Monthly Archives: January 2012

Why can’t women appoint Anglican bishops?

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It is a long time since I have commented here on the slow progress towards the Church of England accepting women as bishops. I haven’t really been following the discussions, which have dragged on interminably. But they may now be nearing an end. The Church Mouse has made a welcome return to blogging to report on the current situation, in a post with the unlikely title Ladies hats. It seems that within the next few days the General Synod may give the final go-ahead for episcopal women – or may throw the process into turmoil by accepting an alternative proposal.

I will not attempt to deal with the issues in detail here. But one thing puzzles me – perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me. I tried to post a comment about this on the Church Mouse blog, but the vagaries of the Blogger comment system defeated me.

The current proposals require any future female bishop to delegate to a male bishop her authority over parishes that object to women in the episcopate. “Sir Watkin”, in a comment on Mouse’s post, rehearses a common conservative Anglo-Catholic objection to these proposals, that this delegation of authority

will no longer work if the diocesan is female, and thus the priests and laity … aren’t convinced she is a bishop. They would be in the nonsensical position of accepting the delegation of an authority that the person delegating didn’t (from their perspective) have in the first place.

The Supreme Governor of the Church of England

The Supreme Governor of the Church of England

The problem with this argument is that Anglo-Catholics, as members of the Church of England, have accepted ever since the 1534 Act of Supremacy that the English monarch is Head or Supreme Governor of the Church of England, with all earthly authority over it including the right to appoint its bishops. Diocesan bishops are still appointed by the monarch, on the advice of the Crown Nominations Commission. Clearly by appointing a bishop the monarch delegates some of her own authority over the church, including giving that bishop the right to appoint suffragan bishops and priests within his diocese, as well as to celebrate the sacraments within that diocese – something which the monarch cannot personally do.

The point here is that the monarch is not a bishop, and is currently, as quite often in the past, a woman. The first woman to be in this position was Elizabeth I in 1558. Yet these Anglo-Catholics have remained within a Church of England headed in this way by a laywoman.

So this is my question to the Anglo-Catholics: If you accept that Queen Elizabeth II, a laywoman, can appoint diocesan bishops and delegate to them authority and the right to celebrate sacraments, why can you not allow that a woman appointed by her as a bishop can appoint a male subordinate bishop and delegate to him authority and the right to celebrate sacraments? I understand that you do not recognise the appointed woman as a bishop. But if the authority to act as a bishop can be delegated only by a bishop, or only by a man, then none of the diocesan bishops are validly appointed either.

I note that this is not an issue of the validity of orders, as it could be required that the subordinate bishop be consecrated by at least one male bishop, but of the validity of episcopal appointments.

Now I respect the argument that no lay person can have authority over the church or appoint any kind of bishop. That is the argument for which Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More were put to death in 1535. Fortunately our current Queen does not assert her authority as vigorously as Henry VIII did, and does not count it as an act of treason to reject her supreme governorship of the church. So there is an easy way out for those who can only accept bishops being appointed by other bishops: they should move to the Church of Rome, all of whose bishops are appointed by the Bishop of Rome. The recent innovation of the Ordinariate has made things even easier for Anglicans who wish to make this move.

On the other hand, those conservative Anglo-Catholics who choose to stay in the Church of England should recognise that not only those they recognise as bishops have the right to appoint bishops and delegate authority to them. They should also recognise that the church is bending over backwards to make allowances for their minority position of not accepting that women can be bishops. And they should accept those arrangements with good grace and work for the peace, unity and general advancement of the church in which they choose to stay.

Why can't women appoint Anglican bishops?

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It is a long time since I have commented here on the slow progress towards the Church of England accepting women as bishops. I haven’t really been following the discussions, which have dragged on interminably. But they may now be nearing an end. The Church Mouse has made a welcome return to blogging to report on the current situation, in a post with the unlikely title Ladies hats. It seems that within the next few days the General Synod may give the final go-ahead for episcopal women – or may throw the process into turmoil by accepting an alternative proposal.

I will not attempt to deal with the issues in detail here. But one thing puzzles me – perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me. I tried to post a comment about this on the Church Mouse blog, but the vagaries of the Blogger comment system defeated me.

The current proposals require any future female bishop to delegate to a male bishop her authority over parishes that object to women in the episcopate. “Sir Watkin”, in a comment on Mouse’s post, rehearses a common conservative Anglo-Catholic objection to these proposals, that this delegation of authority

will no longer work if the diocesan is female, and thus the priests and laity … aren’t convinced she is a bishop. They would be in the nonsensical position of accepting the delegation of an authority that the person delegating didn’t (from their perspective) have in the first place.

The Supreme Governor of the Church of England

The Supreme Governor of the Church of England

The problem with this argument is that Anglo-Catholics, as members of the Church of England, have accepted ever since the 1534 Act of Supremacy that the English monarch is Head or Supreme Governor of the Church of England, with all earthly authority over it including the right to appoint its bishops. Diocesan bishops are still appointed by the monarch, on the advice of the Crown Nominations Commission. Clearly by appointing a bishop the monarch delegates some of her own authority over the church, including giving that bishop the right to appoint suffragan bishops and priests within his diocese, as well as to celebrate the sacraments within that diocese – something which the monarch cannot personally do.

The point here is that the monarch is not a bishop, and is currently, as quite often in the past, a woman. The first woman to be in this position was Elizabeth I in 1558. Yet these Anglo-Catholics have remained within a Church of England headed in this way by a laywoman.

So this is my question to the Anglo-Catholics: If you accept that Queen Elizabeth II, a laywoman, can appoint diocesan bishops and delegate to them authority and the right to celebrate sacraments, why can you not allow that a woman appointed by her as a bishop can appoint a male subordinate bishop and delegate to him authority and the right to celebrate sacraments? I understand that you do not recognise the appointed woman as a bishop. But if the authority to act as a bishop can be delegated only by a bishop, or only by a man, then none of the diocesan bishops are validly appointed either.

I note that this is not an issue of the validity of orders, as it could be required that the subordinate bishop be consecrated by at least one male bishop, but of the validity of episcopal appointments.

Now I respect the argument that no lay person can have authority over the church or appoint any kind of bishop. That is the argument for which Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More were put to death in 1535. Fortunately our current Queen does not assert her authority as vigorously as Henry VIII did, and does not count it as an act of treason to reject her supreme governorship of the church. So there is an easy way out for those who can only accept bishops being appointed by other bishops: they should move to the Church of Rome, all of whose bishops are appointed by the Bishop of Rome. The recent innovation of the Ordinariate has made things even easier for Anglicans who wish to make this move.

On the other hand, those conservative Anglo-Catholics who choose to stay in the Church of England should recognise that not only those they recognise as bishops have the right to appoint bishops and delegate authority to them. They should also recognise that the church is bending over backwards to make allowances for their minority position of not accepting that women can be bishops. And they should accept those arrangements with good grace and work for the peace, unity and general advancement of the church in which they choose to stay.

Newfrontiers Complementarian Accepts Junia as Apostle

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Saint Junia the ApostleThere has been a great deal of controversy in recent years concerning the woman Junia mentioned in many translations of Romans 16:7, and described, along with the man Andronicus, as “outstanding among the apostles” (NIV). This has apparently stemmed from the reluctance of some to accept that a woman could be called an apostle. As a result some have argued that the name is in fact not the common female Junia but the otherwise unknown male Junias, whereas others have argued that the description should be understood as “well known to the apostles”.

Suzanne McCarthy has reported on this issue several times, most recently in a post The Junia Evidence: X transgendered again. Scot McKnight has written a whole e-book on the subject, Junia Is Not Alone, which I have not read. Both the SMc’s seem to conclude that the evidence strongly supports Junia being both a woman and an apostle.

Phil WhittallSo I was pleased to find today a self-proclaimed complementarian accepting this conclusion, and not attempting to force the Bible to fit the grid of his theology. Phil Whittall, who describes himself as “a church planter in the Newfrontiers family of churches currently in the south-east of Sweden”, writes a post Junia Or Junias?, in which he surveys commentaries and shows a clear majority of scholarly support for Junia as a female apostle – not as one of the original Twelve, of course, but as some kind of missionary. Phil concludes:

What is the consensus? Andronicus and Junia were an outstanding missionary couple who no doubt planted churches. Arguably they were apostles both because they witnessed the risen Christ and because they were sent. As a complementarian pastor I have absolutely zero problem with this. If anyone was ever to write a history of church planting in Sweden in the 21st century, I hope they’d write about Phil and Emma Whittall and not just me – we’re in this together, it is a joint venture all the way and yet our roles are different. For more on how this works out read this.

I am glad to read this from a Newfrontiers leader, and I have no real quarrel with it. It is fine that Phil and Emma have different roles, within their partnership and within any wider team they are in, as long as they have both freely agreed on those roles. But I would hope that they have chosen them not according to some dogmatic human position about which roles are for men and which for women, but on the basis of the different gifts and different callings which they have received from God.

Sadly, I don’t think that is what the Whittalls feel able to do, as Phil’s final link is to an article by Andrew Wilson, on an apparently official Newfrontiers site, which prejudges the whole issue by starting with The Presumption of Complementarianism. Well, at least he makes it explicit that Newfrontiers approaches Scripture with this presumption, which of course makes it no surprise that that is what they find there. I won’t attempt here to answer Wilson’s arguments in detail, but I note that his appeal to 1 Timothy 2:12 completely contradicts his claim to “passionately support and encourage women in ministry, prophesying, deaconing, worship leading, preaching, teaching, leadership, missionary work, church planting and so on … but I still believe that only men should be elders” (a point which he promised, in a comment  “25/01/2012 at 15:57” to address “in next Wednesday’s post” i.e. on 1st February).

I can understand why Phil Whittall sees the need to defer to this official Newfrontiers teaching. After all, they are very likely sponsoring his and his wife’s church planting work in Sweden. But I wish he had left out of his post that final sentence with its link to Wilson’s post.

The Truth New Testament by Colin Urquhart

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The Truth New Testament, study editionI just discovered a new version of the New Testament (actually from 2009) translated by one of the UK’s most respected Charismatic leaders, and a long time hero of mine, Colin Urquhart.

I have posted twice about this version at Better Bibles Blog: The Truth New Testament by Colin Urquhart and The Truth New Testament: A Review. Please follow the links to read what I wrote.

I am pleased that Colin Urquhart has taken the effort to produce this translation. He has thus given the lie to the old charge that Charismatics aren’t interested in serious study of the Bible. But I cannot recommend this as a general purpose Bible.

C.S. Lewis turned down an honour from the Queen

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C.S. LewisAs reported by the BBC, the British government has today published a list of people who have declined honours from the Queen, from 1951 to 1999 and including only those who have now died.

It is interesting to see that one of those named is “CS Lewis, who turned down a CBE in 1952”. This well known Christian author certainly deserved this honour – not so much for his well known Narnia series as for his more serious works, for example of apologetics. I am somewhat surprised to see that he turned down the honour, but perhaps he felt that the glory should go to God.

Beyond Evangelical streams: a historical perspective

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Frank ViolaTwo days ago I asked Am I one of Frank Viola’s Beyond Evangelicals? This was based on Frank’s description of four major streams in today’s evangelicalism: Systematizers, Activists, Emoters, and Beyond Evangelicals.

Since then I have given some more thought to this subject, and I have come to realise that there is nothing much new here. In fact, these four streams can be traced back at least a century. So here is my historical perspective on this. I must admit that I am more familiar with some of this history as it has happened here in the UK, but I hope that my insights are also applicable in North America, the prime focus of Frank’s work.

19th century evangelicalism was, I tend to think, relatively uniform. Certainly there were issues within it, but not ones which are of great concern today. But by the early 20th century this monolith started to crack. One major cause of this was the growth of liberal theology within many formerly evangelical denominations and ministries. Liberalism was not new at this time, but this was when it grew rapidly.

In reaction to this many evangelicals became obsessed with preserving sound doctrine and separation from the “world”, and so was born the movement known as Fundamentalism.

Meanwhile on the fringes of the evangelical church another new phenomenon was growing: Pentecostalism. At this period it was not accepted within existing denominations, and so specifically Pentecostal denominations were set up.

Through all this a main stream of Evangelicalism persisted, avoiding Liberalism and rejecting Pentecostalism, but also refusing to follow Fundementalism into the ghetto.

These four streams persisted right through the 20th century. Traditional Liberalism and Fundamentalism both had their day and then started to decline, but their basic perspectives live on. In the second half of the century Pentecostalism began to be accepted in some traditional denominational churches, and so the Charismatic Movement arose. And mainstream Evangelicalism survived, and in some places thrived.

So how do these older four streams relate to the four streams which Frank sees today?

Frank’s Systematizers are basically neo-Fundamentalists. Michael Clawson has today posted at Roger Olson’s blog an excellent essay Neo-Fundamentalism, so I won’t attempt to repeat this material. Michael shows clearly how the people he studies have the same kind of agenda as the original Fundamentalists.

It would be too simple to say that Frank’s Activists are Liberals – especially as this would be read by some as a pejorative comment. Activists are not necessarily people who have abandoned biblical authority in the way typical of liberal theology. But they have left behind some traditional evangelical interpretations of the Bible, and have put more focus on other passages, perhaps on the teaching of Jesus more than of Paul. They would recognise that the Tea Party Jesus is not the real Jesus.

Clearly, Franks’ Emoters are the Charismatics, and the Pentecostals who have now often become indistinguishable from them.

So what is Frank’s Beyond Evangelical stream? And what happened to the original fourth stream, the main evangelical stream? Clearly many things have changed and continue to change within this mainstream. No doubt some of the younger generation have left it for the other streams. Perhaps the main channel is drying up. But it seems to me that Frank is trying to revitalise this mainstream, and claim its leadership for himself, by dropping outdated and unhelpful practices and by giving it a new name: Beyond Evangelical.

Very likely this strategy of Frank’s will meet with some real success, by attracting those disillusioned with the other streams as well as by bringing the best out of those who have remained within the mainstream – and hopefully also by bringing in new believers, as it continues one of mainstream evangelicalism’s defining practices, active evangelism. But Frank should not suggest that his streams are something new which he has identified for the first time. What is new is the name, and perhaps the strategy which goes with it. On that basis I wish it well.

Am I one of Frank Viola’s Beyond Evangelicals?

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Frank ViolaFrank Viola may have broken some kind of record by starting his series Beyond Evangelical with part I on 5th May last year and continuing it only today, more than eight months later, with Beyond Evangelical: Part II. But it was well worth the long wait to read more of what Frank has to say on this important subject.

Frank’s basic point in Part II is that there are “four major streams within evangelicalism”, especially among “Christians in their 20s, 30s, and 40s”. These are:

  • “Systematizers” – largely Calvinists, including the “young, restless and Reformed”;
  • “Activists” – more politically left leaning evangelicals, some in the “Emerging Church”;
  • “Emoters” – charismatics;
  • “Beyond Evangelicals” – the group for which Frank is a spokesman.

Frank sees his “Beyond Evangelicals” as a “fourth stream [which] flies under the radar of establishment Christianity because it is not part of it.” But this stream, he claims, is large and growing, as people come out of the other streams and join it. Their defining characteristic:

“Beyond Evangelicals” are in pursuit of a Person above and beyond ideas (stream 1), activities (stream 2), or feelings (stream 3).

This could, I suppose, look a bit like a “motherhood and apple pie” definition, something which every Christian group would claim. But I think Frank has identified a real fourth stream here. As for how significant it is, perhaps only time will tell.

Where do I stand in all this? Well, I am not in my 20s, 30s or 40s, and not North American which is presumably Frank’s focus here. So it is not surprising that I don’t fit clearly into any one of the streams. As a young Christian I was a Systematizer, but have definitely left that behind. In some ways I am closest to the Emoter stream, but not entirely at home there. I also have a lot of sympathy with the Activist stream, and politically I fit in best there.

So should I identify myself now as a Beyond Evangelical? I would fit well with most of Frank’s description of this stream, but not with “tend to be apolitical, believing that the local ekklesia (body of Christ) is the new polis.” Also I don’t want to reject the charismatic movement, while being aware of its imperfections.

One thing I am sure of, that I want to read more of Frank’s series, which will I hope continue rather more quickly.

Am I one of Frank Viola's Beyond Evangelicals?

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Frank ViolaFrank Viola may have broken some kind of record by starting his series Beyond Evangelical with part I on 5th May last year and continuing it only today, more than eight months later, with Beyond Evangelical: Part II. But it was well worth the long wait to read more of what Frank has to say on this important subject.

Frank’s basic point in Part II is that there are “four major streams within evangelicalism”, especially among “Christians in their 20s, 30s, and 40s”. These are:

  • “Systematizers” – largely Calvinists, including the “young, restless and Reformed”;
  • “Activists” – more politically left leaning evangelicals, some in the “Emerging Church”;
  • “Emoters” – charismatics;
  • “Beyond Evangelicals” – the group for which Frank is a spokesman.

Frank sees his “Beyond Evangelicals” as a “fourth stream [which] flies under the radar of establishment Christianity because it is not part of it.” But this stream, he claims, is large and growing, as people come out of the other streams and join it. Their defining characteristic:

“Beyond Evangelicals” are in pursuit of a Person above and beyond ideas (stream 1), activities (stream 2), or feelings (stream 3).

This could, I suppose, look a bit like a “motherhood and apple pie” definition, something which every Christian group would claim. But I think Frank has identified a real fourth stream here. As for how significant it is, perhaps only time will tell.

Where do I stand in all this? Well, I am not in my 20s, 30s or 40s, and not North American which is presumably Frank’s focus here. So it is not surprising that I don’t fit clearly into any one of the streams. As a young Christian I was a Systematizer, but have definitely left that behind. In some ways I am closest to the Emoter stream, but not entirely at home there. I also have a lot of sympathy with the Activist stream, and politically I fit in best there.

So should I identify myself now as a Beyond Evangelical? I would fit well with most of Frank’s description of this stream, but not with “tend to be apolitical, believing that the local ekklesia (body of Christ) is the new polis.” Also I don’t want to reject the charismatic movement, while being aware of its imperfections.

One thing I am sure of, that I want to read more of Frank’s series, which will I hope continue rather more quickly.

New blog: God and Politics in the UK

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Gillan ScottI would like to recommend Gillan Scott’s new blog God and Politics in the UK, subtitled “Seeking God’s agenda for society in the United Kingdom”. He has made a good start over the last few weeks with his comments and analysis of recent political events from a non-partisan Christian perspective. He writes:

Jesus … didn’t shy away from the issues of the day and he definitely wasn’t afraid to speak his mind highlighting hypocrisy, abuse of power and oppression.

Can the same be said of the church today? … At this time in our history it is crucial that the Church stands up and delivers God’s message even when it is counter cultural and likely to cause offence.

And this seems to be what Gillan is aiming to do. I wish him well.

I have not met Gillan, but he lives only about 50 miles from me in Suffolk, and moves in the same charismatic Church of England circles as I do.