Nick Baines Church Times What is truth, when we have a PM who lies?
“Trust is a casualty of this political crisis, says Nick Baines. The consequences could be far-reaching”
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Who is my enemy? When the Church needs to listen better.
Wyn Beynon Inclusive Church Male Headship and Patriarchal Theologies
“Male headship has no more place in the Church than slavery and the arguments for and against are precisely those for and against slavery.” – Wyn Benyon
Equating male headship with slavery is deeply unattractive.
Male headship and slavery are both archaic concepts that ought to be relegated to the rubbish bin and permanently disposed of.
“Equating male headship with slavery is deeply unattractive.”
Why? Because the truth hurts.
Because slavery is a great evil, far, far in excess of the modern incarnation of Western male headship.
Kate, in its more extreme (and burgeoning) form, male headship does make little more than slaves of women. I recently read Rachel Held Evans’ ‘A Year of Biblical Womanhood’ and it was a real eye-opener. In the US there is even a Biblical Marriage movement advocating polygamy for evangelicals. Physical and sexual abuse are being reported with conservative churches and movements advocating male headship. That isn’t surprising, as Rod Gillis points out.
This research paper is the best analysis I have seen about how religious language can be changed to sever the connection between Christian language and abuse. Paragraph 4.3 commences: “Christian egalitarianism has been described as a theological position that holds that all people are equal before God, and therefore have equal responsibility to serve God in roles and ministries without regard for gender, race, or class (Bodd 2013 p. 15). Therefore, in marriage, and within the church hierarchy, an egalitarian position would be exemplified by shared authority and responsibilities with shared roles for both men and women. This contrasts with… Read more »
Why is attractiveness the metric?
In the same way that Eve was NOT made from Adam’s rib (not least because the whole Creation narrative is communicating through myth and should not be taken as literal or applicable as a rationale in an age where we recognise evolutionary descent from earlier species, and appreciate that Eve was not an historical character)… the idea that men, as a general principle of our world, should exercise headship over women is not only risible in itself, but has been profoundly harmful to many women through history and right up to the present day in certain sects. The concept emerges… Read more »
‘there are no grounds for accepting hierarchical social structures from the past’. Is the problem here with a) hierarchy b) that they’re from the past or c) that they are unjust? There are no grounds for accepting unjust and sinful social structures, whether from the past or the present, but claiming that something is groundless because its either old or hierarchical is a bigger claim, and pretty difficult to argue for convincingly. There’s a hierarchical structure on this blog, comment moderation, which we accept because we understand the benefits of it.
Yes, I agree. After I posted my comments I thought that statement was too loose and sweeping myself. My point was that perpetuating the cultural custom of men being higher in the social hierarchy than women (in the sense of women submitting to them) is almost to reify the Bible and give its cultural contexts some kind of hold on where women are placed in relationship to their husbands etc in every succeeding culture and society. It is to ossify the culture and perpetuate it, regardless of later cultural values, insights, liberations. We don’t need to read and understand the… Read more »
What is truth when so many Anglicans and citizens of this country are no longer able to see Jesus in their bishops and clergy? Not only are we, the great unwashed, disenfranchised by Parliament that refuses to accept the outcome of a plebiscite, but our shepherds have deserted us, attracted by the great feast at the Establishment table. Mène, mène, tekel, upharsin – Look around at your empty churches! The writing is indeed on the wall.
I see Jesus in my priest, Jill.
As I do in mine and my bishop. How blessed we are!
Come on, Jill. Nick Baines has been pretty consistent in not taking refuge in (what last week’s Church Times editorial called) ‘the foxhole of reconciliation.’ He has told it as it is over the last three years, and has said and written things that are deeply uncomfortable to the Establishment and those colluding with them. Nor has he taken the Welby line of colluding with hard-liners in Tory and Labour parties (e.g. at Greenbelt, before realising he had better apologise if he was to have any credibility in chairing a Citizens Forum – an invitation which I hope will be… Read more »
My point is the foundation of European civilisation and culture – Christianity – is slowly but surely becoming a distant memory. People, not just in the United Kingdom but throughout Europe are thoroughly disillusioned with politicians, and our bishops are giving them more of the same with their own flavour of political activism. If Anglican, Christian leaders don’t get a grip on the situation and get back to showing people and politicians the way to Jesus, giving a Christian perspective to public life rather than playing politics and slavishly bowing to secular culture, our Faith will shrivel and die. Mosques… Read more »
“Mosques are spilling over with faithful Muslims,”
This is the “passing the dinner table test”. Metaphors of flooding, of invasion and of uncontrolled breeding are classic anti-Semitic tropes, now repurposed for different, but equally racist, purposes. There are places on the Internet where I am braced for white-supremacy language, where references to “the fourteen words” aren’t just any fourteen words. TA is not one of those places.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words)
Oh do get a life!
OK, let’s assume you just accidentally used the language of racism. Whoops. What does “get[ting] a grip on the situation and get[ting] back to showing people and politicians the way to Jesus,” look like, in your eyes? Do you think there is a substantial number of younger non-Church goers who are interested in some or all of rampant homophobia, institutional misogyny and young-earth creationism? Because like it or not, that is the reputation with which the inability of successive ABCs to distance themselves from extremists has left the Anglican church. What is the “way of Jesus” you want people to… Read more »
IO, I’m entirely in sympathy with the view you’re expressing about same-sex relationships, but I’d be wary about making the argument that the best way for Christianity to succeed in the modern world is to try to harmonized our views with the modern world as much as possible. I think that rather misses the point of the Sermon on the Mount. Salt is only useful to meat if it’s different from it.
Tim, that’s up to a point true: an ideology which is not distinguishable from the mainstream is rather ineffectual. But on the other hand, there is no need to differ over things that do not matter. If you are campaigning for civil rights in 1950s southern USA, you could insist that your fellow marchers also be vegans and wear funny hats, but it would significantly weaken your prospects of securing civil rights for the disenfranchised. Or perhaps, more pertinently in England at the moment, it’s possible to want for a strong welfare state, workers’ rights and a fairer economy without… Read more »
Yes, I entirely agree with that. I was just wary about what appeared to be the use of ‘This is different from the cultural mainstream, so we shouldn’t do it’ as a deciding factor for Christian discipleship.
Which may well be true, but it doesn’t change the point I was trying to make, that ‘If we want to be effective in the modern world we have to try to harmonize our views with it as much as possible’ doesn’t appear to me to be in keeping with the approach of Jesus. He told us to look for the narrow way, not the road everyone else was using.
Rod, you know full well that’s not what I’m saying! I’m not saying that in *every* instance we need to disagree with the culture around us. I’m simply saying that there are times when faithfulness to Jesus requires us to disagree with the culture around us, and so the argument that we need to align our views with those of the non-Christian world can never be completely conclusive for Christians. I’m actually trying to be helpful here! I’ve been on both sides of this argument, so I know what’s convincing and what’s not. There are many strong and helpful arguments… Read more »
Spot on and thank you!
Jill, an alternative view would be that Christianity has been abandoned in Western Europe because – in the wake of the Enlightenment – antiquated assertions based on biblical literalism or inerrancy have progressively alienated people and turned them off the living gospel. A world created 6000 years ago… humanity not evolved from earlier species… woman made from the rib of man… all the animal species in the world somehow gathered aboard a single boat a few thousand years ago… a worldwide flood higher than the highest mountains… the command of God to slaughter the Canaanite children and civilians… Jephthah murdering… Read more »
You often say that the Bible has to be considered in the context of it’s time. That also applies to the Noah story which makes sense if you recognise that the flood affected the known world, which was undoubtedly not the whole world we know today and the world as known to Noah might have been quite small. As little as 1,000 years ago the Mega Chad lake had a surface area of about 137,000 square miles but in less than a century shrank to 1% of the size. It is not too difficult to believe that another area could… Read more »
Sooooo…. when Scripture condones the ‘great evil’ of slavery we’re doing Christianity a disservice if we disagree? Or are you suggesting that the Bible is morally flawed, and consequently not authoritative, but historically/scientifically accurate? This would be an ‘interesting’ position to adopt. Come on, Kate, this is reminiscent of Keller’s ‘The Bible as History’. Isn’t the issue of (say) the Noah story not about its historicity but about the use made of a common ancient near eastern story? IIRC (my ex has our copy of Ancient Near Eastern Texts in her library now), the Babylonian flood narrative has the casus… Read more »
“And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” – Mark 16; 15-16 It seems to me that it is a choice between believing in and proclaiming the gospel (not Jesus but the gospel) and salvation or not believe the Bible and be condemned. Pretty obvious really because someone who doesn’t believe in the Bible cannot spread the word of God. You can argue all you want about the Bible not making sense but it… Read more »
Jesus is the Word of God. I learnt that from Christians, not the Bible. The Word was made flesh. So the Bible is wonderful , but the Church has never said it was essential for salvation,not anywhere.
‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.’ Article VI
Which is not quite the same as saying the Bible is essential for salvation, but it’s pretty close. Of course it doesn’t answer the point about how the Bible is to be interpreted or applied.
No, I don’t think it is pretty close. The Article is saying something about the Bible, not salvation. It says that you can check it back. The Bible contains salvific information. But people on a planet without it could find salvation in Christ, because he fills all in all. But to be honest, I’m a million miles from you on this one, and I suspect, also on much to do with what constitutes Christianity. The Bible, for us Anglicans, must be placed equally against tradition and reason. Which is precisely what the Bible itself is asking us to do. We… Read more »
Wyn, I don’t think we’re a million miles apart at all. Note that I didn’t say I agreed with the Article; I was simply answering your point that ‘the Church has never said the Bible is necessary for salvation’. Note also that I said how we interpret and apply it is key. That requires tradition and reason, as you say.
And yes, people on a planet without the Bible could still find salvation in Christ, if Christ were revealed, and continued being revealed, to them in some other way.
How are you defining ‘gospel’? The word means ‘good news’. What is the good news if it isn’t Jesus and what he showed us in his life and death?
And what do you mean by ‘believe in the Bible’? There are many ways of believing in the Bible, as there are of understanding, interpreting, and applying it in the situations we face. ‘Reliable’ is a rather odd word to describe poetry, drama, and apocalyptic, for instance.
As Rachel Held Evans said, we find in the Bible what we are looking for.
The point is I don’t need the Bible to know about Jesus, I need the Church, the continuity of faithful people who kept Jesus story alive. The Bible is a great gift. But we can pass on the good news without it, as many have done over the centuries. You are in danger of suggesting we are saved by the Bible, rather than by the God of the Bible, which I know is not what you mean, but is what you seem to imply.We carry the story of Jesus in ourselves or we don’t carry it at all.
Although it is now argued he never said this, I always find myself going back to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel always; when necessary, use words.”
I’m not sure ‘we need the Church’ is any better than ‘we need the Bible’, though I presume you don’t mean ‘the organised Church’. In my mythical planet without the Bible, I was thinking people might know Jesus (or God, since it’s possible God might not have been incarnate on that planet) through a more direct knowledge or encounter. C.S. Lewis hints at this in the first two of his space trilogy. When I was a university chaplain I met a number of people (staff, students) who went to church because they had already had a spiritual experience or encounter… Read more »
Kate, where does the Bible say “that salvation depends on believing in it”? And how could it assert this when the Bible as an entity doesn’t exist until well after the individual books had been written? There is distinction between the gospel and the Bible, even if the New Testament is our source for what the Gospel is.
Actually the whole passage is Jesus rebuking those who don’t believe. That you try to twist one signs of belief He mentioned into an instruction, which it isn’t, just shows how far we have strayed.
Seems rather strange to be trying to establish your arguments on the basis of a part of the Bible (Mark 16.9-20) which does not actually appear in the best and most ancient manuscripts and which most biblical scholars would consider was not in the original version of the Gospel of Mark – but was a 2nd century addition.
The narrative about Noah’s Ark is superb. It is one of the deepest and most profound passages in the Bible. And it communicates some of the deepest spiritual insights in the whole Bible – through the medium of myth. It is not “just” myth. It is superbly myth. It is powerfully myth. It’s doing what myth does best, drawing the deeps of our own minds imaginatively into insights that are greater than literal words alone. When one ‘literalises’ myth (as many fundamentalists are apt to do) what one does is to diminish what the Bible authors are actually trying to… Read more »
“There’s a CIA classified document about Adam and Eve” is a good meme, and keeps conspiracy theorists happy, but the facts are rather more quotidien. Chan Thomas had written and published via a small vanity press a book entitled “The Adam and Eve Story”. It was published, in at least two editions, in the early 1960s. It’s crazy nutcase sub-Velikovsky nonsense. It was acquired by Yale and Michigan State university libraries [1] [2], where it languished in deserved obscurity. A video, showing a complete physical copy page by page, has been made by someone with time on their hands, for… Read more »
Oh Dear – my Husband was so enjoying the conspiracy theory outbreak & looking forward to Area 51 making an appearance
I am non-Christian, but I have found a second spiritual home in TEC (USA). Nevertheless, I shudder when I hear that Christianity is “the” foundation of European society and culture. Precisely because it seemingly excludes the Jews, amongst other groups, who have been in Europe since the time of the Roman Empire, and their contributions. My sisters and I and various relatives live in the USA, instead of Germany, because a German leader took secular antisemitism, directly descended from Christian antisemitism, to its logical conclusion, and our parents had to leave before it concluded them. People who see Christianity as… Read more »
Frankly, I always thought that the Greeks and Romans were more foundational than Christianity.
I think, Jill, you should slightly revise your analysis of European culture to ‘the Christian foundations of Anglo-Saxon culture becoming a distant memory.’ If you peer out of the Anglo-American, English language bubble, you will find that, in many European countries, the Christian narrative is still well-entrenched in popular culture, especially in majority Catholic countries. Spend some time in Belgium, France, Spain, Southern Germany and Switzerland, for starters, and you will find that the Christian foundations are not being eroded but continue to be celebrated and catch the popular imagination. True, levels of church-going are no higher than the UK,… Read more »
Agreed, Michael. “If these things aren’t God’s, whose are they?” (+Desmond Tutu).
Do you, Michael? I have now finished reading ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ by Douglas Murray, a dispassionate extremely well-researched volume that has had strong reviews including this from Nick Cohen, ‘Liberals will want to rebut him. I should warn them that they will need to argue harder than they have ever argued before’. Complacency rules among TA scribes and brings to mind lines from the BCP (with a little licence to make a point): ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us……’
I don’t think anyone here is claiming they are without sin.
Thank you,you have scratched where many of our problems itch! The beguiling nature of establishment… A young bishop telling me in a starry eyed way about being drawn in to that. I’m grateful I was baptised and ordained in Wales which had disestablishment forced on it for political reasons. But now I’m so glad! It proves we could be parish-grounded Anglicans without establishment. The struggles in Wales are partly the same and partly different, but establishment is, at least, not one of their distractions.
Hear hear, Wyn! As a Canadian Anglican, I completely agree with you!
Regarding Wyn Beynon’s article, I don’t know if “all” power and control is demonic, but I’ve seen the “male headship” argument used in areas where, in my opinion, it is wildly inappropriate. Roughly 6 or 10 years ago, a group of pastors in a midwestern state came out against a conservative woman running to be the presidential nominee for one of the USA’s major political parties. They came out against this woman, not because of her political views, not because of a criminal record or perceived ethical failings, not because of questions over her competency, but solely because she was… Read more »
The Synod of the Diocese of Sydney has refused to pass a motion that would ask bishops to merely “consider” giving permission for a divorcee to remarry if her marriage ended because of spousal abuse. The discussion followed after several diocesan clergy were found guilty of abusing their wives. The clergymen’s defense was that wives must submit to their husbands. Synod committees now permit women to be members because committees are “conversation hubs”, not decision-making bodies. Women are not permitted to chair a committee, one of the stated reasons being that “women lack confidence.”
‘Women are not permitted to chair a committee, one of the stated reasons being that “women lack confidence.” ‘ If that is true, it is unbelievably pathetic and objectionable. Is there an online record of that ruling? Here again, you see culture being ossified and set in aspic, because of an outmoded view of how to read and understand the Bible. The Bible is not a fax or text from God. It is written by fallible authors, writing from within the context of their own times and cultures. To perpetuate those cultures, because the Bible is somehow inerrant in everything… Read more »
The “confidence” quote was not part of a ruling, but apparently part of the discussion. https://ccsl.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CCSL-Parish-Report-on-2018-Sydney-Anglican-Synod.pdf
Thank you for the link, Richard. I’ve taken a look at this year’s (2019) Standing Committee report for Sydney Diocese, and it’s clear that they are seeking to promote greater participation of women on committees (which is good), while acknowledging that local rectors may act as gatekeepers, and also repeating the claim that women need mentoring as they may ‘lack confidence’ to sit on committees. On the chairing of Committees, there seems no overall agreement. They claim there are some cases where a woman chairs a committee (maybe on all-female issues?). But there still seems to be a 1st Century… Read more »
“Although in this day and age it seems astonishing that any general objection to chairing a board would be made, simply on the basis of gender and gender subordination in church life”
This is, presumably, the message of the church that should be promoted loudly in order to ensure that more young people join, as called for upthread. Nothing says “attractive ideology and interesting organisation, well suited for the 21st century and likely to do well in recruiting millennials” quite as well as “join, but only men can chair meetings, because Jesus says so”.
I wouldn’t rely too much on the Standing Committee’s intention to promote greater participation of women. Perhaps they will *allow* greater participation once in a while. With local rectors acting as gatekeepers there isn’t a huge chance. Sydney diocese recruits almost 100% of its clergy from Moore Theological College, the diocesan seminary. Male graduates will have been indoctrinated with the notion of male headship. So too for the female graduates. There’s a good %age of female students, but they surely know from day one that they will be ordained deacon, and that their ministry will be limited to women and… Read more »
I must amend my comment. Near the end of 2018, Synod did vote to *allow* bishops to *consider* permission for remarriage when a spouse is a victim of spousal abuse. (Permission in such cases is not a given. One bishop claimed to be a “slow learner.”) The motion passed only when a secret ballot vote was held. The motion was roundly defeated by an earlier vote by raise of hands. The issue had been discussed by Synod for over 30 years.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/after-decades-of-debate-sydney-anglicans-vote-for-change-on-marriage-20181026-p50c74.html
I struggle to see how the strange sect in Sydney can in any way be described as ‘Anglican’.
Right on, Father David! This American Episcopalian wonders that as well. Perhaps the legacy of the “flogging parsons” has warped their view..?
I’m not a fan of Sydney, but I’d be careful about that kind of logic. In the 1830s most Anglicans would have felt the same way about the Oxford Movement. Reality always feels the most normal at the point where I happen to be standing.
Perhaps that’s true for Canadian Anglicans, Tim. But in the USA of the 1830s the Oxford tracts were popular because they reflected High Anglican doctrines that had been preached in America for generations…Sydney, on the other hand, is the product of the Eclectic Society Evangelicals…
The Oxford tracts might have been popular in some areas of the Episcopal Church in the 19th century, but not in most. In North Carolina, Levi Ives, Bishop from 1831-1852, had difficulty advancing catholic ideas and finally converted to Catholicism and renounced his Episcopal orders. In Massachusetts, the Bishop refused to hold confirmation services in the Church of the Advent (founded 1844), so the clergy took their confirmands to Trinity Church, a mile away. It took the passage of a new canon by General Convention requiring that all bishops visit every parish in their diocese at least once every 3… Read more »
There is much truth in what you write, John, but you also prove my point in some respects. Bishop Ives was from High Church Connecticut, which had been imbued with Anglican Catholicism since the Yale Converts of the 1720s. It was precisely the growing harassment by the Evangelical faction that drove Bishop Ives (and others, such as the Essex monastic community) to Rome. It is interesting to note, however, that the Order of the Holy Cross, the Episcopal monastic community which Bishop Ives founded in 1847, was publicly Reserving the Blessed Sacrament a decade before John Mason Neale was in… Read more »
Kurt, you’ve just made my point for me. Reality always feels the most normal at the point where I happen to be standing.
And note, I said ‘In the 1830s most Anglicans…’ In the 1830s most Anglicans would have been in England, not the USA or Canada.
Yes Tim. But unlike the Sydney sect, we are no longer in the 1830s.
Kurt and FrDavidH Come on. Both wings of the church have always had their sectarian extremes who, while barely Anglican, claim they are Orthodox and true Anglicans and name themselves accordingly – ‘High Anglican’, ‘Confessing/Mainstream Anglicans’ etc. And conservative bible teachings about women in the church have a lot longer history than the Oxford Movement. Sydney is not innovating. But the context of this discussion is the treatment of women in the church – and on this one both corners have a great deal in common at this point. They have been dreadful. So isn’t it a bit rich to… Read more »
Of course, you are quite correct, David, to assert that the major schools of Anglican thought have all had their extremes (even the Low/Broad Church). And just as not all of us Anglican Catholics are living in a Gothic Revival-era time warp, I understand that there are many progressive Evangelicals who support women in leadership positions. I guess that “Sydney Anglicanism” is kind of a “red flag” to some of us…I imagine “New York Episcopalianism” is probably a “red flag” to them…
I don’t think anyone could describe Sydney diocese as being ‘normal’. The average person would say it consists mainly of religious extremists.
Is that even a serious argument? The question is not what year it is. The question is, who gets to decide what is or is not a true Anglican? I use the authorized services of the Anglican Church of Canada every Sunday. I know of Anglicans who use the Roman missal. Err….
I frequently visit a website that upholds the “traditional” role of women. The moderator once stated, with a tone of pride, that his wife does not speak in public (especially church) unless he asks her to. But, in his defense, I must add that he boasted about her “delicious meatloaf.”
I used to follow the Christian Post Facebook page, where some commenters hold similar views. One asserted that women are the property of men. I unfollowed the group after two men in it, separately, accessed my own FB page to troll me on it. The aggression was unnerving.
Richard – like the poor, they are always with us. Meanwhile I wish websites like this one offered more unambiguously, positive alternatives. The challenge is closer to home.
A propos the piece by Nick Baines, the Court of Session in Edinburgh has held the prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful, and has set it aside, at the same time strongly criticising the Government.
The Government’s response is that it will appeal the decision to the UK Supreme Court. The appeal will be heard by nine Supreme Court judges. This link to ‘Law & Religion UK’ provides more detail:
http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2019/09/11/brexit-court-of-session-declares-advice-to-prorogue-parliament-unlawful/