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| The Cross and the Caricatures |
| 409 [3481] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Wednesday 25 April 2007 - 11:01pm |
| In defence of a more narrative approach to the theology of the cross consider this Maundy Thursday question, which I offer for sermons next year.
How would you rather go out from this meal? Would you rather share bread and be told 'go and do quickly what you have to do' or be told 'before the cock crows you will deny me three times'?
John 13 cannot stand apart from the end of John's Gospel, or from the beginning. Neither can Good Friday stand apart from Maundy Thursday, Easter Sunday, Ascension, Pentecost and Parousia. Nor from the beginning either. But asking people the question had a hugely powerful effect and helped them to understand that they were part of a story, and that what looked good today was not the end of the matter ... |
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| The Cross and the Caricatures |
| 410 [3480] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Wednesday 25 April 2007 - 10:53pm |
Steve
It is a complex point, and the Tractarians possibly took it too far (Newman's Tract 90 deserves study for those interpreting the 39 Articles) BUT
The development of the Articles especially shows some subtle editing between versions to allow for a more Catholic interpretation, and I think it is absolutely clear that the drafting shows that the CofE is More Than "Reformed". It was the Presbyterians who could not accept the outcome of the Savoy Conference on the Prayer Book. Our history is more theologically nuanced than sometimes the 'parties' will allow. |
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| Collapse of Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) |
| 411 [3399] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Thursday 19 April 2007 - 11:28pm |
| David
I do agree that there is no point speculating on where this is going.
But I do have difficulties with the approach some are taking on this thread and others 'I agree with what these people say so I have to be on their side'. Or 'he must be right, he's my friend'. Surely the truth is important?
As an accountant, who once was involved in investigating alleged serious frauds, I would suggest let the accounting records and explanations count for something. If I am told "I have no evidence to tell me where the money went" it worries me a little. If I am told "we asked for explanations, but nothing was forthcoming" it worries me a lot. If I get a load of flannel about theology, profits, charity or public benefit which distracts from the issue in hand, then I am fairly certain I have touched on something someone would rather me not investigate.
On the other hand, the distractions of extraneous and supposedly helpful comment can put faded memory, poor record keeping and honest mistake in a really unhelpful context of suspicion and innuendo which does the truth no service at all.
The truth here is not to be found in scripture, but in audit trails and cancelled cheques, and no-one has yet told me the story these tell. |
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| Atonement |
| 412 [3336] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Sunday 15 April 2007 - 09:24pm |
| I've been pondering the various threads and comments on atonement and penal substitution.
Penal substitution and some other theories account for the redemption of individual human beings and go strongly with the idea of Christianity as a 'rescue religion' - a phrase I first heard about 20 years ago, but which may be older.
The questions I have about atonement theories are:
(i) What are we redeemed into, or to become
[and note the word redemption connotes a price or a ransom paid]
(ii) What understanding of the Kingdom of God is operative?
(iii) How does any account of individual salvation deal with the Biblical strands which suggest that God is concerned to redeem/save a community rather than merely individual people (cf family arguments for infant baptism); and also the redemption of (God-made) creation which is not absent from the Biblical record?
Too often, in my experience, the proponents of Penal Substitution fail to deal adequately with such questions. But that is not necessarily to write off every insight from this perspective, just a caution that it is not the whole story. |
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| More than Evangelical but not Less |
| 413 [3249] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Thursday 29 March 2007 - 12:55pm |
| We are approaching that time of year when we hear once again and afresh Pilate's question 'what is truth?'. The great irony is that the question is asked in the presence of the one who said 'I am the way, the truth and the life ...'
The question and the statement should alert us to the fact that truth is not as easy as it might seem - Jesus was not holding a book and saying 'this is the truth' or 'this tells the truth'; nor had he affirmed a doctrinal position and said 'this is the truth'. To define the whole truth of our faith in terms of a book (even the Bible) or a doctrinal statement is to diminish and deny the force of 'I am ... the truth ...' and to bring us down to Pilate's level - especially given the resonances and depth of the 'I am' theme in John and the revelation of the divine name to Moses etc.
The error is a category error, using the ultimate notion of truth to refer to things which are merely penultimate. |
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| Synod motion on welcoming faithful committed gay relationships |
| 414 [3092] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Monday 5 March 2007 - 04:35pm |
| Some questions:
(i) is all that the Bible gives us 'a sufficient set of normative principles and categories'?
(ii) what makes a principle or category Biblically normative - surely the Biblical material on generalised homosexuality is too sparse to make this a primary category? (even though some may argue that it is sufficient to make a definite judgment - not being gay myself, some of the Biblical material would suggest that I might do well to remember that I am not the final judge in these matters)
Baptist Noel - you argue against Pluralist that the category 'gay people' doesn't exist Biblically - but if you don't have the general category then you can't have Biblical principles applicable to it - and you have to be very careful to avoid generalised comments about other non-biblical categories like 'homosexual orientation' or 'homosexual practice'. The direct Biblical material refers to particular practices of a contested nature. I should add that 'genital acts' is not a Biblical category either (as used in some strands of this debate), and there appear to be a number of possible genital acts which are unknown to scripture.
In fact the Church, in deciding to use the non-Biblical concept homoousious in its early Councils, decided that the explicitly Biblical categories were insufficient to meet the theological challenges of Greek philosophy. But how we generalise and expand Biblical categories is a serious question.
(iii) does it matter whether Jesus himself said anything about the subject?
(iv) what about other subjects which are consistent themes throughout the various types of Biblical material and about which Jesus did speak-such things as prayer, fasting and almsgiving?
I find little evidence that 'human rights' (Pluralist) or 'mortal sin' (as opposed to simply sin - Baptist Noel) are Biblical categories.
There is a lot wrong with the way this debate is being conducted in the church, and it is not all on one side.
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| Synod motion on welcoming faithful committed gay relationships |
| 415 [3074] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Saturday 3 March 2007 - 10:11pm |
| Baptist Noel
I have a real problem with words like "revisionist" particularly attached to other words. It suggests that there is a position, held on grounds, of which revision is unquestionably bad.
But for some of us who take scripture seriously, and who wrestle with its meaning, this suggests far too settled a position, closed to new insight. The complexity of the matter in relation to homosexuality was apparent both in the Synod speeches of Prof Thistleton, who thought the advocates of (for want of better words) an open, liberal stance had not made a sufficient scriptutal case to change his mind, and Richard Burridge, who pointed out that the hermeneutical argument could not be regarded as closed. Both were dealing with large bodies of scholarly work in a serious way. "Revisionist" fails to do this complexity justice - maybe that's not how you read the Bible, but it is what I aspire to.
The second point you make, separating identity and practice, and quoting 'hate the sin, love the sinner' was explicitly contested in the debate. Aside from the contest over what actually is sin in this area, there is a substantial argument over whether identity can be separated from practice. And this is also a live debate within Christian ethics, with virtue ethicist emphasising the importance of practices and habits in relation to character and narrative in a manner which resists the reductionism of this separation. And this is true of all of us, because sin is the practice of a sinner, and we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. That is one part of our identity. Another is as a beloved child of God, wherever we go, each of us as a unique creation (the parable of the prodigal son makes this clear). This intractable unity is mirrored in the incarnation, and to my mind is why something as unique as the incarnation was and is required for our redemption. |
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| A covenant for the Church of England. |
| 416 [2281] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Monday 8 January 2007 - 09:00am |
| On maintaining minimal standards of Christian ethics ...
Surely part of the presenting issue is whether our view of the authority of scripture and our hermenuetic strategies are guided by our ethics; or alternatively whether our ethics stand under the authority of scripture guided by our robust hermeneutical strategies.
If we say that all homosexual sexual practice is wrong, and make that the test of whether our scriptural interpretation is correct, I think we have cart before horse. Scripture does not seem to me to deal at all with some practices which we would regard in our culture as sexual - so how we deal with these is a matter of our interpretation. Sexual practice in the Old Testament seems (at least frequently) to be put in the same context and category of clean/unclean or "taboo" (I know this is not a Biblical word, but I think you will discern what I mean) - and we can abstract the teaching on sexual practice from this context so easily and efficiently that we can lose the context in holiness teaching: one of the challenges of this is that there were holiness issues at least as important as those of sexuality in Old Testament times - why is it essentially only sexuality for our generation?
On ethics guiding hermeneutics, look at the issue of slavery (or of lending at interest): existing interests become so dominant that the debate can become dominated by issues of whether existing practices can be defended, rather than by 'let us look afresh and as clearly as we can at what the scripture says'. In polarised debates it becomes almost impossible to look clearly and afresh.
I find it sad that the draft text was not widely circulated for comment because of the risk of leaks. What is the fear of leaks in a document which is going to be published with a view to achieving wide assent? Surely we all need to expose our hemeneutics to testing by our peers in the Church as a community of interpretation. Only thus can we grow together.
I also find it incredible that a group can seek, as it seems leadership from the Bishops in the Church, and can also ask a Bishop to refrain from comment on what they have published - do the CCE signatories want Bishops to lead, or not? |
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| A covenant for the Church of England. |
| 417 [2114] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Tuesday 19 December 2006 - 08:32pm |
| This mention of John Stott brings back memories of an earlier era and The Lausanne Covenant on which he wrote the commentary and which was so much richer in content and intent than the current document - and the inspiration I took when I was younger from 'An Evangelical Commitment to a Simple Lifestyle' with which he was again associated. Documents are at:
http://www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=12890
There was an attempt in these documents to fill out what it is to be a 'Gospel Person' or a 'Bible Person' - a compelling call to discipleship. |
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| A covenant for the Church of England. |
| 418 [2068] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Sunday 17 December 2006 - 01:37pm |
| Chris (Baker) makes a very good point about the strength of feeling represented by the original document.
This presents a challenge because some strands of evangelical thinking are very suspicious of feelings - including those represented by some of the people who drafted this document. From my perspective it seems very clear that the text has been influenced by strong feelings, but I am doubtful that some of those involved will be able to acknowledge that in a way which will bring them into useful dialogue. Perhaps I am wrong about this - but I have long thought that the command to love God with heart and mind and soul and strength should point us to a richer theological discourse about feelings than is routine in some evangelical circles, and be set in counterpoint with texts on the deception of the affections and the danger of trusting our hearts.
The challenge is at least a theological one, for those who want to take it as such, and offers some hope of a way forward. |
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| A covenant for the Church of England. |
| 419 [2025] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Wednesday 13 December 2006 - 10:28pm |
| What I am struggling with is the relationship between the statement which has been issued and any Biblical notion of 'Covenant', also with the reference to only one of the Canons, and an overemphasis on the individual, rather than any analysis of what forms the kingdom we are saved to be part of. Some theology on the relationship between communion and covenant would be helpful too. |
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| Women Bishops? |
| 420 [1335] Posted by: Mark Bennet |
Saturday 22 July 2006 - 09:09pm |
| John R
Apostle in the Bible, and especially the gospels, simply means 'one who is sent' as its primary meaning - and Mary Magdalene was such. Paul uses apostle of himself, which seems to me to be the first claim to a special kind of meaning, but surely meaning one sent by the risen Christ (witness to the resurrection is surely a separate idea) - but Mary Magdalene counts on that score too.
It is only when you try to restrict a special term "apostle" to twelve men, and then founder on the fact that Paul is one too, that you run into problems with women being apostles. But that meaning is read back from later tradition. I think you are special pleading, not the bishops - but then you are free to disagree with me on that.
But do be please aware how much you are relying on extrabiblical testimony for your interpretation of "apostle" - the term in scripture is not univocal, and develops in the tradition. Romans 16 and Junia is also mentioned by the Bishops in the context of interpreting the term 'apostle' in the Biblical witness, and the amount of special pleading on this text is extraordinary. |
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