The Anglican

Anon tells me - Rachel, step by step you are moving in the liberal direction, though you are scarcely aware of it. Your last post of "marriage equality" suggests you have great difficulty even understanding the matter from the evangelical, biblical perspective. When you start looking at things in abstract "justice" categories, instead of the clear teaching of Scripture of the redeemd life in Christ, you will end up endorsing the liberal viewpoint. 

I can write well on the evangelical, biblical perspective, my tutors will testify to that but I am aware too that life is a lot messier on the ground. Academia can become an ivory tower indeed and I have left that tower now. Now by this, I am not saying that I also champion relativism. I have learnt also about our postmodern resistance to truth and authority. As I told Anon, and I do not think I have too many worries about doing so, vulnerability being scary but also something I think I am called to, I am happy to work these things through here and out loud. In 2009 ABC said 'perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage. . . To recognise different futures for different groups must involve mutual respect for profoundly held convictions.' (2009, 2502)

I reckon part of my problem is that I do not want to have to choose between these two tracks. I have much to learn from journeying with people along both and no doubt there are other tracks I am yet to discover, (this blog investigating more the evangelical position than say, the Anglo-Catholic, for example). Perhaps Open Evangelicalism is a kind of evangelicalism grappling with its Anglican identity, perhaps Open evangelical fails to identify me but then that is the problem with labels afterall. Pluralist puts me in this category. I think I probably do too but not as quickly now. Every time I label I also begin to construct caveats, imagine small print etc.

Paul Avis, in his recent book, The Identity of Anglicanism, concludes his chapter on ‘Anglican Ecclesiology in the Twenty-first Century’ with an assessment of the state of Anglicanism today which does much I think to highlight the strange country Anglicans inhabit and why perhaps my often clumsy attempts to dialogue on all sides can sometimes mean that I appear to be something of strange creature, who knows not what kind of creature it really is.

“Anglicanism does indeed attempt to hold together elements that are opposed in other traditions – though not without strains. It defines itself as catholic and reformed; orthodox in doctrine yet open to change in its application. Its polity is both episcopal (and its bishops have real authority) and synodical – an unusual combination in a church that has maintained the historic episcopate. It acknowledges an ecumenical council as the highest authority in the Church, but is not opposed in principle to a universal primacy and virtually never has been. It confesses the paramount authority of Scripture, but reveres tradition and harkens to the voice of culture and science. It tries to be neither centralized nor fragmented, neither authoritarian nor anarchic. It is comprehensive without being relativistic. This interesting experiment has endured and evolved for nearly five centuries; in spite of the present difficulties, I believe it is worth persevering with.” [Paul Avis,The Identity of Anglicanism: Essentials of Anglican Ecclesiology(London: T&T Clark, 2007), pp. 168-169.]

I believe that it is worth persevering with too and there is something inherently optimistic about Avis's position. The uncertain certainty of Anglicanism felt like a haven when I first started to discover it, a relief from the dogged certainty of the more free evangelicalism I was sampling. Anglicanism has held together so many types over such a long period of time with losses along the way but losses often impoverish and so we should remember that and continue to try to hold on to one another. 

For more on SPREAD (AMiE)

See the Fulcrum response

and the thread where one person called Dave is pleased about AMiE and says 'Bring it on.'

There is a need to listen to the views on all sides.

What do you think?
You could contribute to the thread at Fulcrum.

SPREAD the Marmite

Well, I have to say, I find SPREAD a little distasteful. I love Marmite btw but not the latest flavour the GAFCON affiliated organisation have created. I do not normally express vitriolic feeling but their assessment of the Anglican Church with which AMIE is hoping to attract people to its organisation, is not very judicious.

They describe the Anglicanism of 1998 - 2008 as 'toxic' by implication. I will be ordained into this church next week. I do not find it toxic. Moreover, I will mark my commitment, in that ceremony, to 'the reformed Christian faith as classically expressed in the Anglican Formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.'

GAFCON do not hold a monopoly on the Anglican faith.

They also quote Richard Hooker, of whom I am a great fan. But their choice of quotation implies that this Church about which I am passionate is listening with one ear to our Saviour and another, false prophets. They seem to completely miss the point that Richard Hooker's was a generous orthodoxy in which he argued that those mistaken were unlikely to be damned. Mistakes are made on all sides, by the Gafconites and the rest of us. Hooker 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.

At least this organisation says that they do not intend to be schismatic, which is all too well if they champion Hooker who encourages unity in all things, 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,' (Hooker, Op. cit. BOOK V. Ch. xlix. 2). GAFCON want to accuse us less of a 'toxic' drift and pray for us, if they are to do anything. Hooker 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...(Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Ch. ix. 4).

Rowan Williams believes Hooker's methodology proved Hooker opposed any position that 'refuses the work of interpretation or that pretends that history has come to a halt,' (R Williams, The Richard Hooker Lecture, transcript).

Before SPREAD speak again of this church as 'no longer fit for purpose when confronted with deep theological confusion in which evil is held out as good and good as evil,' they should attend again and more carefully to Hooker. Because although as a church, we argue and debate, and at times the world reckons that there is little love amongst us, we should speak words to one another, like Hooker, in his controversies with the Puritans and the Romanisers, that prove that we

...labour under the same yoke, as men that look for the same eternal reward of their labours ...in bands of indissoluble love... as if our persons being many our souls were but one, rather than in such dismembered sort to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious prosecuting of wearisome contentions...(Hooker, Op. cit. Preface, Ch. ix. 4).

Marriage equality

I read from renowned legal scholar Cass Sunstein that:

“When people end up in enclaves of like-minded people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which the group's members were originally inclined. Enclave extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group polarization, which ... occurs as groups adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored by their members.”

This is why you will find that my blogroll and my webblog reading pulls from a diverse bunch both spiritually and theologically. Where the iron sharpens iron, the iron must be different from that which it sharpens - there are 14 known isotopes of iron, there is a myriad of theological make-ups.

Due to my recent travels and a desire to keep abreast of occurrences in dioceses where I am making relationships, I seek to read a range of reactions to New York's latest bill which passes Marriage Equality.

There is much in Bishop Singh's facebook comment that I resonate with, particularly that he wants to 'celebrate the ... affirmation of the human rights of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender persons.'' Also his wanting to 'celebrate what our baptismal identity affirms as God given: the human dignity of a community that has been overtly and covertly ostracized and often treated as less than others.' 

I am interested in his statement that the 'Equal Marriage Act gives faith traditions like mine the ability to transparently enrich the definition of marriage.'

I wonder what 'enrichment' might look like now and in the future, how it will provoke reaction around the communion and what we are still to learn from one another both about marriage and how our grappling with what is it will effect societies, families and the ways we read scripture, our relationships with one another and the common good. 

He has an interesting and nuanced turn of phrase here: We will use the lenses of human dignity and loving kindness to live into a new normal where all adult lifelong-loving-commitments are treated as they should be: Holy. 

I spin off from the context here to wonder about the lenses through which we view any issue and how all over the communion, it is that in using various lenses that we cause as much angst as fruit and is testimony to the diversity that has always been held dear by Anglicans. I wonder if his definition about 'all adult lifelong-loving commitments' needs tightening up a bit - is it too wide but then I think we take it as read that we know what he means.

There is to be a recognition of (to use the language of those who can not accept the ordained/ episcopal leadership of women), those who 'cannot with integrity' bless the civil marriages of LGBT in that 'no priest will be forced to bless the civil marriage of the LGBT parishioners.'

I am aware that there is bound to be a range of reaction to his proposal that, 

'Marriage Equality takes us closer to our pursuit of a more wholesome society.'

And for reaction to these issues read:

Episcopal Cafe

Anglican Mainstream (who are not really mainstream, of course)

Father Tobias has interesting stuff to say about the Roman Catholic reaction

 - oops - got to get up Sat am, will update when there are more links to post tonight

Keeping my wits and my nits about me

Well, it's been quite a week.

We have been in our new house seven days and I have been rediscovering the joys of domestic mundanities. I had given up in the student house. As the weeks got ever closer to our leaving, the satisfaction of cleaning a bathroom that was never ever going to look clean, no matter how hard I scrubbed, well and truly wore off.

Everything is so shiny here - it all being newly glossed and 'magnoliafied'.

...And life beyond the institution (theological) feels rather 'grown-up' - I cook my own meals again and I feel more like a mum. I have caught up with the girls and enjoyed doing things like IKEA shopping and cake-baking in a way less polluted with simultaneous thinking about clever conclusions and how to explain an interpretation without using the phrase '...and in the Greek.'

Today, however, has been a day including one nit-wit, my wits and lots of nits - all in all - it's been a weird one.

We are trying to buy a second car. I have a spec and at the first car show room, I beheld that spec, black and shiny, on the forecourt and in budget.

We were interested.

I was even ready to take it for a test-drive, which I always have to seriously gear myself up for (ha - good pun!)-
'Will I remember what to do?'
'Can I work those gears?'
'What if we crash?'
I can be pretty cool about most things but directions and driving is not one of them.

Everything was going well and I was imagining myself handing over my cheque but then we noticed that the front and rear door on the driver's side were misaligned. They just didn't match up and the driver's side didn't close with the same sound as the passenger side - that lovely clunk-click was missing.

'Ah-ha, must have been in a collision,' we said.

There was a pause. The salesman inspected the doors, paused again and then looked us both in the eyes and declared his verdict. This would also explain the price drop.

'It's the wind, the wind,' he said. 'Yep, you'll find it's the wind that has done that...yep...wind.'

He walked us to his desk inside.

Now the crazy thing is, we asked if he would check the service history of the car.

He proceeded to and told us about new alloys and a check on an indicator, a private plate a few years ago...there was nothing about a collision.

To cut a long story short we did not buy the car.

But the thing is, what we should have questioned was not the validity of the service history; there could have been a collision and the car could have been sorted without this getting recorded. We should have questioned this man for selling cars in a top dealership which could not withstand wind! We should have asked him for advice about how to drive the aforesaid vehicle through a gale. We might have even asked him whether we could test-drive the car again but only in conditions that were non-windy, after all we didn't want to see doors coming in on us or falling off in squally and tempestuous conditions.

We left bemused and amused at the sales pitch we had experienced.

We returned home, thanking God we know to have our wits about us, to find nits about us: correction - not us precisely but daughter number one. If you can 'come of age' as a mother - this has to be one of the those bar mama-mitzvah moments.

My daughter has long, thick hair past her shoulders. She spent a considerable amount of time laughing with me, as she sat on the shower floor, about the various personalities of the nits (not too many) that were enjoying life at the top of her head. We applied copious amounts of conditioner and combed and combed until we got every last little critter out. In a weird sort of way it became a rather delightful bonding experience, so much so that my other daughter hopes that she will develop nits overnight so that she can share in the frivolities. I was half-tempted to say that she could probably trust God would deliver on this one, if that was her prayer, but I am not sure about the theology of that one, so I left this unsaid.

...so the girls survived their school visit, we nearly outwitted the salesman and the nits did not quite outwit us - parish ministry is just going to have to happen alongside all this other stuff that is life beyond theological college. Bring it on!

Divided man?

The identity of the 'I' in Romans 7 has been a puzzle since it was first conceived.

We were asked to consider the book of James at the same time so I spent a few days meditating on these things. If I avoid answering the question directly, I will tell you now I am becoming more persuaded by the idea that the 'I' is devoid of the Holy Spirit.

Here's my thinking on these things.

An Exegetical Study of Romans 7:14-25 with reference to James 3:3-10

Introduction

This essay will exegete the above pericope from Romans and comment on the major hermeneutical puzzle: the identity of the ἐγὼ.¹ It will briefly comment on Romans' relationship to James.

The context

The origins of the church in Rome are 'obscure' (Moo, 1996, 4) but with Bruce (1985, 15), Moo is alert to those 'visitors from Rome' to the Pentecost festival of AD 30 (Acts 2:10), receiving the Holy Spirit poured out 'on all people' (Joel, 2:28). There would have been a mixture of Jewish converts, Gentiles and Godfearers 'who had associated themselves with Judaism before coming to Christ... who know the law,' (Stowers, 1994, 202). Scholars tend to date Romans between 55 AD (Morris, 1992, 6) and 57 AD (Moo, 1996, 3), with a consensus that it was written in Corinth. Acts 20:2-3 relates Paul's three month stay in Greece. Phoebe, who carries the letter, is from a church in Cenchreae and would travel to Rome from Corinth's west port. Paul, although intent on seeing the recipients of his letter (Rom. 1:8-15), neither founded nor visited the Roman Christians before writing to them.

Paul's purpose for writing is to ask for spiritual and material aid for his missionary endeavour to Spain. Persuasive also would be news of the collection for the Jerusalem church. Christian generosity is lent a theological impetus as an act of practical agape and the collection as a symbol of unity acts as a corrective to the Jewish/Gentile divisions in the Roman church. Campbell (2008, 76) describes how 'Paul was dealing with a continuum of stances varying from close adherence to Jewish practice to gentile life 'apart from the Law'.

Style and overview

The letter has been considered 'epideictic,' 'ambassadorial' and protreptic' (Moo, 1996, 15). What is certain, is that Paul is exhorting the Roman Jewish and Gentile Christians on issues concerning misunderstandings over the law. Stowers (1994, 180), believes that with his Graeco-Roman education in rhetoric, Paul employs prosopopoiia in 7:14-25 so that a figurative 'I' expresses the condition of a life under the law. This would account for the change in tense from aorist to present at verse 14 for the promotion of immediacy and impact. Cranfield (1985, 156) asserts, 'Paul's choice of this form of speech ... reflects Paul's deep sense of personal involvement.'

Overview of 7:14-25

Paul can not help but be engaged, understanding, as the reader might from the Epistle of James, that a defence of his theology is required. He has already taught that the law is impotent in regard to securing salvation, which can only be obtained through faith in Christ's work(3:28). This pericope (7:14-25) expands upon Paul's determining that the nomos (Mosaic law) has stimulated sin's accumulation, both by revealing sin and increasing sin (7:5 and 5:20). Whilst teaching that a Christian has died to the law (7:4), he needs to reaffirm that the law is holy, just and good (7:12). The transitional sentence at verse 13a is the unacceptable conclusion to the incorrect use of the law in verses 7 to 12, posed in a question, which is counteracted with the exclamation 'By no means!' (13b). Verse 14 begins with an affirmation of the law being spiritual (it being of God) to correct any thesis that the law might be evil, when it is sin that causes the law to bring death. This is followed by three separate clauses (15-16, 17-19 and 20-23) with the discourse intensifying and employing a military metaphor as the Antistrateuomai (waging war) intensifies through sin's kakos (bad) use of the law through the sarx (fleshly or sin-nature), even when the kalos (good) use of the law is perceived with the noos (mind). Closure is found in the emotional anacolutha of Romans 7:23-25a, with the pronouncement of wretchedness giving way to Paul's interjectory praise so that his hopeful exultation counteracts all the desperation that has come before, on account of God's action through Christ. 25b recapitulates in summary form the state that has been described of the conflicted life.

In deconstructing the pericope, binary oppositions are evident: law and sin; good and evil; flesh and mind; knowledge and will. Paul draws his readers into complicity with his viewpoint with the plural pronoun 'we' at verse 14 and the first contrast is established between the 'spiritual' law and the 'fleshly' ἐγὼ. That the law is 'spiritual,' he assumes all know. If what is in antithesis to the law is sin, this is manifest in the human person, the 'I', because s/he is 'fleshly'. This is where too easily seeing dualisms can be problematic. There is no dichotomy between a mind focussed on spiritual things and the flesh/body, the carnal. This would be to read platonic reasoning into Paul. In translating σαρκινος as 'unspiritual,' the NIV does not deter from unhelpful dualisms. Paul means that a human in their entirety (Gr. Sarkinos, made of flesh; cf. 1 Cor. 3:1) is 'sold under sin.' 'Those who are according to the flesh' are contrasted in Romans 9:5 to 'those who are according to the Spirit.' Without the Spirit, (Romans 8), humanity is under the authority of the flesh: enslaved. Metaphors of mastery pick up the idea of enslavement again (6:16-23) in contrast to the marital analogy which explained relations to the law and grace in 7:1-4. That the ἐγὼ is in a very difficult predicament is compounded by verse 23's continuation of the military theme, where the law has made the ἐγὼ a prisoner again in his members.

Verses 15-23 explain the seeming spiritual schizophrenia of a life under such mastery. The tendency to psychologise the struggle is considered symptomatic of a modern, western outlook,² but it is interesting to note that 'akrasia (weakness of the will)' was a subject for the 'philosophical discussions' of the day (Engberg-Pedersen, 2000, 36) and Witherington (2004, 195) alerts attention to literature, like Ovid's Metamorphoses (7:19-20) exploring the theme. In Romans, even though the ἐγὼ can cognitively assent to the law being good, achieving the perfection for which the law aims is impossible when sin reigns. Ironically the 'knowing' that the law is spiritual, about which Paul assumes a consensus, contrasts with the inability to γινώσκω the self, no longer recognisable when actions do not bear out ideas to which one assents. The sin indwelling the human causes this. With the use of the definite article in the Greek (v.20), it is the condition that is blamed, the condition inherited from Adam, as well as the propensity to sin. The will to do good ceases to indwell because of this indwelling sin, reaffirmed in verse 20 so that 18 -20 describe the conclusion reached at verse 17. At verse 21 'this law' is not to be confused with Torah. It is the principle (v. 23, also 8:2) that the 'I', like all people, is a slave to sin and obeys it whether he wants to or not.

The theological point that Paul is making is that any attempt to attain righteousness through the law will be thwarted by sin. The remedy for this is articulated passionately at verse 25, without expansion, but the means by which victory is won, is the subject of Romans 8, where the Spirit reigns over sin. Scholars disagree about whom precisely Paul is making his theological point and this has everything to do with the hermeneutical puzzle that has baffled scholars through the ages: the identity of the ἐγὼ.³

Hermeneutical puzzle

The regenerate

It might seem because Paul describes 'delight in the law of God,' the 'I' must be a Christian. Scholars, with variations, do suggest that the ἐγὼ is regenerate. For Augustine, Luther and Packer, this is the present condition for mature Christians who struggle with sin until the resurrection of their bodies. Augustine did admit, 'it is not so clear how what follows can be understood concerning Paul,' (Schaff, 1956, 383) but was confident that Paul describes his own life and the life of the Christian believer. Augustine responds to the Pelagians who stressed human effort in the journey to sanctification. Packer (1999, 71-77) remarks, ''Pelagians, then and since have taken the 'wretched man' to be someone other than a Christian,' and identifies the ἐγὼ as 'the healthy Christian in honest and realistic self-assessment,' caught between the inaugurated but unrealised eschatological age. Garlington (2000, 112) and Dunn (1998, 495) similarly believe that Paul is describing the eschatological tension experienced in pursuing from faith an obedience that will never be perfected but remains a goal. For other scholars like Lloyd Jones (1973, 229-57), this person is spiritually immature and the battle will lessen, not so much with the commencement of the new age, as with a spiritual maturity through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8). Cranfield (1990, 356) cuts through dichotomies between mature or immature Christians by stressing that what is being described is 'not two successive stages but two different aspects...of the Christian life, both of which continue so long as the Christian is in the flesh.'

Moo (1996, 469) asks 'Should we expect Christian experience to be characterized by the sort of severe struggle described here?' Those who believe so claim that the unregenerate person can not perceive the law's claims upon them, nor delight in the law (7:22) or be cognisant or their own wretchedness. However, this fails to remember Paul's teaching about the 'law...written on their hearts... conscience... and thoughts [that] will accuse...' (Rom. 2:14-15). Moreover, Paul speaks of the Jew who 'boasts in the Law' (Rom 2:23; see 2:17). Continuing to defend their thesis for the regenerate, scholars contend that this passage agrees with the experience of the Christian life described in Galatians 5:17. However, it is also true that contrasts can be found here, where the ἐγὼ in Romans 7 describes sin's indwelling, Galatians describes how, 'it is Christ who lives in me' (Gal.2:20).

The unregenerate

For Witherington, (2005, 21-23), 'the I is … all those who are currently “in Adam” in vv. 14–25.' He encourages careful thought on this issue because 'all of Protestant theology about human fallenness and the nature of life outside and inside the Christian sphere hangs on this text to some degree.' Moo believes the 'I' cannot refer to a regenerated Christian either because of contrasts in the text by which being 'set free' (Rom. 6:18; 6:22) and also 'imprisoned' (7:23) in relation to the law, cannot be seen to co-exist. The lack of reference to the Spirit is a factor in his conclusion that this is a non-Christian being described, adding a caveat that this description of the unregenerate's wretchedness does not mean that the Christian life is free from sin. Cranfield, Wright⁴ and Witherington emphasise Paul's allusions to the fall narrative where Moo draws out parallels with the experiences of Israel. Moo imagines an unregenerate with whom Paul can identify as Paul looks back to that state in which he shared, of being a Jew highly exacting about the law but powerless to fulfil it, (1996, 448). Where the 'I' gives way to 'our' at verse 25a, the Christian Paul interrupts his own 'speech-in-character,' to celebrate freedom from the predicament he recaps in the remainder of the verse, closing the chapter.

Final thoughts

Romans 7 explores the sin-exposing activity of the law. It glances back to Adam and explores Torah's ineffectiveness for salvation. In speaks into Christian experience today with the ἐγὼ representing the Christian's journey from unbelief to belief where an assessment is made of life before. Two states, with the second continuing and advancing on the first are described. 'The exclamations at the end of the chapter articulate the experience in its double-aspect...one for lament...whereupon follows, paradoxically, the prayer of thanksgiving...' (Betz, 2000, 574). However, whilst all this is important for theological praxis; preaching the text and applying it to the human condition and Christian experience, the pericope's theological impetus must not be neglected. Chang (2007, 272) describes how this passage is not a psychological study of the Christian experience. 'The ‘I’ is, rather, to be reckoned as a performer Paul called out to the stage, allotting a role to... convey... the intrinsic goodness as well as the practical impotence of the Mosaic Law.' Moo highlights too that what is to be learnt from this pericope is the 'inability of the Mosaic law to rescue sinful people from spiritual bondage ...the condition of the unregenerate person - who can not be saved through the law – or... regenerate person...' (Moo, 1996, 443). Ultimately, in this pericope, Paul is not primarily concerned with explaining the Christian life. He is concerned with defending the holiness of the law. He illustrates through the experiences of the ἐγὼ, that obtaining righteousness through law-keeping is futile, because the law does not provide the power to resist sin, this can only come through 'God through Jesus Christ our Lord' (7:25a). This is the theological truth Paul hopes to make clear.

Romans and James

Moo (1996, 443) describes how, 'the interpretation of few passages has been more influenced by one's broad theological perspective, experience and a priori assumptions than Rom. 7:14-25.' Much of Luther's later teaching flavours⁵ interpretation of Romans, worth bearing this in mind, when exploring this letter's relationship with James, which Luther considered 'an epistle of straw,' (McKnight, 2010, 30). McKnight (2010, 3) contends 'that the more uncomfortable Christians are with James in a Luther-like way, the less they really understand Paul!'

Pastorally, perhaps with Paul, the Christian's role is to exhort brothers and sisters to 'consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 6:11). Contra Stuhlmacher (1986, 142), who proposes 'With Christ the law, fallen into the clutches of sin...reaches its end,' Paul's descriptions of the law are less negative than such a reading would imply. Stuhlmacher might read instead that Christ is the telos, the fulfilment of the law. In this way we understand where Paul is negative about the law, it is only in terms of its impotence in securing salvation. Paul's is an appeal into a very different sort of life, characterised by the law of the Spirit in Romans 8.

Where James is positive about the law, it is in that through obedience to the law, faith is made manifest in practical actions which impact fellow believers and strengthen the community. Where critics believe that James raises problems with Paul's idea that the law tempts people to sin because for James, reductio ad absurdum, this would be tantamount to saying God tempts (James 1:13-15) since the law extends from God as his gift, a more careful appreciation of Paul's defence of the law needs to occur. Paul was aware of this charge which motivates him to exhort that blame should be lain with sin and not the law.

James and Paul are both aware of the tendencies within humanity that can lead us off course. With both there is emphasis on an evil force which James makes specific in chapter 3 with its exploitation of a particular member: the tongue. Paul's is a reference to 'members' by which he means his entire person. Having said that, the tongue acts as synedoche for the entire person in James. As with Paul, through his 'speech-in-character,' James addresses inner conflict. He explores the state of being 'double-minded,' (1:8) and also exhorts Christians to let their 'yes' be 'yes' and their 'no' be 'no' (5:12). Where Paul explored sin as an evil force, personifying it as a cruel tyrant that 'dwells within' (Rom. 7:17, 18, 20), lies 'close at hand,' (Rom. 7:21) wages 'war' (Rom. 7:21) and makes 'captive' (Rom. 7:14, 23, 25), James explores how it is the tongue dwelling within that is a 'restless evil – full of deadly poison,' (James 3:8). Its tendency to overpower the will is illustrated with metaphors drawn from nature. That it generates a kind of schizophrenia is this time manifested in the blessings and the curses of which it is simultaneously capable.

Although Pate (2000, 389) believes that James is full of anti-Pauline polemic, he does describe in a footnote that James 'attacks an aberration of the Pauline message, i.e., anti-nomianism much as Paul does in Romans 6 and 7.' He contends that whilst 'James discusses the importance of the outward evidences of one's faith, Paul teaches about its inner reality.' Paul does not say that we are not to fulfil the law, he is instead confident that we will fulfil it but through the Spirit and James shows us what this might look like. It involves our taming the tongue, avoiding favouritism, attending to the needs of the poor and showing by our works that we have been saved by faith. James and Romans are not to be seen to contradict one another for as Moo (1985, 46) describes:

'Paul and James are combating opposite problems...Against an over-emphasis on works, Paul highlights faith ...James on the other hand, is combating an under-emphasis on works...'

1Witherington (2005, pp.25-26) describes many of the possible positions in the appendix of this essay, which will focus on the idea of the 'I' either being regenerate or unregenerate.

2See Stendahl, K. (1976). 'The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.'

3For example, Cranfield (1990, 341) explores identity as autobiographical, typically Jewish, Adam, the Jewish people as a whole, mankind as a whole, and as generally rhetorical. Moo considers whether he might be autobiographical, Adamic or representative of Israel. Moreover, scholars fall into different camps depending upon whether the 'I' is regenerate or unregenerate.

4Wright (www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_BR_New_Inheritance_Paul.htm) roots his reading of Romans 7 in the idea that 'when the Law was originally given Israel recapitulated the sin of Adam… in her continuing life under the Torah Israel finds herself simultaneously desiring the good and unable to avoid the buildup of sin... (Romans 7:1-6, 13-25)

5Luther's attitude to Judaism was influenced by the debate over grace and works originating in Palagius and Augustine so that the Jews became associated with a theology finding no favour with Luther, he lost his sense of them as a people and represented them as Palegians. J I Packer, whom, I consider later in this essay, in his reading of Romans 7, seems to continue in this vein.

Too late...

This poem is by Martin Niemöller (A German pastor who realised all too late the action that should have been taken by the true Church of Germany to oppose Nazism.)

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

For whom are the church called to speak out today?

Okay!

Roger Olson has a blog

Here are some of Olson's books and I know he can crop up on our bibliographies, so why not go direct. Olson has a blog and has joined Patheos along with Mike Bird, James McGrath and quite a few other published Seminary professors.

Olson has been particularly helpful for many of us as we negotiated our way through Tim Hull's module, brilliant as he is, there was a lot to get your head around - remember this:

God in Dispute: "Conversations" among Great Christian Thinkers

• Finding God in the Shack: Seeking Truth in a Story of Evil and Redemption (2009) ISBN 0830837086
• Questions to All Your Answers: A Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith (2007) ISBN 0310273366
• Arminian Theology: Myths And Realities (2006) ISBN 0830828419
• The Mosaic of Christian Beliefs: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity (2002) ISBN 0830826955
• The Story of Christian Theology Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (1999) ISBN 0-8308-1505-8
• 20th-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age - (Olson & Grenz) (1997) ISBN 0830815252

Even if you do not comment on the blog, it's always a very nice thing to say thank you to these people every now and then for a book or two or their help with your essay, from reading their book, of course!

I wrote to Gilbert Bilezikian (founder of Willow Creek) who really did change my life (no exaggeration) with his 'Beyond Sex Roles: what the Bible says about a woman's place in church and society,' I know, it sounds a bit dodgy, but if you are wondering what God's plan is regarding women in his church this is a good read and meant that I started on the ordination process as a result, well, alongside prayer and other people's support, of course!

Dr Gilbert wrote back - I was really chuffed.

...so help yourself to the brains of Dr Olson - now at a blog near you!

God completes circles

God seems to return me often to my starting point so that things look different or l become more conscious that l have changed as l complete a circle for the second time. Three years ago, l pulled out of a class studying Esther from the OT to start college and now l return to this book of the Bible which l only covered by two thirds first time around, to start the last third with an exegesis of chapter 6. This will be my last ever essay and l really only have this weekend to crack it before an intense week of visits and days out as we complete the Leavers' course.

Leavers' course takes us to Crematoriums on Monday, a vicarage for some reflection on Tuesday, to college to share testimonies to our learning and development on Wednesday, talks about Canon Law and clergy burn-out on Thursday with a seventies disco, BBQ in the evening and then final words about what to expect from the ordination ceremony on Friday followed by the Principal's charge. We have a Commissioning Service and lunch on the Saturday and that's your lot.

Esther has little to say about God and yet he is very present and l think this is significant. l think about that policeman I walked with around the parish l am going to serve, last night. l didn't spend two hours testifying to the works of Jesus, or sharing my testimony or even asking him about any faith he might or might not have, we just talked. I have calmed down rather a lot over the last few years. David Runcorn said words that will stay with me from college. l could testify to Barth's big 'yes' and 'no,' D'Costa's inclusivity, Justin Martyr's ubiquitous cross dawning the landscape of our world and our minds but David Runcorn's 'God has all the time in the world' has had an impact on me and still continues to hold challenge as I step out praying to be more patient and graceful. We are encouraged before we leave to apologise to our fellow class-mates and be reconciled to one another and mine would be that they accept my apologies for when I have been too quick to speak and too slow to listen.

Sometimes the most beautiful things can stink

This is the Titan Arum, a very beautiful and gargantuan bloom that no doubt gives pleasure to many people, both because of its rarity and its colour. It can go for many years without flowering. In some ways it compares to the Biblioblogs top 50. No doubt, bloggers articulating complex, scholarly thoughts on a range of exegetical issues are adding colour to the varied hues that make up the theosphere and can be doing so for years. Blooming into fullness and bursting into the ranks of the Top 50 can be a rare thing and no doubt something to take great pleasure in. However, time there can be fleeting, you bloom one month but are gone the next, with your Alexa sap rising and falling, much beyond your control.

Now, what I did not tell you about the Titan Arum is that it is also capable of making the most almighty stink. Its smell is quite abhorrent and in this too I believe that it counsels us in its metaphorical application, for what is the point of joining this erudite and godly 'fraternity,' if you end up speaking words to one another which fail to exude the fragrance of Christ? There would have to be something quite deformed about you as the Latin name of this plant reveals. It is also known as the Amorphophallus, which, for those of you quite adept with your learned languages, takes little working out.

Another amazing feature of this plant is that it literally steams at night, generating heat all by itself, can I caution us that unlike the Amorphophallus, we should be producing light not heat.

The May list for the biblioblogging Top 50 is beautiful but a little stinky, much heat is being generated. No doubt this thing will soon die away and we will wait for 30 days to see who blooms next month but in the meantime 'let us reason together', as the prophet Isaiah teaches us else 'instead of perfume there will be rottenness' (Isaiah 3:24). And none of us want that.


Rachel