Bishop John, we are not assured, give us back the cup!

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Peter Kirk

An open letter to Rt Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, who will retire on 31 August but for now is still in charge of his diocese:

Dear Bishop John,

As an active and theologically educated lay Anglican, I am concerned by the advice you have issued recommending “temporary suspension of the chalice”. I have serious theological issues with this advice, which appears to be in direct contradiction to Jesus’ Words of Institution and to apostolic teaching (1 Corinthians 11:25-29), as well as to Article 30 of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer which both prescribe communion in both kinds.

You write to your clergy:

Congregation members may need to be assured that receiving communion in one kind in no way diminishes the fullness of Christ’s presence in the sacrament of Holy Communion.

But you give no guidance to your clergy about how they should assure us congregation members of this. Personally I do not see how I could be assured, because communion in one kind clearly goes against Jesus’ commands and so his presence in it cannot be expected. I would be very interested to see any proper theological advice on this issue which you could issue to clergy and lay people like myself. I and I am sure many others are not prepared to accept such teaching simply on your personal authority, especially when it seems to contradict biblical teaching and the historic doctrine of the Church of England.

I understand that you have taken this step according to advice from the Archbishops. Indeed (from the dated copy of your letter forwarded to me by one of your clergy; the online version is undated) you seem to have passed on this advice on the same day, 22nd July, that it was issued, suggesting that little reflection was given to its implications. I have responded at some length to the Archbishops’ advice in an article which I have posted on my blog at http://www.qaya.org/blog/?p=1196.

I note one change you have made to the Archbishops’ advice: you have omitted their recommendation of intinction by the presiding minister. But this omission makes things worse. I do not appreciate intinction, which is not a biblical practice, nor one envisaged by the founders of the Church of England, but it does somewhat mitigate the theological wrong of withdrawing the communion cup.

I accept that this step has been taken in the light of swine flu. However, the proper medical advice is that this flu is no more dangerous than the regular flu which does the rounds every winter, and which has not prompted withdrawal of the communion cup from the laity; also that the risk of catching swine flu from a shared cup is less than the risk from all of the other interaction that takes place at any public gathering. I note also that in the summary of Department of Health advice linked to by the Archbishops priority is given to advice that

churches need to ensure that bins for the disposal of tissues are available at all public gatherings, that surfaces are frequently cleaned and that hand-washing facilities, including disposable towels, are well maintained. Churches should also consider supplying tissues at services and other meetings as well as providing hand-washing gel.

But I see no record that you have passed this advice on to your clergy. Surely you should have ensured that these non-controversial steps are being taken in your churches before passing on, without proper reflection, advice from the Archbishops which has serious theological implications.

I’m afraid to say that the Archbishops’ advice and yours show all the signs of being prompted by panic as stirred up by the media. The proper reaction from church leaders to such panic should not be ill thought out measures with seriously bad side effects, but carefully considered advice about what would really minimise the risk of infection at church services and other meetings.

I regret that I am unable to consider myself a communicant member of the Church of England in the Diocese of Chelmsford, or any other diocese making similar changes to historic practices, until I see an acceptable theological justification for withdrawal of the communion cup, or until the administration of the Communion is restored according to the Lord’s command and the historic formularies of the Church of England.

Peter Kirk
Lay member of Meadgate Church in the parish of Great Baddow

Archbishops' communion advice contradicts the Thirty-Nine Articles

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Peter Kirk

It is not just the Presiding Bishop of TEC who is compromising the Gospel message in what she says. Now, as reported with approval by Anglican vicar David Keen, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are offering official advice to the Bishops of the Church of England which directly contradicts the teaching of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, as well as Article 30 of the Thirty-Nine Articles:

In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

²⁷ So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.

1 Corinthians 11:25-29 (TNIV), emphasis added

30. Of both Kinds.
The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord’s Sacrament, by Christ’s ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.

(I presume that “men” here is intended in the older gender generic sense.) But today I read:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have today written to Bishops in the Church of England recommending the suspension of the sharing of the chalice at communion.

On what authority have these Archbishops taken it upon themselves to recommend their bishops and clergy to go against the teaching of Jesus and Paul and disobey the clear instructions in one of the “historic formularies” of the Church of England? Doug Chaplin has recently suggested that these articles might be consigned to the scrapheap. But if so, this needs to be done by an official decision of the church authorities and after wide consultation, not through unilateral advice from the Archbishops. And I trust no one is suggesting that the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles is similarly destined for the scrapheap.

Note that this is a theologically important issue because the mediaeval western church, and the Roman Catholic Church until recently, withheld the communion cup from lay people. The Reformers insisted on communion in both kinds because this was clearly taught by Jesus and Paul, as quoted above, and was the practice of the worldwide church up to the 13th century.

So the Archbishops, through the advice they have issued, are attempting to reverse one of the key advances made in the English Church at the Reformation, ironically one which the Roman Catholic Church has also made since Vatican II. By changing this practice, they are also, by the fundamental Anglican principle of lex orandi, lex credendi (explained by Doug Chaplin as “”The rule of praying is the rule of believing”, or, more colloquially, “If you want to know what we believe, look at how we pray””), changing the doctrine of the Church of England.

The Archbishops have recommended as an alternative “personal intinction by the presiding minister”. This is also an ancient alternative, having been used in the mediaeval western church before being condemned by a Council. It is not explicitly condemned in the Thirty-Nine Articles, but does seem to go against their teaching, and that of Jesus and Paul, about drinking from a cup. It also clearly goes against the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, also one of the “historic formularies” of the Church of England: in the rubrics (instructions) for The Communion in the BCP there are separate words for two separate distributions of the bread and the wine to the people:

And, when he delivereth the Bread to any one, he shall say …

And the Minister that delivereth the Cup to anyone shall say…

The Archbishops justify intinction as “a practice widely observed in Anglican churches throughout Africa”. But since when does the practice of other Anglican churches take precedence over the Book of Common Prayer?

At this point at last I need to mention the excuse which is being used for this attempt to change the practice of the Church of England: a slightly variant form of a fairly mild disease which is currently doing the rounds in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Yes, you’ve guessed it: swine flu. For the vast majority of those who get it, it means a few days of a nasty headache, not pleasant (see this personal story in The Times) but really only a minor inconvenience. Yes, a few people, almost all with other health complications, will die from swine flu. But it seems no more deadly, or severe in any other way, than the regular flu which has always been “pandemic” and which kills tens of thousands in the UK most winters.

If swine flu is a reason to withhold the communion cup, then why hasn’t the same action been taken long before, in response to regular flu, and all kinds of other infectious diseases? It has long been recognised that shared communion cups are a potential health hazard. So, if action is justified, why has it been taken only now?

If Church of England members are not prepared to take a possibly slightly increased risk of a few days’ headache so that they can obey Jesus’ teaching, then what is the chance of them remaining faithful when real persecution for their faith comes?

So, let me return to a question which I didn’t answer: On what authority have these Archbishops taken it upon themselves to recommend their bishops and clergy to disobey the teaching of Jesus and clear instructions in one of the “historic formularies” of the Church of England? They refer to “advice from the Department of Health not to share “common vessels” for food or drink”. But surely this has always been good health advice! So what’s new?

I can’t help thinking that the Archbishops are overreacting to panic stirred up by the media, and in doing so are putting at risk the doctrine and practice of the Church they head. Instead they should be taking a lead in reassuring the public that swine flu is not a big deal and will not be allowed to disrupt the work, let alone the doctrine, of the Church.

I call upon the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, and their equivalents in any other denominations who might follow their lead, to withdraw the advice they have just issued and uphold the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles that the Communion is to be given to all as bread and in a cup. Instead they might like to advise that those who prefer this because they consider themselves at particular risk from swine flu should voluntarily abstain from the cup. They might also consider suggesting use of separate cups, as used in many non-Anglican Protestant churches, which avoid the health risks. But they must uphold the priority of the “historic formularies” of the Church and, above them, of the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles.

Meanwhile perhaps the Archbishops ought to put a bit more emphasis on this part of the government’s health advice:

To help to prevent the spread of the virus, churches need to ensure that bins for the disposal of tissues are available at all public gatherings, that surfaces are frequently cleaned and that hand-washing facilities, including disposable towels, are well maintained. Churches should also consider supplying tissues at services and other meetings as well as providing hand-washing gel.

What am I supposed to think if I go into a church which is withholding the cup but has not even provided visible “bins for the disposal of tissues”? Perhaps someone’s priorities have got mixed up.

Presiding Bishop calls the Gospel heresy – or does she?

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Peter Kirk

Kevin Sam has two posts about some words spoken by Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC), the US-based body which, as I reported a few days ago, is on the verge of putting itself outside the Anglican Communion. In the first of his posts, Kevin reports on Albert Mohler’s surprise that Bishop Jefferts Schori used the word “heresy” in these words which Mohler quotes, from her speech to the General Convention of TEC:

The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly the ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.

Mohler comments:

note carefully that the Bishop identified as heresy what the church — throughout all the centuries and in every major tradition — has recognized as central to the Christian faith. The confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord” has been central to biblical Christianity from the New Testament onward. … The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church finally summoned the determination to apply the word heresy — and then applied this most serious term of odious rejection to the Gospel itself.

In a second post Kevin examines Jefferts Schori’s words for himself, asking the question Was Bishop Schori really talking about the heresy of selfishness? But he doesn’t give a clear answer. Now if it is selfishness that the bishop called a heresy, I would not disagree except to concur with Mohler that

The word heresy should properly be reserved for teachings that directly reject what the Bible reveals and the Church has confessed concerning the person and work of Christ and the reality and integrity of the Trinity.

But what was it that Jefferts Schori was attacking? The key is probably in these words of hers:

That individualist focus is a form of idolatry

This suggests that her main point was about “individual” and “alone”, the idea that salvation can be found by individuals apart from a Christian community. That is indeed a distorted teaching of many Christians in the West, related especially to the ideals of rugged individualism and personal independence – not quite the same thing as selfishness. Again, while “heresy” is too strong a word, if this is what Jefferts Schori was attacking I would not want to take issue with her.

But the Presiding Bishop’s words are all too open to the interpretation which Mohler puts on them, that what she has called heresy is a concept at the heart of the gospel, the teaching originally of the prophet Joel which was quoted by the apostles Peter and Paul:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

(Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13)

If Bishop Jefferts Schori is calling heresy this biblical teaching, upheld by the church through the ages, then she is putting herself and the denomination she leads not just outside the pale of the Anglican Communion but outside the pale of historic Christianity. If this is not her intention, she needs to clarify her statement immediately. Otherwise she is simply hastening the day of TEC’s formal ejection from the Anglican Communion.

The end of the Anglican Communion as we know it?

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Peter Kirk

I don’t think Bishop N.T. Wright’s article in The Times today is in the obituaries section. But it might as well be. This is because in effect he is announcing the death of the Anglican Communion, at least in the form I have known it since I was a child. In those days there was a map of the Communion on our church wall, showing the geographical areas of each of the provinces. Probably the second largest of those areas was the USA, represented by The Episcopal Church (TEC – at least that is its name today).

But the step which TEC has just taken has in effect put itself outside that Communion. At least, that is what one of the most senior bishops in the Church of England (who is also one of the world’s top theologians) is now saying. Of course we have long been hearing this from supporters of GAFCON and the newly formalised (in England) Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. But now it is the loyalist bishops who rejected GAFCON last year who are starting to say that enough is enough. Here is how Bishop Wright starts:

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”.

Wright then goes on to write very sensibly about sexual ethics and homosexuality, but that is not my point here.

It is not just the moderate conservative Bishop Wright who is taking this view. As far as I know the Archbishop of Canterbury has not spoken out since TEC’s General Convention decision was finalised. But, as reported by Ruth Gledhill, before the final vote by the House of Bishops of TEC Archbishop Rowan Williams said:

As for General Convention it remains to be seen I think whether the vote of the House of Deputies will be endorsed by the House of Bishops. If the House of Bishops chooses to block then the moratorium remains. I regret the fact that there is not the will to observe the moratorium in such a significant part of the Church in North America but I can’t say more about that as I have no details.

That is, Archbishop Rowan was saying that he regretted the decision by the House of Deputies which was later confirmed by the House of Bishops. From him that is strong language. This is part of Ruth’s commentary:

In fact the vote represents a direct snub to Dr Williams, who in his sermon to the Convention last Thursday urged an opposite course of action. He said, ‘Of course I am coming here with hopes and anxieties – you know that and I shan’t deny it. Along with many in the Communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart.

So, as Wright writes, “Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing”, deciding to “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level” and “walk apart”.

In effect, a large part of that world map of the Anglican Communion now has to be recoloured in grey, meaning no Anglican presence there. Or can the gap be filled by the recently formed “Anglican Church in North America”? Wright is unsure:

The question then presses: who, in the US, is now in communion with the great majority of the Anglican world? It would be too hasty to answer, the newly formed “province” of the “Anglican Church in North America”. One can sympathise with some of the motivations of these breakaway Episcopalians. But we should not forget the Episcopalian bishops, who, doggedly loyal to their own Church, and to the expressed mind of the wider Communion, voted against the current resolution. Nor should we forget the many parishes and worshippers who take the same stance. There are many American Episcopalians, inside and outside the present TEC, who are eager to sign the proposed Covenant. That aspiration must be honoured.

Indeed it would be wrong to rush into any decisions. But it seems that in the USA the point has now come where Anglicanism has divided into two separate streams, one liberal and one conservative. The question then is, how much longer can it remain united in the rest of the world, and particularly here in England?

Homicidal pews

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Peter Kirk

An old friend of mine, Martin Jackson, is a vicar in the north of England, and blogs about life in his parish. This is in the diocese of Durham, so he recently had the honour of having his photo taken with the diocesan bishop N.T. Wright.

Today Martin has blogged on Dealing with homicidal pews. This sounds an improbable subject, but he reports the following exchange as genuinely overheard:

… an example of congregational nostalgia, implicit in an objection raised to the removal of a church pew: “Someone died in that pew.” To which the parish priest had replied, “Then it had better go before it kills someone else.” At which another priest leapt to her feet and shouted, “Let me have it – I can put it to good use in my parish….”

I’m glad that my church‘s building, dating from 1971, has never had pews. The mediaeval parish church (which is by the way where Lorenza and I are to be married – the date is now set for 24th October) had pews when I worshipped there, nearly 25 years ago now, but they were taken out and replaced with nice chairs about ten years ago.

Blair versus Benedict over homosexuality?

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Peter Kirk

I don’t believe that Tony Blair is the Antichrist, nor that Pope Benedict is. But I won’t be surprised to see accusations of this kind being thrown around in the wake of an astonishing interview which Ruth Gledhill reports, in an article in The Times (also picked up by Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream) and a blog post. At least according to Ruth, the world’s highest profile Roman Catholic convert of recent years has publicly criticised the Pope’s and the Roman Catholic church’s teaching on homosexuality. She reports on her blog that

In an interview with the gay magazine Attitude, Tony Blair says he wants to urge religious figures everywhere, including the Pope, to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal.

But what did Blair actually say? Did he really call on the Pope to reinterpret the Bible? Not quite. Here is the only part of the full interview, almost at the end, in which the Pope was even mentioned – the interviewer Johann Hari’s questions in bold:

But why do you think so many of the world’s most senior religious figures disagree? The Pope said in a speech that ‘homosexuality is a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder’, and even compared the tolerance of homosexuality to the destruction of the rainforests.

Again, there is a huge generational difference here. And there’s probably that same fear amongst religious leaders that if you concede ground on an issue like this, because attitudes and thinking evolve over time, where does that end? You’d start having to rethink many, many things. Now, my view is that rethinking is good, so let’s carry on rethinking. Actually, we need an attitude of mind where rethinking and the concept of evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline with which you approach your religious faith. So some of these things can then result in a very broad area of issues being up for discussion.

That’s when I understand why religious leaders are very reluctant. But I sometimes say that organised religions face the same dilemma as political parties when faced with changed circumstances. You can either hold to your core vote, basically, you know, say: “Look, let’s not break out, because if we break out we might lose what we’ve got, and at least what we’ve got, we’ve got, so let’s keep it”. Or you say, “let’s accept that the world is changing, and let us work out how we can lead that change, and actually reach out”.

Can you foresee a situation where in your lifetime or mine, we would have a pro-gay Pope, for example?

I don’t know, is the honest answer. I don’t know. Look, there are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a well-attended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you’d be surprised at how liberal-minded people were.

That’s quite a radical line for a Catholic: to say that the average Catholic congregation speaks for the Catholic Church more than the Pope does?

Well, I’m not going to say that! [Laughs] On many issues, I think the leaders of the Church and the Church will be in complete agreement. But I think on some of these issues, if you went and asked the congregation, I think you’d find that their faith is not to be found in those types of entrenched attitudes. If you asked “what makes you religious?” and “what does your faith mean to you?” they would immediately go into compassion, solidarity, relieving suffering. I would be really surprised if they went to “actually, it’s to do with believing homosexuality is wrong” or “it’s to do with believing this part of the ritual or doctrine should be done in this particular way”.

So not really a declaration of war by Blair on Benedict, much more a call for rethinking on this issue. And he is probably right. I doubt if my own position would please Blair, and certainly not Attitude magazine, but it would also be strongly opposed to the anti-gay prejudice and unwelcoming attitude found in many churches. Blair certainly makes a good point that to maintain its membership the church has to keep up with the times, not to retreat into conservatism for fear of upsetting some of its core members – but I would not take that principle as far as Blair seems to, allowing it to influence central areas of doctrine and ethics.

Will Blair be able to remain in the Roman Catholic Church after this? I guess the Vatican authorities, already hit by recent bad publicity about another British convert, Bishop Richard Williamson, will pretend not to have noticed this interview. It certainly won’t make them happy, but nor will it infuriate them as much as it would have done if Blair had really called on the Pope to change his teaching. Maybe it will actually stimulate some rethinking and appropriate changes of attitude, although I trust that it will not lead to a change in the church’s core teaching on homosexuality.

How not to burn out

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Peter Kirk

Some good advice on how to avoid burnout, for Christian ministers everywhere when adjusted for their circumstances, indeed also for me – from someone who has been there and paid the price for it:

I can actually think of both moments, right, where I’ve burned out, or came close to burning out. I can think I was disconnected, in the sense of, you love God, you pray, your read your Bible, but I have a message tonight, I need to meet with Jesus so I have something for the people. And it gets away from “I just love you, Lord, here I am, like Mary sitting at your feet” which has been my message: the secret place, soaking, marinating. I mean… But sometimes the very message that you preach is the very thing God’s saying to you.

And then you get so caught up in the work of revival. I remember in Lakeland that the first six weeks of Lakeland I would set aside two to four hours before I would do anything else to wait on the Lord, or in the afternoons. And then you get so busy with all the appointments and media and all the work of revival. Pretty soon after the sixth week, you know, it dwindles down to “I’ve got a few moments here. God, what are we doing tonight?” And God still moved in power, God still moved in power. And you still love the Lord but you lose the preciousness of “I’m just here because I love you, and there is no agenda”.

And the very thing you are saying, you know, is “I may be going. Give me the twelve steps. Give me a goal. Give me…” But you’re right, God is saying to me “It’s about the rest, it’s about getting back to…” I built our ministry on that relationship. Of course I didn’t know there would be ministry, it was just I loved the Lord and out of that love for the Lord everything flowed. And I can think of both situations, you know, I just got disconnected from the Lord.

Todd Bentley, speaking on the latest video at Rick Joyner’s page of videos about Todd’s restoration, dated 27th March and entitled “Entering Rest” (starting at 03:57).

Later in the ten minute (starting at 9:11) Todd says:

I was so devoted to the work of the ministry. Ministry is not evil, but I got so caught up in the love of the work. That’s really what led, after ten years that’s what led to… there was no relationship left with Shonnah, with my first wife, there was none. And to me that was the biggest issue, was the ministry became the mistress. And I never can have that happen again. I mean, that doesn’t mean I can’t have ministry and do ministry, but it has to be done different.

Good advice! May every minister of the gospel take it to heart.

Good teaching for Todd Bentley on divorce and remarriage – on Facebook!

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Peter Kirk

Among the many comments on my post about Todd Bentley’s remarriage there have been several questioning whether Todd had proper biblical grounds for divorcing his first wife Shonnah and contracting a new marriage with Jessa. I don’t want to defend Todd’s actions here, especially as he himself has admitted that what he did was wrong. But I do want to say that it is by no means as clear as some suggest that Todd’s new marriage should be called adultery. This is because the biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage is not as simple and clear-cut as some people seem to think.

I wanted to point my readers to the teaching on this matter of David Instone-Brewer, who is a research fellow at Tyndale House, the evangelical research centre in Cambridge. Unfortunately Instone-Brewer’s main website about divorce and remarriage is out of action at the moment, possibly only a temporary glitch. But I did find a link to a summary of his teaching, at a site called Playmobible which, amazingly enough, uses cartoons in Facebook photo albums to summarise Instone-Brewer’s teaching! I’m not sure if this is an example of Facebook being smart for once or of Facebook dumbing down even Bible teaching.

Anyway, I would recommend those of my readers who think they can easily condemn Todd Bentley for his remarriage to look at the album of teaching on The Four Biblical Causes of Divorce and the one on Roman Divorce. Don’t miss the notes underneath many of the images. These albums are not produced by Instone-Brewer but are endorsed by him. It would of course be better still to look at Instone-Brewer’s main site, but sadly that is currently not possible.

So, according to Instone-Brewer’s teaching, is Todd Bentley’s divorce and remarriage permissible? I would claim that it is on the grounds that he was apparently deserted by his first wife; he has been deprived of his marital rights and so can go free, according to the teaching of Exodus 21:10-11 at least if allowed to apply to men as well as women. Of course if Shonnah left Todd because of his adultery, that would be a different matter. But I have never seen any convincing evidence that Todd ever had sexual intercourse with a woman he was not married to. So, while Todd has admitted to mistakes in how he handled the matter, I cannot agree with many of my commenters that he has actually committed adultery or should be treated as if he has.

In the circumstances Todd should be allowed to start his new married life in peace, and to go through the proper restoration process which has already started before returning to public Christian ministry.

By the way, don’t treat too seriously this comment I made on the Lingamish blog.

Todd Bentley interviewed on video by Rick Joyner

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Peter Kirk

Todd Bentley has appeared for the first time since he left Lakeland, I think, in a 12 minute video interview with Rick Joyner, posted at Rick’s website. This is promised to be the first of a weekly series. This is part of the restoration process which Todd has now begun.

Todd starts by expressing his primary concern for his children. He refers without acrimony to Shonnah as his ex-wife, and only in passing to his new wife Jessa. He notes that the “process” of parting from Shonnah has been going on for years, and has nothing to do with Lakeland. He agrees with Shonnah when she says she is sorry for “the way the public won’t move on when we have”. To that public Todd says:

I want to say I’m sorry for the pain, the hurt I have caused you… I’ve been repenting and I want to repent and say to the church “I’m sorry”.

Rick points out that he bases his efforts to restore Todd on the command in Galatians 6:1.

Also I just found a long article about Todd’s remarriage at the website of Charisma Magazine.

Gentle Wisdom

Thoughts on life from Peter Kirk

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