Lonely in biblioblog land

Seriously need to work on my Paintshop skills

The Biblioblog top 50 for April has been announced and RevisingReform maintains its position as blog number 40. I have not blogged for a week but the blog has been picked up by 8 new sites as I can see from my Alexa 'linked in'. 

After taking a brief look at the biblioblog 50 community, I have a feeling I might be the only woman, unless some of those male-looking names are female or people are blogging under pseudonyms much as they did in the nineteenth century. 

Can I ask you male bloggers out there to glance at your own blog-rolls. If they are completely dominated by men, perhaps I can recommend some female bibliobloggers you might add to your list. Take a look through and see if any take your fancy (so-to-speak). You might then link and start to interact a little so that the top 50 reflects the contributions of both genders. 

I am certainly no theologian but have gained a lot from reading around the communities I belong to online. It would be great to see some more women alongside the James McGraths, Jim Wests and Mark Goodacres of this world. I also think that SBL is worth keeping an eye on for its latest contributions. 

I guess a lot of the biblioblogs out there have their own particular bent, axe to grind or point-of-view to promote, often alongside adverts for recent books from their authors too. This blog can not boast such achievements but just struggles on in its own particular way. 

If we are in doubt about whether we are contributing something of worth or just talking out loud, perhaps both are occurring but that's got to be okay, in fact, my most recent reading of the Samaritan woman convinces me that Jesus invites us into theological discourse. 

I know that predominant readings of Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well lend more of a focus to her sexual impropriety, it is about this that Jesus can tell her everything she ever did but It is also interesting to explore how we read, with the precursor that if we ignore other levels at which the text might be functioning, then we are in danger, more than the Samaritan woman, of only half reading something with symbolic import.


My thinking here continues with this in mind.

Let's enter the scene: hot, mid-day, a well.

Wyckoff (1995, 92) does not believe that the scene is supposed to evoke betrothal scenes but this well scene accords with others in the Old Testament where Abraham's servant finds a bride for Isaac (Gen. 24:10-27), Jacob meets Rachel (Genesis 29:1-12) and Moses meets Zipporah (Exod. 2:16-21). The reader has literary expectations as to the type of scene that will unfold. Might John be presenting Jesus as bridegroom to the wayward bride Samaria so that the betrothal functions on a symbolic level?


The Samaritan woman encounters Jesus at the brightest hour of the day (noon 'the sixth hour'). Having learnt in Genesis that women draw water 'towards evening' (Gen. 24:11), this incongruity further arouses interest in the narrative so that the reader suspects quickly this is no ordinary betrothal scene. In a gospel using light and dark to signify spiritual state, it contrasts with the encounter that Jesus has had with Nicodemus at night (chapter 3), in which he went away in a complementary state of spiritual darkness. In John 4, disclosures will come to light for both characters in terms of their identity and the woman's is a metaphorical transference from a kingdom of darkness to a kingdom of light.

There are a number of theories as to the reason for the woman's noon-day visit. Popular (Kostenberger, 2006, 76; Carson, 1991, 217), is that she is avoiding people because of her shame. Kostenberger's statement (2006, 76) that 'Jesus gradually helps the woman to realize ...who she is in relation to him, that is, a sinner,' is actually unsupported by the text and scholars (Beirne, 2003, 82; Schneiders 1997, 249) notice that Jesus does not actually make a moral judgment. Barrett (1965, 235) considers it improbable that 'John's intention is to show that … the Samaritans are morally inferior to the Jews.'  

Our ideas about intimacy often have sexual connotations and it is interesting that in her disclosure about having five husbands, we regard her immoral, aware as we are of her noon-day visit to the well. Reader-response theories wonder if the text seeks to undo us for the judgements we impose on the text. She might have outlived her husbands in a culture where levirate marriage was the norm.
(Neyrey (2009,37) points our attention to Mark 12:20-23 but I think this is rather weak seeing as the Pharisees are probably testing Jesus with an imaginary, hyperbolic scenario). More convincingly, Schneiders (1997, 249) argues that 'the entire dialogue … has nothing to do with the woman's private moral life.' Schneiders (1997, 247) and Moore (2003, 282) believe there is an allegorical significance to the woman's five husbands being representative of Samaria's colonial past, with the present man representing 'the Samaritans' false worship of the true God,' (Barrett, 1965, 225). Other scholars (Witherington, 1984, 58-59; Thettayil, 2007, 34-35, Neyrey, 2009, 156) are less likely to believe this is the case.
Shneiders believes the Samaritan woman is quite able to decode Jesus' metaphorical language and rejoin with similar language of her own, aware that she represents her people before him and that as a people, they are without a 'husband' in the Hebrew pictorial sense of a Yahweh groom to his people, his bride. Reader-response critical approaches do much to uncover the literary games that the gospel's author might be playing.

Perhaps there is a theological discussion taking place between this woman and Jesus that both of them understand. 

Perhaps not...

...and if that is the case, this story still motivates us to wrestle publicly with the biblical text by perhaps blogging our way through it. If the woman is to teach us anything, it is that her contrast to Nicodemus is certainly obvious. He is a man—with a name. She is a an insignificant, unnamed woman. He is a named, male ruler among God’s chosen people. She is probably twice marginalised, by her own people and then outcast again as a Samaritan. He comes at night to guard his reputation. She comes at noon due to her marginalisation. But her transformation as someone with a valid testimony is corroborated by Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17 for those who will come to belief in him through the testimony of others. Brown (1979, 189) claims that hers is a 'quasi-apostolic role.' By the end of the pericope, earlier sectarianism has been transformed into a universalism in Jesus' identity as Saviour for the whole world. This salvation which is from the Jews is for the Samaritans too. The Samaritan woman comes to know the transformation of herself and her community dialoguing with him and then them in turn.

What might be transformative, is that the Samaritan woman began as a stranger. By the end of the pericope, she comes to this less than perfect faith, a questioning and an uncertain faith. Despite this, Jesus still uses her to be the vehicle through which an entire town come to know for themselves that Jesus is the 'Saviour of the World'. Future female bibliobloggers might equally impact other women (and men) ruminating on their faith and studying his Word, there is a lot to be gained by talking this through in both off-line and on-line communities.

Come on, girls!

What happened...from another point of view

h/t David Ould

Seven and a half weeks

When the panic is on, it is good to remember the paths and landscapes we have already traversed, the mountains we have had to climb.

We have just seven and a half weeks left of college. Many of us still have 4 assignments to hand in and a leavers' course where they finally teach us how to take a funeral. They will also perhaps cover such things as managing the stipend, coping with magnolia-washed houses and thinking through the work/life balance. 

In the meantime, we are...

... practising our 39 articles and working our which ones are our favourites!

... sending out invitations to post-ordination buffet lunches

... phoning up removals companies and hiring skips

... securing Children's schools 

... settling vestments bills 

... writing 200 words of interesting facts about ourselves for local newspapers

... thinking about the Bishop washing feet and whether it necessitates a pedicure

... deciding on under-cassock attire, having worked out you wear something!

... going on Saturday visits as a secret shopper to the curacy town/village/city

PRAYING - A LOT!!!!

I think we need another cartoon. Hurry up Dave Walker because mine needs work and it's a rip-off of yours anyway. 

Here's some clarification on what it is we will be moving into this Petertide, with the caveat that our ministry does not begin at Petertide, it began at our baptism.

Priestly ministry is closely bound up with the life of the ecclesial communion. Through ordination bishops and presbyters receive the gift of divine grace to serve a specific community, to which their mission is inseparably related. The canonical tradition of the Church prohibits absolute ordinations, that is, ordinations without a specific appointment. The ministry of both bishops and presbyters should be exercised within a specific diocese or congregation.

The communal character of ordination rites reflects the understanding of priesthood as a ministry within a specific ecclesial community. Ordination should never be performed in private. It is always an ecclesial act, which takes place publicly within the Christian community. It is not performed by the bishop (or bishops) alone, but by the bishop together with the clergy and the congregation. The assent proclaimed by the entire community in Anglican... ordination rites is not a ritual exclamation but a responsible expression of ecclesial approval. This liturgical consent has profound ecclesiological significance. It shows that the bishop is not acting alone, but as the person who has the sacramental authority to ordain within the Christian community and together with it. The bishop is the person charismatically appointed to safeguard the unity of the Church, who connects, past, present and future by what we call apostolic succession.

We wish to stress again that priesthood cannot exist apart from the community. It is not an authority or a power above the community, nor a function or office parallel to or outside it. Priesthood is intrinsically related to the eucharistic offering, the central empowering event and source of unity of the ecclesial community. This means that local communities find their unity in their priest, through whom the local community forms a eucharistic body, sacramentally linked and canonically united with the catholic fullness of the Church. Through the gift of grace given to the ordained person, ecclesial unity and catholicity is realised in a particular place as eucharistic participation. Priesthood exists, then, as a gift of grace which belongs, not to individuals in their own right, but to persons who are dedicated to serving the community. The words of Christ addressed to his disciples are significant, and clearly describe the true character of priestly service: ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came, not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20.25-28).

Christian priesthood involves participation in Christ’s own priestly mission. It is the personal gift of the Holy Spirit to the newly-ordained that enables this participation. Through the epiclesis and the coming of the Holy Spirit in ordination, Christ’s own priesthood is offered to them, and so remains alive and effectual within the ecclesial body.

...we may conclude that priesthood is in no way a ministry which involves division or classification within the ecclesial body. The distinction between a priest and a lay person is not one of legal status but of distribution of the gifts of the Spirit. As St Paul says, ‘Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone’ (1 Corinthians 12.4-6). This means that through ordination a member of the Church is set apart in order to minister the sacrament of ecclesial unity. In the patristic tradition, priesthood is never understood as an office based on an objectified mark imprinted on the soul of the ordained person, but rather as an ecclesial gift, a vocation whose purpose is to build up the Body of Christ. In debates about the nature of ordained priesthood the distinction has often been drawn between ‘ontological’ and ‘functional’ definitions, where ‘ontological’ has often been understood to mean a quality given to the individual priestly soul. We need to move beyond this approach, and consider priesthood on the basis of an ontology of relation. Priesthood should be considered, not in and for itself, but rather as a relational reality. To arrive at an adequate understanding of the gift of priestly grace, it should be seen in its eucharistic context and in its connection with ecclesial communion.

From The Church of the Triune God

Integrating software

Below is a test for bible verse integration software for blogger.

Proverbs 27:17

Isaiah 1:18

(Blog comment bible advice.)

If this works, you should be able to click across to Bible verses mentioned on this blog.

Whilst on this topic, I am thinking of investing in Logos but I am wondering.

Afterall, they default to ESV.

Re my picture - is it just all very American?

I am wondering, do they champion rather a conservative theology?

I am trying to collect together opinions and advice before investing in this software.

Features I am after:
Latest theology books - download and copy and paste across format
Commentaries like NICNT and NICOT
Easy biblical languages programs
Maps for someone who is terrible with biblical geography
Availability of stuff I couldn't otherwise find on the net for free

Tell me what you think - please.

Move over Peter Kay, we have Alasdair

Alasdair Kay is a regular theological conversation partner of mine over at Facebook, where I regularly have threads on the go which relate to the blog. Most of the people I talk to there I have never met but I feel that I know many of them better than people I actually sit next to in theology classrooms!

Alasdair is an awesome guy with an awesome testimony that hopefully he will share with us one day. I reckon he has a good few blogs stored away internally that just need releasing.

He began to read his Bible through for the thirtieth time this year and is, although humility would prevent him from describing himself this way, something of a theologian. He is the director of Derby City Mission and is passionate about Derby Street pastors and many other gospel-inspired ventures by which Christianity is given a public and relevant face for an unchurched culture.

Little did we know he was something of an insightful comedian too. In fact, he might just be the Church of England's very own Peter Kay, but this one is Alasdair, a Christian name he shares with the diocesan bishop.

Alasdair is not an Anglican. He worships at an evangelical church but just as Peter Kay is insightful about his northern heritage, Alasdair has similarly profound and amusing insights into the religious institution with which he shares many ministry ventures.

A rather simple joke I put up on facebook resulted in these witticisms.

Alasdair Kay on the Church of England machinery:


It takes 15 Anglicans to change a light bulb: one to do the work and the other 14 to stand around saying how much they preferred the old bulb!

Alasdair does have a blog!

Global south, Global north, Global church

It is often said that Christianity has become compromised in aligning itself with the postmodern western culture of relativism and individualism, that we are governed by social mores which began to change in the 1960s. How interesting to think that the Global South might similarly be guided by its culture and society and the intrinsic values held. Perhaps scriptural interpretation is swayed on both sides by cultural contamination:


...it is commonplace to assert, for example, that currently the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church in Nigeria are different in their approach to sexual ethics. Others will talk differently. They will say that they are very similar indeed. Each is developing, in their church, ministerial policies that reflect the law and current opinion of their respective societies. Neither is taking a strong counter-cultural stance. Each is allowing the norms for a good society, as these are understood, have developed and are expressed in the laws of their country to inform ministerial practice and strategy (Smith, B., 2008. ‘Approaching Lambeth’. Address by Bishop of Edinburgh to his diocesan synod. http://www.edinburgh.anglican.org/media/downloads/bishop_17_jun_08.pdf).

Orwell and the Anglican Covenant - an aside

I am working my way through the Church Times Guide to the Covenant to begin with. I am interested in the analysis of the Covenant on the last few pages of the pull out guide from the March 18th edition of the newspaper. All was going well. Many of the comments analysing the language of the Covenant seemed fair until they began to bring George Orwell into their analysis.

About 4.2.5     ...
The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument
until the completion of the process set out below.

...the analysts write:

"Relational consequences" George Orwell writes in his  1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” that ugly English often cloaks ugly purposes. “Political dialects . . .are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech . . . simplify your English [and] when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.”

...so how would this sound simplified, do you think? I guess I see what the person is getting at but is it not a little cynical? I am unsure yet, until I start the next lot of reading around the Covenant.

I looked at Orwell's essay, just to see what other interesting things he had to say and I did rather enjoy this:


He says, 'I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.'

At least, I am reminded that we are dealing with language of an exquisite kind and how we might best live in light of it. So far, I do not have a cynical attitude towards the Covenant. I might change my mind after my eight days of reading and writing is up, and I still have many of the opinions you have notified me here about to catch up on. In some ways, I am glad college make me do this work, without the compelling deadline, I doubt I would be spending seven hours a day for the next eight days considering all this.

Emmms

1. ...thinking so far... is in terms of my bemusement as to why a diocese would want to enter into something which could ultimately result in them having any power taken away from them, regarding the contribution they might make. It is almost as if failure to behave results in the possibility of being silenced. Would this not result in a kind of homogeneous group of Covenant-assenting dioceses. Where then is the diversity in unity? I am interested in thinking through what might happen to those dioceses who do not sign the Covenant.
2. (4.2.9) is a worry about each church undertaking to put into place agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant. Isn't this just going to mean more bureaucracy and meetings and paperwork?

How much is the Covenant a covenant in the biblical sense of the word which Brueggemann describes thus in The Bible Makes Sense, p. 10: ‘an enduring commitment by God and his people based on mutual vows of loyalty and mutual obligation through which both parties have their lives radically affected and empowered’?

Red, orange or green? What do you think?

Carol-Mike-Werner's Globes in traffic light

I rather like Doe's analogy for the Anglican Covenant? So with which coloured ink do you think the final draft of the Covenant has been written, just to introduce another metaphor to complement his:

The Anglican Covenant does not represent the Communion as the primary manifestation of Anglicanism with authority to limit the freedom (or autonomy) of its member Churches (the “red-light” model). The Covenant does not see the autonomous provincial Church as the primary manifestation of Anglicanism, under which the province has an unfettered freedom, without any restraint from the global family (the “green-light” model).


Rather, the Covenant sees partnership between the Communion (the family) and each autonomous Church as the primary manifestation of Anglicanism, one that protects the autonomy of the province (its legal freedom), subject to the competence of the Communion (through its instruments), to guide in a limited field of highly contentious matters of common concern (the “amber-light”  model). This is the Anglican way.

Dr Norman Doe, Professor of Law, Cardiff Law School.

What could you possibly mean?

REVISINGREFORM is wondering if this might be rather an unusual project ahead, this essay on the Covenant. It might contain pdfs like this one in its appendix. 




“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—thatʼs all.”
(from Through the Looking Glass)



I am about to start my reading for the Covenant, about how it arises due to historical problems and might help to sort out contemporary ones - or not as the case may be.

The “tacit conventions” in the Communion needed spelling out, he [Rowan Williams] observed, “not for the sake of some central mechanism of control, but so that we have ways of being sure we’re still talking the same language”. (My italics). (The Anglican Covenant. A Church Times guide. (2011, March 18). The Church Times, pp. 19-30.)

Or if its not that - it's that the words of the Covenant document itself are hard to interpret: 'How can we - why should we - sign a document when we cannot tell what it means?' says The Revd Marilyn McCord Adams (Distinguished Research Professor) (The Anglican Covenant. A Church Times guide. (2011, March 18). The Church Times, pp. 19-30.)

I have a feeling it might all boil down to what we exactly mean by the authority of scripture but I might be wrong and it will prove interesting to find out. I have joined the 'NoCovenant facebook' group to keep abreast of the latest thoughts, is there a 'YesCovenant facebook' equivalent? I can not seem to find one.


Perhaps this essay will result in my actually determining an opinion for a change, rather than just having to write as academically as I can about everybody else's opinions. Well, I will give myself a sentence or two to express one, anyway.

Right, I am going in - just nine days to crack this one!

I have already found a very big problem with the Anglican Covenant.

Surely, footnotes go after the full stop.  :-)

The prodigal - an animation

I am nearly at the end of coming to a conclusion about whether the 'I' in Romans 7 is the regenerate or unregenerate. I need to work out my motivations. There is much in me that hopes that I will find that this idea of being imprisoned to sin, just does not bear out that life in the Spirit which we know from Romans 8. I also have to admit my predisposition to want to disagree with a kind of Lutheran, Calvin, reformed theology because this whole depravity thing does not sit happily with my experience of life. I am also aware that my views about the reformed position are probably less nuanced than they should be. I agree fundamentally with much reformed theology. I am, however, finding Witherington more persuasive than Packer. Perhaps the prodigal son story illustrates afterall that is is all a lot more nuanced again than a simple case of before and after Christ.

Oh well, back to the books, where the waffle has to be more carefully organised and supported with reading.

Really wretched

One of the challenges in introducing people to the gospel in post-modern times, is our lack of the measure of our own sinfulness. People just do not feel this way about themselves and if they do they are no doubt advised to seek some therapy for such predispositions. This is why my current essay, investigating the divided man of Romans 7 is proving interesting. Paul cries out:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!



...and it is not hard to see how similar this sounds to Luther's exclamations:

'With what tongue shall I address such Majesty, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround him. At his nod the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little pygmy, say "I want this, I ask for that"? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin and I am speaking to the living, eternal and the true God.'

Luther and commentators following him will argue that this is our condition, the condition of Christian struggle between what we hope to do and the inevitability of the actions we often regret. Other commentators see this internal war in which sin seems the victor to occur before people come to faith. Some believe this impossible for it is only upon conversion that sinfulness is something that can begin, in some degree, to recognise. 

I am not sure yet regarding the conclusion that I will come to regarding the identity of Paul's 'I' in Romans 7 and either way perceive the challenges that will arise on teaching such a text as this one. However, that there are other ways of reading it is proving interesting. I had only ever thought that it might have described the condition of the Christian, and as it played in one of my Graham Kendrick compilations (yes, I know, I do rather like Graham Kendrick), it left me in rather a strange place, as I absorbed news of my wretchedness. Now, I know the Lutherans out there will argue against Barrett that it is not supposed to impact one psychologically but I rather think that it does, and that sensitivity to pastoral aspects of our lives need for us to think through all the ramifications of the way that it is taught and preached. 

Requesting a man!

The richness of the Church of England is that we are a reformed Church and as Cranmer observed 'the church has been reformed and should be reformed in every generation.' We have made discoveries over time as the Holy Spirit has guided us. In the past, it was realised that the doctrine of the celibacy of all ministers of the Church could not be biblically substantiated. Further on in history the issue of the abolition of slavery was a matter of reformation in Church doctrine. More recently the Church of England, with many other Anglican Provinces, has concluded that there could be no theological bar to the ordination of women priests and therefore women bishops.

This is what enables traditionalists to think that women can be ordained and consecrated. This is what enables those with the highest view of scripture to think that women can be ordained and consecrated. It is supported by liberal Anglicans too but also by many of us, like me, who consider ourselves conservative evangelicals.

In July 2006, the Church of England said this:

'That this Synod welcome and affirm the view of the majority of the House of Bishops that admitting women to the episcopate in the Church of England is consonant with the faith of the Church as the Church of England has received it and would be a proper development in proclaiming afresh in this generation the grace and truth of Christ.'

Two years later, as I launched this blog to investigate what was happening, my imagination so captured by all the proceedings, the church said this:

'That this Synod:

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

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

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

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

This is not a debate about whether the Church of England has Women as Bishops, but how we hold it all together with Women Bishops. Does the legislation achieve this? That is what we are debating                                       

Dioceses all around the country are now being asked to think these important issues through. They are being asked to consider not whether women bishops are a good idea, but whether the arrangements being proposed are the best way forward for the Church so that all views in the Church are respected.

Synods will then vote on the following motion “that this synod approve the proposals embodied in the draft Bishops and Priest (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure and in draft Amending Canon No 30.” That vote will then be fed back to the Church’s national body, the General Synod, where the issue is likely to be decided in February 2012.

If your parish parochial council passed Resolution A - no woman can give you the Holy Communion or tell you that God forgives you.

If your parish parochial council passed resolution B - you will not have allowed a woman to be in charge of your church.

If your parish parochial council passed resolution C, you will have had a bishop who agreed with A and B, this might not have been your church's diocesan bishop and so you will have seen another man confirming people in your church.

Churches all over the country have been debating recently what they are going to put in place of the above to provide for people who refuse to take communion or leadership in a church from a woman.

It is now the case that you can not automatically be given another bishop who sympathises with your views that the priesthood should only be male. If parishes call in another bishop, if they had a woman leading a diocese, this would not help to establish what bishops are all about - unity! In itself two separate authorities would symbolise disunity. So, if a male bishop was needed and a woman was in charge, the woman would be asked first if this was okay. It is very likely, I would imagine, she would say 'yes.' I think St Paul in the New Testament has a lot to say about us helping those who have problems which might hinder their faith being supported by the church. He asks that we might be sympathetic. I am almost sure women would show a lot of grace. There are lots of statistics to reveal that women are more orientated by what facilitates relationship than men.

I like this about Romans from Campbell Paul and the Creation of Christian Identity (2008). It speaks neatly into the situation we find ourselves in:

If you are a resolution A or B parish, this will be phased out over the next few years but you will still be able to request a man in writing and petition for one after this.

Here is the official writing on the above

If Diocesan Synods approve, General Synod (probably in February 2012) will put together a Final Drafting. Then two-thirds majorities are required in each House in July 2012. If approved, the legislation would then go to Parliament for consideration by the Ecclesiastical Committee and each House of Parliament and you might begin to see women bishops in about 2014. I'll be forty that year, how nice.

I have tried to use plain-speak to make this clear.

If you want to access the views of someone who shares my theological convictions and attended a diocesan synod to ask questions and hear viewpoints, take a trip over to Ian Paul's site. He has been putting a book together on women in ministry, which will be available soon and I am sure you will find, that as his site proclaims, on this issue - it all adds up. Ian Paul reveals moreover that a very clear case from scripture can be made for women in all levels of ministry but you might have to keep visiting his blog to find out when you can access his research altogether in a book-form. (Soon to be published by Grove.)

Site Makeover

The site has had a make-over, totally an exercise in procrastination, I should be writing an essay. I would welcome any suggestions you might have. Equally, I welcome advice on any of those widgets you could just not live without, now you've discovered them (excuse the hyperbole!). I have lost some of my link features with the old coded template but I am hoping I can still update twitter and facebook without too much hassle.

Thanks all.

Happy blogging.

Lesley's Blog: UK Top Female Christian Bloggers

Lesley's Blog: UK Top Female Christian Bloggers

Baa if you like a bit of Moo but not in a library

We are all embroiled in essay writing before we leave and the holidays are not holidays but hours in front of laptops searching through Ebsco and JSTOR because many of the library commentaries have already gone for those of us a bit slow off the mark.

Everything can get rather out of proportion as you ponder the fact that there are perhaps a dozen possible theories for whom the 'I' might be in Romans 7, which is what I am negotiating at the moment. It is good to take five and look about you, get out into the world and discover that really very few people on this planet are going spare over one small Greek word and perhaps in the long run, you will look back and wonder about all the hours you spent exegeting. Who knows? It is preparation for the Christian life and for those sermons we will be preaching but some of it is also just a small contribution to the world of academia. Having said that, even if the very specifics remain shelved in the brain until they flesh out into something and you sense that connection or are able to bring that thinking to an embodied situation, we are gathering tools along the way for how to apply theological thinking, so long as we are also able to take those rarified arguments and translate them into something that can be communicated and heard.

Sometimes it is a bit of a puzzle to me how it is all going to translate. I just have to trust it will. In the meantime, I did discover that the lovely Dr Moo has a very nice site, even if frustratingly his google book Romans NICNT denies me access just at the place I most need it. You know I welcome the day when at some point all these books come winging their way down my fibre-optics but then hearing about HMV today and Waterstones, I also wonder what will become of out depositories for books and music and indeed what will become of the very libraries that I seem to be visiting less and less often these days, even though ironically I am in need of more and more books.

Knit your own Rowan and tie the knot

I am not going to make any comment about the Royal Wedding. It is probably not wise ;-) However, I could not help but delight in the knitted version of Rowan Williams as I sit down with my cuppa Yorkshire to read The Body's Grace - here his 'Grace's body' is made out of wool and very nice he looks too.

On a more serious note, what I will say is that a brother-in-law of mine, who also happens to be a Wedding photographer has said that business is certainly up this year on last, with happy couples wanting to coincide their wedding year with that of the handsome blue-blooded couple. If that's the case, then this attention to weddings has to be good for the Church of England...and that must be good news for Jesus, whom all these extra people will get to hear about.

The good old Church of England has really been getting its act together in recent years and Revising Reform is most impressed by its website.

Did you know you can buy the Royal couple a wedding present here.

...and if you just so happen to be getting married this year, the Church of England supports you from beginning to end - here they will even help you to organise the run-up to your big day.

Another five minute poem

Phil ponders a puzzle from the heights of his treehouse
To which our attention is alerted by Church Mouse,
Inspired by John Donne of centuries gone by
Phil looks out to see prose now and dares to ask why.
He laments that we're less of a lyrical lot
And entices priestly peers to pick up a new plot,
And spin again their wonderings in flourishes exquisite
So that poetry might once again capture the Spirit
And point our eyes searching to behold something new
So that things too familiar are lent a new hue.
For it might be our calling to set up new angles
On commonplace things and so make them newfangled.

So who will rise to this challenge and configure their schemes?
Perhaps Anita Mathias from the spires where she dreams.
Possibly Lesley Fellows in googledocs
Demanding decisions as we choose the right box.
Maybe we'll find Clayboy stirring up the dust
Where he'll capture our confessions in this God whom we trust.
Can Peter Ould become the Peter of new
And pen us a sonnet or a stanza or two?
Can Ian Paul be persuaded as he plays the piano
And parents and preaches and what else, I don't know how,
To find a few minutes to perfect something lyrical
Or should Phil just give up now and submit to the cynical?
For comments came in that we have not the time
Such vast swathes of paperwork drowning out rhyme
Meetings attended on diocesan addendum
Liturgical updates we can't comprehendum
We'll perhaps return this challenge to its bereft blogging sender
And challenge Phil Treehouse to pen poems of such splendour
For this Donne we call John on whose day he lamented
That we seem to have forgotten

- twas for poetry we were invented.

!