Made it back into the top 50 biblioblogs after a serious absence. Biblioblogs are varied and informative. I am developing a course on Women's encounters with Jesus through the gospel of John, amongst other things and discovered an entire bibioblog dedicated to 'The Pericope Adulterae' the other day, which will come in useful in helping me to keep the course up-to-date with the latest thinking on this pericope as time goes by.
There is this concern that some of have about how to keep up our academic studies once we are embroiled in parish life. Biblioblogs had been on my horizons for a long time. I am glad to be able to keep up to date with some of the latest thinking in Biblical studies. On my latest horizons has been SBL. Their journal has some good offerings and I think I feel 'at one' with their theological take on things. I realise that with serious bibioblogging and SBL, you need to develop a speciality and I am wondering what shape this might take in the future.
There is a real challenge involved in keeping up to date with all of this stuff. But it's a good challenge.
It will not go away so I guess it's here to stay.
Made a contact over the CREC Peterborough thing with Stephen Goddard, and looking at his website and all the stuff he's involved in is energising, it all proves that internet evangelism is here to stay.
Then there are those long conversations you can have over the net about faith and life. I spoke for over an hour tonight with a certain well-known Unitarian blogger, who whilst his artistic impressions of my countenance leave a lot to be desired, proves to be an interesting theological debating partner. I should probably take up a hobby and go out and play squash or something, but there you go...maybe one day.
28.2.11
BBC piccies Clergy fashion
It took me a while to work out why people kept referencing Star Trek. Think I might need to rethink..."Beam me up Stotty!" (h/t Graham Richards)
Go here to see other piccies from the BBC.
Don't worry about giving me your opinion!
Go here to see other piccies from the BBC.
Don't worry about giving me your opinion!
25.2.11
Did Jesus need to be tortured to death?
I work on answering this question over the next ten days. This means every moment in which I do not have to be doing other things, I will be studying atonement theology. We have to imagine we are answering this question posed in the forum of a cafe church. We are to engage with the post-modern angst which generates such a question as this one. Quite frankly, I can understand why it arises. I have to give an answer in seven minutes, explaining what happened at the cross, perhaps unpacking the cultural conditions that give rise to the question in the first place, probably discussing to some extent what 'torture' is and why it is that Christians do not think that Jesus was tortured in the sense of being a passive victim, covering perhaps also that if this thinking is there, how do we articulate who the perpetrator might be.
I am very much at the beginning of this exercise, excuse me if my initial thoughts are already full of flaws. I wrote a kind of defence of Penal Substitutionary atonement a few years ago as an academic exercise, wanting to get inside the thinking of those who were stimulating my interest in biblical studies: the John Pipers, Don Carsons and conservative evangelicals of this world. It was very rooted in the 'plain reading' of the biblical picture. I have since begun to appreciate that 'plain readings' are anything but plain and reading are conditioned by the presuppositions of the enquirers, the questions which they arrive with and find answers for conditioning the answers that arise, and that interpretations are culturally conditioned. In some ways I am left worse off because gone are the easy days of my evangelical first naivety, for want of a better way of putting it, when I simply said - 'the Bible tells me so.' I have come of age, so to speak, in perhaps a way that makes life a little more complicated now.
At eleven years of age, I first understood what Jesus had gone through for me (oops - that's an overly individualised sentiment according to Garry Williams, (I was eleven!) and I must admit finding it incredibly shocking. I also felt a bit over-protected by a family who had spared me the in depth discussions about the pain Jesus must have gone through. It is not strange that I should revisit all of this. I have come to understand that the same mysteries that grab us somewhere deep continue to resurface.
I feel slightly overwhelmed by the task ahead but also strangely drawn to it. This horror about what happened at the cross is bound to come up in Parish life over and over again and when I re-enter that world outside theological college in that new role, I will possibly, more likely probably, be expected to formulate some kind of an answer.
It might even seem shocking to some of you that this is something to be debated, surely future vicars have this one nailed, pardon the pun, do they not? Well, it just goes to show you how much a product we are these days of the interpretative fixations, hypothesisings and ponderings that are a sign of our postmodernism, more surprising still, is perhaps the idea that curiosity about what happened at the cross is not actually a product of the 'now-culture' at all but has provoked debate for the last two millennia.
Wish me luck - not that we believe in that pagan idea, of course!
I am very much at the beginning of this exercise, excuse me if my initial thoughts are already full of flaws. I wrote a kind of defence of Penal Substitutionary atonement a few years ago as an academic exercise, wanting to get inside the thinking of those who were stimulating my interest in biblical studies: the John Pipers, Don Carsons and conservative evangelicals of this world. It was very rooted in the 'plain reading' of the biblical picture. I have since begun to appreciate that 'plain readings' are anything but plain and reading are conditioned by the presuppositions of the enquirers, the questions which they arrive with and find answers for conditioning the answers that arise, and that interpretations are culturally conditioned. In some ways I am left worse off because gone are the easy days of my evangelical first naivety, for want of a better way of putting it, when I simply said - 'the Bible tells me so.' I have come of age, so to speak, in perhaps a way that makes life a little more complicated now.
At eleven years of age, I first understood what Jesus had gone through for me (oops - that's an overly individualised sentiment according to Garry Williams, (I was eleven!) and I must admit finding it incredibly shocking. I also felt a bit over-protected by a family who had spared me the in depth discussions about the pain Jesus must have gone through. It is not strange that I should revisit all of this. I have come to understand that the same mysteries that grab us somewhere deep continue to resurface.
I feel slightly overwhelmed by the task ahead but also strangely drawn to it. This horror about what happened at the cross is bound to come up in Parish life over and over again and when I re-enter that world outside theological college in that new role, I will possibly, more likely probably, be expected to formulate some kind of an answer.
It might even seem shocking to some of you that this is something to be debated, surely future vicars have this one nailed, pardon the pun, do they not? Well, it just goes to show you how much a product we are these days of the interpretative fixations, hypothesisings and ponderings that are a sign of our postmodernism, more surprising still, is perhaps the idea that curiosity about what happened at the cross is not actually a product of the 'now-culture' at all but has provoked debate for the last two millennia.
Wish me luck - not that we believe in that pagan idea, of course!
24.2.11
Anglia Regional News | Anglia Tonight - ITV Local
Anglia Regional News | Anglia Tonight - ITV Local
On TV to promote new clergy attire from Cross Designs with my mate Anna
23.2.11
Around the blogosphere
Marriage
This makes for good reading.
To follow through on responses to the Harvard journal contribution to the debate see here
Peter Ould continues to apply his thinking here
This makes for good reading.
To follow through on responses to the Harvard journal contribution to the debate see here
Peter Ould continues to apply his thinking here
18.2.11
Keep on listening says Richard Hooker
Richard Hooker! He helps us in a church without a tight confessional doctrinal package.
We have the 39 articles, the confessional creeds of four councils, a book of Common Prayer, or Common Worship, (which does not quite replace the prayer book) and a lectionary so that we might read the Scriptures together and in order. We also have the ordinal to govern the ceremonies pertaining to the offices.
Richard Hooker's was a generous orthodoxy in which he argued that those mistaken were unlikely to be damned. He insisted very much on something rather akin to indaba - a listening process, so that we might all learn from each other and together. He was less antagonistic and more optimistic. Scripture is infallible but it doesn't pertain to governing every detail of our life with prescription, we need reason to work out how our lives might be led according to the supernatural duties of scripture. We understand what is morally right by looking at human nature as God has created it. Hooker is less enthusiastic about tradition and holds fast to the supremacy of Scripture but he expects us to be thinking beings and rather like Tom Wright's five act play idea, asks that we work out how the church conducts itself based on what has been revealed to us by God with the understanding that the church will change as it adapts to new times and different cultures. There are, of course, some absolutes, particularly pertaining to salvation.
I have a feeling that his method will impact my thinking regarding what today threatens to pull the church apart. Forces are not coming in at us from the outside as they did at the Reformation, Puritans on the one hand and Catholics on the other but from the inside. Factions within the church disagree over the ordination/consecration of women and the place of those in same-sex relations. I wonder what Hooker's Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity reveal about what his stance would have been on these two issues and what he would have proposed as solutions.
We have the 39 articles, the confessional creeds of four councils, a book of Common Prayer, or Common Worship, (which does not quite replace the prayer book) and a lectionary so that we might read the Scriptures together and in order. We also have the ordinal to govern the ceremonies pertaining to the offices.
Richard Hooker's was a generous orthodoxy in which he argued that those mistaken were unlikely to be damned. He insisted very much on something rather akin to indaba - a listening process, so that we might all learn from each other and together. He was less antagonistic and more optimistic. Scripture is infallible but it doesn't pertain to governing every detail of our life with prescription, we need reason to work out how our lives might be led according to the supernatural duties of scripture. We understand what is morally right by looking at human nature as God has created it. Hooker is less enthusiastic about tradition and holds fast to the supremacy of Scripture but he expects us to be thinking beings and rather like Tom Wright's five act play idea, asks that we work out how the church conducts itself based on what has been revealed to us by God with the understanding that the church will change as it adapts to new times and different cultures. There are, of course, some absolutes, particularly pertaining to salvation.
I have a feeling that his method will impact my thinking regarding what today threatens to pull the church apart. Forces are not coming in at us from the outside as they did at the Reformation, Puritans on the one hand and Catholics on the other but from the inside. Factions within the church disagree over the ordination/consecration of women and the place of those in same-sex relations. I wonder what Hooker's Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity reveal about what his stance would have been on these two issues and what he would have proposed as solutions.
Even if these debates can at times make us miserable, (in Hooker's words) one thing's for sure:
... we are happy, therefore, when fully we enjoy God, as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied even with the everlasting delight; so that although we be man, yet by being unto God united we live as it were the life of God.
... we are happy, therefore, when fully we enjoy God, as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied even with the everlasting delight; so that although we be man, yet by being unto God united we live as it were the life of God.
15.2.11
Ministry and Motherhood conference
Click the title for the link
or
Download flyer/booking form here
Described this way:
A day conference with Revd Dr Emma Percy exploring the theological, missional, ministerial and practical implications of this relatively un–visited topic. Emma’s writing and research explores the interface of mothering and ministry and how that dialogue can inform and enrich our self-understanding and ministerial practice.
This conference is not just for women clergy/ministers with children but for anyone – male and female, married and single – who wants to think about the impact of this theme in the Church and wider society.
This came to my attention through the "Clergy mummies" facebook page. This group has attracted 113 members now and has grown very quickly over just a few weeks. There are a great many of us in ministry within the Church of England who have small children. Some of us have husbands who have taken on the main carer roles in terms of school runs and housework. I wonder if over the coming years, we will see more support/social/faith groups for men whose wives are church leaders.
or
Download flyer/booking form here
Described this way:
A day conference with Revd Dr Emma Percy exploring the theological, missional, ministerial and practical implications of this relatively un–visited topic. Emma’s writing and research explores the interface of mothering and ministry and how that dialogue can inform and enrich our self-understanding and ministerial practice.
This conference is not just for women clergy/ministers with children but for anyone – male and female, married and single – who wants to think about the impact of this theme in the Church and wider society.
This came to my attention through the "Clergy mummies" facebook page. This group has attracted 113 members now and has grown very quickly over just a few weeks. There are a great many of us in ministry within the Church of England who have small children. Some of us have husbands who have taken on the main carer roles in terms of school runs and housework. I wonder if over the coming years, we will see more support/social/faith groups for men whose wives are church leaders.
Righteouness by faith in Christ or the faithfulness of Christ to us?
We are looking at Romans with Dr Mark Bonnington.
There are different readings of Galatians 2:16 and Romans 3:22.
...know that a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
There are different readings of Galatians 2:16 and Romans 3:22.
...know that a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
.....know that a person is not justified by observing the law, but by the faithfulness of Christ.
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
This righteousness is given through the faithfulness of Christ to all who believe.
Try placing 'the faithfulness of Christ' for 'faith in Christ' and there are subtle differences. Hayes and NT Wright prefer this rendering and therein emphasise the historic work of Christ rather than the personal work of Christ - our faith in Christ.
Our faith in Christ or Christ's faithfulness to us? The ambiguity is there in the Greek.
The early church fathers rendered it the first way.
Try placing 'the faithfulness of Christ' for 'faith in Christ' and there are subtle differences. Hayes and NT Wright prefer this rendering and therein emphasise the historic work of Christ rather than the personal work of Christ - our faith in Christ.
Our faith in Christ or Christ's faithfulness to us? The ambiguity is there in the Greek.
The early church fathers rendered it the first way.
Love this from Erika Baker
...the collective testimony of people who all experience the "purely subjective" and grapple to put it into words
.... something real can be found in [the] subjective.
... a professor of music ... knows all the theory better than I ever will but ... has never listened to a single note, never actually heard a piece being played. Who speaks of “linguistic work having already been done” as if that said anything meaningful about the tunes being played.
And in some respects, I'm full of admiration, because I certainly would not have spent years of my life trying to understand the theory of something that isn't actually real to me.
It's not surprising that when the written notes and the theories surrounding the written notes disappear there is nothing left ....
But for those of us who are still in the concert hall, the written notes are entirely incidental to what we're hearing. And when we leave the concert hall and try to describe what we've heard, we find that our language just doesn't do the trick. I mean - how would you describe the second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto in words? Those who heard it, will understand parts of the clumsy description we might try to make and the clumsy description, the faulty written notes ...
But how do you speak to someone who can only see written notes and who believes the concert to be "purely subjective"?
So your question about why we keep using ancient concepts and ancient language is quite simple: because it works. Because to those who’ve been at the concert, those words and those concepts are what helps them to stay in touch with the music. Because the biblical text we refer to happens to have been written so long ago that its language is, naturally, archaic, and because we discover that while we might read the “Street Bible” or any other of the modern permutations that abound, we find that we’re quite content with the ancient images.
.... something real can be found in [the] subjective.
... a professor of music ... knows all the theory better than I ever will but ... has never listened to a single note, never actually heard a piece being played. Who speaks of “linguistic work having already been done” as if that said anything meaningful about the tunes being played.
And in some respects, I'm full of admiration, because I certainly would not have spent years of my life trying to understand the theory of something that isn't actually real to me.
It's not surprising that when the written notes and the theories surrounding the written notes disappear there is nothing left ....
But for those of us who are still in the concert hall, the written notes are entirely incidental to what we're hearing. And when we leave the concert hall and try to describe what we've heard, we find that our language just doesn't do the trick. I mean - how would you describe the second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto in words? Those who heard it, will understand parts of the clumsy description we might try to make and the clumsy description, the faulty written notes ...
But how do you speak to someone who can only see written notes and who believes the concert to be "purely subjective"?
So your question about why we keep using ancient concepts and ancient language is quite simple: because it works. Because to those who’ve been at the concert, those words and those concepts are what helps them to stay in touch with the music. Because the biblical text we refer to happens to have been written so long ago that its language is, naturally, archaic, and because we discover that while we might read the “Street Bible” or any other of the modern permutations that abound, we find that we’re quite content with the ancient images.
14.2.11
Thinking alike: Eternal Subordination of the Son
See Tim Harris here as he explains with real clarity the relationship within the trinity and its implications.
We can note that there is not reciprocal identity—they are distinct and not to be confused. And without making the error of suggesting that there was a time when the Son did not exist, we also observe the Father is the kephale – source of the Son, and the Son is ‘begotten’ of the Father, while the Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father. This much is not the point of this post, but the backdrop to what follows.
While the hot issue is whether the Son’s submission is eternal (and if so, whether this is functional or ontological), I wonder whether the wrong question is being explored. It is less the timeframe of such submission, but how that ‘submission’ is understood. Is it necessarily a hierarchical notion, of command and submission?
H/t Peter Carrell
We can note that there is not reciprocal identity—they are distinct and not to be confused. And without making the error of suggesting that there was a time when the Son did not exist, we also observe the Father is the kephale – source of the Son, and the Son is ‘begotten’ of the Father, while the Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father. This much is not the point of this post, but the backdrop to what follows.
While the hot issue is whether the Son’s submission is eternal (and if so, whether this is functional or ontological), I wonder whether the wrong question is being explored. It is less the timeframe of such submission, but how that ‘submission’ is understood. Is it necessarily a hierarchical notion, of command and submission?
H/t Peter Carrell
13.2.11
To dunk or sprinkle
There are thoughts that they will change the language of the baptism service to make it more accessible.
A few months ago I chatted with someone over a St John's lunch who is already ordained and had returned for an in-service study week. When you are sat next to someone doing the job for real, it is always interesting. Ordinands theorise and attempt to get their theology in order. Practical ministry shapes these theories and sorts out the naivities. So, this chatty vicar, ten years a Christian and in his second year of curacy, had found Jesus in the RAF (not literally, but you know what I mean).
He explained how he had entertained his lunch companions the day before with a discussion about infant baptism, which had rather divided his friends, whose minds had not been changed by the end of it. I think he probably wanted to instigate such a conversation on our lunch table but only I was prepared to enter into it. Before it really got established, we were interrupted by lunch-time notices.
I think I probably hold very uncontroversial opinions about baptism. I will baptise members of the community who desire this, even if they do not yet come to church. I believe that it is a chance for God's grace to win victories and for lives to be won for Christ.
Richard Hooker talks about the church visible and the church invisible. For Hooker, inclusion in the visible church requires baptism and a minimal profession of Christian belief. The invisible church is that ‘church which is his [Christ's] mystical body' because that body 'consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abrabam, true servants and saints of God'. For Hooker, the church invisible can only be seen by God, not us. 'They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others as are not object unto our sense: only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest.’ If this is the case, who am I to turn anyone away who seeks baptism and why would I value more the decisions of those whom the church has initiated, for whatever the church does to prepare its candidates, God knows the state of our heart.
Richard Hooker talks about the church visible and the church invisible. For Hooker, inclusion in the visible church requires baptism and a minimal profession of Christian belief. The invisible church is that ‘church which is his [Christ's] mystical body' because that body 'consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abrabam, true servants and saints of God'. For Hooker, the church invisible can only be seen by God, not us. 'They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others as are not object unto our sense: only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest.’ If this is the case, who am I to turn anyone away who seeks baptism and why would I value more the decisions of those whom the church has initiated, for whatever the church does to prepare its candidates, God knows the state of our heart.
The curate I was speaking with warned me that our opinions can change once we are actually in the very practical business of ministry to a community, so I am prepared for this to happen. However, I am also aware that Church of England ministers are not actually allowed to withhold baptism from a family desiring the christening of their child, so in some ways I am relieved that I feel as I do.
Inviting a family in to the church for this sort of occasion is an opportunity to reach out to them and offer God's hospitality. They might also bring something new to the church. If they are unchurched, there is the opportunity that they can share with us what we look like objectively. They help to make strange again perhaps what to us has become familiar and when we see Jesus again with fresh eyes and the foolisheness of the gospel again, I think we are reorientated in awe and wonder.
To return to Richard Hooker, I rather enjoy his generous orthodoxy and that charity 'which hopeth all things, prayeth also for all men (people).'
So...
What are we doing when we baptise?
What is your theology of baptism?
Should we baptise babies?
Should baptism only be of those who understand the commitment they are making?
Baptism - what is it? Initiation? Commitment? Sign? Beginning?
What about those in the Bible who have been baptised in the Holy Spirit and then water-baptism comes second?
What about the Ethiopian - his baptism was witnessed by God (and Philip) but not the community?
What do you think?
What do you think?
Putting on the beauty of holiness
Tomorrow I take shoes and various pieces of clothes to college to arrange with clergy shirts I have had made to measure. Some are nipped in at the waist, others have capped sleeves. Some are patterned. I have had a dress made up for my ordination for underneath my cassock. A friend and I will model clergy clothes for the international Christian Resources exhibition next week in Peterborough and so the tailor coming to college want to make sure that our outfits are in good order and we can walk nicely in the shoes we have selected. We will also model albs and cassocks, bib stocks and the new clergy crop top, which can be worn underneath your every-day clothes.
The male vicar of my sending church performed a full immersion baptism of two new members of our congregation sporting a rather tasteful pink/lilac shirt this evening.
So does any of this matter? Should it matter? And if it does, why does it matter?
If embodied ministry is about taking the whole of me into ministry, then that bit of me that cares about clothes, can that come too?
It is so tempting to value more our thoughts and all that 'soul-stuff' over anything associated with surface and body. Does a wholistic theology help us to avoid body/soul dichotomies?
How do I feel about the fact that I present myself 'made-up' and suitably high heeled to the world? Should I be 'free' of make-up and heels? I have been challenged to give these things up to see what it would mean to me. It was not particularly formative. I just felt like somebody else, so I am now back to being me again. Do I really honour God more with a naked face? I once heard a lecture about how 'Praising God in the beauty of holiness' is about putting on your finest garments to praise the Lord. Is this just want I want to hear? So am I presenting the best version of myself to a world in which I meet God in those people he has formed in his image? Is that my motivation, or am I just stuck in a habit about what I should look like? Do I care about what I look like for the wrong or the right reasons?
Is a biblical view of the body different to the 'church's' view of the body?
How do Christians feel about their bodies?
Do Christians care about vicars who care about what they look like? Is it a relief? Should it be that by our clothes we reflect that we are not of the world? Is it considered vanity? Is it none of the above?
Does this topic raise different questions for the genders?
For men there is a lack of vocabulary about body issues, a lack of creative attention to the body. How do men come to feel about their bodies in the world and within faith? It is not addressed by Christian literature to the extent that it is for women. How do male vicars make decisions about their clothes?
If matter matters to God, do our clothes matter too?
It is certainly more platonic than biblical to try to escape the body. By the very nature of the incarnation, we can not escape the fact that the body is good.
Rubem Alves explains how maybe we have constructed a theology of finding God beyond, at the end of the body, when in actual fact God becomes in the body, he takes on flesh. We need to redeem the misapplications of a misunderstood 'sarx' theology. Our salvation is bodily. God became incarnate. There is no dichotomy. There is no flesh/body split.
...so with a right theology, a sense of humility and a lot of fun perhaps I will continue to enjoy selecting sleeve lengths and prints and feeling it such a massive privilege that some clever seamstress would make a shirt just for me that nips in ever so nicely at the waist!
Perhaps you will convince me otherwise.
12.2.11
10.2.11
Are you Biblical?
"The Bible says...."
"Are you a Bible-believing Christian?"
"But if you follow the Bible..."
Emmm.
This happens a lot. Try explaining '"The Bible says..." is problematic. Different approaches begin with different suppositions regarding the answers that they are going to find'. Try saying, 'Well, I practice a .... hermeneutic', or even 'together with the Church of England, it would appear that the Bible might ....' and it could be that you will lose people.
Stendhal, who foreshadows the New Perspective, describes biblical theology in terms of its meaning in the past which we excavate. But doesn't the theology come first in so much as we read with faith and come with presuppositions. Is the excavation polluted? I wonder about Stendhal, I need to read his work. Is he aware that as we excavate, we are adding our own ingredients to this earth that we are digging through; we are pulling out a precious treasure that has had its hue changed by what else has fallen down the archaeologist's hole?
We consider Kelsey's overview of the way that the Bible is used in theological argumentation. Propositional truths are revelation for someone like BB Warfield. For GE Wright the archaeology is important for meaning. For Tillich, the symbolism of the Bible is revelatory. Barth's is an emphasis that examines the narrative disclosure of God's ascendancy in the text: his agency. All would agree that God speaks through scripture. In community the church decides its meaning so that living in the light of scripture is transformative. There is more besides, meriting a separate entry and probably developing ideas in-keeping with Barth.
Perhaps we need to hold numerous approaches in tension. There are numerous approaches.
Key to all of this is a self-consciousness: what do we mean when we say we are biblical? We need to actually articulate our starting points and admit that we are flawed and influenced; that we are not neutral; that our starting point is not clean. This is not post-modern nonsense. Interpretation is inescapable. The Bible itself interprets the Bible.
DA Carson is dedicated to exploring Biblical inerrancy. It is interesting that the footage we watch of Carson presents him as open to the variety and the complexity, hinting at the superintendence of the Spirit, in presenting everything that should be there as it is and the final picture of the Bible culminating in what it is, exactly as God would have it be. But I know that within that, he practises a particular hermeneutic, particularly of the problem texts for women. Unfortunately, when I hear Carson, I am coloured in my appreciation of what he has to say, however valid, by the hermeneutic he practises with which I disagree. I try to listen. If I were freer of my presuppositions, I would hear more clearly. It is not easy. Is my awareness of the difficulty at least something? I am not sure.
This blog has investigated before the 'plain reading fallacy' that I feel can so infect us all. I understand now that 'plain reading' is an approach all in itself and what is often plain about it is often only its predictable trajectory. But then I come to make that statement because of my presuppositions!
6.2.11
Do you know what I mean when I speak? Deconstruction and confusion.
That slippery thing that is language. For Derrida language games that work in the French do not work in the English. Sometimes his own methods call into question that slippery thing that is language, it all folds in on itself, which is perhaps what he is alerting us to in the first place.
Indaba is all about listening and talking. It means 'a gathering for purposeful discussion.' I will go to New York in May for Continuing conversation Indaba. You can find out about it here.
I will join the Derby cohort and I am hoping I can blog what happens, although I will ask permission first.
The Anglican communion is unsettled and many of the blogged responses to the Primates Meeting leave me feeling a little disheartened about those who chose to stay away. I guess, as much as anyone, I am complicit in this talking past each other, polarising and failing to use language responsibly at times. I hope to contribute, a little, to Indaba but to learn a lot. We have to at least attempt to understand each other, if we do not there can be dangerous consequences.
Indaba is all about listening and talking. It means 'a gathering for purposeful discussion.' I will go to New York in May for Continuing conversation Indaba. You can find out about it here.
Pilot Conversations will involve typically a mix of eight lay and ordained participants from three dioceses all visiting the other dioceses to learn first-hand the challenges and opportunities of those contexts. They will also engage in facilitated conversations on a whole range of topics that have the potential to cause disunity in the body of Christ.
The ultimate aim of these visits is to enrich local and global mission in all three participating dioceses.
The four Pilot Conversations so far agreed are taking place between the dioceses of:
- Hong Kong, Jamaica and Toronto;
- Delhi, Mumbai, New York and Derby;
- Western Tanganyika, Gloucester and El Camino Real; and
- Peru, Mexico and Southeast Florida.
The Anglican communion is unsettled and many of the blogged responses to the Primates Meeting leave me feeling a little disheartened about those who chose to stay away. I guess, as much as anyone, I am complicit in this talking past each other, polarising and failing to use language responsibly at times. I hope to contribute, a little, to Indaba but to learn a lot. We have to at least attempt to understand each other, if we do not there can be dangerous consequences.
Deconstruction is the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God
I am reading Caputo's 'What would Jesus deconstruct?' It is introduced by Brian MClaren which will immediately raise the suspicions of all those who vilify emerging and postmodern church. MClaren explains how the 'powerful ghost of the Religious Right...hovers ominously over his [Caputo's] right shoulder,' a ghost whose whisperings I am sure MClaren would quickly recognise.
I want to know more about this Jesus who stands 'with the "other".' I have just discovered 'Benny's blog' and I have a feeling that this is a Jesus he has come to know well.
Caputo seems to be asking us whether the church would define Jesus a heretic if he were to come back right now and go about his Kingdom-growing business. This is a question Adrian Chatfield hinted at in his analysis of Jonah at the college quiet day last Wednesday. My Bishop, Alastair Redfern was possibly hinting at this too as he asked us to focus on the radical inclusivity of God's plan for salvation as it extends itself even to the cattle at the close of the story about this often misunderstood prophet. It is a question that I think D'Costa is also asking the church to consider.
The problem with asking what Jesus would deconstruct only to realise that it is the church that he would deconstruct, is that this is the institution to which I have nailed my flag and out of which I will live out this following of Jesus. So, I suppose the 'church' Jesus would deconstruct is the institutional church rather than the church that is the body of Christ, the often invisible church. However, it leaves me in a somewhat uncomfortable place.
I think Caputo wants us to ask not WWJD, What would Jesus do? but What is Jesus doing? And are we really joining in?
Caputo will not think of the New Testament as politics, ethics or dogmatics but a poetics calling for transformation.
I want to know more about this Jesus who stands 'with the "other".' I have just discovered 'Benny's blog' and I have a feeling that this is a Jesus he has come to know well.
Caputo seems to be asking us whether the church would define Jesus a heretic if he were to come back right now and go about his Kingdom-growing business. This is a question Adrian Chatfield hinted at in his analysis of Jonah at the college quiet day last Wednesday. My Bishop, Alastair Redfern was possibly hinting at this too as he asked us to focus on the radical inclusivity of God's plan for salvation as it extends itself even to the cattle at the close of the story about this often misunderstood prophet. It is a question that I think D'Costa is also asking the church to consider.
The problem with asking what Jesus would deconstruct only to realise that it is the church that he would deconstruct, is that this is the institution to which I have nailed my flag and out of which I will live out this following of Jesus. So, I suppose the 'church' Jesus would deconstruct is the institutional church rather than the church that is the body of Christ, the often invisible church. However, it leaves me in a somewhat uncomfortable place.
I think Caputo wants us to ask not WWJD, What would Jesus do? but What is Jesus doing? And are we really joining in?
Caputo will not think of the New Testament as politics, ethics or dogmatics but a poetics calling for transformation.
It's stimulating my interest again in the word 'hype' and 'hyper,' which I have explored before in the context of Jesus' radically being 'for us' - hyper in the Greek. With Caputo it is about 'über' being in search of the event that exceeds expectation. Religion is this. It is quite literally 'hype.' Deconstruction rather recovers this idea about religion and redeems it. 'It's all hype,' they say, and have said to me, particularly when I return from New Wine and recount experiences of God going about his business there. It is. New Wine has this vision of something beyond, it dares to hope.
For Caputo being a 'religious people' is to be a people who 'dream of things that have never been' and ask "why not?" and 'still pursue them.
2.2.11
Sex and prayer
I read this article today by Sarah Coakley. Very interesting. Coakley explores prayer of a relatively wordless kind. She deconstructs Romans 8 and its 'sighs too deep for words,' (Rom 8:26).
This was one of those verses that God used to bring my Christian faith, always lived but half-breathed (I am a cradle Anglican) into a fullness I only came to understand when I discovered what God and Christ had done for us in giving us the Holy Spirit.
Coakley explores the 'entanglement of our human sexual desires and our desire for God saying '... there is an instant reminder of the close analogue between ceding (to the trinitarian God) and the ekstatsis of human sexual passion...intimate relationship is at the heart of both these matters.'
Coakley's is the 'task of re-threading the strands of inherited tradition on these ...matters in such a way that enacted sexual desire and desire for God are no longer seen in mutual enmity, as disjunctive alternatives...'
She concentrates on Romans 8 for how it communicates
i) a certain loss of noetic control to the leading experiential force of the Spirit in the face of our weakness
ii) an entry into a realm beyond words, beyond rationality or logos; and
iii) the striking use of a (female) 'birth pangs' metaphor to describe the yearning of creation for its 'glorious liberty.' (8:22)
She suggests that 'Instead of thinking of 'God' language as really being about sex (Freud's reductive play), we need to understand sex as really about God, and about the deep desire that we feel for God - the clue that is woven into our existence about the final and ultimate union that we seek.'
Sarah Coakley expresses what I have struggled to express for a while, whilst it is sometimes better to keep reflections on this topic to oneself, she expresses articulately and with a certain academic finesse what might otherwise come out of my mouth with a degree of awkwardness, so I thank Sarah Coakley for that.
A friend and I have theories about prayer and other experiences of life very bound up with child-birth from the beginning of that process through to the end and including breast-feeding. They are very half-hatched thoughts and not something reflected upon very often but there are connections and possible routes for healing ministry for it would seem that our very worst angsts are also often experienced when these life-giving unions either fall short of expectations or become burdened down by all kinds of baggage.
Today, we learnt in college that we need to be 'real' in prayer. We looked at the womb-likeness of Jonah's fish, how being born again is accompanied by mess; it is undignified, Jonah is spat out. Birth is not polite. In all of the intimacies I have alluded to here there is an accompanying foolishness as we bear flesh, real and metaphorical, and become vulnerable with or for an 'other'.
Prayer might also release us into healthy intimacies, our redemptive God has a holistic approach to each one of us. There is surely healing in that.
1.2.11
Gavin D'Costa
Prayer for D'Costa is characterised as 'gift', 'covenant' and 'Communion with the triune God.' We spend a day in prayer and silence tomorrow at college, so I will hold these words close.
The other day, I was struck by the testimony of a friend who recounted a friend's desperate need abroad for a small sum of money to the exact pounds and pence for a bus ride. She had no ability to access cash abroad. A neighbour, a Muslim had been praying and God, he declared, had told him to knock on the former person's door and supply her with the exact amount of money she required. She accepted aghast, knowing that there was no way but supernaturally that this stranger could have discerned her need which she had not shared with anyone.
We are looking at Gavin D'Costa. I guess he is typically post-modern. I started a thread on facebook about him in October 2010 which got picked up and commented upon by Adrian who has drawn the picture above.
Tomorrow, in complete silence at college, I will have a long time to think about D'Costa and pray through my own thinking about inter-religious prayer, in particular, which is what D'Costa explores.
I have been reading 'The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity.'
S. Mark Heim, Samuel Abbot professor of Christian theology at Andover Newton Theological School, Newton, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the WCC Faith and Order commission reviews the book at Beliefnet and describes it as dealing with the 'idea of 'religious diversity: pluralism, inclusivism, exclusivism'. D'Costa claims that 'this is two too many. All in truth reduce to exclusivism. Pluralism, which claims equal regard for all traditions on the basis of universal objectivity, proves to be only a cloak for the exclusive assertion of the tradition of Western modernity.
D'Costa believes 'it appears impossible both to avoid the use of forbidden means (the privileging of a particular tradition) and to deliver the conclusion claimed (the equality of religions).'
Helm, in his review, believes that for D'Costa the 'solution is Roman Catholic trinitarian faith...[D'Costa's book] attends primarily to pluralistic formulations in religions other than Christianity. Second, it develops the positive trinitarian theology of religions that D'Costa has outlined in earlier works. Third, it moves from theory to practice, in its concrete discussion of issues surrounding inter-religious prayer. All those interested in religious pluralism will find this book useful. Those seeking the fullest combination of openness to other religions, and exclusive commitment to their own faith, will find it essential.
I guess this is what I seek to do; maintain an 'openness to other religions, and an exclusive commitment to my own faith in Jesus Christ.' Perhaps D'Costa can help me with this.
D'Costa offers beautiful reflections on Thérèse of Lisieux in his chapter 'Praying together to the Triune God? Is inter-religious prayer like marital infidelity?'.
I wonder how we can approach this from an evangelical perspective.
It would seem, of course, that Jesus communicated himself with those of other faiths and none. However, he also made pretty exclusive claims about being the way, the truth and the life, although there are other ways of interpreting this claim so that it is not infected by our own sinful desire for exclusivity.
Brian MClaren warns us against our tendency to read Jesus' words in this way. If we do we twist them into something resembling what he offers below:
You should be very troubled, because if you believe in God, but not me, you will be shut out of my Father’s house in heaven, where there are a few small rooms
for the few who get it right.... Then Thomas said to him, “Lord, what about people who have never even heard of you? Will they go to heaven after they die?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the only way to heaven, and the truth about me is the only truth that will get you to life after death. Not one person will go to heaven
unless they personally understand and believe a clearly-defined message about me and personally and consciously ask me to come into their heart. (Not
John 14:1-6)
MClaren believes that Jesus’ words are 'not as an explanation or answer – certainly not an answer to a question about the eternal destiny of people who
never heard of or believe in Jesus,' He goes on '“No one comes to the Father except through me?” Clearly, taken in context, these words are not intended as an insult to followers of Mohammed, the Buddha, Lao Tsu, Enlightenment rationalism, or anybody or anything else. Rather, the “no one” here refers to Jesus’ own disciples, who seem to want to trust some information – a plan, a diagram, a map, instructions, technique..'
From MClaren to D'Costa, I think what D'Costa is trying to explore is our own tendency to near idolatry in supposing that there is only one way to pray. He says 'If the church fails to be receptive, it may be unwittingly practicing cultural and religious idolatry,' (p.115). However, he also explores the potential idolatry of praying with someone else to their deity who is not Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He deals in subtleties that challenge orthodox theology.
To be continued...
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A little background reading so we might mutually flourish when there are different opinions