Category Archives: theology

Is the Virgin Birth a frame?

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Adrenaline gets you through the morning, but then it’s pay back time!! cough cough cough…

Anyhow, something I’m ruminating on at the moment.

Over at the Better Bibles Blog – often over my head but a great read – is an argument in favour of avoiding literal translation in order to convey the overall sense in more idiomatic English. Quote:

Words like experiment bring along large and complex agglomerations of associated concepts. Linguists call these associated concepts FRAMES. When we communicate, we use words to refer to frames, often in ways that seem quite tangential, and then we get to refer to parts of the frame, at no mental cost….Now when it comes to translation, the really good translators think in frames. They recognize the equivalence, or near equivalence in the frames, or the absence in one language of the frame and then use the normal linguistic tools of the target language to refer to the corresponding frames or the relevant part of the frame.

Now the example used is ‘Moses’ seat’ – ie the reference to the authority which the Pharisees have, as symbolised or represented by their occupancy of a physical chair. So:

In the Greco-Roman world the frame that goes with the piece of furniture we would call a chair includes power, wealth, and authority. In Matt. 23:2, the chair is mentioned as a way to convey the notion of Moses authority. It’s not about the furniture.

My question: is the Virgin Birth a frame, in this sense? In other words, is the description of the Virgin Birth, in Matthew and Luke, something which needs to be culturally translated in order to be understood in our own times? Is the essential part of the story not the literal truth but the symbolic point (incarnation)? Is the story fundamentally culture bound in the same way that talking about Moses’ seat is?

For my previous wrestling with the VB see here and here.

Did Jesus know he would be resurrected?

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There’s a discussion going on over at Stephen Law’s about the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice – Stephen is arguing, I think plausibly, that other people’s sacrifices can be at least comparable to that which Jesus makes. In the comments, however, I’ve raised a different issue, which probably deserves its own home. I’m sceptical of the idea that Jesus knew – in a strong sense of that word – that he would be resurrected. Reasons under the fold.

Like a good conservative evangelical Stephen quotes several proof texts to show that Jesus did in fact know he would be resurrected, including: Mark 14.25, Luke 23:42, Matt 20:19 – and there are a number of others, some even more explicit.

If the discussion is simply about what ‘the plain sense of Scripture’ testifies to, then that’s the end of the discussion, and the fundamentalist and the atheist can continue to make common cause in how to read the Bible. However, I have three grounds for thinking this insufficient:

a) the impact of modern critical scholarship, especially source and redaction criticism. Are these words accurately transcribed or is there some influence (any influence!) from the post-Easter church? In other words, I have no doubt that Jesus predicted his conflict with the authorities in Jerusalem, and his death, but can we, on historical grounds alone, be certain he predicted the resurrection?
b) The emphasis on the word ‘know’. Even if he did predict his resurrection – or something like it – did he know it in an absolutely certain manner, or is he speaking from faith? In other words, even if we take the words as historically accurate – or that there is a core of something historically accurate here – how are we to read them? What’s the tone of voice?
c) It seems to me that if Jesus did have complete and utter confidence in his resurrection (ie the strong sense of the word ‘know’) it undermines some crucial elements of the story. There is no dramatic tension; the story becomes a puppet show; there is no longer anything of real human interest at stake. This is not a problem for some readings (PSA!!) of the story, because there all that matters is that Jesus gets slaughtered. But it’s a problem for me.

As I understand him, Jesus was following the will of the Father, moment to moment. I think he could foresee (in a non-miraculous sense) that he would be killed, and I think he probably hoped – and trusted – that he would be vindicated in some way. But I can’t see any way to reconcile a strong sense of knowing he would be resurrected with a) Gethsemane, and b) the cry of dereliction from the cross. Both of those make complete human sense to me – and, paradoxically, that’s why they are most revealing of the true nature of divinity – but all of this is lost if Jesus had certain knowledge of the resurrection.

I’d be interested to know what other people think.

The esse of the church

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This might have been titled ‘Starting to leave the ABC’, as I am continuing to muse on and digest Rowan’s recent letter… Click ‘full post’ for text.

What is an apostle – what does it mean to be an apostolic church (as claimed in the creed)? ‘Apostle’ literally means one who is sent – as when early in his ministry Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs to preach to the people of Israel – but more commonly it means to be a witness to the resurrection. This after all is the historical origin of the church, and that is the sense in which St Paul is an apostle, following Road to Damascus experience.

Now one of the ways in which the church has understood itself to be in succession to the apostles is through the laying on of hands, whereby Peter and the apostles laid hands on the first Bishops, and they then laid hands on their successors down the generations. Now this is a deeply rooted biblical principle, whereby spiritual gifts are passed on in this manner. Consider Moses (Deut 34.9), St Peter (Acts 8.17) and the advice in Hebrews 6.1-2.

However, this is, to say the least, a source of some debates between different denominations. To put the question formally, is the laying on of hands the sine qua non of apostolic faith? This is a particular debate between the Church of England and the Methodist church – for the Methodist claim is that whilst there was no explicit transmission of apostolicity in terms of an episcopal laying on of hands and consecration, nevertheless the apostolic faith is preserved in the Methodist church. What might that mean?

Well, if the heart of apostolicity is witnessing to the resurrection then we can ask: what does it mean to be a witness? Surely the heart of witnessing to the resurrection is the transformation of life within the believing community, ie the presence of the fruits of the spirit. In other words, where there is the presence of love as a way of life, modelled on Christ’s own love for his community, then that is a sign that the apostolic faith is present. This would seem to be especially so when a way of life is modelled at great expense, eg martyrdom or other extreme sufferings.

So why am I musing on this at the moment? Consider Rowan’s letter to the Central Floridians, where he said:

The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such. Those who are rushing into separatist solutions are, I think, weakening that basic conviction of Catholic theology and in a sense treating the provincial structure of The Episcopal Church as if it were the most important thing… I should feel a great deal happier, I must say, if those who are most eloquent for a traditionalist view in the United States showed a fuller understanding of the need to regard the Bishop and the Diocese as the primary locus of ecclesial identity rather than the abstract reality of the ‘national church’.

Now I can understand what Rowan is getting at with these remarks – in one sense it is a straightforward declaration of catholic ecclesiology, one with which I have customarily been in instinctive sympathy. Yet what the remarks have clarified for me is an increasing awareness that this catholic ecclesiology is insufficient, and potentially harmful. I’m not about to become a congregationalist but I’m much more open than I have been to that perspective. In large part it’s the impact of spending time getting to know my colleagues in the other churches on the island (I’m chair of our Churches Together organisation). What I want to ask is: what is missing when this catholic ecclesiology is absent? Or, to put that differently, in what way (if any) is, say, a Methodist Christian lacking something? The answer I would want to try and explore would involve some sort of description of the wider church, ie that episcopacy in this catholic sense is precisely about acknowledging being a part of a wider whole, and acknowledging the boundaries of unity set up by that wider whole.

The trouble is that this wider whole is itself fragmented, the fundamental fragmentation coming in the 11th century between East and West. In this situation of brokenness an insistence on catholic unity can itself undermine the more fundamental purpose of witnessing to the apostolic faith itself. That is, the preservation of a catholic ecclesiology can itself prevent the Christ-like love which is the primary hallmark of apostolic witness. This seems especially likely in the US.

It seems particularly bizarre in Anglican terms to elevate this catholic ecclesiology above the national identity, for the Church of England was formed as national church; as I understand it, the CofE is in its self understanding ‘the church in England’, ie the catholic church as defined by national boundaries. (John Richardson has an extremely interesting post on this here with which I am in much sympathy. I often find myself in sympathy with John’s point of view, even when I disagree with him, which some might find surprising). I have often thought that, with regard to the Reformation debates, and the Roman Catholic dismissal of the validity of Anglican orders, the important point was the continuity of the church communities in place; in other words, that Christ remained present with his people no matter what was going on in the stratosphere of Kings and Popes. The real problem with that, though, is that the acceptance of other Christian denominations in the 19th Century was the most important change in Anglican ecclesiology – for that turned the Church of England from being simply the catholic church in this land into just another denomination.

I’m coming to the conclusion that the Church of England is about to metamorphose. I was tempted to say ‘die’ but one of the things I ponder much is the high quality of people whom I see as potential ordinands (I’m Warden of Ordinands in this area of Essex). God is really much too busy with strengthening the resources of the church beneath the surface for the CofE to simply ‘die’; there’s also the small matter of establishment which acts like the lead keel allowing the yacht to withstand the harshest of storms. I wonder if there is a place that members of Fulcrum and Affirming Catholicism could stand in, as that might be the form which ‘inherits’ the structures of the CofE (see this post). A secondary question is: would I want to stand there? As time goes on I am more and more committed to the essential task of gathering the Body together – that’s what this current Learning Church sequence is really all about. Fragmentation is a sin – yet we are mired in sin and cannot avoid it. We are going to be forced to choose.

Anglo-Catholic Neuroses

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Tim commented on my classification of a ‘Protestant Neurosis’ – my suggestion that for some people the pressure to interpret the Bible correctly can be overwhelming, because the right attitude to Scripture is seen as the hinge of salvation. As I’m not wanting to be at all partisan about this, and as I am quite convinced there are lots of Anglo-Catholic neuroses, I thought I’d identify one and ask people if they could think of any more! Working definition of a neurosis – seeing something as a salvation matter when it isn’t. All in the eye of the beholder of course…

The clearest one for me is to do with correct ritual and procedure – that, for example, if the priest touches something with their hands (other than the host) during the eucharistic prayer then it’s all gone wrong. The neurosis is: the Eucharist is only properly conducted when the presider keeps thumb and first finger pressed together from the point of washing hands through to the washing up at the end; and underlying that is precisely the post-Corpus Christi innovations of Eucharistic theology. An example of this in my own experience was when John Sentamu played his drums in the middle of the prayer at an area gathering in Stepney – it caused uproar amongst some of my more catholic brethren.

Any more? I’m sure there must be one involving cottas.

Guitars in worship

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bls has launched a C.H.O.C.T.A.W. manifesto, for the avoidance of crap worship. This is something I have a lot of sympathy with – and yet I am presently being accused of precisely that because I am encouraging – nay, I am insisting – on the use of the guitar in our principal communion service. Click ‘full post’ for a preview of an article in our upcoming parish magazine which explains why. See also this post (via *Christopher) for another point of view, and the comments there for yet more!


There are few things that are more likely to cause disagreement amongst Christians than questions to do with the use of music in worship. Consider this cartoon – as the saying goes – music is too important to be left to the musicians (grin). However, putting on a more serious hat, I would like to say something about the use of the guitar for some songs in the 11am communion service, as this has been causing pain to some members of the congregation. This may take a little time as it touches on very central elements of the faith.

It may be argued that it is never appropriate to use a guitar in the context of a church worship service. This I see as a very weak argument, for a rapid survey of church history will demonstrate that stringed instruments have a much deeper and stronger relationship with Jewish and Christian worship than has, for example, the organ. There are enough Scriptural references for people to be familiar with (try the last few psalms for a starting place) but consider this passage:

“It happened on Sunday after Christmas – the last Sunday they played in Longpuddle church gallery, as it turned out, thought they didn’t know it then. As you may know, sir, the players formed a very good band – almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by the Dewys, and that’s saying a great deal. There was Nicholas Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy Thomas, the bass-viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan’l Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr Nicks, with the oboe – all sound and powerful musicians, and strong-winded men – they that blowed. For that reason they were very much in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, not to speak irreverent. In short, one half-hour they could be playing a Christmas carol in the squire’s hall to the ladies and gentlemen, and drinking tay and coffee with ’em as modest as saints; and the next, at the Tinker’s Arms, blazing away like wild horses with the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’ to nine couple of dancers or more, and swallowing rum-and-cider hot as flame.”
(From A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS by Thomas Hardy)

The particular form of worship used within a church changes over time – it always has done and always will. The particular style of music used here in West Mersea for the 11am was principally shaped by the Victorians, who were responsible for introducing robed choirs (imported from 17th century Italy). The question of principle is whether that style of music is necessarily the right one to adopt today, bearing in mind the purposes that music is used for. There is some unanimity on that score: some months ago the Worship Committee agreed that “the role of music is to support, enhance, enable and – occasionally – to express the worship of the congregation”. The issue is therefore whether the use of the guitar is something which enables a congregation to worship; but that itself begs the more fundamental question: what is the congregation at the 11am service?

One of the principal changes that has come about in the last few years here at St Peter’s and St Paul’s is the development of the 9:30 congregation. The liturgy at the 9:30 was specifically designed to be simpler and more accessible to the newcomer, and the music more modern. When the service was launched there was no clarity about whether it would succeed or not, or whether there would be much of a demand for it or not. Manifestly there was both a desire for such a service and it has been tremendously successful. Yet the consequence is that the overall balance of the church’s life has altered – and that has to affect the 11am service.

The 11am service is the principal Holy Communion offered in this church. It is the place where Christians who are separated through the week can gather and break bread together – as Christians have done since the very beginning. Whilst I am very happy that some of our services can be seen as ‘niche’ services, whereby those who desire particular forms of worship can have those desires met, I believe it would destroy our unity in the faith if the 11am service became a ‘niche’ service in that way. The purpose of the 11am is to be the ‘big tent’ whereby as many Christians as possible can come together for the breaking of the bread. That will inevitably mean that no one group within the church will be completely content with what is offered, whether that be “traditionalists” who dislike the guitar, “9:30ers” who don’t like choral anthems, or the Rector who mourns the absence of incense. Yet this is no bad thing – we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves and if we are only prepared to worship with those who are just like us then we have failed to recognise the Body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 11.29 – and it has the consequences that Paul describes in that passage).

As a consequence of these two things – a change in the balance of our overall church congregation, and the necessity for the 11am service to be a spiritual home for as many brothers and sisters as we can achieve – we have begun to explore different ways of doing the 11am service, so that it more accurately reflects the nature of the whole congregation, not just the existing 11am attenders. There is no point in having a principal communion service if the nature of that service is such as to actively exclude large swathes of the church body. This is still a work-in-progress, and is tied up with the re-ordering of the sanctuary. It will take quite a few more months before we are in a position to see where the 11am service will be, although those who attended the recent ‘9:15 Morning Praise with Holy Communion’ will have a good idea of how I would like to see the 11am service develop.

There are undoubtedly times when, as we have explored a different way to do the 11am, we have tried something new and it hasn’t worked. That is my fault as I am the one pushing the exploration, sometimes over the objections of the musicians! Yet I don’t believe that God is opposed to exploration and failure – there would be nothing worth redeeming if that was the case. Whatever the birth-pains associated with the introduction of the guitar into the 11am service I do see it as absolutely essential to the long term spiritual health of the church that we embrace the guitar – and the flute and the piano and the violin – and the choir and the soloist and the organ – that, in short, we embrace each other at the 11am service. This is our common meal, where the church family says grace and shares with each other. There will always be jostling and elbow-jabs but that is what makes us who we are: a Christian community, learning what it means to love one another as our Lord loves us.

What is evangelical catholicism?

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A post I found most interesting, as you might expect – here (HT de cura animarum).

Principle number one reads:

“The Lord Jesus Christ is the crucified and risen Savior of all mankind, and no human person can fully understand his life or find his dignity and destiny apart from a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. It is not enough to know who Jesus is; we must know Jesus.”

I think I’ll be quoting that…

Why reading the New Testament with the Fathers is essential

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I’m really enjoying Doug Chaplin’s blog, which I only discovered a month or two ago. He’s just put up another fascinating post on why it’s barking mad (my phrase!) to try and read the New Testament without paying attention to the Fathers, who first read those Scriptures, and indeed decided that they were Scripture in the first place! On the question of the development of priestly roles he writes “…there is nothing clear in the text of the NT that either prevents or criticises the linguistic and theological moves attested in the very earliest of patristic writings, and subsequently developed over the next two centuries. Those who read these texts written in their own language, recognised them as scripture partly through their consonance in the same faith, and collected them and canonised them as part of that same inheritance, are the same people whose reflections on ministry in the light of that slowly forming canon led them to a theology of priesthood dependent on and reflective of the true high priesthood of Christ. They almost certainly offer a surer guide than those who, fourteen centuries later, mined the same scriptures for their own polemic against mediaeval developments.”

This quotation applies to the development of the priestly office (indeed the entire three-fold ministry); it also applies, inter alia, to the baptism of children and – though I hesitate to mention it – the doctrine of penal substitution which was virtually unknown in the Fathers. This is an area where I have qualms with the anabaptist arguments, which seem to run together developments post-Christendom with developments in the immediate post-apostolic generations. To my mind it’s essential to separate those two things.

Inclusively fanatical (August Synchroblog)

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This is a bit late. Click ‘full post’ for text.

Tim asked the very cogent question: what’s the difference between fanaticism and radical unconditional commitment? I think this gives a good way in to a brief discussion of inclusivity and exclusivity with respect to Christian faith.

My answer to Tim is: it is all about where your attention rests. In other words, radical unconditional commitment is all about – in the healthy sense – loving God with all of your self: heart, strength, mind and soul. I think the difference with fanaticism is that fanaticism has stopped paying attention to God and has become embedded in the rivalrous process of competition with another human being, or group of human beings. Instead of the wondrous awareness of the presence of God – with consequent humble attention and awe, drawing us onward into the deeper enjoyment of the Truth (who is Personal not Propositional) there is the agon, the painful contest for supremacy. Instead of the emptying out and taking on the form of a servant, there is the dominance of the will and the urge to mastery. Which is of course rooted in fear and spiritual imbalance.

So what does it mean to claim the truth for a particular position? Which is a different way of saying – who is included, and who is excluded? One of the things I’ve pondered recently was the story of the American priest who claimed to also be a Muslim. Clearly the particular truth of that situation can’t be gleaned from a long distance away (and I note with interest that her Bishop has intervened) but it raises issues of principle. Is it possible to be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time?

It might help if I outline my own answer to the ‘problem of other faiths’. I’ll do this through some summary statements (which I’m not going to argue for here – pressure of time and all that):
– I believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him;
– I don’t believe that this is a matter of the words that we say; it is a matter of the shape of life that we act out (Mt 7.21) (and this doesn’t undermine the priority of grace, but that’s a whole other argument);
– that shape of life is incarnate in Christ; that is, he shows us what it means to be human and what we are called to be like (he embodies the standard of judgement);
– I believe it is possible for people using different language to live out that life. In other words, given that all things are created through Christ, I believe that Christ is present throughout the world, and that people of other faiths can exhibit the Christ-life;
– what I mean by the Christ-life is pretty much what St Paul describes: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.”

I agree with Rowan Williams (not a surprise): “While we cannot accept Islam as the final revelation, it is nonetheless possible that God has given great gifts to individual Muslims and that through their devotion, we may yet learn something of what obedience to God looks like.” I think it is perfectly possible for a Muslim or a Buddhist – or an atheist! – to display the fruits of the Spirit and to ‘do the will of the Father’. The difference, I would argue, is that we acknowledge Christ; in other words, what is implicit elsewhere is explicit in Christianity.

Is this exclusive? Classically, the discussion about other faiths leads to three possible positions: exclusive (my truth is the only truth); inclusive (my truth includes other truths); or pluralist (the different truths are equivalent). What I’m arguing for falls pretty clearly into the middle option. I don’t have much time for pluralism (or syncretism) simply because I think there are real and concrete differences between the faiths on some things. But I want to round off these remarks by saying something more about the exclusive position – for it is the exclusive position which is fanatical, in the bad sense with which this discussion began.

To my mind there is all the difference in the world between:
– claiming the truth, pursuing the truth, and admitting ‘I could be wrong but this is where I’m walking’
and
– this is the truth and if you don’t agree then you’re wicked, evil and have smelly breath as well.

The difference is that the former recognises the inescapable logic of radical commitment to something (which is what pluralism avoids, or cannot see), yet remains open to insights from outside its own sphere of expertise; the latter is closed and has lost sight of what is most important – in believing that it has captured “the Truth” for its own exclusive possession it has in that very act lost touch with it.

This is the trap into which I fell when discussing the atonement last week. I don’t recant from what I said, but the tone was all wrong – I had been dislodged from my spiritual centre and was starting to mud-wrestle. In particular, I was tempted to remove post #3 – but I’m now minded to leave it up as an honest record of my state of mind at the time. One conclusion I’ve reached is that, principally because of my spending quite a lot of time researching evangelicalism (with the desire to build common ground and unity) I’m quite a long way out of my comfort zone spiritually. Going to the monastery yesterday was a real infusion of light and peace and oxygen. I need to remember that when I become aware of the warning signs.

Anyhow, there will be more on that in due course, no doubt.

In the meantime, I’m going to finally pick up on Sally’s tag about three apologies. There are three things for which I’d want to apologise as a [Western] Christian:

– embracing imperial culture under Constantine;
– embracing a scientific attitude in the Middle Ages, thereby distorting communion and the faith and initiating every mistake that then followed; and
– all the ways in which Christianity fed the Holocaust, which I see as the fruition of the foregoing, but the evil is so large it deserves a specific repentance.

How can Christianity claim it has sole access to the truth when it has a record like that?

Other synchroblogs this month:

David Fisher asks Why are we exclusive?
Steve Hayes is blogging his thoughts “Christianity inclusive or exclusive?
It’s a family affair comes Jenelle D’Alessandro
John Smulo will be adding his thoughts
Cobus van Wyngaard is contemplating Inclusivity within claims of heresy

Erin Word shares some thoughts on The Politics of love
As does Julie Clawson
Mike Bursell asks the question Inclusive or exclusive: you mean there’s a choice?”
And Sally shares her thoughts here

And while we’re on the subject, have a read of this.