Thank you Nersen.

There have been examples which, shall we say, have caused the odd sharp intake of breath. I don't think it would actually help to cite examples (or should I say chapter and verse?) since we are beginning to come out into a more level place.

As one who does not claim the appellation "evangelical" but shares a high view of scripture, it does rather surprise me that in the matter of atonement so many seem to have a very restricted view. I remember clearly an early exercise in my theological training (almost half a century ago) was to write an essay on the question "In what sense was the death of Jesus a sacrifice?" The reading suggested helped me to recognise that within the NT every kind of sacrifice is seen as fulfilled in Christ (with the possible exception of the cereal offering), and, conversely, the death of Christ is seen as eternally achieving in full what the Temple offerings had only reached after. Perhaps all of us need to remember that He is the peace offering who brings together the conservative evangelical like you and the affirming catholic like me, as well as the One in whom we are both accepted by the Father.

Nersen, you do have a habit of twisting people's words. I did not write what you suggest I meant. I wrote that "bandying verses is all very well, but the understanding/interpretation of them is crucial". And that is what I meant.

Biblical exegesis is not a sort of theological beggar-my-neighbour involving turning up sufficient verses. It involves weighing the contexts of the verses - historical, literary,theological - and understanding them properly (hence the reference to Justin's Dialogue, where the Jewish interlocutor is shown as incapable of understanding his own scriptures).

Very many years ago I had a conversation with a school colleague who attended a Brethren meeting. He objected strongly to a eucharistic interpretation of John 6 and capped his argument by saying "Jesus also said 'I am the door': so perhaps you are getting a mouthful of sawdust". Context IS important.

I agree with Jody absolutely. Bandying verses around is all very well, but the understanding/interpretation of them is crucial - something which Christian apologists have been aware of since at least the 2nd century (see Justin's Dialogue with Trypho).

At last! I have been following this thread for some time, and have been particularly conscious that the term "wrath" hasnot been defined. I have felt that for many it is an analogue of human anger - and I'm pretty sure this isn't quite what we are to understand theologically, not least because human anger is essentailly destructive. So thank you to Celinda for focussing on this term. I hope others will respond constructively.

I wonder whether I am the only one who is both annoyed and offended by the use of "G-d" in posts on this forum. It annoyed me in my days as an A level examiner, when Jewish candidates often wrote it in their scripts: I could understand the use of YHWH unconsonanted, but as far as I am aware, the tradition has not been to avoid the use of elohim. But I can accept it even if reluctantly from an Orthodox Jew.

However, in Christian circles it seems to me to be not only unnecessary but effectively a rejection of the Incarnation. I suspect that here far more are offended by it than would be by the use of the whole word.

John Marshall

A veritable Open Diapason!

Trying very hard to avoid making other organ puns, I find your comments from the vantage point of the organ bench to be very apposite. I do wonder, reading some of the blogs, whether I want to be in communion with people who not only think but express themselves like that.

But then of course I remember that Christ died for them too, that God loves them too, and that love is an act of will and not a feeling

As I read all this depressing stuff my mind goes back to some verses written by Dr Eric Mascall, something like 50 years ago. His target was a certain kind of Anglo-Catholic - it was rumoured that he had a particular cleric in mind, but there were several to choose from. It includes these lines:

I teach the children in my school the Penny Catechism,
Explaining how the C of E's in heresy and schism.
The truths of Trent and Vatican I bate not one iota.
I have not met the Rural Dean. I do not pay my quota.

The bishop's put me under his 'profoundest disapproval'
And though he cannot bring about my actual removal,
He will not come and visit me, or take my confirmations.
Colonial prelates I employ from far-off mission stations.

What goes around comes around. This time the problems may not be dressed in lacy albs and birettas, but they're not very different. I thank God that the bulk of my ministry has been spent in a time when Catholics and Evangelicals at least spoke to each other, and when ecumenical co-operation was at its height. I rejoice that a sound and committed evangelical like Ken Sawyer and an AffCath like myself have been able to count ourselves friends as well as brothers in Christ. I am sad that a new generation has failed to learn from recent history and is gleefully making the same errors in the same spirit of self-righteousness.

John Marshall

John writes:

…the conclusion must be that after five years of careful listening, persuading and pleading the Bishops who do adhere to the biblical norm have to say to the others: You have promoted schism, we can no longer have fellowship at the Lord's table with you.

That I find chillingly contrary to Gospel values. Let me relate a (true) story.

in 1962 the British Council of Churches held an international Youth Conference in Leicester. I was a delegate from my diocese, and in those days a pretty extreme Anglo-Catholic. The Bishop of Leicester invited all the delegates (except the Quakers and the Salvation Army delegates) to a Communion service in the cathedral. about 8 Anglicans, of whom I was one, refused the invitation, not wishing to share table fellowship with heretics and schismatics. I went to the service in the cathedral but did not receive.

I was wrong. I knew at once that I was wrong, that the Lord was doing something bigger than my obscurantist notions allowed for. It was a conversion experience of a kind. I went back to university and revived the inter-church study group attached to SCM, and have spent over 40 years taking my brothers and sisters of other ecclesial bodies as serious disciples of the same Lord (though I find the exclusiveness of some others very hard to bear). I learned then, and have taught consistently since, that in the Eucharist is given grace for sinners, not a reward for the godly, that it is indeed the "medicine of immortality, the antidote to death", and more often than not all that we have in our moment of need.

Might it not be better to say "I disagree profoundly with almost everything you stand for, but I am a sinner too, and at the Lord's Table we both will receive the grace we need to grow more perfectly into the image of Christ"? Christians have an alarming habit of turning obiter dicta into universal truths - including Paul's strictures on the bad behaviour of the Corinthian minority.

Never, never refuse an invitation to the Lord's Table because of the other guests: it pleases only Satan. Go and pray for the grace you need, and for those who receive with you to be given the grace they need. The Lord knows better than you and me what that is for all of us.

My brother is a member of the congregation at St Margaret's, and I can confirm everything my old friend Ken Sawyer says. My brother felt that national affairs continued to put an unwanted burden on Bishop David, and in the end it was that almost inescapable pressure which made him move further up the dale.

There was a brief time in the 1980s when Choral Evensong was broadcast twice a week, on Wednesday and Friday. I have an index of over 500 recordings since 1977, and a quick scan suggests it was between 1981 and 1989. Wednesday was generally live, and Friday was recorded - often as much as six months before broadcast. Occasional broadcasts were transferred from Friday to Sunday (so Easter Day rather than Good Friday). Lay clerks lamented the demise of the second broadcast and the consequent fee!

Liddon and Phil Almond both have a point.

The church decided which books it accepted as authoritative: effectively this was the whole LXX canon. Notions of "the word of God" and still less "the infallible word of God" are unhistorical in the context of this decision, which was not a conciliar decision but a matter of general acceptance. Probably the chief criterion was that it (the whole LXX) was "prophetic" - and that included the books of Torah, a good deal of which was understood typologically. (Today's Gospel contains a good example). Remember too that the OT was regarded by some as the fount of all human wisdom, and it was even argued by some that Plato got his best ideas from Moses!

But the church did not decide to exclude some books - or at least, not until the Reformation, and then only on the spurious grounds of their presumed linguistic origin, which presumptions have subsequently been shown to be incorrect. That some of these texts were also used to establish doctrines rejected by the Reformers was of course totally irrelevant (not!). Nor did the church decide to include other writings which were sometimes seen as prophetic (which would fall within the Romans 15:4/2Tim 3:16 canon). I think of such things as some of the Pseudepigrapha, and works such as the Sybilline Oracles.

In the matter of the New Testament the church did of course make the decision. One of the principles seems to have been apostolicity, and I would suspect that liturgical use came into it somewhere too.

This is a nice idea - but could we spread Psalm 119 over a few extra weeks?