Vicars have vowed to *obey (odd word that, here) the bishop 'in all things lawful and honest'. It is a Very ltd vow.  However, it must not lead us into sin, or resistance to the Light. This means that homophobia must be resisted in the teeth of this bishop-- and all bishops.

"We must *obey God rather than men."

* There's that word again !

I'd love to hear Richard Chartres' view and enrichment from what must be the gayest diocese in England ---or does that distinction go to Southwark, Chichester, or perhaps, Westminster ?

The good thing about Dr Dud is that he is not hiding what he has done. Many other liberals are much less open and honest about their beliefs and actions.

The weak thing is that he may try to avoid the consequences by the normal liberal game of playing with words to avoid truth eg  he said on the BBC news, "IThe bishop asked me not to offer this service. did not offer this service. I was asked and agreed to do it."

ok - I am now going to argue against myself in my previous post (written  a mere 20 minutes ago).

John is right about the both and.  'faith' of itself is meaningless.  the 9.11 bombers had faith in God -but faith in the wrong type of God - a God who demands death and destruction.

in Christianity we are constantly being led out of having faith in various idols and into the truth of a faith in a very different kind of God. so you were right I was wrong

but you get my point about the balance between the two?

it was this sermon that showed me the error of my ways

http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper_8a_2005_ser.htm

replying to John F,

well, yeah, sort of, otherwise it's just warm fuzzy feelings.  but I'd hierarchise (is that a word?) the two.  faith in jesus is way more important than faith about jesus.  you can be distinctly offbeat in your beliefs about Jesus and yet still trust him and have faith in him, but all the believing facts about Jesus are completely useless if you do not actually trust him. I Cor 13 and all that.  sometimes liberals worry that in evangelicals' insistence on believing lots of 'stuff' they neglect the really important part of actually trusting Jesus to love us whatever.

perhaps you could legitimately retort that liberals could do with believing a lot more stuff!

actually, I've always like Lindbeck's idea that faith is neither primarily about assent to propositions nor about expressing our deep emotions but about living and being shaped by the 'language and deep grammar' of the religion in question.  but that just brings us back to us disagreeing about where that language and grammar is to be found!

Dear Clare,

thank you for your dialogue and apologies that this brief and hurried post can only skim one issue from your thoughtful response.

You are absolutely right that submitting to Christ involves our emotions. But where we fundamentally disagree is to put this in opposition to giving intellectual assent to certain propositions. It's both/and rather than either/or.

Regards,

JF.

I think what is making me uneasy here is the linking of submitting to Jesus with having information about him (via the bible).  Of course we need information  about Jesus but submission is surely more about loving Jesus and giving oneself over to him in love; it’s an emotional response rather than it’s an intellectual assent to certain propositions.  I’m this not denying that this emotional response is to something that can be described and has some contours (using information, such as what Jesus is like and why we may be drawn to love him, for which the bible is obviously the most comprehensive guide), but submission involves something more heart churningly visceral than coming to the conclusion that one must follow Jesus as the result of logical enquiry based on information received. As David H says, it demands a personal response. Anything that helps us make this response is a good thing.  People differ.  For some people, facts and ideas can strike at the centre of one’s very being, for others, images, actions or examples are the thing.  John Foxe makes an extraordinary claim that ‘faith comes from hearing rather than seeing’. For him, maybe – but for everybody?

 In education these days we bang on about the three main learning styles, auditory, visual and kinaesthetic.  Most academically successful people are auditory learners because, up until recently, teaching was delivered almost exclusively through the medium of hearing.  This led to the false conclusion that auditory teaching styles are the best – based purely on the bias of those who do well by them. Nowadays we try hard to include visual and kinaesthetic approaches in our teaching as well as auditory so everyone gets a bite at the cherry.

 Jesus was obviously aware of this when he gave us the sacraments of holy communion and baptism.  Both involve things heard, things seen and things done.  Powerful stuff.  Of course the bible sustains us and people who do not have access to it are missing out on something wonderful, but it is not the only thing, or necessarily the most important for everyone.

 I fully understand that absolutising the bible is a central plank of reformed identity, I just question whether this identity needs to undergo a baptism.  To die so that it may be reborn.  It’s a red herring, leading the protestant churches up a blind alley.  As David H says, the most important thing is the need for us to respond personally to Jesus and then (this bit is me, not David) to build his kingdom – that’s the motor that should be driving our Christian identity – not insisting over and over that the Bible is more or less the fourth person the trinity.  Let it go – God will still be there!

 I am not, and never have been an evangelical in the traditional ‘tribal’ sense.  My ‘tribe’ would be better described as liberal (Anglican) catholic.  But as I grow in faith I less and less want to hang on to my ‘tribal’ identity and find Jesus calling me out of it and into a wider and richer perspective (which is why I partly hang out with you  fulcrum lot even though some of you drive me mad at times!). It’s being a Christian that matters now, not following the party line and confusing this with submission to Jesus.  I think I am very ‘evangelical’ as adverb –even if not at all as an adjective.  I guess I live in hope that all Christians would take the journey out of the confines of their religious tribal identity and into an identity centred on Christ.  As an outsider, it seems glaring obvious to me that what sometimes hinders evangelical Christians is their obsession with the bible that gets in the way of being possessed by God. This obsession leads them into feeling obliged to hold postitions they woud much rather not, such as taking a hard line on homosexuality, believing that non Christians go to hell and (for the Phil's of this world) justifying God's alleged burning alive of children as good and proper moral behaviour.  (I'm mixing my threads here).  And then thinking that because they are believing things they'd rather were otherwise, that, of itself shows how much they are submitting.  But it's not, it's trying to be a good boy to impress God, submitting to one's own ego in other words - 'look at me, aren't I good and orthodox'.

why, why why why why do you conflate believing in God in Christ with believing 'in the bible'?  I really fail to understand.  of course the bible is pivotal, vital, a (not the) necessary corrective but it can share that space with other things, like good old tradition and reason.

Clare, I would not disagree with your characterisation of popular piety but I wonder how different it is from the present situation. Modern people are, in the main simlly too busy to become lay theologians, they rely on what they have been taught and weeklt service. The evangelist message is not that they must become better bible students but to ask if they realise that Jesus died not only for the whole world but for them personally, to ask if they have a personal relationship with Jesus or are just going throught the motions. 

You say we are submitting to Jesus but our primary source of information on Him is the Bible. Allother sources are derivative from this and may be distorted. It is only by going back to the source that se may see where we went wrong.

David 

Dear Clare,

I think the answer to your question as to how many Christians had scripture portions will depend on when and where we are considering in history. Between Wycliffe and Cranmer, owning a bible in English was a capital offence in England, and yet Lollard translations from the Vulgate circulated.

In the early church and the Roman/Byzantine context I see no difficulty envisaging a reasonable degree of literacy and the circulation of scripture portions. After all, we only have so many manuscripts because a vast number were produced!

Certainly there have been times in history when people have talked almost of nothing other than what the Bible teaches. I recall one anecdote that the barbers in Alexandria were talking of nothing else except the homousios, homoiousios debate!

The medieval church's reliance on images and the use of Latin was roundly condemned by the Reformers as preventing the people having access to the bible in words they could understand. People may have come to Christ without access to the Bible but it was as much despite the means used as it was because of them. Faith comes by hearing rather than seeing.

And yes, Jesus is the Word of God who sustains us and the Bible too, in a different sense, is the Word of God. Jesus is the 'who' who sustains us, and he does it principally by his Word written, by his Spirit.

Regards,

JF.

I am no church history expert, but I do know that the cost of making a bible on parchment (paper not being known about in the west and printing not being yet invented) was exorbitant.  In the pre-reformation church, there must have been millions of peasant Christians whose familiarity with the bible was patchy at best. That is not to say that they were completely unaware of it (your Harry Potter comparison).   They would have known the key events in the life of Jesus –I just don’t think they would be au fait with the fine detail of 2 Corinthians, for example.  Which means that talking of them ‘submitting to the bible’ in the full blooded sense used in this thread would be meaningless. Submit to Jesus, yes.

 I would consider them to be Christians because they knew something of the Christian story through its depiction in popular arts –mystery plays, stained glass windows, statues, popular oral tradition, Christian myths and legends, and because they partook of the sacraments and went to church and said prayers and took part in pilgrimages and so on and so forth.  Some of these we may now consider as poorer substitutes to a deep knowledge of the bible.  But either we acknowledge that such means were up to the task of calling people into new life and sustaining them, or we have to conclude that, for all Jesus’ love for the poor and the outcast, the poor and the outcast (and most women) had no chance of knowing Jesus in the period between the early church and the reformation because God chose a means of revelation that would be impossible for them to access purely because of technological barriers – which presumably God was fully aware of.  (I am ignoring the role that illiteracy and the use of Latin brought to this, as it could be argued that this was a result of sin  on the part of the ecclesiastical elite rather than blameless technological ignorance).

 Incidentally, the Word of God who sustains us is Jesus, not the bible.  We are lucky enough to have access to the Word of God via the bible, but previous generations who did not should not be deemed not Christian because God used different means to engage with them.

 If anyone is an expert in the popular piety of the period, I am more than willing to be put right.

Christianity started off as a sect within Judaism. The authority of the scriptures was common ground. It was part of the basis of their reforms. This parallels the reformation. The agreed texts were at least the books of Moses, the major prophets and psalms. If there is a problem it is later books which were referred to such as Enoch.

Authority in the early church was given by Jesus to the apostles. The protestant view is that this authority was not passed on at the same level to subsequent bishops. This is shown for example in the writings of Clement of Rome. The authority of the apostles was rather exercised in their writings as evidenced by Peter's reference to Paul's letters. The gospels and major epistles ( by length)  were accepted long before 350.

Luther was product of the world Claire descibes. He accepted scripture but interpreted it within a tradition of interpretation. At this stage an academic and Church authorities could not be easily separated. He rediscovered or at least applied in a new way a basic doctrine that God is the author of salvation. This was on the basis of his reading of Romans and Augustine, after whom his order was named. His arguments with the Pope were on this common basis. The story of Luther finding the Bible as a long forgotten book in a dusty corner of the monastery library as much embellished.

Lawrence comes up with an interesting list of authorities he does not accept. He omits York and probably his own local bishop.

The authority of the charismatic leader often becomes institutionalized in the second generation. This is the case in the early Chuch, the Reformation, early methodism and the house Church movement.

I believe in the personal application of the scriptures by the Holy spirit in the quiet time but God reveals himself to us also in worship and preaching and the guidance of the church. If we find ourselves disagreeing with everyone else we a probable wrong but it is just possible that we are right in an exciting way.

David

Dear L Roberts,

may I suggest that if you fail to see that the church has authority in what it teaches, even though that authority is under the supremacy of scripture, then you are not being Protestant enough. Anabaptist, perhaps, but not Protestant.

Regards,

The Foxe

John Fox -how did the early church submit to the sacred scriptures when they either weren't yet written (NT) or had not yet been collectively adopted as a definitive cannon (Hebrew scriptures)?   The Christian canon wasn't fixed until.....well, there is debate but mid 200's at the earliet -probably more like mid 350's- although that didn't stop Luther from tinkering with it using his own hermeneutical prejudices. (eg wanting to junk epistle of St James because 'an epistle of straw'). Not to mention all the issues sorrounding the deutro canonical books. So in the beginning there was nothing definitive to submit to - and when it was made definitive - it woz the church wot done it. (This is not 'catholic'  flag waving on my behalf by the way, just the obvious way that the things in fact happened)

If we see 'the church' as more than the hierarchy of religious professionals - how can we possibly believe that 'the church' (ie all the Christian people) submitted to the bible when, prior to the invention of the printing press, bibles were hugely expensive luxury items owned only by the monastries and mega rich.  Your every day common or garden Christian did not carry around their own copy - that's a really really modern phenomenum.  If God really intended to transmit an inerrant document for us to follow, he surely made a big mistake by introducing it well over a thousand years before most people would have the economic means to have access to it.

Us liberals are often described as reading a modern agenda into our bible reading, but it seems as if you also are quite happy to read a conservative evangelical agenda into your biblical interpretation and, suprise, suprise, 'find' your a priori commitments described in holy writ. This is  wishful thinking - the 'fantasy bible' of CE myth that James Barr described so well. Let the bible be what it really is, not what you need it to be.

To clarify what I meant about Luther casting around. I do not mean he was consciously aware of what he was doing. Rather I mean that having had to oppose ecclesiatical authority as supreme and not yet having heard of post moderism he was bound to need to find an alternative locus in which authority would reside. (although he then broke his own rules by putting his theological references before the canon as previously agreed).

And my previous post meant precisely that we need to question whether what we previously saw as non negotiable marks of our identity really are non negotiable. Say it is Christ who is trying to negotiate with us - do we tell him 'sorry, you are just not orthodox (or liberal) enough for me - stop questionning my core assumptions.'  We all need to bring our 'non negotiables' to Christ-surely that is what submission really means.

and belonging to a forum like this is a great way to have one's non negotiables put under scrutiny from other members of the body to which we all belong. that's what 'the authority of the church' means for me - us all talking, arguing, listening together as we try and discern what God really means and all being willing (with only a little kicking and screaming along the way) to have our minds changed.

peace

Clare