truth, to have the Word and the Spirit govern my life. 

Paul explains how “I thank my God I speak with tongues ...” - (I CORINTHIANS 14: 18)

There is such a range of diversity on the issue of tongues. I have been quite captured by the discussion over at New Leaven on this topic. In my formation group this morning, we reflected on the teaching that the year group above us had received on the issue. At my placement church there is a wide-acceptance of the charismatic gifts. I am free to pray this way in ministry with people. We must always be discerning, think always of our brothers and sisters and grow in that most important fruit: love, for one another. If people are not comfortable with it, we need to listen to them. However, surely there must also be lavish exaltation of our beautiful Lord and spontaneity in praise and worship. Having said that, speaking in tongues is more often than not, not emotional and excessive. It seems to be a place where human language runs out and another language begins as the Spirit intercedes. When that runs out too, I find my place of deep silence where there is no language at all.

Female Bible teachers

This is our new lecturer Meda Stamper. She prays to 'Beloved God' before she teaches and takes us through the gospels and Acts, Spirit-filled and full of enthusiasm and insight. She encourages us to engage, be open, question and be creative. She does not suffer fools gladly and is bringing those of us who can sometimes table-dialogue when we shouldn't be, to task. I like her style. She moves quickly from one place in the Bible to the next and we are expected to keep up. It's exciting. She will then pause to go into dramatic monologue, acting out the Magnificat or the beginning of the gospel of Mark and it is just thrilling. She positively shines for Jesus!

St John's has also just appointed a female Old Testament lecturer to teach the Penteteuch.

It is all good! I have already sat both these modules but because of Bap did not complete the assignments. I now get to sit at the feet of these women, second-time around. First-time around they were taught by men. Men and women are equally called to teach, of course and the lecturers before were great too but for women like me, who seem to have few role models and feel so called to teach, this all feels so refreshing.

It is amazing to me, as I am sure it is to God, that Meda Stamper, who also happens to be American, would be denied a teaching post in some American seminaries because of her gender. When I first became interested in the Christian gender wars I followed this story of the sacking of an American female theologian.

We have to continue voicing intelligent, evangelical, apologetics for the teaching ministries of women. The Kingdom will advance because of it. At some point in the future, their oppression will become something we just look back at and gasp.

Reform on women bishops

Word cloud by Eurobishop David Hamid

Below is Reform's latest response to the women bishop debate.


11th May 2010
Reform Initial Response To Revision Committee Report


The Revision Committee’s report on Women in the Episcopate published on 8th May “provides no adequate framework for recognition of our future ministry in the Church of England and so could lead to a serious squeezing of the pipeline for future ordinands” said Revd Rod Thomas, Reform chairman today.


He continued: “It is very disappointing that the Committee, despite a lengthy discussion of the implications of these decisions, has voted to give no adequate statutory provision to those who cannot accept the oversight of a female bishop on Scriptural grounds.


“We very much hope that amendments will be made at July’s General Synod so that we are able to vote on a piece of legislation that seeks to include rather than exclude our ministries now and in the future.”


As evidence of the strength of feeling concerning this innovation, 100 Reform clergy have signed a letter sent to every bishop in advance of the House of Bishops’ meeting next week. This follows a similar letter signed by 50 of the clergy sent in February, and sets out why “the consecration of women bishops would be a mistake and would raise for us great difficulties of conscience and practice, as well as being wrong for our Church as a whole.”


A major practical consequence highlighted by the letter is the pipeline of future ordinands. The 100 churches represented by the letter have sent 286 men into ministry in the Church of England over the last 10 years, of whom 120 were under the age of 30. But these numbers would be seriously squeezed in the future, with Reform clergy encouraging young men to undertake training for ministries outside the Church of England’s formal structures, although within an Anglican tradition.
-Ends-

Read letter sent to bishops by Reform clergy

In the letter Reform speak about how they are going to need to use their money to fund ministries which safeguard them from having to come under the care of a female bishop. "In these circumstances we will have to discuss with our congregations how to foster and protect the ministry they wish to receive. This may well generate a need for the creation of new independent charitable trusts whose purpose will be to finance our future ministries, when the need arises."


No guesses where that money will come from, yep, it's "to be financed from current congregational giving. This will inevitably put a severe strain on our ability to continue to contribute financially to Diocesan funds. " Oh brother, that old story again!

Headship, headship, headship - confused?

Here are some interpretations of Scripture held by Bible-believing Evangelical Christians who believe that women can exercise servant/leadership positions in the church:

Graham Cole on 'Women teaching men: what's the problem?'
The Bible and Gender Equality by Rebecca Merrill Groothuis
Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View by K Bailey
The Biblical Basis for Women’s Service in the Church, N. T. Wright

THE OPENNESS OF GOD CONTROVERSY

How should we conceive of God’s providential relationship to the world? Critically survey the current spectrum of theological opinions and then try to reach your own conclusion. 

I feel a bit nervous about tackling this. I am reading around the net to begin with and feelings are running high in response to open theism, which is, I think, what this question is asking me to tackle fundamentally. Conservative and reformed theologians have not worried about charging open theists with heresy.  I think that I am going to have to be careful not to get caught up in the polarising that occurs. I hope to discover the subtleties, the shades of grey. When I wrote on Penal Substitutionary Atonement last year, I think I failed to grasp the subtelties because I had rather overdosed on the reformed position.

Oh dear, controversies abound, as usual. I need to balance my reading.

So far I am looking at
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion by Michael J. Murray, Michael C. Rea.

This will give me four views on Divine Providence in a chapter on the attributes of God

JB Cobb (ed) & CH Pinnock (ed), Searching for an adequate God : a dialogue between process and free will theists.

BA Ware, God's Lesser Glory 

GA Boyd Is God to blame?

GA Boyd, God at War

CH Pinnock, Most Moved Mover

Hall & Sanders, Does God have a Future

Pinnock & Rice, The Openness of God

 

In my head I'm still fiercely alive

Courage we can pray for.

This is a really moving account. There is no self-pity here but a clarity and the beginning of an acceptance fueled also by hope, that quite takes my breath away.