Ordination Gift Ideas

Someone suggested that I should have a special wand to use when pronouncing the absolution after I am ordained to the priesthood (let the reader understand).

I fear there may have been a little satire in their tone.

They remain to be convinced that, in the words of the Prayer Book:

Almighty God... hath given power and commandment to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins

BCP, the absolution from Morning Prayer, p3

Perhaps some further Bible study is called for.

GAFCon Representative

I gather from David Virtue that if we take Archbishops at GAFCon to represent the active Anglicans in their churches, then GAFCon easily stands for well over 70% of Anglicans.

Correction? On the Today programme this morning I think they said the organizers claim that the conference represents 50% of church-going Anglicans, so perhaps I got my wires crossed there. Apologies.

Prayer To Mary

I have just been leafing through the Armed Forces Operational Service and Prayer Book (Ministry of Defence, JSP 587, Armed Forces Chaplaincy Policy Board), which contains some useful and some not so useful material, including funeral services from other faiths.

I'm afraid that with the best will in the world, it seems to me that the "Evening Prayer [sic!] to Our Lady" gives to Mary the place that belongs only to Christ. I don't think she or her son would like it!

Please don't "pray" it. You can read it here for research purposes only!

Hail holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To Thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,
to Thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and wailing in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate, Thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of Thy womb Jesus.

O clement, O loving, O Sweet Virgin Mary.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

(p22)

Capital letters for Mary seems to me to give her far too high a status.

Better to go straight to Christ, knowing that he is the only mediator between God and man and that anyone who comes to him he will by no means turn away.

This prayer seems to me obviously to pray to Mary whereas I have heard some try to distinguish talking to Mary and asking her to pray for us, which sounds like as a bit of a fudge to me anyway.

Oxford Thinking

The University has launched its biggest ever campaign.

Perhaps it could mark it by a thorough return to its motto:

“The LORD is my light” (Psalm 27:1)

I might then be inclined to give it some cash if I had any.

I was pleased to see that the chairman of the Campaign is an LMHer and that the college's 130th anniversary this year gets a mention.

I wonder how much it cost them to send everyone that lovely glossy boasty book, by the way?

Ruth & The Prodigal

I've noted the comings and goings in Ruth before.

I wonder if the book might not be fruitfully compared with the story of the prodigal son.

In both, there is a movement from the Father's place of provision, from being well fed to hungry, a journey to a far off country of sin where there is eventually a lack of food, suffering and judgement. The characters come back to their senses and go back to where God has provided.

Ruth's humility in 2:13 where she says that Boaz has comforted her and spoken kindly to her though she is less than one of his servant girls put me in mind of the Prodigal's recognition that he is not worthy to be called a son and that the servants are better off than he. Boaz shows a kindness and generosity like the Father's.

The readers of Ruth must not be like the older son, begrudging God's generosity to a gentile younger son.

Have you got the keys?

As I understand it, according to the BCP and the canons, in the dear old C of E, the presbyter has the power of the keys. He is to excommunicate gross notorious unrepentant sinners.

But he must notify the diocesan bishop who must give an opportunity for an interview and who may then give a ruling which the presbyter is to follow. The Bishop has a master or skeleton key.

Has the presbyter lost the power of the keys? Is this a good, right or acceptable system?

Texts on the power of the keys (and excommunication) most welcome too.

Ordination goes episcopal

Normally when presbyters are ordained in the C of E, other presbyters join with the bishop in laying hands on the ordinand deacon.

Apparently, in this diocese of Chichester, Bishop John has set the practice that now the bishop alone lays his hands on the candidate and ordains him. Other presbyters may then separately lay hands on the candidate and pray for them quietly as a sign of welcome and blessing.

I understand this arose because of the confusion over women's ordination. I guess some men did not want to be touched by women presbyters and some deny that they are such. I guess some men didn't want to touch women too. This way the peace is kept and contamination is spared.

As I understand it, in this diocese the ministry of women is welcomed but it is retired bishops who priest all the women. I'm not sure I understand that policy, but there we go.

I absolve you & I bless you

In the ordination service with which Bishop Wallace Benn is soon to ordain me presbyter (priest), d.v., it says that the special responsibilities of priests include absolving and blessing the people in the name of Christ. I’m perfectly happy to promise so to do, but I wonder if anyone can help us out with the exegetical basis for that? Also, how would you prove from the Bible that the minister is specially authorised to represent Christ (to his congregation)?

Liturgical Reform Programme steps 1 & 2

I stand by my earlier comments about designing new furniture for a sinking ship but I think the top 2 liturgical reforms I'd like to see are:

(1) The full scale authorisation of a good modern language version of the BCP. Something like the English Prayer Book (Church Society / OUP) would be great. It seems to me that Common Worship accepts the principle with the modern language BCP communion service. Since all Anglicans love the BCP and claim it for themselves, who could possibly object? Come on, synod, vote now, you know you want to.

(2) The authorisation of a Lord's Supper service according to an explicitly covenantal renewal pattern using lots of Scripture, traditional texts (such as The Apostles' Creed) and some permitted variations.

By the way, why does the BCP communion service have us saying the Lord's Prayer twice?

The hurt of hearing the mass

The other day I was at a clergy event where I was supposed to go to a communion service led by an anglican minister. To my surprise, it turned out afterwards that it had been from the Roman Missal.

I didn't walk out, but if I had been braver I might have done when the minister was holding up the wafer saying "this is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". This seems at best confused and confusing to me and likely idolatry, if really believed.

There was also much careless talk of sacrifice. Whilst the service didn't say, "now I will offer a meritorious good work to propitiate God" it sounded like the minister thought he was helping the achieve the salvation of the world by what he was doing. To my mind the service needs to be much more explicit on the one perfect completed never to be repeated sacrifice of Christ and our unworthy sacrifice as one of thanks and praise.

Prayers for the dead and invocations of the saints are without biblical warrant and risk undermining the work of Christ.

And I'm nervous about kissing the table.

I didn't join in with the dodgey words but I did communicate. Amusingly there were 2 Roman Catholic clergy present who didn't communicate but all the Anglican ministers did.

What should I have done?

Think I need to read John Bradford, The Hurt of Hearing the Mass.

It is a real shame that one can't trust supposedly Anglican services to be the real thing.
There should be a law against it. Oh, oops, nearly forgot, there is, but no one bothers about that... Maybe I should have called the police, or the Bishop.

One main point?

Just to share a little more sermon preparation angst:

Do you buy the idea that sermons should ideally / normally / always (!) have one main point?

I’m not sure I’m really convinced. But maybe that’s laziness!

Yet, its good if the sermon has a certain overall coherence, I guess. Of course it’s a problem if the whole thing’s self-contradictory, but I’m inclined to think, further, that its good, on the whole, for the sermon to have a clear single general thrust or direction.

I’m not over keen on reducing my sermons to a single pithy aim sentence, but perhaps I should be?

Presumably a walk through a Psalm could be faithful and edifying without being crunched out into three section headings?

I’m inclined to think a sermon that gives 4 things we need to know about God or even 3 lessons about Jesus and 2 reasons to follow him, would be perfectly acceptable. Would these be disqualified by the one main point rule? A problem of trying to squeeze everything into one point is that the point can be made so blandly inclusive that there’s not much point in making it.

Admittedly, we must not sacrifice clarity.

One advantage of having a summary sentence and saying it repeatedly is that there’s more hope that after the sermon someone might remember what you were saying. There’s not much hope for the congregation if the preacher cant summarise what he was on about!

I’m satisfied if, as a bare minimum, I can say something true and useful to my hearers from the text that’s been read. And I hope they’re not all completely asleep throughout.

If you confine yourself to the main point of a unit, when do you make the points that the text is making by the way, the things that the Bible really affirms but which aren't necessarily the melodic line of the book? If you wanted to say quite a lot of what the text implied, would the one-main-pointer have to take very small sections?

I sometimes fear my sermons are in danger of tending to be a jumble. Perhaps that’s because I don’t want to leave out things that are true and useful. Or interesting things that I’ve been struck by.

Any help?

How many will we catch?

I guess there’s always a danger that we see what we’re looking for, even if its not there! But I still reckon that post-millenial kind of texts crop up pretty often. Of course it doesn’t prove it, but in so far as the passage I’m preaching on this Sunday has anything to say about millenialisms, it seems pretty optimistic about the effectiveness of gospel ministry.

If the disciples thought at all about how many men they would “catch” in their new fishing ministry, Luke 5vv10 and 6 might lead them to expect amazingly large numbers of converts. Simon could reasonably expect that as he recognised his sin and inability but believed and obeyed Jesus’ word, he’d have an amazingly fruitful ministry. So it has turned out.

The Cleansing of the Temple (Jn 2)

Here's the text of my handout for a sermon on the cleansing of the temple in John 2, which in due course should appear as an audio file on the Holy Trinity, Eastbourne website.

The real Jesus of the Bible repeatedly surprises us (cf. 2:1-11)

Jesus is determined (v15), zealous (v17) angry and formidable

Righteous indignation is possible (cf. Eph 4:26; Mk 10:14) though beware… (vv24-25; Rom 10:2; Prov 19:2)

Why is Jesus angry?
(1) The glory of God (vv16-17; cf. Acts 17:16)
(2) The needs of others (including gentile nations, Mk 11:17) – exclusion & exploitation

Do we share Jesus’ concerns and godly responses?

Jesus judges even (possibly seemingly) plausible corrupt religion

What would Jesus say of us, our worship & religion? How can we put our own house in order?

Jesus has astonishing, unique authority (v18) as the Son of God (v16), the Lord (Mal 3:1)

Make your peace with Jesus, submit to his lordship

Jesus’ resurrection confirms his identity & authority (v19, “I”)

Jesus is the New / True / Ultimate Temple:
(1) God’s glory dwells in Jesus (1:14, “tabernacled”; 2:11). We go to Jesus to meet God (1:18).
Church buildings ≠ the Temple (Acts 17:24)
(2) the place of sacrifice – (vv14-16), Lamb of God (1:29)

The Jerusalem Temple was obsolete after Jesus died and was destroyed in AD 70, as he predicted (Mt 23:38-24:2; 27:51)

deep, sincere, continuing trust in Jesus (vv23-25; 2:11; 20:31)

Chesterton on the Real Jesus

G. K. Chesterton said something like this:

People sometimes have the impression that “Christianity is something weak and diseased”. They think that “Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish and unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world.” They imagine that Christianity belongs to the “dark ages of ignorance” and that “superstitious” people who are “still strongly religious… are weak, unpractical, and behind the times”.

“I only mention these ideas to affirm… that when I looked into them independently [for myself] I found, not that the conclusions were unphilosophical, but simply that the [supposed] facts were not facts.”

“Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like a an angry god – and always like a god.”

“Christ had even a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the a fortiori. His “how much more” is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds. The diction used about Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea.”

“Morally it is equally terrific; he called himself a sword of slaughter, and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats for them. That he used even wilder words of the side of non-resistance greatly increases the mystery; but it also, if anything, rather increases the violence.”

“We cannot even explain it by calling such a being insane; for insanity is usually along one consistent channel. The maniac is generally a monomaniac…. Christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside one another [or so it might seem]. The one explanation of the Gospel language that does explain it, is that it is the survey of one who from his supernatural height beholds some more startling synthesis.”

Ch 9, ‘Authority and the Adventurer’ in Orthodoxy (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1996, first published 1908) (pp217-218)

Zeal according to knowledge

The Lord Jesus Christ is surely the ultimate example of “zeal according to knowledge” (Rom 10:2; cf. Prov 19:2).

Jesus’ disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:17 quoting Ps 69:9)

And, John tells us, “Jesus would not entrust himself to them [those who saw the signs he was doing], for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.” (John 2:24-25)

Comings and Goings in Ruth

The other day I noted some patterns in Ruth, though I wasn’t sure what to make of them.

I wonder if chapter 2 might be a deliberate reversal of chapter 1. In her own estimation, Naomi goes out from Bethlehem full in chapter 1 and comes back empty (v21). In contrast, in chapter 2, Ruth goes out to the field of Boaz empty and comes back full. If Elimelech acted in faithlessness bringing God’s judgement on his family, Ruth acts in faithfulness and her family experiences God’s blessing.

Questioning Questions

I fully admit the great power of a good question. And I enjoy a good discussion. And let’s have a full and frank exchange of views.

But if you are ever invited to speak at an Initial Ministerial Education event or such like, please do more than ask some questions or facilitate. We don’t really need you to share your academic problems with us.

We already know we are hopelessly confused and divided. We need help to love God and our neighbour better, preach the Word and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ as we serve our churches and the lost world.

In particular, please avoid questions that are incoherent or self-defeating. Do not assume your conclusions. Do not present false dichotomies.

By all means stir the pot up and open cans of worms and pour some petrol on the sticks and light a fire, but let’s put the pot, the worms and the fire to good use in the end.

Thank you.

Of course, we don’t have all the answers, but we do have some fixed points that are of first importance according to the Scriptures and we need reminding of them often.

The Power of the Bible

Yesterday Professor Steve Moyse gave some reflections at IME 4-7 on the power of the Bible to change and move us. Moyse is a New Testament scholar, head of theology at the University of Chichester and is involved in homegroups at church and does some lay preaching etc.

(1) He spoke of his conversion while at University through the Christian Union getting him to agree to reading Luke’s gospel. He found it spoke to him with convincing power, he met the risen Jesus and became a disciple.

(2) Then Moyse went to a Bible study on Genesis 22 and thought it was appalling that Abraham should contemplate killing his son and think that it might be the will of God. (Moyse didn’t mention Heb 11, by the way, which confirms what the Genesis text hints at that Abraham reasoned that God can raise the dead). Moyse seems subsequently to have become a liberal since he thinks Mark contradicts John and so on.

Now, we deny what (2) is meant to imply, of course. But Moyse seemed to want to ask how we account for the transforming power of the Bible if we do not hold to a fundamentalist doctrine of Scripture (though a version of (a) below could be seen as fundamentalist).

He had 4 options:

(a) There is something intrinsic about the Bible that makes it powerful.

(b) God chooses to use the Bible in this way.

(c) Literature (not just the Bible) can speak with power and transform.

(d) The transforming power of the Bible is an illusion. The power comes from us not it.

We deny (d) though we accept that who I am and my context shapes my reading of Scripture. My spiritual state also affects what I hear.

(a), (b) and (c) are perfectly compatible with one another.

Books communicate and mediate personal relationship (c), though the Bible is as special case since its author is living and active in its reception. The Holy Spirit speaks the words of the Bible to us today (Heb 3 & 4). The Bible is intrinsically special (a) since God wrote these words, but they are also ordinary human words with real human authors. God chooses (b) to continue to use the words he caused to be written. God’s choice is appropriate not arbitrary. A version of (b) could be a mindless hyper-charismatic magical or superstitious use of the Bible as directly addressed to me divorced from its original intended meaning.

Questions about authorial intent and meaning become easier (and more complex) when we remember a speech act view of language (we do things as people addressing people with words, not just stating propositions, but bringing relationships into being and altering them) and consider God as the ultimate author of Scripture. We need not think that Isaiah understood everything that his book properly means to us.

There is some mileage in the kind of distinction that Moyse mentioned between (original intended) meaning and (later or fuller) significance. In a way, all exegesis and systematic theology is application.

Moyse has a new book out, by the way, Evoking Scripture: Seeing the Old Testament in the New (2008), which is basically a series of case studies on NT use of OT followed by some literary and theological reflections.

Furniture Design: a priority?

At our Initial Ministerial Education 4-7 residential conference, someone said that in the church we are not merely rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic while the ship sinks. We are designing new furniture! We need to get out there with the gospel. This was all with reference to the shelf-space the Common Worship series now takes up and how long the whole process of devising it and adapting it each week takes.

Now, furniture design may in the long term contribute to the spread of the gospel and good liturgy is essential to good Christian life, work and evangelism, but he has a jolly good point.

Would you carbon credit it?

I wonder how much carbon would be used up by attempts to monitor, police and reduce the amount of carbon people are using? How much carbon would it take to calculate that? (And so on!) Not to mention how much time, money and effort would go into the whole thing.

If the government want to reduce our carbon footprint, why not abolish government departments, QANGOS and agencies and plant trees where they used to be?

"We omitt verses..."

I attended morning prayer at Durham Cathedral on Thursday which was supposed to be according to Common Worship, but the Dean and Chapter had decided (apparently after much discussion and despite differences of opinion) that as the Psalms were being prayed as part of the liturgy and not merely read, those verses which call down God’s curse would be omitted, contrary to the BCP lectionary which was used and the Common Worship books with which we had been provided.

If I remember rightly the Psalms appointed for Thursday in the BCP were 139 – 141 and verses had to be missed out from each one, sometimes bleeding great chunks. My father-in-law (a Baptist Bishop) pointed out that in some cases this badly affected the sense not only of the whole but also of what was actually read. One of the verses we did read began with a “but” that referred back to the omitted lines.

It is also quite tricky if you’re reading a long Psalm alternately to remember that you (or the leader) have to miss out vv3-7, 10 and 21-30.

One of the Cathedral clergy claimed that these omissions were a jolly good thing and had a long and noble Anglican history. Apparently the 1928 Prayer Book and the ASB (both of which are illegal) but the offening verses in brackets or something or other.

They seemed to be concerned that if they read the Bible out people might go out of Mattins and dash babies heads against rocks. This seemed extremely unlikely to me as everyone there was a clergyman (or woman) or the verger or a sensitive looking young man, but I suppose you never know. If they are that worried, maybe a brief sermon is called for? Anything can be misunderstood and if we start trimming out cloth in that way we will soon be starkers.

I know its not up to him but I wonder what the Good Bishop makes of all this?

It seems to me pretty shocking to doctor the Word of God because you do not believe that we should pray as the Psalmist, the people of God, the Lord Jesus Christ and Christians (including Anglicans) for a millennium and more have done.

I resisted calling down a curse on the Dean and Chapter but I do pray that they would change their minds.

A sorry business.

GBH is excellent

(Bishop) George Bell House (GBH!), situated in Canon Lane in the centre of Chichester, in which I sit, is exceptional. It is some kind of Cathedral study / conference centre where we are having our Initial Ministerial Education 4-7 residential conference, but it is lovely and is kitted out so that people can come and stay here for wedding receptions and so on.

I believe there are 8 twin en suite rooms, a dinning room, sitting room, conference room, conservatry and garden. Wireless internet access, TVs in lounge and rooms, good service. Spacious, comfortable and tastefully decorated.

It does need: a gong for summoning people to dinner and Bibles in the rooms. The temperature gague on our shower seems to be the wrong way round (just as ours is at home) and the clock in room 2 has stopped. But other than that...

Apparently all the cash came from some people-strapped religious community.

If you are a nunnery with too much dough, Holy Trinity Eastbourne would be delighted to put it to good use, by the way.

Manchester Report Women Bishops Petition

Apparently,

A number of petitions are available online for those taking varying positions on women bishops, following the production of a letter, signed by over 700 serving women clergy, urging the bishops to take a minimalist 'Single Clause, Code of Practice' approach, which would marginalize those who take the traditional view of Church leadership.

An alternative petition (1) for those who endorse the historic Evangelical view, adopted at the National Evangelical Anglican Congress in 1977, is available on the Anglican mainstream site:

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2008/05/28/petitions-on-women-bishops/

A petition (2) for all those who support the consecration of women as bishops but who nevertheless reject the Single Clause approach in favour of one of the other options in the Manchester Report can also be found there.

Please consider signing one of these petitions and forwarding this e-mail to friends.

I'm not sure I'm 100% convinced that ultimate responsibility should usually be signular not plural / mixed but I don't want to quibble.

By the way, is it:

(1) Women bishops would not be bishops since bishops are men and women cannot become bishops

(2) Women should not be bishops but they could be, though they ought not to be.

Is somekind of subjective / objective distinction needed here?

Would the speech act of ordaining a woman a bishop merely be defective or would it completely misfire and be void?

(The same questions would apply to Elders, of course, Oh, Indie friends).

Right, sounds like I should head off to sign petition (1). Is it for reason (1) or (2)?

Jim Packer at Holy Trinity Eastbourne

Revd Dr J I Packer will be speaking at Holy Trinity, Eastbourne on "Lessons to be learned from the Canadian Church Experience", I imagine focusing on the current difficulties in Anglicanism over Biblical authority, morality and church order. Tues 24th June, 7:45-9:15pm. All are welcome.

Details of how to find / contact the church can of course be found at www.holytrinityeastbourne.org.uk

I promise (fingers crossed)

According to Common Worship page xi, the following declaration of assent is made by deacons, priests and bishops of the Church of England when they are ordained and on each occasion when they take up a new appointment (Canon C15).

I, A B, do so affirm, and accordingly declare my belief in the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness; and in public prayer and administration of the saraments, I will use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon.

I've no problem with the first bit, even if some people seem to think it gives them rather more wriggle room than I'd like.

And I could minister only using the forms authorized or allowed. But I think the use of only authorised or allowed forms is limiting. Though the minister has some discretion, it would seem that when there is an authorised or allowed service of public prayer or administration of the sacraments that form must normally be used without ammendments unless there are very special circumstances. It should not be a permenant change without special arrangements. Lots and lots of churches are not sticking to the rules.

It is a myth put around by some Evangelical Anglicans that any change the in direction of the BCP (or even the Bible) is acceptable. You have to use a CW or BCP service as is. No mucking about.

And you can't just declare everything a service of the Word. And even if you could that gives you less freedom than you may want. Even in a service of the word you must have authorised prayers of penitence, the collect, an authorized creed / declaration, the Lord's Prayer.

How many of our services are legal?

And loads of other non-Evangelicals seem to be happily and openly doing what is right in their own eyes, some even using Roman Catholic forms, which are not allowed. But our case for legal services would be much stronger if ours were!

I have lost count of the number of people who have encouraged us in more or less public settings not to bother too much about keeping that promise from college tutors, Archdeacons, Bishops, training incumbants, rural deans, ministry advisors / tariners. Very few people seem to stick to the rules or to the vows they made.

I think this is a serious problem and I would urge the powers that be to revise the oath into one that can be kept strictly and exactly by someone who interprets it according to the letter of the law.

Surely the church of England could find some form of words? It is famous for its powers of fudge and verbal dexterity.

Maybe, "I will minister with reference to the forms of service which are authorised", or "guided by", or "inspired by", or "and in faithfulness to the Scriptures, the creeds and the Articles and the Prayer Book" etc.?

A court could then decide what was unfaithful to Scripture, the creeds, the formularies and the Anglican inheritence if the need arose.

Can we expect God's blessing on our ministry if we begin them with solemn oaths in his presence that we do not seek to keep?

In the mean time, it seems to me that we have to include exactly what it says in the services unless there is some special pressing occassional reason to do otherwise (such as it is unhealthily hot and people are fainting or 10 toddlers have unexpectedly arrived, there is no creche and they are screeming). As I say, that would be okay, but I don't think its best.

For example, I would like to see a Lord's Supper service authorised that more closely and explicitly follows a Covanant Renewal pattern.

Chesterton on Aquinas

I had very high hopes of G. K. Chesterton’s little book (180pp) on Saint Thomas Aquinas, sometimes known as The Dumb Ox (Orig. Sheed and Ward, New York, 1923) – perhaps foolishly so. I was somewhat disappointed.

The prose is sometimes dazzelling, often amusing and usually engaging. Sometimes I find Chesterton’s non-fiction a bit hard to grasp on a quick-ish reading, though. I suspect he’s saying something clever, but I’m not exactly sure what it is! In places the references are a bit dated but in my edition (Ignatius Press, 2002) there were some useful editor’s footnotes.

There were some revelations about Aquinas’ life and character, although the book is intentionally very sketchy and somewhat impressionistic. I suspect little is actually known and I occasionally felt Chesterton was speculating in a kind of religio-literary riff. Aquinas comes across as a big, thoughtful, committed, gracious aristocrat with a quiet dogged and brilliant intelligence that was easily underestimated. Being dead he yet speaks, and once or twice the Dumb Ox roared.

Chesterton focuses on Aquinas’ philosophy (especially his baptism of Aristotle) where as I would have liked more on his theology. Chesterton is pretty persuasive that Aquinas didn’t sell out to rationalism and I suspect something of Chesterton’s defence of reason and general revelation could be usefully applied to types of Protestant Scholasticism.

Theologically, Chesterton seems to think of the Incarnation as the centre of Aquinas’ thought, and of the Christian faith. I reckon it needs to be thought of rather more in connection with the plan of salvation and the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ than the book stresses. Whilst Chesterton sees the Incarnation as the vindication of nature and creation, perhaps the resurrection better fulfils that role since it also points more fully to the transformation of nature / creation by grace and is more prototypical of the whole cosmos than the unique hypostatic union of God and Man in the Incarnation. Maybe I quibble.

Chesterton also slags off “Calvinists” (which is a bit of a misnomer) and even if I think some of his criticisms might perhaps be on target for some dangers of some people sometimes, I don’t really want someone else criticising my mother even if I feel free to do so with caution and respect in private myself!

So, in short, if you find this book lying around, it’s worth a browse, but I wouldn’t rush out and get it nor feel bound to read every word, nor assume it’s a hugely reliable guide.

I did read every word but the only bits that got a pencil mark in the margin:

In the common phrase, fond as he [St Francis of Assisi] was of the green fields, he did not let the grass grow under his feet. He was what American millionaires and gangsters call a live wire. It is typical of the mechanistic moderns that, even when they try to imagine a live thing, they can only think of a mechanical metaphor from a dead thing. There is such a thing as a live worm; but there is no such thing as a live wire. St. Francis would have heartily agreed that he was a worm; but he was a very live worm. Greatest of all foes to the go-getting ideal, he had certainly abandoned getting, but he was still going (p21)

About this medieval movement there are two facts that must be emphasised. They are not, of course, contrary facts, but they perhaps answer to contrary fallacies. First, in spite of all that was once said about superstition, the Dark Ages and the sterility of Scholasticism, it was in every sense a movement of enlargement, always moving towards greater light and even greater liberty. Second, in spite of all that was said later on about progress and the Renaissance and forerunners of modern thought, it was almost entirely a movement of orthodox theological enthusiasm, unfolded from within. It was not a compromise with the world, or a surrender to heathens or heretics, or even a mere borrowing of external aids, even when it did borrow them. In so far as it did reach out to the light of common day, it was like the action of a plant which be its own force thrusts out its leaves into the sun; not like the action of one who merely lets daylight into a prison. (p26)

We might call it a plundering of the Egyptians or a claiming back of borrowed capital.

Good paragraph on page 26 about proper Doctrinal Development as more like evolution than adaptation and not like evasion; growth to maturity, a puppy turning into a dog; the drawing out of implications and distinctions; the development of internal resources; theology understanding itself.

I think I'll give the companion essay on Francis of Assisi a go, but I don't promise not to flick!

Cult & Culture

Too often culture (our whole way of life) determines cult (churchly worship). We become like the surrounding nations and worship their gods, sometimes without giving up on a type of Yahwistic lip-service. Consciously or unconsciously the minister tries to make himself (or in our culture, herself) attractive, or at least inoffensive to his audience, customers or pay-masters. She tries to be one of the guys and a nice chap, not quite a game show host or a Red Coat entertainer. Even if his chinos and open-necked shirt are a bit dressy compared to most of his clients, its good that he makes an effort – and some of the older folk who have remained in the church wouldn’t like flip flops and shorts, though that’s what the committed core wear for they understand the theology that they’re not doing anything really very special here on a Sunday (and it needn’t be here or on a Sunday, of course). Sometimes this is driven by the mistaken belief that the Sunday morning service is all about being seeker sensitive and then trying to be sensitive to a particular type of seeker. There are times and places and degrees of being all things to all men and the secondary goal of evangelism in worship mustn’t turn us into Cannanites.

Rather, cult is to determine culture. In fact, that’s inevitable. We become like what or whom we worship. The Sunday morning service of covenant renewal is a new start to a new week, even the remaking of a new world. The waters of life flow out from the Garden Sanctuary to renew the land, and their effects are felt even in the far off corners of the world, though most of those who drink them no not whence they came. In God’s temple his people are fed and trained and equipped. We are washed and patched up and after we enjoy fellowship and celebration with our loving heavenly Father. At last we are given our marching orders. As we bring the Eucharistic elements and our tithes and offerings, unworthy as we are, we offer up our ordinary feeble damnation-deserving efforts, done soley by the grace of God alone, to God and he graciously accepts them, and gives them back to us as something he alone can use for his purposes. Here we offer all of our cultural work to God. Our ordinary, daily, individual / family / nation endeavours of worship join with our special corporate public Sabbath sanctuary worship and are transformed as a result.

The whole of life is worship, but not in the same way as special worship and only because it is an outflow of it.

The Son: Equal but Different

This ought to be at the front of my mind, of course, and Mike Ovey would be ashamed of my need to ask, but given that I never studied Christian Doctrine properly (!), I wonder if you could give this the once over for orthodoxy. I'm thinking of preaching this kind of thing on Sunday morning with as few big words as possible.

(1) The Son is ontologically and essentially equal to the Father

(2) The Son is enternally relationally subordinate to the Father. This relational subordination is both according to his nature as Son and voluntary.

(3) According to his human nature, the Incarnate Son is inferior to the Father.

This "equality but difference" provides a model for the submission of wives to husbands in marriage and of members to elders in the church.

Elohim - "the gods is"

With a nervous feeling about my lack of Hebrew…

I don’t remember ever coming across this before:

Donald Macleod points out that the name most commonly used of God in the Old Testament, Elohim, is plural, although when used of God it is always used with singular verbs and adjectives. Macleod says it is as if we were to say, “The gods is”. Macleod argues that God had good reason for calling himself Elohim and that it “fits beautifully with the fact that in him there is a fullness of fellowship. The New Testament disclosure of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the best, and possibly the only, explanation of God giving himself a plural name.” (p13)

Shared Life: The Trinity and the Fellowship of God’s People (Christian Focus, 1994)

"Goddy"

I found myself telling Baby Jono (a.k.a. Jonathan) today that it was very kind of "Goddy" to give him so many toys.

I'm not sure "Goddy" is an appropriately reverentail title for the Almighty but with all the Mummy and Daddy-ing and so on it seemed to trip off the tongue rather easily.

I guess some might see so kind of justification for the term in Jesus' called the Father "Abba", which is sometimes said to be something akin to "Daddy," although my New Testament tutor at Oxford claimed "Dad" is perhaps closer to the feel of the Aramaic?

Calvin on lay precidency

I guess everyone knows this, for what its worth, but since lay presidency is fashionable in some circles it may just be worth noting that we can be pretty certain Calvin would have been against it, at least as a rule.

Moreover, since God has placed the sacraments as a sacred deposit in his Church, we believe that individuals are not to use them apart, but that the use of them ought to be common to the assembly of the faithful, and that they ought to be administered by the pastors to whom the charge and dispensation of them has been committed.

Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches of France 1562, section 24

I think lay presidency is certainly possible (you don't need a priest to do his magic) but not the most appropriate. Whilst I can see there could be practical circumstances where it could be helpful, I think its in danger of being a reactionary departure from the tradition of the church (including the Reformed tradition). I reckon there are more important things for us to campaign on! For example, it would be great if the C of E sought to prevent people bowing down to the reserved sacrament before it introduced lay presidency.

Ought we to need Supper?

Calvin is in the habit of saying that the Word of God ought to be sufficient for us for full assurance and confidence, but that because of our ignorance and frailty, God has added the sacraments as helps for us.

Now of course, we ought to believe the Word of God!

But I’m a bit uncomfortable with saying that the sacraments are simply given because we weak and ignorant and somehow ought to be unnecessary. Maybe I’m being uncharitable to Calvin but its almost as if he thinks the Word alone would be better if that were enough for us.

If we take the trees in the Garden of Eden as sacramental, then it would seem that sacraments were always God’s design for man even apart from sin, though I would grant that Adam was weak and ignorant (and “immature”) even before the fall.

Sacraments are appropriate to us as creatures and not just as sinners.

Maybe we need to consider what else the sacraments are intended to be and do apart from teach us and give us assurance to better understand their role alongside the Word.

For example, a wider biblical view of the importance of meals as fellowship-enjoying and covenant-making events might be helpful in understanding why we need to Supper and what its for.

Patterns in Ruth

Barry Webb (Five Festal Garments, pp38-39) draws on the work of Stephen Bertman ('Symmetrical design in the book of Ruth' JBL 84:165-168 (1965)) to point out parallels between Ruth 2 and 3.

In both chapters, Ruth discusses with Naomi, goes to Boaz, who asks who she is, asks her to stay, says she is worthy of blessing and gives her food. Ruth reports back to Naomi and receives her advice.

Further, in the first 3 chapters there is a going out and a returning. In the final chapter, Boaz goes out to the town gate and then goes to Ruth and takes her as his husband. She finds rest in the home of her husband (1:9; 3:1).

Camp Teaching Scheme

On our camp this year we're planning to do some edited highlights of John's gospel, going sequentially through the book (with an introductory talk from the last page first), alternating between main talks in the evenings and dorm group Bible studies in the mornings.

There are lots of ways of skinning this cat and some of my choices are a bit random, but it migt go something like this:

(1) Sat

Talk: 20:24-31, The Purpose of John’s Gospel

(2) Sun

Study: 1:1-14, The incarnation

Talk: 1:15-34, John the Baptist’s Witness

(3) Mon

Study: 1:35-51, The first disciples

Talk: 2:1-11, The first sign

(4) Tues

Study: 3:1-15, You must be born again

Talk: 3:16-21, Why did Jesus come?

(5) Wed

Study: 6:1-24, Feeding 5000 and walking on water

Talk: 6:25-59, The Bread of Life

(6) Thurs

Study: 12:20-36, Jesus predicts his death

Talk: 18:28-19:16a, Jesus & Pilate

(7) Fri

Study: 19:16b-27, The crucifixion

Talk: 19:28-37, The death of Jesus

(8) Sat

Talk: 19:38-20:23, The resurrection

I’ve included some quite long passages. Speakers and Bible study leaders should use their discretion and cut parts of the reading if that seems the best way to focus on the main thing(s) / thrust.

Preaching the Trinity

God willing, I'll be preaching on the doctrine of the Trinity on Trinity Sunday morning (18/5/08).

Any tips or pointers to resources / sermons, esp. free ones on line, gratefully received.

What do you think the most important things to say are?

What are the leading practical applications of the doctrine of the Trinity?

I've chosen John 17:1-26 as the reading, but I guess that isn't immutable.

In the evening the vicar is planning to preach on 'Why the Trinity?' using 1 Peter 1:1-2 but I don't know in detail what he intends to say.

I've got hold of Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology and Worship (P&R, 2004) and I'm hoping to spend some time with that in my preparation. His part 4 deals with some "Critical Issues":

The Trinity and the Incarnation

The Trinity, Worship, and Prayer

The Trinity, Creation, and Missions

The Trinity and Persons

Water into Wine

Some jottings for my sermon (in my series in John) on Water into Wine (2:1-11).

The audio version should appear on the Holy Trinity, Eastbourne sermon page in due course.

The text of my handout went like this:

Jesus at a party (10:10)

--> Christians should be cheerful & fun-loving

The significance of the sign (v11)

Our resources fail (v3) but Jesus satisfies (4:13-14)

Jesus the perfect Bridegroom (3:29), the Second Adam

Jesus’ amazing transforming power

generous, extravagant, abundant provision (v6)

“you have saved the best till now” (v10; 1:16-17)

An act of (New) Creation – transformation / resurrection (v1)

Jesus’ hour (v4; 7:6; 8:20; 12:23-24; 32-33; 13:1; 17:1) and glory (v11) – the cross

Jesus’ blood cleanses us from sin (v6)

The Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9)

Our response?

--> Invite Jesus

--> Accept Jesus’ invitation

--> his disciples put their faith in him” (v11) - trust

--> “Do whatever he tells you” (v5) – obedience

--> What do you want to drink? Water or wine?

A Beginner's Guide To Parenting

Here are some notes for a sermon from Dt 6 on Christian nurture of our children.

An audio version is also available on the Holy Trinity Eastbourne Sermon page. Unfortunately we were having some trouble with the sound system and the first few mins. were missed off due to the poor quality. At least on my computer the sermon is too quiet (!) but hopefully that'll be rectified with the new MP3 recorder which is now installed.

As originally given

There's a lot of fuss in McGowan's book (The Divine Spiration of Scripture) about the inspiration of the Bible about "hypothetical" lost autographa, the original documents of Scripture. He seems to think of the claim to inerrancy applying only to them and this being a rather bothersome blind alley of pointless speculation.

I was just wondering if a claim that the Scriptures are inerrant "as originally given" would strictly necessarily require inerrant autographa? For example, in the case of a spoken prophetic oracle, would an error in recording the message in writing be excluded by the claim that the Scriptures as originally given are inerrent? If Paul dictated his letters, is it Paul's dictation or the amanuesnsis' scribing that is without error?

I guess so, actually, as terms like Scripture and Bible require a written document. Worth being accurate about that. You could still say the Scriptures were not originally given in written form but I reckon that's stretching it a bit.

Is The Bible God?

No. But Herman Bavinck says that, in 1714, according to A. Tholuck, Nitzsche in Gotha wrote a dissertation on the question of whether Holy Scripture itself was God. Sadly Bavinck doesn't tell us what Nitzsche's answer was.

(Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Prolegomena, vol 1, p416 cited in McGowan, Divine Spiration, p120. )

Scripture and Incarnation

McGowan argues against Peter Enns but along with John Webster and also quoting Thomas F. Torrance, that it is dangerous to use an analogy drawn from the divine and human natures of Christ in the incarnation to speak about the divine and human aspects of Scripture.

McGowan says, “How can the Scriptures have a divine nature, since only God is divine? ... Scripture can share certain divine attributes but it cannot have a divine nature, because it is not God.” (Divine Spiration, pp120-121)

Of course we do not want to say that the Bible is God. The Bible is not a fourth member of the Trinity. Quite right. It’s hard to think that anyone would think that someone would want to say that! What are the names of these bibolators we are all supposed to be concerned about?

But we do want to say the Bible is the Words of God. The Bible is God speaking. Since God also created language and is sovereign over it, God’s words thoroughly reflect his character. God accommodates himself to human beings in his revelation (he speaks baby-language, slowly and loudly) but he does not have a speech impediment. God’s words are true because God is true.

No doubt it is possible to press the analogy between the incarnation and Scripture too far or to do silly things with it, but I still find it helpful.

The incarnation reminds us that something can be fully human and fully divine. We do not have to parcel out the humanity and the divinity of Scripture. Romans can be fully Paul’s words and fully God’s. We don’t need to take 2 different colour highlighter pens to it to mark up God’s bits and the apostle’s bits.

The incarnation also reminds us that humanity does not necessarily imply sin and error since Jesus was a perfect man. Likewise, human language is always subject to limitations (just as Jesus’ humanity was always located in space and not omnipresent) but that does not mean that it is necessary for the Bible to err to be human.

If we're taking votes...

According to Mark Noll:

Most Christians in most churches since the founding of Christianity have believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. Or at least they have believed that the Scriptures are inspired by God, and so are the words of eternal life. The term inerrancy was not common until the nineteeth century. But the conviction that God communicates in Scripture a revelation of himself and of his deeds, and that this revelation is entirely truthful, has always been the common belief of most Catholics, most Protestants, most Orthodox, and even most of the sects of the fringe of Christianity.

Mark Noll, ‘A Brief History of Inerrancy, Mostly in America’, in The Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Inerrancy 1987 (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), pp.9-10 quoted in McGowan, Divine Spiration, p85.

The Big Event

According to Hans Frei:

No more crucial event has taken place in modern Protestant theology than Karl Barth's break with liberalism. It was the most significant single impetus to the subsequent generation's conception of its task.

PhD Diss., Yale, 1965, p.iii quoted in McGowan, Divine Spiration p62

The error of abandoning inerrancy

I’m not sure this is really what I ought to be getting on with this morning if I want to get my PhD before I retire, but I’ve been browsing in McGowan, A. T. B., The Divine Spiration of Scripture: Challenging evangelical perspectives (Nottingham, Apollos, 2007) (which could be of some relevance to the Grand Project!).

One of his proposals is that we prefer the term “infallibility” to “inerrancy”.

He argues:

In recent years,… there has been a growing dominance of the use of the word ‘inerrancy’ (a word rarely used in Europe) and this, in some of its forms, has represented a turn towards a somewhat mechanical and even rationalistic approach to Scripture, basing its authority on a set of inerrant manuscripts. The argument for ‘infallibility’ is that the final authority for the Christian is the authority of God speaking in and through his Word and that the Holy Spirit infallibly uses God’s Word to achieve all he intends to achieve. It is, therefore, a more dynamic (or organic) and less mechanical view of authority. It also avoids a number of serious problems related to the word ‘inerrancy’… (pp48-49)

Well, perhaps. I’m not so sure.

The Europe / America point seems to get made a few time and I’m not sure its terribly valuable. There seems to be general agreement that originally the terms infallible and inerrant were used interchangeably.

I can’t see that the term inerrancy is necessarily inherently mechanistic.

It seems to me that there is a danger in McGowan’s shift (though perhaps some see it as a merit) of bypassing questions of truth and focussing on questions of effect. Sure, we need a doctrine of the efficacy of God’s word. We need to understand its purposes, but that’s not all the word inerrancy was meant to do. God’s Word is about more than stating true propositions, but it includes that. Surely one of God’s purposes in Scripture was to state truths and where the Bible attempts to do that it is infallible or inerrant in all that it affirms – the traditional doctrine!

I reckon it might be better to say that God speaks his Word or words, rather than that he speaks in and through it. God uses the Bible according to its nature so we shouldn’t expect strange private messages out of the Bible understood apart from the context of what the words mean. A mention of “the west” in Scripture that for some reason seems to stand out to me in my quiet time is not the Holy Spirit telling me to move to Bristol, as if God speaks “through” his word in an arbitrary or magical way.

Neither is the term inerrancy inimical to scholarship. It could be thought to helpfully flag up that it is Scripture as originally given that is inerrant. Strictly speaking the developed doctrine of inerrancy is a reminder that the claim of inerrancy is not being made of any extant version or translation and therefore emphasises the tasks of textual criticism and translation.

It could be worse... and it could get batter

Post-millenialists and other may be heartened by this from Jonathan Fletcher's talk at the recent Reform conference:

In the middle of the eighteenth century the state of the Church of England was far, far worse than it is today. In the mid-1750s on Easter Day in St Paul’s Cathedral there were a total of six people. Six undergraduates were sent down from Oxford for reading the Bible. The celebrated lawyer, Blackstone, early in the reign of George III went out of curiosity from church to church to hear every clergyman of note in London. He says that he did not hear a single discourse that had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero and that it would have been impossible for him to discover from what he heard whether the preacher was a follower of Confucius, Mohammed, or Christ.

Yet over the next century things changed dramatically so that by the middle of the nineteenth century a third of the clergy in the Church of England, it is estimated, were evangelical, the great missionary societies had been founded, the Clapham Sect was achieving great things, and at least three-quarters of the societies that were trying to ameliorate the situation were of Evangelical foundation.

...

But those men did make a change - slowly - it took several decades - when the Church of England and the nation was in a far worse state than conceivable today. They stood by their evangelical convictions, they preached the Word, and the situation changed.

We have got an enormous battle on our hands. The situation is not as bad as it was in the eighteenth century, but we are campaigning for the reform of the Church of England and our sights are set on the evangelisation of our nation: that is where we are heading. The lesson from the past is that we must hold fast to our theological convictions; we must continue to strive for that holiness without which no-one will see the Lord; we must have a loyalty to the Church of England and remember that this is the place to be; there must be a boldness as we think outside the box with principled irregularity.

Lastly, an appeal that we maintain unity. For example there is going to be disagreement over what we advise bishops to do about Lambeth. Similarly, there are secondary issues where we will disagree: creationism; limited atonement; annihilationism. I am not suggesting that every position is equally valid on those issues, but we need to trust one another more and have a greater humility towards one another.

A version of the talk has been published in booklet from and is also available on the Reform website.There's also a mini-version (from which the above is taken) that is specifically designed to be reproduced in church magazines and the like.

Trinity, Community, Relationship, Mission and Ministerial Formation

Maybe if we are thinking about how the theological resources of the doctrine of the Trinity can be related to ministerial formation (as I am a bit) maybe relatedness and relationships are highlighted. Ministerial formation is at its best when it is in an ordered community of love, like the Triune life of God himself.

May we say that in the Triune life the Son and the Spirit are "formed" for mission since they are sent out into the world?

By the way, when I was talking about things to mention in the ministerial formation essay I'm working on, I think it may be an unspoken marking criterion that no essay which fails to include the phrase "missio Dei" may be awarded a grade above a lower second (or whatever that is on some new fangled marking scale). Oh for the days of alpha, betta, betta, query minus!

FV Consensus

I wasn't asked and I've only read it once, but I think I would have signed it. Would you?

http://www.credenda.org/issues/19-3statement.php

George Herbert on Theological College

Here's a thought from George Herbert on minsterial formation:

Some [live in universities] in a preparatory way, whose aim and labour must be not only to get knowledge, but to subdue and mortifie all lusts and affections: and not to think, that when they have read the Fathers, or Schoolmen, a Minister is made, and the thing done. The greatest and hardest preparation is within: For, Unto the ungodly, saith God, Why dost thou preach my Laws, and takest my Covenant in thy mouth? Psal. 50.16

(Chapter 2)

George Herbert, A Priest to the Temple or, The Country Parson (1652)http://anglicanhistory.org/herbert/parson.html

Ministerial Formation Essay

The Lord being my helper, I've to write 2500 words by Wednesday on Ministerial Formation (for ordained ministry).

So any comments, questions, corrections etc. most welcome.

The essay gets entered for the Archdeacon Sutton Prize. I don't know what the prize is, but if you say anything helpful, I guess we could split it!

I don't even know who marks it / awards the prize but I guess we ought to think Anglican clergy.

They are after theological reflection and some comments on personal experience, I think.

I thought I might call it:

Theological and Trinitarian Perspectives

for Formation for Ordained Ministry

in Three Dimensions

3 aspects of ministerial formation:
- knowledge
- character
- competence

3 perspectives:
- normative
- existential
- situational

3 dimensions of ordianed ministry:
- diaconal
- presbyteral
- episcopal

3 orientations of ministry:
- the glory of God
- the pain of the world
- the renewal of the church

I hope I could make use of some of the ideas mentioned in previous posts and that I might manage some paragraphs on:

- the incarnation as public ministry
- the economic and immanent Trinity and the minister's private / public life, or inner / outer life
- the priesthood of all believers and a special priesthood
- the priest as example / icon / representative of Christ
- essence and fullness (cf. threshold learning outcomes and ideals)
- simplicity and integrity
- perichorisis and inseperable operation
- praxis and theory (cf. faith seeking understanding and service seeking understanding)
- ontology and function, being and doing, person and work
- creation, providence, salvation and life-long learning
- liturgical / baptismal / eucharistic formation
- ordination and ontological change, a decisive moment of formation
- a word study on "formation" / transformation in the Bible
- the gospel as maturation / transformation / sanctification from one degree of glory to another
- 9:38 apprenticeships and 2 Timothy 2:2
- ministerial selection criteria
- the ordinal
- the impossible vastness of the subject, because of who God is, the greatness of the gospel, the goals of ministry, the uniqueness of every minister and ministry

Any tips?

Blair & God

I have been browsing in my father's copy of Anthony Seldon's Blair (London, Free Press, 2004)and it looks a fascinating book, though I must say I doubt I'd want to read 700 pages about Tony.

Completed in May 2004, 90% of the book is said to be based on 600 specially conducted interviews with unpublsihed diaries and papers being the next most important source. Seldon calls it a work of contemporary history rather than journalism. Every substantive point gets an endnote. Though some of the interviewees wished to remain annonymous, the full details of the interviews will be deposited in an archive library for future reference.

Though Seldon credits 3 other for working on this book with him, its impressive that Seldon, who is the headmaster of Brighton College, has managed to write or edit some 25 books and shows the usefulness of sabbaticals.

This book contains 20 chronological chapters on key episodes in Blair's life interspersed with chapters on 20 people who influenced him, each with a photograph.

Seldon identifies chapters 10, 20, 30 and 40 on Neil Kinnock, Roy Jenkins, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown as giving the political backbone of the book. He highlights the chapters on Blair winning Sedgefield, the abolition of Clause IV, Kosovo and Iraq as showing Blair at his boldest.

Chapter 34 is on God, and opens thus:

Blair's relationship with God is more important than any other described in
this book because, uniquely, it has coloured his relationship with all other
nineteen figures, and it has affected his response in differing measures to
all twenty turning points. Not only has the relationship been all embracing; it
is also peculiarly hard to understand. His religion explains why he became the
person he did, why he entered politics, why he holds his beliefs, how he relates
to others, and from where he derives much of his inner strength and convictions.
(p515)

I also learnt that:

Wilson (a Congregationalist) is the only previous Labour premier to have
made anything of his faith, proclaiming that he was a socialist "because he was
a Christian". He appointed ten practicing believers to his Cabinet in 1964, and
asked for a service to be organised in the House of Commons chapel after the
1964 General Election to bless the new government (p516)

Matthew d'Ancona, who has written persuasively on the subject of Blair and
religion, sees Blair's religious awakening at Oxford as the defining moment of
his life. (p516)

Jesus' home

I saw one of those cross-stitch things that people frame and put up on the wall yesterday that I rather liked. It said:

CHRIST

is the HEAD of this home

the unseen GUEST at every meal

the silent LISTENER at every conversation

I might set Mrs Lloyd sowing!

The home is a marvellous opportunity for building Christian community and civilisation. It can still be a little bit of Christendom and an outpost of the Kingdom whilst an Englishman's home is something like his castle. Of course, Nanny Brown will want to interfere but...

New Exodus, New Time

Revd Dr Peter Leithart points out on his blog:

In Exodus 12:2, Yahweh tells Moses that the month of Abib, the month of Exodus, will be the first month in Israel’s calendar. Israel gets a new time with the Exodus. Yahweh informs Moses using the word “head” or “beginning,” which reaches back to Genesis 1:1. The new time of Israel is a new time for the world; of the Exodus, we might say “In the beginning Yahweh made (new) heavens and earth.”

It is appropriate that in the New Exodus that the Lord Jesus brings we recive a new calendar of A.D.

Words, Signs, Sacaraments, Ideas, Things

Here are a couple of quotations from Revd Dr Peter Leithart's blog that might make it into the Dissasertation:

William Perkins on figures of speech: “There is a certaine agreement and proportion of the externall things with the internall, and of the actions of one with the actions of the other: wherby it commeth to passe, that the signes, as it were certaine visible words incurring into the externall sense, do by a certaine proportionable resemblance draw a Christian minde to the consideration of the things signified, and to be applyed. This mutuall, and as I may say, sacramentall relation, is the cause of so many figurative speeches and Metonymies which are used.”

And:

"I have found Thomas’s explanation of the quadriga convincing. He argues that the multiple spiritual senses are not “located” in the words but in the things that the words name. One might say that for Thomas the words have a single, namely literal, sense; but the things they name are themselves signs, the “words” with which God writes history, and these things foreshadow later things."

Welsh Dragon

I've commented before that it seems a shame that the Welsh national flag should contain a symbol of Satan whilst the English national flag contains a symbol of Christ, the cross of St George the Dragon Slayer.

It's worth noting that George wasn't English, of course, and didn't kill the dragon - that was the Lord Jesus Christ, after all.

But you may also be interested in a bit of blurb about why the dragon is a symbol of Wales. Its not really anything terribly sinister.

The Red Dragon is the heraldic symbol of Wales, and is incorporated into
the Welsh national flag. According to tradition, the red dragon appeared on a
crest borne by Arthur, whose father Uthr Bendragon, had seen a dragon in the sky
predicting that he would be king.

The dragon as a symbol was probably introduced into Britain by the Roman
legions. Medieval Welsh poets often compared their leaders to dragons in poems praising their bavery, for example, Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch said of Llewelyn ap Gruffudd Pen dragon, pen draig oedd arnaw ('A dragon's head he had').

Between 1485 and 1603, the dragon formed part of the arms of the Tudor
dynasty, but it was replaced on the royal coat of arms with a unicorn by order
of James I.

The red dragon reappeared as the royal badge for Wales in 1807, and from
then on it was often seen in the regalia of Welsh patriotic societies. At the
suggestion of the Gorsedd of the Bards, it was officially recognised by the
Queen in 1959, and is now widely used as the national flag.

Source: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/274/ - where you can also read about the leek and the daffodil. The same site contains information about Welsh Christmas traditions.

Solo Scriptura

I saw this soundbite on a comment on Daniel Newman's blog by rjs1 and rather liked it:

"Sola Sriptura not solo scriptura".

I've no idea how it mangles the Latin tongue but I think it makes a good point.

It reminds me of an article by Prof Tony Lane in which he points out that even "sola scriptura" is a post-reformation slogan.

The reformers believed in the supreme final authority and unique infalibility of Scripture. They did not believe in hyper-strict version of "Scripture Alone". They accepted other lesser sources of "authority" (such as reason, tradition etc.) in addition to the Bible and knew that Scripture could never be understood strictly "alone" for example, apart from the illuminating work of the Spirit or an understanding of the language in which Holy Writ is writ.

Incarnational Ministry

Could you just remind me what incarnational ministry means and whether or not we believe in it?

In a way incarnational ministry sounds a bit like motherhood and apple pie (who could be against that?) but I think some are agin it, maybe even in a big way?

To my mind "incarnational ministry" suggests two things:

(1) becoming like the people to whom we aim to minister, just as Christ became like us to serve us. As Paul was all things to all men, so should we be, that we might win some.

(2) in a way we are a continuation of the incarnation - we are Christ to people as Jesus lives in us and they see his light in us.

I know some people are nervous about both (1) and (2).

I seem to remember hearing some criticisms at vicar factory of incarnational ministry as advocated by the likes of Pete Ward in relational youth ministry?

Obviously we become like those to whom we minister in some ways but must also remain distinctive. I do not become a prostitute to win the prostitutes. And I also minister to people as they are in the hope that we will both not remain as we are but be transformed into the likeness of Christ. The Christian missionary must not go native in this wicked world.

As far as (2) goes, I can see no problem with viewing the church as in some ways a continuation of the incarnation as long as we remember that Christ is still incarnate in heaven and we are not Jesus in the same way that Jesus is! We are however his body, and he remains the head. Christ and his church are the totus christus, or some equally clever but difficult to remember, spell and understand latin term!

Models of Ministry (and some books)

Shall we make a list of models, metaphors and descriptions of Christian ministers and ministry? We may also consider the roles and functions of the minister.

I've mentioned below priests, deacons, presbyter-bishops and "bishops". Some of these are explored further in Steven Croft's Ministry in Three Dimensions and on the Biblical and historical data, see especially Roger Beckwith, Elders in Every City.

Dereck Tidball's Builders and Fools explores the metaphors for pastoral minisry in Paul.

In The Life and Work of a Priest John Pritchard suggests a three-fold orientation:

(1) The glory of God

presiding genius?

spiritual explorer

artfull story-teller

multilingual interpreter

inquisitive learner

(2) The pain of the world

pain bearer

wounded companion

weather-beaten witness

iconic presence

friendly irritant

(3) The renewal of the church

creative leader

attractive witness

faith coach

mature risk-taker

flower arranger

and finally...

life-fulfiller

Christopher Cocksworth explores the roots, shapes and fruit of ministry in Being a Priest Today.

The NT lists of charismatic gifts may also provide other categories such a prophet, administrator, helper, governor.

Would Jordan's Sociology of the Church with its three-fold particle, wave, field understanding of church as institution / government, people and gathered worshiping community also generate other ways of thinking about ministry as steward, worship leader and father?

The dear old Church of Engalnd's selction criteria for ordained ministry (PDF) could be worth thinking about.

Eve: Queen, Priestess, Prophetess

If Adam is a prophet a priest and a king, I would suggest it makes sense to say that Eve is a queen, a priestess and a prophetess - and not as a king, priest and prophet in her own right , and that is more than a gramatical point.

Under God she gets her being from Adam and her role is not to be independant but to help the man in the mission they share.

Adam: Prophet, Priest, King

We are familiar with saying that the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was a prophet, a priest and a king.

It seems to me that it would make sense to say that Adam was a prophet, a priest and a king in an embryonic, immature, weak (and after the fall, sinful)way. Jesus perfectly fulfills these roles and will bring them in to completion in his redeemed people.

As a prophet, Adam was a friend of God who spoke to him. Adam should have spoken the Word of God to Eve and maybe to the rest of creation.

The Garden was a like a temple at the heart of the world and Adam was to guard and serve in it, the Tree of Life being sacramental food.

Adam was clearly a king, he was to rule the world under God as his vice-gerent and have domionion over the creatures.

Priest / Elder / Bishop / Apsotles in NT & now for Anglo-Presbyterians

Off the top of my head, are we all agreed that:

(1) The English word "priest" as used in the Book of Common Prayer is related to the English word "presbyter" (elder) and not the Bible word "priest".

(2) When most informed Evangelicals think "priest" they are most likley to think mediator between God and man offering (propitiatory) sacrifices.

(3) Priests in the Bible are perhaps above all guard or guardians and stewards or servants.

(4) The terms elder (presbyter) and bishop / overseer (episcopos) are interchangable and refer to the same persons in the New Testament.

(5) It may be possible to distinguish the roles of "presbyters" and "bishops" in the New Testament (if not the terms) with "bishops" acting as senior presbyters with a wider geographical remit than ordinary presbyters.

(6) So all NT and modern presbyters are NT bishops and NT priests. Modern bishops are (senior) NT presbyters and priests.

(7) There are basically 2 orders of ministry: (1) deacons (2) priest / presbyters / bishops (2a) senior priest / presbyter "bishops"

(8) The Apostles were elders but not all elders were apostles even if eldership is somewhat apostolic. The modern role of bishop may be seen as especially apostolic since the NT figures who correspond to modern bishops were apostolic deligates or substitutes in a more direct way than elders were.

(9) This view may be thought of as a modified presbyterianism or a reduced episcopasy and has eccumenical potential! It is historically and biblically accurate and adapted to contemporary and abiding needs. It represents a classical Anglican understanding even if Anglicans today generally think more in terms of a 3 fold ministry.

Clear? Any corrections, additions?

Trinitarian & Perspectival Ministerial Formation

The so-called Hind Report into ministry training in the Church of England championed the overall concept on Ministerial Formation which has 3 components:

(1) spirituality and character

(2) theological knowledge

(3) ministerial competence

Each of these 3 is an aspect of ministerial formation and they are not quite 3 "parts" of it. They are related and there must be integrity between the 3.

Categories such as insperable operation and mutual indwelling may help to articulate this.

Each of the 3 aspects must be distinguished but not separated.

They may also be perspectivally related. (2) theological knowledge may be the normative perspective. (3) ministerial competence may be the situational perspective. (1) spirituality and character may be the existential perspective.

We may relate theological knowledge (2) to God the Father, the one known and revealed, the covenant Lord. We may relate spirituality and knowledge to Christ, the Word incarnate and made flesh, lived-out, our example and prototype. The Spirit may put this into action in the world (3).

Each component is "equal" and indispensible. There is a case for starting with Christ / charcter / spirituality / disposition / being before doing or even knowing. But arguably, the components would be best re-orderd so that theological knowledge (which is more than theoretical knowledge) takes a kind of prioroty. Who we are and what we do arises out of who God is.

Or maybe something like some of that!?

Ooops

If you see my car keys anywhere, please would you let me know? They are our only set and I'm not quite sure what we should do. We've searched high and low, retraced our steps and been down the nick and they told us to keep calling in.

Update: the car's been towed off to a Fiat dealer's now so on second thoughts it might be kinder to quitely drop our keys down a drain somewhere if you come accross them.

Ordination Vows

I must check the exact terms of the vows I made when I was ordained deacon in Chichester Cathedral last Petertide, but can anyone tell me, were the vows made for life, untill retirement, untill further notice, till I've served my title or something else?

For example, now that the government wants me to be a wonderfull well payed rewarded low work and stress free teacher, do my diaconal vows prevent me switching jobs?

Teaching Needs Me

Graham Holley, the chief executive of the tda has written me a very nice letter to say that they need me and my teaching skills back in the classroom.



Apparently its lovely to be a teacer now, there is more pay and less work and you get helpers.



I'm not sure the staff and students of Westcliff High school for boys (where I used to teach) would agree that I'm quite so essential to the teaching profession, but I must say that the rose-tinted-spectacles and the glossy government propaganda brochure did give me pause for thought!

New biblical songs for today's church

http://www.songsfortoday.com/index.php