Thanks Elaine for your summary of the Emerging Markets Symposium at which you contributed.  You write, 'We...found when countries did become more gender-inclusive in areas of economics, health, education and decision-making they enjoyed faster growth, better health outcomes and less political instability.'

This reality accords well with the 'valorous woman' of Proverbs 31:10-31, whose economic activity is a mark of gender-inclusiveness.  Ellen F. Davis points out that this poem is an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew, whereby the industrious wife is praised "from A to Z."

Davis says that, in v.11, the Hebrew literally reads, 'her husband...does not lack booty', implying that her gain 'is hard-won, through [her] courage and ingenuity.'  Further, 'Through her work in building up the household, she emerges as an important public figure.'

This wise woman also 'speaks with religious authority: "the teaching [torah} of lovingkindness is on her tongue" (v.26)'  In this covenantal language, 'she offers torah, religious instruction of the highest order.' building up not only her household 'but alsos the entire community.'

Here is a woman whose wisdom and diligence would powerfully grace our House of Bishops!

Thank you Graham for your introduction to what looks like a timely and stimulating conference that poses the question, 'What kind of theology is needed to do this work of re-capturing the cultural imagination in the twenty-first century?' and adds, 'Perhaps more than most, it is a theology of the Holy Spirit.'

Imagination is a neglected aspect of knowing.  So often, we major on analytical cognition as we engage with scripture and the needs of he world around us.  Our theology is cerebral and carefully reasoned, perhaps, sadly, neglecting the unpredictable wind of the creative Spirit.

Brueggemann makes the point well in his The Bible and Postmodern Imagination: 'By imagination, I mean very simply the human capacity to picture, portray, receive, and practice the world in ways other than it appears to be at first glance when seen through a dominant, habitual, unexamined lens.  More succinctly, imagination as the quintessential human act is a valid way of knowing.'

In the context of the Wisdom literature, Ellen F Davis writes, 'Too often we consider imagination to be frivolous, a nice "extra", but hardly a necessary part of the human endeavour.'  She argues that the 'sages understand that living a moral life requires that we continually strive to exercise a truthful imagination...  Put most succinctly, this is what the book of Proverbs aims to help us cultivate in our various roles as parent, friend, teacher, neighbour, worker, boss, citizen.'  Here, used imaginatively and guided by the Spirit, is raw material to help us live faithfully in the twenty-first century.

Graham, thank you for this poem with its sharp observations.  I love the simple yet effective imagery of layingt aside the symbols of busyness to be alone with God and then re-engaging with the trappings of everyday life.

This fits well with my desire this Lent, to learn better to contemplate silently in God's presence, hopefully open to the Spirit's promtings: learning to love and be loved.  Also, my wife Joy and I are reading Rosie Fairhurst's book, Uncovering Sin: A Gatewy to Healing and Calling (SPCK, 2012).  Already, I am struck by the reminder of our deep dependence on God and need for interdependence with others, seeking to leave behind the sin of isolation and autonomy.

Hi Carl!  I'm interested in the assumptions you seem to make in responding to my approach.  Although maye they were rhetorical, let me try to address the run of questions in your last posting to me:

• What is orthodox Christian belief?  The cumulative beliefs of the Christian church, foundationally based on God's Word, illuminated by the Spirit of Christ.
• How does one remain faithful to it?  By seeking to live a life that is penitent, obedient, Spirit-led and lived in the strength of the indwelling Christ.
• Why should one raise questions about that which is true?  Because human nature is fallible and, in its seeking for truth, may stumble, doubt and question.
• Why should one remain faithful to that which is true?  Quite simply, one should, but, in fact, many don't.
• Which tenets of the faith may be seriously questioned?  All may be, for the reasons given above.
• How does one know that he [or she?] has arrived at a deeper understanding?  Through the promptings and assurances of God's Spirit as we are, step by step, transformed 'in the renewing of the mind' and continually reflect on and respond obediently to God's Word.
• Does a particular line of inquiry take one farther away or closer to truth?  Some do, some don't.

You continue in the same vein, saying:

'Truth is subsumed in dialogue, where dialogue becomes the greatest good.  It is a maze from which there is not exit.  People  wander in the darkness and dialogue about which branch to try next.  Consensus is the only desired outome.'

Let me respond:

• No dialogue is ever 'the greatest good'.  It is one of a number of means that might help lead us towards 'the greatest good', ie., being 'in Christ'.
• Dialogue can be a 'no-exit' maze but it does not need to be, where its value is seen as intrinsic to our God-given humanity and it is pursued in the name of and in the strength and love of Christ.
• Yes, some people do 'wander in the darkness' and, however many branches they try, let us be thankful that the Light has come into the world and that Light can illuminate the darkest places, even with dialogue!
• Consensus is not the 'only desired outcome' in the short term, but, in God's good time, there may be consensus when a brother or sister in Christ comes to a right, common understanding.

Carl, what do you make of the following?

• The Beoreans 'welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so' (Acts 17:11).  Might there have been some questioning and dialogue amongst them?
• Priscilla and Aquila's engagement with Apollos in dialogue, where they 'heard him' and 'took him aside  and explained the Way of God to him more accurately' (Acts 18:26).
• The dialogue in Acts 19:1-7 between Paul and 'some disciples' from Ephesus, that leads to consensus.
• 'Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence' (1 Peter 3: 15-16).

Another David, I liked your references to the student who is researching different performances of Hamlet.  As you say, 'the idea of realising a play from a script does express a rich view of living out our discipleship.'

That's a helpful metaphor and reminds me of the ideas held in the 'reader-response' theory of hermeneutics.  Just as differnt actors will interpret Shakespeare's text in distinctive ways, often modifying their presentation according to contemporary cultural sensitivities, so in 'reader-respnse' there is an interplay between the text of the Bible and the life and experience of the reader, hopefully applied to his or her current situation.

As I wrote in Pathways to Wholeness, referring to Edgar McKnight's Post-Modern Use of the Bible:

'Here the emphasis is not only on the uniqueness and sacredness of the Scriptures but on the need for readers to "retrieve" the Bible "from the museum" and "relate it" to contemporary life.  If Scripture is truly from God then engaged reading will rescue it from all approaches that see its pages as exhibits of a disengaged past and rediscover its ever-fresh life force for the present.'

Richard, many thanks for your reference to Brian Maclaren and his book on 'generous orthodoxy'.  I haven't read this book but I like the look of what he has to say from its synopsis.  I can see that the term 'generous' orthodoxy is less open to misunderstanding than the adjective 'progressive'.

Bowman, I appreciate your link to Peter Wilkinson's accurate and thoughtful review of Tomlinson's book.  His final paragraph is worh repeating:

'Many will seize on throw-away lines from this book as evidence of the author's abandonment of the historic faith for a watered-down alternative.  Such a view would be a lazy response to a writer who seeks a serious engagement with the emerging culture, and has found and understood many practical keys to such an engagement, with a practical and thought-through theology to back it up.  The book can be read easily in a few hours.  It deserves weeks and months for reflection.'

Carl, you write, 'The problem is that you are implicitly trying to find a synthesis between liberal and conservative.'

In fact, rather than 'a synthesis between liberal and conservative' views, I seek a dialogue that is faithful to orthodox Christian belief and yet can listen and speak into the contemporary scene in all its manifestations, including that of Christians who raise serious questions about the tenets of that faith.  I appreciate that in such debates the outcome may well be antithesis rather than synthesis.

Blessings on you Carl!  In spite of your early protestation, you have continued to debate with us and I am grateful for that.  Thank you too for clarifying your understanding of 'special revelation'.

You wrote, 'I hold the nature of Scripture to be an essential, and I will not subject it to either discussion or re-evaluation....The Deity of Christ.  The Virgin Birth.  The reality of the Physical Resurrection.  The nature of the Atonement.  The reality of Eternal Punishment.  The Trinitarian nature of God.  The exclusive truth of the Christian faith.  I asked if subjects such as these should be up for discussion, and the question sank like a stone.'

It's a pity that here you seem to assume that progressive orthodoxy is invetiably unorthodox, and that silence over your question makes your point.  And why do you prohibit discussion over the wonder, mystery and reality of these foundational doctrines?  Surely to open them to a discussion that is faithful to their truth and seeks deeper understanding of them is worth doing.

Let me try another tack for focussing the theme of this thread.

Dave Tomlinson also introduces Paul Ricouer's notion of a 'second innocence' into his Re-Enchanting Christianity.  Here, Ricouer offers the pattern of thesis, antithesis and synthesis in engaging with the text: a sequence of a 'naive acceptance' of the text (a 'first innocence'), followed by a critical distancing, and concluding with a 'reconnection with the text' as a 'second innocence.'

Tomlinson applies this 'hermeneutical arc' to the journey of many Christians, where an initial eagerness of an unimpeded faith and commitment is, in time, followed by a period of questioning, doubt and perhaps disillusionment that in turn, hopefully, leads to a re-discovery of the faith with the deeper commitment of a 'second innocence'.  A number may 'fall away' at the second stage but, for Tomlinson, there is still the possibility of 'being called again' and finding a greater understanding of the 'faith once given' along with a deeper sense of God's abiding love.

It is in this 'second innocence' that progressive orthodoxy, at its best, brings the wonder of God's 'special revelation', to use Carl's term, into dialogue  and engagement with contemporary culture: a listening and responding in the name of Christ, interpreting scripgture afresh amidst the complexities of a needy world.

Bowman, I greatly appreciate your questions over aesthetics and our faith, and DavidR's reflections on the visual.  I would see progressive orthdoxy and parallel develpments among the 'new evangelicals' as embracing the arts, along with all other aspects of God's kingdom 'on earth as it is in heaven'.  Surely beauty and its appreciation are intrinsic to our being made in God's image and our redemption in Christ.

Bowman, thank you for your metaphor of the need to 'bake the cake' of a measured 'resynthesis' and thanks Carl for your further post and DavidR for your perceptive contributions.

Carl, along with DavidR, I'm intrigued that you say, not only that 'The Canon is now closed', but also that 'the events of the Book of Acts cannot therefore be considered normative for our age.'

I do, of course, understand the concept of what Kelsey calls the 'working Canon' but I wonder if we are true to that Canon if we paint a picture of God and his revelatory acts as frozen in time.  This seems to treat scripture as merely an ancient archive, ignoring the way it points forwards in the name of Jesus, 'the same yesterday, today and for ever'; with an awareness of the Spirit of truth who will decare to us 'the things that are to come'; and a God who makes 'all things new' in his new Creation.

In the light of this inaugurated eschatology, it seems reasonable to see the accounts in Acts as simply (however wondrously) the beginnings of God's acts through history: through Gregory of Nyssa, the Desert Fathers, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Hidegaard of Bingen, Luther, Calvin, Hooker, the Wesleys, Simeon, Edwards, Shaftesbury, innumerable other Godly women and men and, dare I say, the humble efforst of the Fulcrum 'villagers'.

Alister McGrath makes the point well in his Passion for Truth, where he reminds us of the rich tapestry of Church hsitory founded on and living out the Word illuminated by Christ's Spirt:

'In ascribing authority to Scripture, we are...not merely recognizing and honouring God's decision to reveal himself to us, or only the specific form which this took in Jesus Christ; we are also honouring a living tradition, which has remained faithful to the modes of faith and life made known and made possible through Christ, and mediated through Scripture.  There is thus a natural connection between the word of God and the people of God, and...a strongly ecclesiological element to our understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ' (p.97).

Thank you Carl, Bowman and Angela for your prompt responses to this thread.

Carl, you write, 'It didn't take too much research for me to conclude that 'Progressive Orthodoxy' is a kinder, gentler form of progressive religion with a veneer of orthodoxy smeared across the top.'

I agree with you that there is a danger in 'progressive orthodoxy' of neglecting or undermining orthodox Christian belief and that its orthdoxy can be, at times, accused of being 'a veneer'.

I would argue, though, that to be truly orthodox in the sense of faithful to scripture we need to see the way God's Spirit, as described in Acts, prompts and leads faithful disciples into being 'progressive', in the sense of being prepared to modify views and practice in relation to reality 'on the ground'.  We see this, for example, in Peter's turn-around in relation to food that he'd deemed 'unclean' and his acceptance of the Spirit's bringing God's kingdom to the Gentiles, as well as in the Spirit-guided compromise of the Declaration of Jerusalem and the adjusting to Greek culture in Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill.  These are, I suggest, early examples of the guidance of the 'Spirit of truth' who 'will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come' (John 16:13).

Tomlinson cites Rowan Williams who has clarified two ways of understanding the term 'orthodoxy':

• As a 'closed system' that is 'pre-packaged, predetermined, watertight, a comprehensive ideology' and is in danger of simply offering 'a monologue';
• As a 'tradition of shared speech, of shared symbols, a living community of revelation and dialogue'.

I feel the latter is closer to the heart of the Gospel than the former.

I'm sorry you feel you'd rather not engage with this discussion.  I hope you will, as we all need reminding of the foundations of the faith.

Bowman, I greatly appreciate your contribution, including your references to Phil's faithful posts and the need for our discussions to 'be less a boxing club and more a village.'  I take too your thoughts on our tendency to give excessive attention to 'just a few institituonal hot topics' and hope, with you, that our sharing can be wider-ranging, theologically and pastorally.

Angela, you are so right when you post that the sort of enterprise we are here discussing easily leads to 'the perception...that the gospel is being betrayed in some way'.  As you say, where 'the Gospel is perceived as a journey of discovery then we leave ourselves space to explore and experience the Gospel in real time.'

Whatever name we use, be it 'progressive orthodoxy', 'post-evangelicalism', 'whole-brained evangelicalism', the approach of Robert Webber's 'younger evangelicals' or the more tried and longstanding 'open evangelicalism', we surely all need an orthodoxy and orthopraxis that is biblically rooted and takes seriously contemporary culture, to present a Gospel that is earthed and relevant to today's complex, struggling society.  'Your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven'.

I quite agree Ambrose.  I worked alongside him many years ago with a Scripture Union project and as a Reader when he was Associate Vicar at Christ Church Clifton.  I'm sure Bishop James will be greatly missed and his work chairing the Hillsborough Independent Panel is just the latest example of his commitment to the Diocese and to justice in the community.

In his recent speech available on the Dioces of Liverpool's website, he said this of the Hillsborough inquiry:

"The Diocese has recognised the rightness of me doing this which has given me great strength.  The way the families and survivors have received the Panel's report and the way truth is now opening up the path to justice affirms the worth of the Panel's work."

Reflecting on Fulcrum's threads and postings over at least a couple of years, it is noteworthy that our discussions often polarize unhelpfully and nudge themselves towards an impasse.  Whether the subject is homosexuality, women's ordination, an understanding of kephale or a debate on 'fresh expressions' of the age-old faith, we seem to find ourselves hemmed into corners.

I find the 'progressive orthodoxy' put forward by Dave Tomlinson in Re-Enchanting Christianity helpful tere.  I feel he is just one, but an important one. of the 'saner' voices referred to in our threrds, including, most recently, DavidR's excellent piece on the 'Evangelical Opponents' thread, quoting Jonathan Sachs, on the 'right-brain' nature of Hebrew and the more analytical 'left-brain' style of NT Greek.

Progressive orthodoxy seeks to hold to what is best in the Christian tradition and, at the same time, allows the faith to be freshly interpreted and understood within historical contexts.  We witness that very process in the Acts of the Apostles in, for example, the compromises of the Jerusalem Declaration.  It is also open to metaphor, symbol and the value of ritual and is, I suggest, a rich blend of creative, empathic 'right-brain' activity and sequential, analytic 'left-brain' processes.  It is a theology within the three-fold perspectives of Hooker's scripture, tradition and reason, to which is addes the fourth dimension of daily experience.

It seems to me that this approach would enable more subtle, more nuanced and more pastorally productive discussion than the 'conservative versus liberal' axis we seem frequently mesmerized by.

Tomlinson quotes Robert Runcie's timely words:

'A church which listens only to its tradition will end up speaking only to itself.  A church which listens only to what is happening in the world will end up becoming only a dull echo of the latest liberal fashion.  It is the interplay between tradition and discovery that creates a proper relevance.'

Bowman, thank you for your queries and comments, linking Julian of Norwich with 'postmodern readers' and recent perspectives by Tom Wright and others.

You ask, 'I wonder whether you have any thoughts about the way Julian of Norwich thinks about scripture?'

I'm no expert on Julian's sixteen 'showings' but throughout The Revelations there seems to be a deep desire to conform to the orthodox beliefs of 'Mother Church', as well as an honest struggling with those aspects of belief that she finds disturbing.  Although she claimed to be 'unlettered', her visions often show a strong grounding in scripture.  Here are just four examples:

1. The Trinity.  Here her language is steeped in an awareness of the Triune God.  She wrote, 'Most reassuringly, he added, "I may make everything all right; I am able to; I intend to, and I shall.... "...When he says "I may", I understand it to refer to the Father; when he says, "I am able to", to the Son; when he says "I intend to", it is by the Holy Spirit...'
2. God's love.  She is convinced supremely that 'God is love'.  She wrote, 'And I saw full surely that ere God made us he loved us; which love was never slacked nor ever shall be.'
3. God's wrath.  Perhaps her greatest struggle was over the reality of sin and God's wrath as revealed in scripture.  She struggled with the apparent paradox of God being a God of love and yet a God of wrath.  She wrote, 'We do deserve to suffer pain and God's anger!  Yet in spite of this I saw plainly that our Lord was never angry - nor would be.  For he is God - goodness, life, truth, love, peace.'  Although reassured by this, she came back again and again to these vexed questions.
4. The Passion of Christ.  She saw the remedy of sin in the death of Jesus and wrote in graphic language: 'The most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is in truth both costly and copious.  Look and see.  The costly and copious flood of his most precious blood streamed down into hell and burst the chains, and freed all there who belonged to the Court of Heaven...[it] overflows the whole earth, and is available to wash all creatures (if they are willing) from their sin, present, past, or future.'

Julian's contemplative path was one of looking and loving: being beheld, held and loved.