Following on from the broo-ha-ha about Stephen Cottrell’s comments on the problems of calling God ‘Father‘, the latest episode in the debate about God’s sex and pronouns comes from Hereford Cathedral. Last Sunday, their main Communion service began with an Introit which re-writes Psalm 23 with God identified using female pronouns.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need, She makes me lie down in green meadows, Beside the still waters, She will lead.
She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs, She leads me in a path of good things, And fills my heart with songs.
Even though I walk, through a dark and dreary land, There is nothing that can shake me, She has said She won’t forsake me, I’m in her hand.
She sets a table before me, in the presence of my foes, She anoints my head with oil, And my cup overflows.
Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me, All the days of my life, And I will live in her house, Forever, forever and ever.
Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter, And to the Holy of Holies, As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.
There are several things to note about this piece, and its use in the Cathedral. (You can watch its performance at the Cathedral’s livestream on YouTube, but these are deleted after about a week, so I have captured it and posted it on my own channel, and the link is at the end of this piece.)
As I will explore below, it is a central conviction of Christian theology that God does not have a sex—because God is not bodily. To believe that God is sexed is a serious error, and that is why some people argue that we should avoid using the male pronoun for God. The difficulty here is that, because all the human people we know are either male or female, few languages have a commonly used personal pronoun that is not sexed, and that includes the Hebrew (and Aramaic) and Greek that the Bible is written in. Perhaps because of dominance of men in public roles in most pre-modern cultures, until very recently the default choice of generic pronoun has been male, so if the sex of someone was unspecified, then ‘he’ was taken to be inclusive of all. Thus we have used male pronouns for the personal but not sexed God of Christian faith.
Despite claims to the contrary, a 2018 YouGov survey found that the most common view amongst ‘Christians’ is that God does not have a sex. The main problem with this survey was that ‘Christian’ was defined by self-identification, and not by actual attendance at a Christian church; a key dimension in these kinds of issues is the difference that actual attendance, and so the impact of actual Christian teaching, makes. But it was also striking that older people are more clear than younger that God is not sexed.
But the effect of changing this traditional, presumed-inclusive, pronoun from male to female, as in the Introit, rather than suggesting that God transcends sex, very much draws attention to the idea that God is sexed, and that that sex is female. This is especially emphasised in the concluding Gloria, where God becomes Mother, Jesus becomes Daughter, and the Spirit becomes a place rather than a person. It is at this point that the words are most clearly contradicting creedal Christian faith.
(The other slightly bizarre thing about this piece is the author, Bobby McFerrin, a reggae/jazz/scat singer most famous for his 1988 hit ‘Don’t worry, be happy‘.)
The use of this piece in the Cathedral is also interesting. It was part of a visit by a choir from The Episcopal Church of the US, which has been riven by differences on sexuality, and is in freefall decline in church attendance.
Its position in the service seemed to me to be sneaky; if you were in the congregation and listening, you would hardly notice the change of pronouns, unless you were also following the words on the order of service. Things only have a real impact when we sing them ourselves, and the songs that followed were robustly historical and orthodox. But isn’t this often the way of things that are questionable or even heretical? Slip them in at the side; then move them further in; then place them front and centre. It is the salami-slicing technique of bringing change. Who could object when it was marginal to the service? But once it is front and centre, who can object when they didn’t object earlier?
The Chancellor of the Cathedral, James Pacey, is a former theatre director who was previously in the same diocese as me. When appointed, he was described by the bishop of Hereford Richard Jackson as a ‘liberal catholic with an inclusive theology’, which appears now to be the dominant position of many of our cathedrals. It is interesting how being ‘inclusive’, and so arguing for the recognition in the Church of same-sex marriage, often goes hand-in-hand with the ‘queering’ of sex and gender. But the idea that sex is mutable, and that we can change the sex of others or ourselves as we see fit, is not only internally contradictory but also is in danger of erasing the sex of women, as a growing number of feminists are highlighting. The ultimate irony here is that it is a central conviction of ‘queering’ and of trans ideology that a person themselves must be free to decide their own sex, and that all others must respect this. If there is any sense in which God has ‘chosen’ his pronouns, then this is found in Scripture, where God’s pronouns are very clearly ‘he/him’. So this queering piece of liturgy transgresses its own cardinal rule.
And there is a bizarre institutional dynamic at work here as well. Although bishops have their ‘seat’ of teaching in the cathedral—which gets its name from this very seat, kathedra in Greek—the cathedral itself is only indirectly accountable to the bishop, unlike parochial clergy. And so it is often cathedral staff who are the ones pushing the boundaries of orthodoxy, throwing down the gauntlet to their bishops whom they dare to discipline them. I wonder whether there is a connection between this particular example of pushing the boundary, and the fact that Richard Jackson was one of the 22 bishops who signed the letter protesting at the idea of imposing the Prayers of Love and Faith bypassing due synodical process.
This example is part of a general trend of the Church of England being institutionally incapable of offering any theological defence against the tide of gender ideology that appears to be overwhelming our institutions. The very same week, there was a report of the use of radical gender ideology in a Church of England primary school—and the Church’s complete failure to offer any response to this.
The Rev Canon Nigel Genders, the CofE’s chief education officer, was urged to step in after a parent warned him that children as young as seven were being taught about contested gender identity beliefs in a CofE primary school…
In correspondence seen by the Telegraph, he said: “The RSHE policy and decisions about the resources used to deliver it are the responsibility of the school in consultation with parents, having due regard to any advice from the Diocesan Board of Education.”…
The parent, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Telegraph: “Mr Genders does not seem willing to act now to prevent primary children under his watch in CofE schools being subject to the beginnings of ideological indoctrination, and explicit sexualising content.
“Furthermore, passing the buck of responsibility entirely to the head teachers, and waiting on updated guidance from the Department for Education, is totally inadequate. Action is needed now to protect children. Are CofE schools that push this dangerous content CofE in name only?”
Is it really the case that, in our Church schools and in our cathedrals, orthodox Christian theology simply has no traction? Do we really have nothing theologically to say to questions of sex, marraige, parenting, and families? Or is it the case that those in positions of authority in the C of E simply lack the will and the courage to speak up?
On the substantive theological issue of the sex of God, most of the popular reporting collapses a series of important and distinct questions which need to be addressed more carefully.
- Does Scripture claim God is male?
- Are there both male and female metaphors for God?
- Are we at liberty to change them?
- Should we use feminine pronouns for God?
- Is this a missional issue as claimed?
As I have noted previously in this discussion, the most prominent images in Scripture of God are the male images, but the female images are not absent. There is quite a good list of them here; the main references are Hosea 11.3–4 and 13.8, Isaiah 42.14, 49.15 and 66.13, Deut 32.11-12 and 18. Perhaps the most striking ones in the NT are of the kingdom of God being like a women kneading dough (Lk. 13:20-21), God being like a woman who has lost a coin (Luke 15.8–10) and Jesus likening himself to a mother hen (Matt 23.37, Luke 13.34). Most striking of all as a female image in ministry is Paul’s description of himself as a women in labour (Gal 4.19).
Underlying this is a very clear claim: God does not have a sex. Although the sexed identity of humanity has its origins in our creation in the image of God, Gen 1 is very clear that neither sex on its own is the image of God:
So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Gen 1.27)
In a culture and context where gods were male or female, and where for the most part the male gods conquered and controlled the female, this is a striking statement. If we think that the male more truly represents the ‘image and likeness’ of God than the female, we are contradicting a central claim of the biblical revelation about God.
This connects with other central claims about the nature of God. In the discussion with the woman at the well in John 4, Jesus states that ‘God is spirit’ and, despite debates in Judaism about whether God has a body (following from OT language about the arms, hand, eyes and even nostrils of God), Christian theology has consistently believed that (in the words of Article I of the XXXIX) God is ‘without parts or passions’. Gender (or, more accurately, ‘sex’) is a bodily reality; we are sexed as male and female because we have male or female bodies, and if God is not bodily then God cannot be sexed.
If, according to Scripture, God is not male, the question then follows as to why most of the images of God are male in Scripture, and whether these are a reflection of the culture of the time so that they might be open to renegotiation.
New Testament scholar Jon Parker observes something significant about male language in the cultural context of the biblical writings:
To me, the use of masculine language in the ancient world has less to do with “patriarchy” than it does the presumption of the gendered nature of fruitfulness. The masculine was the first stage of progeny. There were (and are) plenty of things to celebrate about the feminine in Scripture. For example, when it comes to long-suffering toil, the exclusively feminine experience of bearing and birthing is almost always reached for, cf. Num 11:12; John 16:2-21; Gal 4:19.
By contrast, the masculine “sowed the seed.” Of course, we now know that men and women contributed equal DNA, but they didn’t. In ancient observation of the world: seed + soil/womb = life. Of course, too, this is metaphorical when speaking of God. But when thinking about the One who created/sourced all things, it was, I think very hard for any ancient Mediterranean person (Greek or Jewish; male or female) to think about that being as feminine. It wouldn’t make sense. That this sense of the first stage of progeny was then used by many to wrongly (and unbiblically) promote men over women is beside the point in why the language was used, I think.
To reflect God’s nature as “unsourced source” is still a good reason to use the masculine about God, despite abusive patriarchy spoiling that language (which of course cannot be ignored as we try to speak about God today).
But, as Alastair Roberts points out, the differences between male and female—and particularly between the meaning of ‘mother’ and ‘father’—and not only contextual, but relate to a fundamental asymmetry in the way that the two function in parenting.
The Scriptures use feminine imagery and metaphors of God, but it primarily identifies God using masculine pronouns, names, and imagery. Male and female imagery isn’t interchangeable.
The fact that God is called ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can it be gender neutralized to ‘Parent’ without loss of meaning. Fathers and mothers are not interchangeable, but relate to their offspring in different ways. A mother’s relationship with her child is a more immediate, naturally given union of shared bodies. It is more clearly characterized by close empathetic identification. A father’s relationship with his child, by contrast, is characterized by a ‘material hiatus’ and more typically involves a greater degree of ‘standing over against’ the child. While motherhood is more naturally given and more rooted in the body through the process of gestation and nursing, fatherhood is established principally by covenant commitment. If he is to be more than a mere inseminator, a man must lovingly commit himself to his wife and offspring. The different nature of the father’s relationship with his child also means that he more readily represents law and authority to the child: he can stand over against the child to a degree that the child’s mother can’t.
All of this matters when we are speaking about God. A shift beyond biblical feminine metaphors and imagery to feminine identification of God will have a noticeable effect upon our vision of God, our ideas of where God stands in relation to us, the way that we conceive of the Creator-creature distinction, and the sort of language that we use when speaking about sin, separation from God, etc.
Let’s recover the feminine imagery of Scripture, but let’s do so in a careful and theologically principled way, rather than presuming that any symbol or language we choose to employ for God is as appropriate as any other.
Given that the ecumenically agreed Apostle’s Creed declares faith in ‘God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth’ and in ‘Jesus Christ, God’s only Son’, and given that the Lord’s Prayer addresses God as ‘Our Father’, then to start changing this language touches on central issues of confessional faith, rooted in the consistent testimony of Scripture.
If I am right, then the failure of courage to speak up on this is not merely a pastoral failure—it is a failure to proclaim the faith uniquely revealed in the Scriptures to which the formularies and doctrine of the Church of England itself bear witness.
Here is the recording of the Hereford Cathedral Introit:
NOTE: I am giving notice that from 16th August I will no longer allow anonymous comments. All are welcome to publish under pseudonyms if you wish, but you will need to make yourself known to me from then if you wish to continue commenting.
Shouldn’t we use God’s preferred pronouns? I thought that was what we were supposed to do nowadays.
Ah, the article makes that point.
Jesus is the embodiment of God’s Logos ( Mind, Reason, Plan, Thought, Word/ God’s ‘Creative utterance’).
Thus, Jesus expresses the ‘Self-revelation’, of ” the One true God”, Whom Jesus definitively says is :
“the Father”. (cf. John 17:1-3; cf. John 20:17; Rev. 3:2, 12).
If Jesus cannot be trusted to tell the Truth, then all Mankind is lost.
You mean “freefall” not “freewill decline in church attendance”, I think!
I don’t think there needs to be controversy.
Yes of course, God transcends maleness and femaleness. God is so deep and so vast that a single sexual metaphor cannot contain them (using the 3rd person pronoun in this case as a temporary way out).
But at the same time, God thinks, feels, understands, and may even express what it is like to be male or what it is like to be female. And I do not doubt at all that God may choose to connect with people, express to people, disclose to people, be with people, through the medium of either male or female presence.
All maleness and all femaleness is contained in God. If some people find they relate to God predominantly as male, and it helps them, what’s to worry? And if some people find they relate to God predominantly as female, what’s to worry either? Or (as I do) they may relate to God sometimes as male and sometimes as female. And in all that, God remains God, and *still* transcends it all.
I have trued to explain my views on God (both male-presented God and female-presented Goddess) on my little website here: http://www.Godde.com
Godde as in midway between God and Goddess… and ancient of days, as in the medieval spelling sometimes used.
To me, God (or Godde if you want to avoid the male connotations in culture of the word for a masculine God) can sometimes be a loving father, sometimes a tender granny, sometimes an ardent lover, sometimes (writing metaphorically) a woman my age who lives next door and who is my trusted friend: I love it when she calls in, letting herself in through the unlocked back door, and sitting at the kitchen table chatting to me over coffee.
And who is to say that God(de) doesn’t love that too?
Yet in contemplative experience, sometimes you realise that the Holy is so vast, so transcending, and not at all contained by the limits of our human metaphors and words.
And if some people find they relate to God predominantly as female, what’s to worry either?
The point is that people don’t get to choose how they relate to God. God chooses how He relates to us. To prioritise how you want to relate to God is to centre you in the you/God relationship and say you set its terms, when God should be the centre and God should be in charge.
It also pretty much seamlessly leads into making God in one’s own image — imagining God as one wishes rather than as He is. And then junking ‘hard’ bits of God that one would rather didn’t exist. And what happens then is that you end up not relating to the real God at all, but instead relating to a figment of your imagination that you have conjured up to be exactly what you want in a God.
That’s the worry.
“The point is that people don’t get to choose how they relate to God. God chooses how He relates to us.”
And you’re telling me you know so much about God, that you limit how you think God must want to relate to every single person?
Is there a danger, S, that you’re putting God in a box – in your anxiety to have things so precise, so tightly packaged?
If God chooses to relate to some people through the metaphor of a female connection, what is that to you? What business is it of yours to police what God does?
I think your puritanism is too tight, and may reveal an underlying anxiety that everything may unravel if any part of it is looser than you are?
The diversity and vastness of God cannot be policed. The Spirit blows where She will.
And you’re telling me you know so much about God, that you limit how you think God must want to relate to every single person?
I’m telling you that you need to base you ideas of God on the objective evident in the Bible, not on your subjective feelings. That’s all.
I think your puritanism is too tight, and may reveal an underlying anxiety that everything may unravel if any part of it is looser than you are?
I think the ‘God’ you think you are in contact with is just a figment of your imagination.
I find that incredibly rude and disrespectful actually.
But go ahead, feel free…
I find that incredibly rude and disrespectful actually.
Do you actually have any argument that it’s not true, though?
Rudeness is sometimes subjective but always irrelevant to truth, and those who cite it are therefore not people who are focused on truth, so what are they doing in the debate?
I find it beyond rude that people are not in awe of the creation design, or that they can bring themselves to treat humans like sweet wrappers. Whether I found it so or not, it would still be so.
I’m not sure that I would agree with everything you’re proposing, but the idea of using the third-person pronoun could have the advantage of reflecting God’s trinitarian nature…
To : David Cavanagh;
With respect, You appear to talking nonsense when you allude to :
“the third-person pronoun” points to God’s alleged trinitarian nature.
Would you like to elucidate ?
Perhaps you would like to address the important argument by Alastair Roberts which Ian quotes. As I understand it, the idea is that the distance between a father and his child is a more appropriate metaphor for the relationship between God and a human being, given the infinite ontological difference between the two, than the relationship between mother and child.
Our knowledge of God can only be by revelation. If one thinks that the primary and definitive revelation of the nature of God is in Jesus of Nazareth, that does not leave much room for manouver.
@ Susannah Clark
>>Yes of course, God transcends maleness and femaleness. God is so deep and so vast that a single sexual metaphor cannot contain them (using the 3rd person pronoun in this case as a temporary way out).<<
That's as maybe, but God calls the theological shots. If He wants to be understood primarily in masculine terms, then that is how we should speak of Him. To do otherwise, is tantamount to idolatry – fashioning God in our image, rather than receiving from Him His self-disclosure as Father.
The Bible uses feminine similes for God. Isaiah 42:14, for example, says that God will “cry out like a woman in travail.” Yet the Bible does not say that God is a woman in travail, it merely likens His cry to that of a woman. Whenever the Bible uses feminine language for God, it never applies it to Him in the same way masculine language is used of Him. Thus, the primary image of God in Scripture remains masculine, even when feminine similes are used. God is never called “She” or “Her”.
What right do we have to change this?
>>To me, God (or Godde if you want to avoid the male connotations in culture of the word for a masculine God) can sometimes be a loving father, sometimes a tender granny, sometimes an ardent lover ..<<
You're mixing simile, metaphor and analogy here.
Sometimes when we speak of God, we assert that God is this or that, or possesses this characteristic or that, even if how He is or does so differs from our ordinary use of a word. This way of talking about God is analogy. Even when we speak analogously of God, we are still asserting something about how God really is.
Other times when we speak of God, we liken Him to something else – meaning that there are similarities between God and what we compare Him to without suggesting that God really is a form of the thing to which we compare Him or that God really possesses the traits of the thing in question. This is metaphor.
When we call God Father, we are using both metaphor and analogy. We liken God to a human father by metaphor, without suggesting that God possesses certain traits inherent in human fatherhood – e.g., a male gender. We speak of God as Father by analogy because, while God is not male, He really does possess certain characteristics of human fathers.
As said above, Scripture never calls God “Mother”. Scripture uses feminine language for God no differently than it sometimes metaphorically uses feminine language for men. Why? The answer rests with the difference between God and human beings, between fathers and mothers and between metaphor and analogy.
By never calling God “Mother” but only likening God to a human mother, Scripture is saying that God is really Father in a way He is not really Mother. In other words, that fatherhood and motherhood are not on equal footing when it comes to describing God.
There’s are huge differences between a God and a Goddess. God has revealed Himself to us as Father for good reasons. So, instead of replacing this with our own creative human descriptions of what we purport to be our experiences of the divine, we really should ask why He has done so and what He is communicating to us about Himself, creation and our relationship with Him.
In response to “God becomes Mother, Jesus becomes Daughter, and the Spirit becomes a place rather than a person. It is at this point that the words are most clearly contradicting creedal Christian faith….”.
While I agree that the use of feminine pronouns has the effect of emphasizing sexuality rather than simply reflecting God’s unsexed being, it is the reduction of the Spirit to a “place” that is most heretical. The key point in the use of pronouns to refer to God is that God is “personal” (actually, the source of all personality) and not a “force” or “object” or “place”….
Um, I think calling Jesus female is pretty heretical!!
Jesus as female – yes, that’s pretty heretical!
In this “new dark age” of gender identity and fluidity some have claimed Jesus and His mother were “intersexed” and that His virginal conception and birth was by means of parthenogensis.
And, of course, there are claims that He was homosexual too!
God became human that we might become divine.
Jesus could be intersex and/or gay and it wouldn’t alter our salvation one jot or iota.
Unless you want to divinise straight maleness?
God became human that we might become divine
Nope. God became human to save us from our sins. Created beings cannot become God’s equals.
Thanks S, I’ll stick with the orthodoxy of St Athanasius.
I’ll stick with the orthodoxy of St Athanasius
And I’ll stick with the Bible.
To Penelope :
I’ll stick with the First century orthodoxy of the inspired Apostles (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16),
rather than the various uninspired, theologians of the post New Testament era.
Without Athanasius you wouldn’t have the doctrine of the Trinity.
But, by all means stick with the writer to Tim, who wasn’t even writing about the New Testament. Which didn’t yet exist.
Without Athanasius you wouldn’t have the doctrine of the Trinity.
You would, because the doctrine of the trinity is derived from the Bible.
Which is inspired by God.
Unlike the pagan heresy of apotheosis, which was just made up.
But, by all means stick with the writer to Tim, who wasn’t even writing about the New Testament. Which didn’t yet exist.
You do realise right that there are bits in the Bible about things which hadn’t happened yet? Jesus talked about the Fall of Jerusalem, forty years before it happened. The Old Testament writers wrote about Jesus, centuries before He was born. Because they were inspired by God to do so.
So yes, Paul was writing about the New Testament. Because God inspired him to do so.
Penny, there is no such thing as an ‘intersex’ person.
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
>>”God became human that we might become divine.
Jesus could be intersex and/or gay and it wouldn’t alter our salvation one jot or iota.
Unless you want to divinise straight maleness? “<<
God became man “that we might be deified.” The Greek word for “deified,” theopoiethomen, has the connotation of participation in rather than becoming God.
There’s so much wrong with this that HJ scarcely knows where to begin!
The intersex proposition is ludicrous. Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and one doubts whether He or Mary suffered any hormonal or chromosomal defects.
As for being gay, Jesus says: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-48)
“Perfect”, the Greek word teleios, defines something as being complete, something which is “whole,” “fully grown,” “final.” He’s giving us a glimpse of eternal life in Heaven. Jesus Christ was and is “perfect” and sinless – bodily (“male and female created he them”) and spiritually. God by definition cannot sin because He is perfect goodness itself. So, if it is impossible for God to sin, then it is impossible for Jesus to sin – because He is God.
Same sex inclination is an objective disorder – it’s wrongly directed desire. If the desire for same-sex sexual activity is not disordered there would be no disorder in same-sex sexual activity. However, same-sex sexual activity is morally disordered. How could Our Lord experience this? He had no disordered desires or inclinations, be they sexual or otherwise. It was impossible for Him to sin!
The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet. 1:4). The idea of sharing in the Divine nature means we share God’s communicable attributes – goodness, holiness, and love – not His incommunicable ones – omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and absolute simplicity.
This participation in the Divine nature is referred to in Orthodoxy as theosis or divinisation and being united with God. This begins in this life and is consummated in the next.
This applies to all who cooperate with and are transformed by His grace, striving to become holy and persisting in the Christian life and virtues – be they men, women, the intersexed, transsexuals or homosexuals. We can share in his sonship via participation (1 John 3:2), and adoption (Rom 8:15, 23; 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5).
How could Our Lord experience this? He had no disordered desires or inclinations, be they sexual or otherwise. It was impossible for Him to sin!
Jesus was tempted, as we are. He certainly did have some disordered desires — for example the desire to disobey His father and let the cup pass from Him.
However He did not give in to His disordered desires, and instead submitted to His father’s will.
Was Jesus tempted sexually ? I guess we’ll never know. Hebrews 4:15 says He was tempted ‘in every way’, so maybe.
But the important thing is, to quote Hebrews, ‘ we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.’
(Well spelt out that we become adopted co-heirs of the divine nature with Christ, not divine in ourselves, but I’ve pointed that out before, it doesn’t stick)
S
Thank you for displaying your complete ignorance of the Arian heresy and how Trinitarian orthodoxy was secured.
That’s not how prophecy works.
The writer to Tim was writing about the HB, not even aware that there would ever be a NT; and s/he wasn’t Paul.
Ian
Perhaps you prefer the term Differences in Sex Development, which most intersex people prefer, although there are some advocates who would argue for intersex.
The statement that people with DSDs/intersex don’t exist is, of course, nonsense.
HJ
Yes, thank you. I know what thesis is but glad that you have explained it so well to folk like S who has been arguing for years that St Athanasius was a heretic?
You have also explained some RC doctrine, but that doesn’t compel to believe that intersex is a ‘defect’ nor that homosexuality is ‘objectively disordered’. So Jesus could be either/both and remain perfect and sinless.
Otherwise you are simply divinising male heteronormativity. Which is probably heresy.
Theosis. Blasted autocorrect!!
Thank you for displaying your complete ignorance of the Arian heresy and how Trinitarian orthodoxy was secured.
I know how the Arian heresy was defeated, and I know that if Athanasius had not existed, or had refused, God would have used someone else to do the job. Cf Esther 4:14
That’s not how prophecy works.
But it is how the Bible works. There are parts of the Old Testament that are about Jesus, though Jesus wouldn’t come into the world for centuries; so why can’t there be parts of the letters about the New Testament that was in the process of being written?
The writer to Tim was writing about the HB, not even aware that there would ever be a NT; and s/he wasn’t Paul.
Paul wasn’t aware that the would be a New Testament but God, who was inspiring him to write, was certainly aware, and it’s God’s voice we listen to in the Bible.
has been arguing for years that St Athanasius was a heretic
To be fair to Athanasius I haven’t read his works, so I am open to the possibility that he was entirely orthodox and writing about our becoming co-heirs with Christ of all God’s Kingdom, and it’s you who have perverted his words into the pagan heresy that we will apotheosise and become divine ourselves.
HJ: “Same sex inclination is an objective disorder – it’s wrongly directed desire.”
And there goes the relevance of Christianity to millions of young people.
Sorry, but label gay people as ‘disordered’ and you’ve lost huge numbers of people in modern society, and rightly so.
Calling homosexual inclination an ‘objective disorder’ flies against the huge consensus of opinion in medical science, and is enormously offensive.
I’m afraid, in modern terms, and in the light of science, it is just ignorance.
Statements like these create stumbling blocks for people who might otherwise ponder the relevance and truth of the gospel – a gospel that can perfectly well accommodate gay and lesbian people without calling them ‘disordered’.
Sorry, but label gay people as ‘disordered’ and you’ve lost huge numbers of people in modern society, and rightly so.
But Christians should base what they say on what is true, not on whether it is popular with the sinful secular world.
S
The claim homosexuality is a disorder is objectively false. Disorder implies confusion. Gay people are not confused!
Pete, you are misunderstanding the meaning of this term.
Catholic theology says to be gay is to be *morally* disordered, in that a gay person desires something which is sinful.
And that claim has good natural sense support. Sexual desire arises because we are sex dimorphic, rather than reproducing asexually. The sexual organs can only perform their natural function by being united with sexual organs of another kind, ie male with female and vice versa.
So even from a biological level, something is amiss when we sexually desire those of the same bodily form as ourselves, rather than desiring those of a bodily form different from us. There is a ‘confusion’ of sexual desire.
That is what ‘disordered’ means in this context.
Disorder implies confusion.
As the esteemed host has pointed out, ‘disorder’ here does not imply confusion but is being used in the medical sense; see: https://www.healthwriterhub.com/disease-disorder-condition-syndrome-whats-the-difference/
‘Definition of disorder: A disruption of the disease to the normal or regular functions in the body or a part of the body.’
In this case the disruption is to the normal functioning of the sexual reproductive system.
Parthenogenesis always produces females, so that is out.
@ S
The fact of the matter is that Jesus could no more have sinned than 2+2 could equal five. It’s simply impossible.
The Greek word used for 2temptation when Jesus was “tempted by Satan, is “peirazo” It does not indicate that Jesus had the disordered desire that we refer to in English as temptation. Instead, it means “to try,” “to attempt.” Here the devil tries to get Jesus to sin–and fails.
As for His Passion, in Matt 26:39, as a man, Jesus is like us in all things but sin (Heb. 4:15). He experienced the fear and anguish of his Passion that began in the Garden of Gethsemane. So humanly – and very understandably -Jesus wanted to avoid his Passion, including his crucifixion. In Matt 26:39, we read “He … fell on his face, and prayed. He said, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Human anguish isn’t temptation.
Because he is the eternal Son of God, his human will is in perfect harmony with his Divine will, and so He embraces the Father’s plan of salvation, including fully experiencing on a human level the great anguish. He always remained perfectly united with the Father as the eternal Son of God.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus could no more have sinned than 2+2 could equal five. It’s simply impossible.
That’s true. He was tempted. But He never sinned, indeed, could not have done so.
as a man, Jesus is like us in all things but sin
Exactly. Like us in all things — including disordered desires. But without sin — He never succumbed to those disordered desires and indeed it would have been impossible for Him to succumb.
@ Susannah Clark
>>Sorry, but label gay people as ‘disordered’ and you’ve lost huge numbers of people in modern society, and rightly so.
Calling homosexual inclination an ‘objective disorder’ flies against the huge consensus of opinion in medical science, and is enormously offensive.<<
Do you understand the theological meaning of “objectively disordered”? It’s not calling anyone “disordered” and has nothing to do with popular opinion or medical science. This is a wilful misunderstanding.
It refers to a desire to act; this presupposes a more fundamental question: what are morally ordered sexual acts. Christian teaching is clear on this, so HJ need not repeat it.
St Aquinas teaches us that a morally disordered act is a human act proceeding from intellect and will – it’s voluntary – that lacks the order to it’s due end. It’s an act that intentionally misses the mark, like an archer deliberately missing a target with the arrow.
Here’s how Aquinas defines it: “We call every act that is not properly related to its requisite or due end as a disordered act.” It therefore follows that a desire to act in a way not consistent with the intended order of goal of sex is, by definition, “objectively disordered”.
I do agree with you that it’s wrong to reduce the Holy Spirit to a ‘force’. God is more deeply personal than any of us.
Of course, yes, God has force, God has amazing ‘dunamis’. And sometimes God keeps aspects of God’s person reclusive and beyond our understanding. The Holy Spirit can often seem self-effacing, and that is something really sweet and instructive.
But the Holy Trinity is three Persons in One Godhead.
The Holy Spirit is never an ‘it’.
As to being a ‘place’… I’ve rarely heard anything so ludicrous. The whole thing about the Spirit is that She flows, She bears the Love of God, She is likened to ‘streams of living water’ welling up within us and working through us. She descends upon us, according to God’s sovereign will.
I’m using She but use He if you prefer. But never ‘it’.
So reality is what we ”prefer”?
Well, if you can self identify as male or female, and then change your mind, why not God/Goddess?
God *has* self-identified – as neither. Recall that in the revelation to Moses, when Moses asks God who he should say sent him to the Israelites, God self-identifies as “I am,” thus the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH.
However, it should be noted that in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, God is identified with male/masculine/fatherly attributes, and He affirmed or did not protest this (see Exodus 4, multiple chapters of Deuteronomy, multiple Psalms, Proverbs 3, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so on – note that inheritance at the time of the composition and arrangement of Scripture was from father to son, so any mentions of inheritance imply a father-to-son relationship, which God does in calling Israel His son). Jesus Christ (unequivocally male, by the way, and given that Mary His mother was female, that would make God/the Holy Spirit masculine, as the only method of human conception – parthenogenesis in higher mammals thus far has never been demonstrated as viable – involves the combination of male and female genetic components) referred to God as Father. As followers of Christ, and therefore called to be imitators of Christ, this should be an obvious and simple aspect to follow.
Those who suggest otherwise are not truly Christians but are instead following some other religion while calling themselves Christians. They should be honest with themselves and form their own faith system rather than trying to shoehorn something that won’t fit their narrative.
I don’t allow anonymous comments. Please edit or repost, or I will delete. Thanks
Dear Susannah;
Re : “The holy Spirit is never an ‘it’ “.
According to leading, Evangelical Greek scholar, Daniel B. Wallace, there is probably no place in the New Testament where the Greek ‘Pneuma’ ( ‘Spirit’ : neuter noun) is ever (grammatically) referred to in the New Testament, by the use of personal pronouns. Personal pronouns, in scriptural discussions of the holy Spirit, always have reference to the ‘Parakletos’ (a masculine noun) – who is, in the opinion of N.T. scholars like George Johnson, (cf. “The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John”) an allegorical, self-reference to Jesus Himself (cf. John 16:25) – coming back to His disciples in spiritual presence form, after His ascension; cf. 2 Cor. 3:17a :” Now the Lord [Jesus] is the Spirit”.
Dear Pellegrino,
The Holy Spirit is a person, not an it.
I’m cool with using ‘he’ or ‘she’ (or even ‘they’ in the modern non-binary way)… but when we start talking of the Holy Spirit as ‘it’ we risk depersonalising one of the three Persons of God.
I accept you may not draw that conclusion from scripture, and I recognise your general grace.
Dear Susannah ;
The “spirit” of Susannah Clarke is personal, because Susanna is a person, and the “spirit” of Susanna is Susanna (i.e. her interior personal being). However, Susanna’s “spirit” is not a separate ‘hypostasis’ or ‘person’, distinct from Susanna, herself. Paul states that exactly the same principle applies to God (the Father) and His Spirit; cf. 1 Cor. 2:10-11. As Anglican biblical scholars such as Professors Geoffrey W.H. Lampe, James D.G. Dunn; and Maurice F. Wiles have demonstrated, the synonymous terms Spirit of God/Spirit of Yahweh/ holy Spirit, in the Scriptures do not represent a separate divine hypostasis distinct from God (Father/Yahweh), Himself. This is why the Spirit of God/holy Spirit in the Scriptures, is never:
Prayed to;
Praised;
Sung to;
worshipped;
and why the holy Spirit never sends greetings, in the introductions to Paul’s Epistles (unlike God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Messiah).
You refer to the Greek language. However, I have heard it said (sorry I have no reference) that the Hebrew word for Spirit is female. I would welcome comments on this.
If God is neither male nor female and we correctly refer to God the father using male pronouns (to align with ‘Father’) and Jesus (obviously) as male is there really a problem if we refer the Holy Spirit using female pronouns?
In Proverbs 3 and 8, Wisdom is personified as a woman – by metaphor. “Sophia” is a transliteration of the Greek noun meaning “wisdom.” In Hebrew, the word for wisdom is “chok-mah” (grammatically a feminine word).
English does not use grammatical gender (classifying words as masculine, feminine, or neuter). The Hebrew language (in which Proverbs was written) does use grammatical gender. So, “she,” as we understand it, is not necessarily “she” as it was intended in Hebrew. The gender assignment is grammatical, not indicative of the physical gender of the object. In English, the word wisdom is grammatically neuter, but not so in Hebrew. Thus, in Hebrew, it would have been natural to speak of wisdom as a “she”.
To Nick :
The Hebrew word ‘ruach’ (breath, wind, spirit, mind, disposition) is Feminine in gender. However, the synonymous terms ‘Spirit of God’, ‘the Spirit of Yahweh’, the Spirit of the Lord’ and ‘holy Sprit’ are never regarded in the Old Testament as being a separate, independent hypostasis distinct from Yahweh God Himself. God’s personal name, ‘Yahweh’, is represented 6,820 times, via the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) – and always ultimately refers to God (‘Yahweh’) being the ‘Father’ (see the ‘New Jerusalem Bible’, Isa. 63:16; Isa. 64:8; Mal. 2:10; Jer. 3:1-4; 31:7-9; Mal. 1:6; Deut. 32:6; 2 Sam, 7:14; 1 Chron. 1713; et al). The God of the Jews was ‘the Father’ (see John 8:41). Jesus confirms that the God of the Jews was indeed, the Father (see John 8:54). The “only True God”, for Jesus, was only the Father (see John 17:1-3). The post-resurrected Christ Jesus thus says that our God is the Father (see John 20:17). The ascended Christ Jesus thus calls Almighty God, ‘My God’ (see Rev. 3:2, 12) -Who is , of course, the Father (see Rev. 1:6). The word ‘Elohim’ is a masculine noun in Hebrew. Thus ‘the Spirit’ (Hebrew : ruach) of God (Hebrew: ‘Elohim’) never takes a feminine pronoun, because ‘God’ (‘Elohim’) and the name ‘Yahweh’, are masculine.
Male=non sexual
Female=sexual
The sexualisation of female gender!
You really couldn’t make this up.
PCD @ 5:44 (and elswhere)You seem to be confused. Or rather you do make it up to suit your particular purpose or point.
Mother of God is female sex, specific
gender stereotype.
Son of God is male sex specific,gender stereotype
None patriarchal binary gender sex specific. No queering either.
“Mother of God” ?
Yet, another non-Scriptural term.
Please aim to call Bible things by Bible names.
Dear Pellegrino,
So in other words, you’re saying Jesus wasn’t the One true God?
I mean… Mary was the mother of Jesus, so by my reckoning that makes Mary the mother of God – at least in human terms.
Mary was the mother of Jesus, so by my reckoning that makes Mary the mother of God – at least in human terms.
But Jesus existed before Mary, so Mary can’t have been His mother.
A better word would be ‘bearer’ or ‘carrier’ of God.
Dear Susanna;
(1). What does Jesus clearly say in John 17:1-3 ? (backed up by His clear statements in John 20:17; Rev. 3:2; and Rev. 3:12; cf. Rev. 1:6)
People like Augustine, Ambrose, Hiliary of Poitiers, and Bede even tampered with the textual reading of John 17:3, because they knew it completely “torpedoed” the “Trinity” theory (cf. Augustine’s “Tractate 105”).
(2) Can you show me where ‘Theotokos’ appears in the Bible? This is a non-Scriptural, man-made term, coined in the third century.
(3) Mary gave birth, not to ‘God’, but to the Son of God, by the power of the holy Spirit.
“Holy Spirit” in Luke 1:35, is equated via poetic parallelism with the ‘power of God’. Thus the phrases :
“The holy Spirit will come upon you [Mary]” , and,
“The power of the Most High will overshadow you”,
are equivalent.
If this were not so, then the holy Spirit would be the ‘Father’ of Jesus.
4. ” God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).
However, this is NOT the same as : “Christ was God, reconciling the world to Himself”.
The only true God (the Father) was by His spiritual presence in Christ (John 14:10-11), and thus Christ expressed the one True God ( Who is the Father), so that those who “saw” Jesus, spiritually “saw” the ‘only True God’ (Who is the Father). This revelation is what happened to Thomas in John 20:28 (compare Thomas and Philip’s pre-Resurrection conversation with Jesus, in John 14:5-11, with Thomas’ words in John 20:28).
This is why John says that the whole purpose of His Gospel is not to engender faith in Jesus as ‘God’, but to engender faith in Jesus as the ‘Son of God’, and as the ‘Messiah’.
The Father, as the “ONLY ONE GOD”, was with us on earth, in the person of His Son. To be ‘Son of God’ means that one is NOT the “ONLY TRUE GOD” – Who is the Father (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6).
May God and His Son, bless you, Susanna.
Dear Pellegrino,
Jesus is my Lord and my God.
I do not find difficulty believing in the Holy Trinity. In fact, it is beautiful and wonderful. It is who God is.
God bless you as well, Pellegrino
Dear Susannah;
Please listen to our Father God, when He speaks of Jesus :
“This is My Son,
Whom I love;
With Him I am well pleased.
LISTEN TO HIM. ”
(Matthew 17:5).
Our Lord Jesus tells us that the Father is our God. (see John 20:17).
Our Lord Jesus tells us the Father is ” ONLY TRUE GOD. (see John 17:1-3).
Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:31), Who manifests and reveals the Father, Who is alone, the ONLY (Greek : MONON = alone, solitary, without a companion) True God :
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Jesus was not a Trinitarian.,
Pellegrino, citing texts that make Jesus distinct from the Father does not demonstrate Jesus was not ‘Trinitarian’, since believe in the Trinity has two poles: the belief in distinct ‘persons’ within the Trinity; and belief in their unity of thought, will and action.
To demonstrate that Jesus was not Trinitarian, you would need to show that he never presumes to act as though he were God. But of course he does that all the time, claiming that anyone who has seen him has seen the unseeable God, proclaiming that the forgiveness only God can give, he gives, and so on. Accepting acclaim as ‘My Lord and My God’ is the fullest expression of a theme that runs through the gospels—and the gospel writers (as well as Paul) make this clear.
So, where the OT prophets predict a messenger preparing the way for God to come to his people, the gospel writers cite this messenger as preparing the way for Jesus. As God is the true shepherd of Israel, now Jesus is that Good Shepherd—and so on. This extends to Paul, who incorporates Jesus into the Shema in 1 Cor 8, and who applies the language of ‘Lord’ from Joel 2.32 to Jesus in Romans 10.13.
Dear IAN;
In response to your points.
(1). Jesus as the ‘Apostle’ (Heb. 3:1) or ‘Sent One’ of God (i.e. the Father; John 17:3)) is equivalent to the Hebrew term ‘Shaliach’, which means ‘agent- representative’. As Theologian Peter Borgen in his Article : ‘GOD’S AGENT IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL’ published within “The Oxford Handbook of the Receptive History of the Bible”, puts it :
“The repeated stress, in these and other [Johannine] passages, on the ‘sending’ of Jesus (e.g. John 5:23-24; 5:36-37; 7:29; 10:36; 17:18) indicates that his [Jesus’] depiction as God’s authorized envoy is to be explained against the background of Jewish notions of agency. Based on the principle that the one who is sent (Hebrew : shaliach) is endowed with the full authority of the sender…Jesus therefore functions as the unique emissary of [of God, the Father] because the Father has placed all things in his hands.”
As Aubrey R. Johnson noted in his book ” The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God” (1961), a shaliach or ‘messenger, agent- representative’ was conceived of as embodying in his words and actions, “the presence of the Sender”.
And, as noted British Theologian, Oxford Professor G.B. Caird, stated :
” This practice of treating the agent [shaliach] as if he were the principal [the Sender’] is of the greatest importance for New Testament Christology.”
(‘The Language and Imagery of the Bible’, 1988, p. 181).
The NIV Study Bible has applied the Jewish Shaliach concept to the ‘Angel of Yahweh’ in Genesis 16:7 ff, and concluded that this angel may be just a supernatural, angelic, agent-representative of God , and not Yahweh God, Himself. Thus, the NIV Study Bible concludes that it is now uncertain that the ‘Angel of the Lord/Yahweh’, is ever the second person of the Trinity, as has been traditionally been believed. Also note Acts 7:30-38, and Exodus 23:20-23, where angelic-representatives of God, function and speak as Yahweh God, but in reality, are not Yahweh God, Himself – Who is always in the Old Testament, the Father (cf. Isa. 63:16; 64:8; Mal. 2:10, cf. John 8:41; John 8:54, et al).
(2). As an example of how a prophecy concerning of Yahweh God (i.e. the Father), can be fulfilled not by Him directly, but via one of His ‘shaliachs’, is provided by Exodus 7:17, where Yahweh God says :
“Thus says Yahweh, by this You will know that I am Yahweh : With THE STAFF THAT IS IN MY HAND,I will strike the water of the Nile…” – however, Yahweh God fulfilled this action via His agent – Aaron (cf. Exodus 7:19-20).
(3). For Jews, the only One God was the Father (cf. Mal. 2:10; John 8:41; John 8:54; Mark 12:32-34) As God’s Shaliach, Jesus was fully authorized and empowered to act as God’s agent-representative – which included the forgiving of sins. When the Jews realised this fact (via Jesus’ confirming miracle), it is important to notice that they did NOT praise Jesus as being ‘God’, but rather, they praised God (the Father) for giving authority to men to forgive sins (Matt. 9:1-8).
(4) Thomas’ statement in John 20:28 was an acknowledgement of Jesus’s teaching, both him and to Philip, in John 14:5-11. Thus, the ‘God’ that Thomas references in John 20:28, is probably the Father, Who resided within Jesus (John 14:5-11). This is so, because :
(i). If Thomas had directly referenced Jesus Himself (and not the Father, Who Who indwelt Jesus) as being ‘God’, then John would have concluded in the original ending of his Gospel, by saying :
” but these [things] are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, God..” ; or, Jesus is “Messiah, God the Son”.., ; But John doesn’t mention anything in his conclusion, about Jesus being ‘God’, but only being the ‘Son of God’ (Which is exactly what Jesus Himself proclaimed, when He was falsely accused by the Jews, of claiming to be ‘God’, in John 10:33-36 .
(ii). Jesus would never have confirmed his own, personal acknowledgement of the Unitarian Monotheistic Shema (in Mark 12:28-31), by saying in John 17:1-3, that the FATHER is :
“the ONLY True God”;
(ONLY = Gk. Monon).
Jesus then goes on to backs up his statement that the Father is the ONLY True God, with perfectly, complementary statements in John 20:17, and Rev. 3:2; Rev. 3:12; cf. Rev. 1:6.
(5). If Jesus had really “Split the Shema”, then Paul in 1 Cor. 8:6, would have said : ” yet for us [Christians] there is One God, the Father and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ”, but Paul doesn’t say that the One God is “the Father and the Son”. The One God for Paul is always the Father.
Although the lord Messiah Jesus (as the Shaliach of God) has a temporary functional equality with God, before God the Father rules directly (cf. 1 Cor. 15:28), Paul is always careful to distinguish the Messianic lord (‘adoni’ in Psalm 110:1) Jesus, from God (Who is the Father; 1 Cor. 8:6; John 17:1-3).
As Anglican Canon, Anthony E. Harvey noted, the New Testament never clearly breaks the bounds of Jewish Unitarian Monotheism. (cf. the paper “The Constraints of Monotheism”, within the book “The Constraints of History”).
Finally, as the Swiss, Trinitarian scholar, E. Brunner, admitted :
“The Doctrine of the Trinity is not a Biblical Doctrine…It is the product of [post-New Testament] reflection.”
“The Christian Doctrine of God”; 1949; p. 236.
Of course the Trinity is not a ‘biblical doctrine’, since it is not set out in a systematic way. As Richard Bauckham puts it, it is the doctrine you need to make sense of the New Testament.
You repeatedly set up your *own* expectations of what the text *needs* to say to satisfy you, which is an odd way of arguing. If Paul had said what you suggest, then that would not be a doctrine of the Trinity, but modalism. Paul incorporates Jesus into the Shema, but retains his distinct identity from the Father, which is what the doctrine of the Trinity says.
It is amazing that you are taking Thomas’ clear address of Jesus as not an address to Jesus! I think you are using circular reasoning here: ‘He cannot have been addressing Jesus for my view to hold; therefore I assert that he was not addressing Jesus’. This flies in the face of the text.
I agree that the idea of the Shaliach is important—but Jesus clearly goes well beyond this, which is why from the beginning his followers did not understand him to be a mere messenger.
Have you read Larry Hurtado’s work on this?
Dear IAN;
Thanks for your comments.
In response :
(1). If, as you imply, the Trinity is not an explicit biblical doctrinal, then this may well confirms that the very first Christians in Acts chapter two, were not operating with a ‘Trinitarian’ conception of God, but rather with an Agent-Representative view of Jesus as “a man” (Acts 2:22), Who had been appointed (made) both ‘lord and Messiah’ (Acts 2:36) , on the basis of the oft repeated (e.g. Acts 2:34) verse in Psalm 110:1 – which is NOT does not mean : “GOD says to my GOD” (as many Trinitarians imagine Psalm 110:1, as saying), but :
“Yahweh God says to my lord” – with ‘lord’, here, being the Hebrew ‘adoni’ = a non-Deity title.
There is no mention , or unambiguous indication of any “Triune God” concept in ‘the Acts of the Apostles’, and yet thousands of people were still becoming Christians. The biblical data of the Acts of Apostles better fits a Jewish, First century, monotheistic Unitarian, view of God, rather than any post-New Testament, Gentile, Platonic Greek philosophically inspired “Triune God” conception – and some Pauline scholars would fully agree with this (e.g. James Dunn; J.A.T. Robinson; James Mackey; et al).
(2). If Paul had really “split the Shema” (which not all Pauline scholars agree with), then, at very least, Paul would have held to a Binitarian conception of God, and his language in 1 Cor. 8:6 would (presumably) have run along the lines of :
” for us [Christians], the Father is God, and the Son is God, but there are not two Gods, but One God.”
However, this kind language never unambiguously occurs in Paul’s works.
(3). It seems extremely difficult for Trinitarians to assert their theory of God in the face of Jesus’ words in John 17:1-3; 20:17 and Rev. 3:2, 12; cf. Rev. 1:6. Augustine (et al) got round the problem by tampering with the textual reading of John 17:3, thus :
“This is eternal life, that they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, as the only true God.”
(‘Tractates on the Gospel of John’, Tractate CV, chap.17).
Jesus is either telling the Truth in John 17:1-3, or He is not.
Furthermore, the Greek word “monon” in John 17:3 either means what it usually means in John’s Gospel, or else there has been a semantic revolution in John 17:3, regarding the word ‘monon’.
(4). Thomas’ words in John 20:28 are PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE in the context of Jesus’ words to Thomas and Philip in John 14:5-11. However, if Thomas had referred directly to Jesus Himself per se, being ‘God’ then this would directly contradict, negate and nullify Jesus’ explicit words in John 17:1-3; and 20:17 – as well as John’s words in John 20:31 (which has no mention of Jesus being ‘God’). Furthermore, Jesus does not say in John 20:29 anything along the lines of : “Yes, Thomas you are right – I am God”. Consequently, for the sake of logical consistency and explicit Scriptural facts, John 20:28 has to be understood against the background of Jesus’ words in John 14:5-11.
(5). I love Dr. Larry Hurtado, and he has some excellent things to say, but his ideas regarding worship and devotion to Jesus, and the absolute, unprecedented exaltation of the Messiah Jesus are all compatible with a Jewish, Agent-Representative concept. The reason why Larry believes that Jesus is not just a man, is because Larry assumes (without himself being a specialist regarding Jewish “pre-existence” notions – as he himself admitted) that Jesus had a literal pre-existence (which not all scholars believe; e.g. Dunn; J. Macquarrie, W. Thusing, K.J. Kuschel, J.A.T. Robinson, et al).
To the question of whether, as it was alleged, Larry Hurtado had responded to the question, “Did Jesus think He was God?”, by saying,
“Hell, no ! Of course not.”,
Dr. Larry Hurtado replied :
” I may well have said that – after a glass or two of single malt. I do come from a truck driver’s family, and they are plain spoken. No, I quite agree that Jesus did not claim to be God, and did not imagine Himself to be a second person of the Trinity, and did not insist that He should be worshipped.”
See enclosed link to the short video clip with Larry Hurtado :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AtcEaVA2x0
To Penelope :
The only to make progress in religion is by going back to the Bible.
Christian theology has consistently believed that (in the words of Article I of the XXXIX) God is ‘without parts or passions’.
At risk of diverting from the main point of the article – about which nothing more need be said than that these people are heretics who should be disciplined – I dispute that God is without ‘passions’ (in modern language, emotions or feelings). God does not have *moods*, as we do, for He is consistent; but I do not agree that the language of the Old Testament describing God’s anger at Israel’s unfaithfulness (for example) is a metaphor, in the way God’s hand or arm is. Regarding passions, nobody with whom I have disputed has been able to answer what they are a metaphor FOR. I care not that I differ from Aquinas or Calvin. Only answer my question!
God is beyond time, they say, and passions are a temporal response. But this would be true not only of passions but of any other response of God to man; this view unintentionally smuggles in Deism. The best resolution of the problem is that God the Father is beyond time but God the Son chose to live in time, and they are one in the mystical Trinitarian sense. You have to go to a divine paradox in order to resolve a human one.
I dispute that God is without ‘passions’ (in modern language, emotions or feelings)
You’ve been confused by changing language. The ‘passions’ in the Article is not being used in the modern sense, but in the sense (from the OED):
III.11.a.?a1425–1846 The fact or condition of being acted upon; subjection to external force; esp. (Grammar) passivity (opposed to action). Also: an effect produced by an external force.
So when the Article says ‘God is without passions’ it means ‘God is not acted upon by any external forces’
It’s got nothing to do with emotions or feelings.
No, S, I am aware what passions meant in the 16th century. I’ve done my homework. The modern meaning of the word is “very strong emotion” and I do not mean that. I mean any emotion whatsoever. And that is what Aquinas and Calvin mean. Read them!
And that is what Aquinas and Calvin mean.
Okay but then your argument is with Aquinas and Calvin, not with the Article.
Yes, but it came up en passant in the article.
Anton, I have not examined this question deeply, but I think in scholastic theology, as practised by Aquinas and secondarily by Calvin, “passion” does mean “being acted upon by an external force”, including the effects hereby created in the “patient”: anger, joy, sorrow fear, live etc. To say that God has no “passions” means he is not effected by his creation – except insofar as His sovereign will permits this. Otherwise God would not be almighty but subject to external forces. This question arises in discussions of God’s apatheia or freedom from suffering.
Most certainly emotion is a reponse to a situation, or in philosobabble “being acted upon by an external force”. But I reckon Aquinas and Calvin DO assert that God has no feelings. Which raises the question of where they come, from given that man is in the image of God. Are all of our feelings really a consequence of the Fall? It seems to me that Jesus had them and he was not fallen.
Section II.1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646, inspired by Calvin, asserted God’s immutability and impassibility, and the first of the 39 Articles of the Church of England (finalised in 1571) says that God is “without body, parts or passions” even though Israel’s prophets spoke from tension between God’s love of Israel and his grief and anger at Israel’s sin (e.g., Hosea 11:7-9), even though we can cause the Holy Spirit to grieve (Ephesians 4:30), and even though The Father and the Son love each other (for God is love: 1 John 4:8) with a strength of which we can barely conceive. Some theologians distinguish ‘impassible’ from ‘impassive’ and say that God is without only moods and bodily appetites, others say He is without feelings generally, but 16th/17th century English usage of ‘passion’ is not narrow, and the Latin root is identical. Calvin took his view from Catholicism, for Thomas Aquinas’ works had said the same 300 years earlier. These theologians could see the contradiction, but they preferred philosophical argumentation that covered it over and implicitly brought in non-biblical tenets. (Luther was, wisely, more sceptical of philosophy than Calvin was.) This view of God can ultimately be traced back to ancient Greek Stoic philosophers who, in William Barclay’s summary, “argued that if a person could feel sorrow or joy it means that some other person was able to influence him… [and] must, at least for that moment, be greater than he” (Daily Study Bible series: Letter to the Hebrews, revised edition, Hebrews 4:14-16). In that case men who influenced God would be momentarily greater than God, which is impossible. But the Stoic argument is nonsense, for influence has nothing to do with who is the greater. If I divert my foot to avoid crushing an insect, why is that insect supposedly greater than me, even for an instant? I have the choice of life or death over that insect but not vice-versa, and choice is power. The insect does not even know that I spared it! Beneath the Stoic view is the concept of apatheia, which it seeks to apply to God – but that word is bad PR for theologians. In fact we have enough in common with God, since we are in His ‘image’, to permit relationship, so we should hold to the biblical portrait of a Father whom we can know and trust. We learn the meaning of words as children; a child brought up in a Christian family is told that God loves him, asks his parents what ‘love’ means, and his parents explain that it is the way they treat him, giving examples to help him grasp the concept. To enter the kingdom of God, we must be as his little children (Matthew 18:3). How extraordinary that, when a child grows up, his vicar or (Catholic) priest might tell him that he actually got a dumbed-down version of events and that, although he loves God, God doesn’t really love him but only seems to, and that words such as love and anger have a different meaning where they refer to God in the Bible. (Is that true of Christ also?) That such words supposedly take a different meaning when applied to God makes this view a form of gnosticism held by professional theologians and ordained persons in church hierarchies. Their God is a remote Creator – the ‘Deist’ view which begat liberal theology. How discouraging to intercessory prayer is this? When a missionary preaches the gospel to a new tribe, should he tell them after they are mature in faith that God didn’t actually love the world in spite of John 3:16? This doctrine pits heart against head. It makes it impossible to love God with all of both, as Christ told us (Matthew 22:37). Perhaps the height of contradiction is that “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”, a revivalist sermon from 18th century America that is still remembered for its power today, was preached by a man, Jonathan Edwards, who believed that God was impassible.
Apologists for the view that God is impassible say that biblical references to his wrath and grief and so on are anthropomorphisms, just as mentions of God’s hands are. But it is universally understood what the hand of God does, whereas if God is impassible then there is no understanding of his wrath or grief and he is just as unfeeling as a stone idol.
@ Anton
The opposite is actually true.
God’s impassibility does that mean that He is stoic, lifeless, indifferent, apathetic, and incapable of love or compassion. Actually, it ensures the opposite.
Scripture not only says God is immutable but also says He is infinite (Psa 147:5; Rom 11:33; Eph 1:19; 2:7). He is immeasurable, unlimited not merely in size but in his very being. He has no limitations. He is absolute perfection.
If God is infinite, then never is it the case that something in God is waiting to be activated to reach its full potential – to be moved. There is no passive potency in God. Rather, God is His attributes in infinite measure. He is maximally alive; He could not be more alive than He is eternally. The Church Fathers called God “pure act”. He cannot be more perfectly in act than He is, otherwise, He would be less than perfect, finite and in need of improvement.
Apply this truth to an attribute like Love. If God is impassible, then He does not merely possess love, He is love and He is love in infinite measure. He cannot become more loving than He already is eternally. If He did, then His love would be passible, it would change, perhaps from good to better, which would imply it was not perfect to begin with.
So, impassibility ensures that God is love in infinite measure. While the love of a passible God is subject to change and improvement, the love of an impassible God cannot change in its infinite perfection. Impassibility guarantees that God’s love could not be more infinite. God does not depend on others to activate and fulfil His love. He is love in infinite measure, eternally, immutably, and independently from the created order.
Only impassibility gives us a personal God who is eternal, unalterable love. Far from apathetic or inert, impassibility promises us that God could not be any more loving than He is eternally.
Jack, the number of jumps in logic in what you say is not small, and nor is the number of questions you won’t be able to answer. God is love because there is love within the godhead between father and son; non-trinitarians are stumped here. What are God’s emotions in the OT metaphors or anthropomorphisms FOR? Do you really believe that, once you have evangelised a formerly illiterate tribe, you need to sit them down and say “Actually God doesn’t feel those things at all – that was kid’s stuff, now here what is really going on?” Do our emotions not come from our being in the image of God? Answers please!
Actually I can see the hard questions you would put back to me, and my answer is again Trinitarian: God the Son lives in interaction with humans, God the Father doesn’t.
@ Anton
You say: “God is love because there is love within the godhead between father and son.”
HJ says: Isn’t it the other way around – there is a Trinity because God is love?
You say: What are God’s emotions in the OT metaphors or anthropomorphisms FOR? Do you really believe that, once you have evangelised a formerly illiterate tribe, you need to sit them down and say “Actually God doesn’t feel those things at all – that was kid’s stuff, now here what is really going on?”
HJ says: The revelation of God is scripture unfolds and in completed in Jesus Christ. Hence the metaphors or anthropomorphisms – which we still need today in our attempts to understand His great mysteries. They are there to help us comprehend the incomprehensible.
You say: “God the Son lives in interaction with humans, God the Father doesn’t.”
HJ says: There’s only one God and His “absolute simplicity” means there are no parts within Him, either physical or metaphysical. All of God’s attributes are one with His essence, which is existence itself. God is His eternity, which is His power, which is His will, which is His intelligence, etc,. Although we distinguish His attributes in thought, they are not distinct in reality. He is omnipresent, eternal and impassible. He did not change before or after the Incarnation. The Word does not have different Divine attributes to the Father or Holy Spirit.
Hmm, HJ , this is off topic but I want to say something here, I get what you say about God being perfect, simple, pure , holy but what you describe is not life but something like a perfect sphere of tungsten. Solid, dead.
Jesus is the eternal vector that is life. By being tempted and not sinning he is the vector that adds dynamism.
Also, I believe, Jesus was created out of nothing , a new creation and implanted in Mary. Even if Mary was as good as Enoch she was still part of the fallen creation.
@ Steve
>>what you describe is not life but something like a perfect sphere of tungsten. Solid, dead<<
Hardly! Love – one of God's attributes -is not “a perfect sphere of tungsten. Solid, dead”!
>>Also, I believe, Jesus was created out of nothing , a new creation and implanted in Mary>>
We part company there.
Revelation 3:14 declares: “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.’” Some use these words to claim Jesus to be the first creation of Almighty God and therefore, not God. In the actual text, the word translated “beginning” (arche) here actually means “source.” In other words, it means “beginning” as in the first cause, not in the sense of being the “first effect.” Arche is used as such elsewhere in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 21: 6, Almighty God says: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end . . .” Do we want to say God was created because arche is used to describe Him?
Understood properly, Revelation 3:14 reveals Jesus to be the source of God’s creation – God himself. This fits perfectly with John’s Christological declaration in John 1:1-3: the Word created “all things . . . and without him was made nothing that was made.” If the Word was created, he would have had to create Himself, which is absurd.
Colossians 1:15-17 reveals Jesus as the ,i>“first-born of every creature. For in him were all things created . . . he is before all and by him all things consist.”>Even if Mary was as good as Enoch she was still part of the fallen creation<<
The Catholic Church actually agrees that Mary was “saved” and needed a saviour. Mary was “saved” from sin in a most sublime manner. She was given the grace to be “saved” completely from sin so that she never committed even the slightest transgression.
Catholics believe Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain. Mary was preserved from the defects of origin sin by God’s grace.
Like all descendants of Adam, Mary was subject to original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken when she was conceived, she was preserved from original sin and its consequences. She was redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way—by anticipation.
Thank you HJ,
I’m intrugued by your understanding, and I find myself in agreement with you; in as much as I agree with anyone on anything pertaining to theological matters.
What I’m saying springs out of your comments, things i’ve not thought through properly before, so I may be a bit vaguer than usual!
I agree in what you say about God being “absolute simplicity” but if that was all there was to say about the subject then, to me, He would be akin to a lump of lead, a singularity; like Pellegrino’s image. Jesus is the dynamic, living, moving God who acts in time and space. He is the tip of the iceburg we can know and comprehend, because he made us.
Anyway, HJ, great to talk with you. I’m more interested in discussing theology than sexuality/psychobabble. I’ve enjoyed reading your perspective.
Mary was like Enoch, probably. But it was her faith that saved her because she believed the angel.
I can believe that Jesus was genetically made from Mary’s egg with the other half of the DNA supplied by God, newly created. However I feel that the Spirit hovered over the womb and simply said, “let there be…” and a new creation began that will slowly grow until He fills and replaces the universe. In the beginning God created …and rested. It seems to me that the New Creation started with Jesus in the womb. Even though He preexisted—everything.
The Catholic Church actually agrees that Mary was “saved” and needed a saviour.
Which is true…
Mary was “saved” from sin in a most sublime manner. She was given the grace to be “saved” completely from sin so that she never committed even the slightest transgression.
… but this utter nonsense is where the Romans go totally off the rails.
@ S
To claim the Catholic understanding of Mary’s immaculate conception is “utter nonsense” presupposes you have an understanding of and can counter the Scriptural basis for development of this doctrine by the Church.
Go ahead.
To claim the Catholic understanding of Mary’s immaculate conception is “utter nonsense” presupposes you have an understanding of and can counter the Scriptural basis for development of this doctrine by the Church.
I can’t counter a Scriptural basis that does not exist. There is simply nothing in the Bible to support this nonsense.
‘S’ – do you think you may be being a little intemperate.
We are talking about the exceptional, and about real mystery.
Can we always be certain about everything in the entire universe?
Sometimes there are things we just can’t understand.
Mary was not just any woman.
Who knows what God planned for her from her conception?
As my cousin Dodgson wrote, “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Or as the Bible says: “Nothing is impossible for God.”
As for us… we ‘see through a glass, darkly’.
@ S
>>I can’t counter a Scriptural basis that does not exist. There is simply nothing in the Bible to support this nonsense.<<
Translation: ‘S’ doesn’t know the the Scriptural passages the Catholic Church relies on for developing her Marian theology, so will just dismiss this without any consideration.
do you think you may be being a little intemperate.
No.
the Scriptural passages the Catholic Church relies on for developing her Marian theology
There aren’t any, unless they are being (wilfully?) misinterpreted.
@ S
There aren’t any … “<misinterpreted.<<
Well, that's patently untrue.
” … unless they are being (wilfully?) misinterpreted.”
In order to demonstrate that you’ll have to cite them and offer a different exegesis.
In order to demonstrate that you’ll have to cite them
Difficult to cite things that don’t exist, what
To Happy Jack :
“Scholars generally agree that there is no Doctrine of the Trinity as such in either the Old Testament or in the New Testament.”
From : “The Harper Collins Encyclopaedia of Catholicism”; 1995; p. 561.
You say: What are God’s emotions in the OT metaphors or anthropomorphisms FOR? Do you really believe that, once you have evangelised a formerly illiterate tribe, you need to sit them down and say “Actually God doesn’t feel those things at all – that was kid’s stuff, now here what is really going on?”
Trouble is, Jack, you haven’t answered those questions, or even attempted to. The latter is a straight Yes/No.
@ Anton
HJ did answer, Anton. he just doesn’t accept your framing of the question.
The actual question should be: Did God reveal everything in clear and certain terms to Israel about Himself all at once, or did He gradually reveal Himself and His plan of salvation over centuries to prepare His Chosen People for the Messiah?
God’s plan for His creation is unfolded and revealed slowly over a long period of time. The early Jews lived amid all the confusion of polytheism and tribal gods. They did not come ready-made with spiritual conceptions and a knowledge of the after-life. God judged that the best way to implement His plan, which leads over time to fulfilment in Jesus Christ, was to form a Chosen People through a long series of historical events with very tangible consequences tied to whether this people acted in good or evil ways. Metaphor and analogy were used to do this – pleasure, wrath, anger, hate, etc. – and the same with revealing His Divine attributes and nature.
These are “mere” metaphors. They are expressions, albeit in an indirect way, of real truths about God that ancient people understood. Ancient people knew that being angry at someone meant you had a negative relationship with that person, and being pleased with someone meant you had a positive relationship. These are not improper ways of describing how finite, sinful humans might stand in relation to God. Saying God is “angry” at our sin or “pleased” with our obedience doesn’t mean God is reacting to something we did. It means we did something to alienate ourselves from God or to draw us closer to Him.
For example, the Old Testament did not present God’s will in the same way we do today. We are able to make a distinction between God’s permissive will and His active will. If something happens that is morally or naturally evil, we understand that this is because God’s Providence encompasses His permissive will. It includes not only what He wants someone to do in each situation, but what He will permit someone to do in the ultimate workings of His Plan.
In the early parts of the Old Testament the writers attribute everything to God’s will without distinction. If Pharaoh’s heart was hard, it was because God hardened it. This captures the reality that everything is encompassed in Divine Providence, but it does not concern itself with important distinctions that we can make use of as Christians in trying to understand the ways of God as recounted in the ancient Biblical books.
Because of Christ and the New Testament, we know that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). We know that even the hairs of our head are numbered (Lk 12:7). We know that we are not to fear those who can kill the body but those who can kill the soul (Mt 10:28). We know, above all, that God gave everything to redeem us, because God is love (1 Jn 4:8,16).
Still, we are very limited; we cannot fully comprehend the great mysteries of God. Our insight depends on our humility and grace. Hence, the Church is able to develop our understanding of God through prayerful reflection and study of Scripture.
The early Jews lived amid all the confusion of polytheism and tribal gods. They did not come ready-made with spiritual conceptions and a knowledge of the after-life. God judged that the best way to implement His plan, which leads over time to fulfilment in Jesus Christ, was to form a Chosen People…
Fulfilled in Jesus Christ Yes, but He did not discourse about His Father having no emotions, did He? Your view is that the divine plan is fulfilled in Greek philosophical views.
You were always free to give reasons for your answers to my questions, but after doing that you failed to actually give your answer to my binary question, which I’ll repeat. Do you really believe that, once you have evangelised a formerly illiterate tribe, you need to sit them down and say “Actually God doesn’t feel those things at all – that was kid’s stuff, now here is what is really going on?” Your answer is Yes, isn’t it? And you have still failed to say, regarding scriptural passages about God’s emotions, what those emotions are mere anthropomorphisms or metaphors FOR.
In the early parts of the Old Testament the writers attribute everything to God’s will without distinction. If Pharaoh’s heart was hard, it was because God hardened it. This captures the reality that…
No, Jack, first Pharaoh hardens his own heart, THEN God hardens it – an example of how God pushes you down the road you have chosen. Check the passage.
@ Anton
Binary questions lead, if answered in a binary way, frequently result in error! You’ll be aware of how Jesus avoided these traps when dealing with the Pharisees!
Happy Jack did answer your question. You actually edited his comment on Pharaoh and missed the point. It was prefaced by:
“God’s Providence encompasses His permissive will. It includes not only what He wants someone to do in each situation, but what He will permit someone to do in the ultimate workings of His Plan.
In the early parts of the Old Testament the writers attribute everything to God’s will without distinction … “
Ancient Scripture speaks in ways familiar to the people of the time, and was written taking into account what had been revealed up until that point.
Let’s look at Pharaoh …
The ancient world was replete with the concept that there were good gods and evil gods. The Old Testament emphasises to the Jewish people monotheism. God is depicted as the source of all things (see Isa. 45:7).
When the author says that God “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart, he is saying that there were no other spiritual forces (i.e., other gods) at work. (and a metaphor was used to convey this – our physical “hearts” are not “hardened” due to sin!)
In modern theological language, and with the fullness of revelation received through Jesus Christ, we would say, “God permitted Pharaoh’s hardening of heart.” Evil and sin are not more powerful than nor equal to God; therefore, if they exist, it is because God has permitted them to exist. God does not will these particular things; He permits them. And, if we repeatedly and stubbornly resist God, and make choices against His active/perfect will, eventually He will leave us to our own devices with all the consequences that follow.
Exodus is teaching that God is the centre of the story. The “wet clay” cannot tell the “fire” to change its nature. Fire will go on being and doing what it is and does, and our God is a consuming fire. If the wet clay wilfully confronts the fire, the wet clay will become hard because the fire is what it is. Pharaoh’s heart is hardened by his confrontation with God, not because God gave him no chance to repent. God gave him ten chances to repent and He wilfully refused each time.
[Of course, a Calvinist would say: “God raised up Pharaoh and hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to promote His own glory.”
There are those who mistakenly believe that the most accurate reading of Exodus 4: 9, and the corresponding text in Romans 9:17, indicate that it was God Himself who was the primary, direct, and driving force behind Pharaoh’s choice. That God Himself arranged for Pharaoh to sin, in much the same sense that He arranged for Joseph’s brothers to sell Joseph into slavery (Genesis 50:20), Satan to attack Job (Job 1:12), Jews and and Romans to crucify Jesus (Acts 2:23), and sin to exist in the first place.]
Jack: *Premised* binary questions are traps, because the responder is no obliged to accept the premise. Unpremised ones, such as the one I asked you, are useful to flush out where people stand. You won’t mind me asking then whether your answer is Yes or No? I have no objection to as much verbiage as you care to include in any reply provided that you include a Yes or a No. So, do you really believe that, once you have evangelised a formerly illiterate tribe, you need to sit them down and say “Actually God doesn’t feel those things at all – that was kid’s stuff, now here what is really going on?”
@ Anton
HJ believes the inspired authors of Scripture used metaphor and analogy and anthropomorphic language, yes. Why? Because God met the Israelites where they were in time and in culture. Was it “kids stuff”, no. Did God hide the truth from then, no. What He revealed over centuries was Truth.
How would you share the incomprehensibility of God to pagans who were raised believing in immanence and in competing gods wielding power? How would you explain God was in control of all history? Try describing the paradox of free will and predestination. Try explaining God’s transcendence. Try explaining the coming virgin birth and the sacrifice of the God-man. Try explaining the resurrection of the dead, judgement and heaven and hell.
The Old Testament is written for the Jews and for our instruction. God uses accommodated language to help them and us understand what and who He is. The apostles, through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, were inspired to begin unlocking Scripture. This process continued throughout the early Church and still continues today.
So HJ’s answer is “yes” and “no” to your loaded question.
“Yes and No” to a simple binary question. A very Catholic answer indeed.
@ Anton
A loaded binary question with underlying assumptions that HJ has fully addressed.
For ‘loaded’ read ‘difficult’. I am happy for readers of this blog to decide for themselves whether you have addressed the matter adequately.
I believe God has emotions.
Anger, tenderness, compassion, desire.
Obviously I’m using human words, which have their limits.
But God does not seem like a cold, unemotional string of logic to me.
I think God’s emotions are amazing.
(The question of whether God has feelings or emotions is a different one, and one on which people have had different opinions, but it’s not what the Article is about)
The depth is the heresy is in the fact that it denies who Jesus is, the inccarnate God, the Son. Who clearly doesn’t know who he is or who he is from.
As such it, it tears apart the whole of scripurally revealed Triunity of God.
A pagan, hatchet job on God and scripture. Far from Christianity.k
Not sure how it would compute with Islam? Though I have an idea.
It is odd how it seems that often the very people who say there is no need for for a controversy are intent on one and how schisms are never caused by the non schismatics.
How many contraversialist are led by counterfeits spirits? How is it be tested measured?
Dear Geoff;
Could you please use direct Scriptural references when you use non-Scriptural terminology.
“Rev Canon Nigel Genders”
You just couldn’t make this up could you!
Has there ever been a Bishop Bishop?
Yes there has. And a Cardinal Sin.
From memory, there was a Revd. Pope who was on the shortlist for the chaplaincy at the Anglican Centre in Rome back in the 1980s — but not appointed, maybe because there cannot be two popes in Rome.
There were until Benedict XVI died. And there were three between the Councils of Pisa and Constance in the 15th century.
“Pope dropped by England”. Is that on the sports pages in summer 2023 or the news section in the 16th century?
The Irish Bishop who begat a child some years ago was said to have begun his confession to the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila:
“Bless me, Sin, for I have fathred.”
Er, I’ll get my cope.
And I knew a Canon Ball once.
Cannon and Ball were great couple of Christian geezers.
I loved them. God bless them.
Yes, we’re about to get a Bishop (Ian) Bishop in Norwich diocese, who was, until now Archdeacon Bishop.
Yes, we’re about to get a Bishop (Ian) Bishop in Norwich diocese, who was, until now Archdeacon Bishop.
Church of England appointments run by an I.B.M. machine with a sense of humour
There was a Pope Hilarius (Hilary) between 461 and 468.
(It’s the way he taught them)
Wasn’t Ian Bishop a fast bowler?
That as well, and interestingly he is a Christian. Nor is he the only strong Christian among West Indies fast bowlers (also Revd Wesley Hall).
No. Ian Bishop was not a fast bowler, Anton.
Ian Bishop was a very, very fast bowler !
A Bishop Bishop ?
Chris Bishop may be working on it.
If I was, then I would like to be known as Bishop to the power 2 aka ‘Bishop Squared’
After all, Jesus spoke in parabolas.
Thank you comments, Chris.
I love ’em 🙂
I’ll get this right, in the end.
Thank you for your comments, Chris.
I love ’em 😉
It is a bit bizarre…
Bishop Swing…
Amateur cricketer, Bishop Swing…?
Wasn’t he also a swing bowler ?
There’s a Dave Male too 🙂
In response to: “If there is any sense in which God has ‘chosen’ his pronouns, then this is found in Scripture, where God’s pronouns are very clearly ‘he/him’. So this queering piece of liturgy transgresses its own cardinal rule”
Well, yes….and this I think draws attention to an underlying, and deeper point of conflict. Those who adopt a “queering” stance about God’s gender would typically consider the masculine pronouns of Scripture to be part of the human element of the Bible. In itself, that might be a fair argument, provided it is underpinned by the hard work of trying to understand what understanding the terminology expresses (much as you do above) and how that applies today, but it more often tends to be linked to a dismissive reductive dismissal which sees the male pronouns as oppressive patriarchy. At the deepest level (and indulging in some simplification), the disagreement is between those who see Scripture as God’s authoritative self-revelation, which despite being mediated through human language and concepts, is ultimately trustworthy, and those who see the Bible as a record of man’s quest for God, which we are therefore free to correct from our more enlightened perspective.
David, yes I agree with you that that is the key issue. I would go further though in noting that the whole ‘queering’ enterprise is inherently contradictory, in that you have to ‘fix’ the genders before you can ‘queer’ them. Hence in trans ideology, men and women have very stereotyped roles and appearances, and transitioning means rejecting one set of stereotypes and adopting the other. Hence both ‘transwomen’ and drag queens display sometimes bizarre stereotypes of what these men think women should be.
Actually, no you don’t. The point of queering is that genders are seen as both perfomative and contingent. Otherwise, the troubling of foxed categories simply ends up by reinscribing the male as the default/norm.
Secondly, there is no such thing as gender ideology.
Thirdly, trans women (two words; trans is an adjective) do not conform to gender stereotypes. Some women are decidedly feminine; others are butch.
Fourthly, drag queens do conform to gender stereotypes, often in an extreme and parodic way. That’s the point of drag.
fixed categories
Secondly, there is no such thing as gender ideology.
Yes there is; it’s the view that there exists a thing called ‘gender identity’ that people have that sometimes aligns with their birth sex and sometimes doesn’t.
Are you saying that isn’t your ideology?
S: That’s one way of dealing with the issue. But another is to clarify definitions. What we have been watching recently is the category “sport for people who call themselves women”. Whether that is the same as women’s sport depends on definition of a woman, and we should demand a definition from people advocating change from traditional views.
Headteachers, mayors and politicians should declare simply that facilities under their jurisdiction must be accessed by biological sex, not self-identified gender.
Anton
If they did they would be breaking the law.
If they did they would be breaking the law.
No, they wouldn’t. This ‘don’t do that you’d be breaking the law’ us simply a bullying tactic by activists trying to create de facto their preferred state of affairs so they can then leverage it to get what they want de jure, and everyone must be encouraged to stand up to it.
It’s notable that every time the activists go to court (Forstater, Bailey, now Mermaids) they lose (though they always try to spin it as ‘we only list on a technicality, even though that ‘technicality’ was the entire basis of their case), so I hope sometime soon we see some organisation which does operate a ‘no men in the ladies’ policy taken to court by activists for this alleged breach of the law, because then the activists will lose and we will have clarity.
Failing that the government could clarify the legislation, but I wouldn’t hold my breath (perhaps they’re waiting for nearer the general election so they can get a boost by enacting such a popular policy? I suppose at least they blocked the Scottish insanity.)
No, S they would be breaking the law.
People who are in the process of identifying as the ‘opposite’ gender have the right to access single-sex spaces. No GRC is necessary nor has ever been.
Forstater won the right to hold her opinion lawfully; she did not win the right to use that opinion to harm others. Free speech has never been absolute.
People who are in the process of identifying as the ‘opposite’ gender have the right to access single-sex spaces. No GRC is necessary nor has ever been.
That’s not true, and I hope that it is soon tested in court so you will stop claiming it.
Um… yes it is true.
When a person begins transition, they are incredibly vulnerable. Historically, over the past 20 years, it has gone without saying that they would be exposed and vulnerable if they used male toilets. That’s simple common-sense and compassion.
So as a general principle, the vast majority of women have accommodated the fact that transitioning people may and do use female toilets. It’s a basic decency to be honest. The brilliant thing is that most women are cool with that. What’s really involved? People going into a cubicle for a minute to pee. For goodness sake.
Speaking for myself, in the roughly fifteen years since I first transitioned, I have (of course) regularly used women’s loos at stations, in shops, in churches.
***Not once*** has anyone been negative or challenged that. Not once. The issue is a confected controversy by ideologues. For everyone else it’s: ‘she needs a pee, like everyone else, nothing happening here, move on’.
We are in Daily Mail / Christian Concern / shock horror territory. Most women have more commonsense than to get worked up by things like this, because I mean… who wants to be in a public toilet a second longer than they have to. It’s just a simple bodily function, a quick in and out, and frankly… here we go again… trying to ‘other’ and victimise an already victimised group in society.
Um… yes it is true.
No, it isn’t. The claim rests on a faulty understanding, and a misreading, of the Equality Act 2010.
Hopefully soon a case will be brought to court so this misunderstanding can be exposed.
Susannah
I have had this conversation with S before. He doesn’t understand the Equality Act and makes no attempt to understand its clear provisions. Nor those of the GRA and earlier legislation. You are right of course which is why ‘gender critical’ activists now want to change the Act because it doesn’t discriminate as they wish.
Further S, self ID, which Scotland voted for, and which you confuse with the EA has nothing to do with access to single sex spaces. It provides for an easier recognition of changing gender. Many countries have such a law to mitigate the expense, time, difficulty, bureaucracy of gender recognition.
He doesn’t understand the Equality Act and makes no attempt to understand its clear provisions.
I think you’ll find that I understand the Equality Act just fine and backed up my understanding with clear quotations and citations from the Act, while Penelope Cowell Doe just blathered. I really, really do hope a case is brought to court soon to expose the bullying tactics of activists on this issue.
self ID, which Scotland voted for, and which you confuse with the EA has nothing to do with access to single sex spaces.
I haven’t mentioned self-ID; I know it has nothing to do with the Equality Act; the Scottish assembly voted for it, but it is massively unpopular with the Scottish electorate; and, thank goodness, the UK government stopped it in its tracks and while currently in legal limbo it will soon be dead once either the SNP officially drops its plans to appeal, or the next Scottish election happens.
What the Equality Act says about gender reassignment discrimination.
What is gender reassignment discrimination?
This is when you are treated differently because you are trans in one of the situations covered by the Equality Act. The treatment could be a one-off action or as a result of a rule or policy. It doesn’t have to be intentional to be unlawful.
What the Equality Act says about gender reassignment discrimination
The Equality Act 2010 says that you must not be discriminated against because of gender reassignment.
In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex.
To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any medical treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender.
You can be at any stage in the transition process, from proposing to reassign your sex, undergoing a process of reassignment, or having completed it. It does not matter whether or not you have applied for or obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate, which is the document that confirms the change of a person’s legal sex.
For example, a person who was born female and decides to spend the rest of their life as a man, and a person who was born male and has been living as a woman for some time and obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate, both have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
Different types of gender reassignment discrimination
There are four types of gender reassignment discrimination.
Direct discrimination
This happens when someone treats you worse than another person in a similar situation because you are trans. For example:
you inform your employer that you intend to spend the rest of your life living as the opposite sex. If your employer alters your role against your wishes to avoid you having contact with clients, this would be direct gender reassignment discrimination.
The Equality Act says that you must not be directly discriminated against because:
you have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. A wide range of people identify as trans. However, you are not protected under the Equality Act unless you have proposed, started or completed a process to change your sex.
someone thinks you have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. For example, because you occasionally cross-dress or do not conform to gender stereotypes (this is known as discrimination by perception).
you are connected to a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, or someone wrongly thought to have this protected characteristic (this is known as discrimination by association).
Absences from work
If you are absent from work because of your gender reassignment, your employer cannot treat you worse than you would be treated if you were absent:
due to an illness or injury. For example, your employer cannot pay you less than you would have received if you were off sick.
due to some other reason. However, in this case it is only discrimination if your employer is acting unreasonably. For example, if your employer would agree to a request for time off for someone to attend their child’s graduation ceremony, then it may be unreasonable to refuse you time off for part of a gender reassignment process. This would include, for example, time off for counselling.
Indirect discrimination
This happens when an organisation has a particular policy or way of working that puts people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment at a disadvantage.
Sometimes indirect gender reassignment discrimination can be permitted if the organisation or employer is able to show that there is a good reason for the discrimination. This is known as objective justification. For example:
An employer has a practice of starting induction sessions for new staff with an ice-breaker designed to introduce everyone in the room to each other. Each worker is required to provide a picture of themselves as a toddler. One worker is a trans woman who does not wish her colleagues to know that she was brought up as a boy, so she does not bring her photo and is criticised by the employer in front of the group for not joining in. The same approach is taken for all new staff, but it puts people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment at a particular disadvantage. This would be unlawful indirect discrimination unless the employer could show that the practice was justified.
Harassment
Harassment is when someone makes you feel humiliated, offended or degraded for reasons related to gender reassignment. For example:
a person who has undergone male-to-female gender reassignment is having a drink in a pub with friends and the landlord keeps calling her ‘sir’ or ‘he’ when serving drinks, despite her complaining about it.
Harassment can never be justified. However, if an organisation or employer can show it did everything it could to prevent people who work for it from harassing you, you will not be able to make a claim for harassment against the organisation, only against the harasser.
Victimisation
This is when you are treated badly because you have made a complaint of gender reassignment discrimination under the Equality Act. It can also occur if you are supporting someone who has made a complaint of gender reassignment discrimination. For example:
a person proposing to undergo gender reassignment is being harassed by a colleague at work. He makes a complaint about the way his colleague is treating him and is sacked.
Circumstances when being treated differently due to gender reassignment is lawful
A difference in treatment may sometimes be lawful. This will be the case where the circumstances fall under one of the exceptions in the Equality Act that allow organisations to provide different treatment or services on the basis of gender reassignment. For example:
competitive sports: a sports organisation restricts participation because of gender reassignment. For example, the organisers of a women’s triathlon event decide to exclude a trans woman with a Gender Recognition Certificate as they think her strength or stamina gives her an unfair advantage. However, the organisers would need to be able to show that this was necessary to make the event fair or safe for everyone.
a service provider provides single-sex services. The Equality Act allows a lawfully established separate or single-sex service provider to prevent, limit or modify people’s access on the basis of gender reassignment in some circumstances. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present will be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether or not the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate.
Updated: 23 Feb 2023
I haven’t mentioned self-ID
Whoops, sorry, I see I did mention it in passing above. But it was simply a passing sideswipe at the insanity of it and noting that a government which has up to now been utterly incompetent at standing up to the activist lobbying on this issue had at least done one good thing, not anything germane to the main thrust of the conversation.
What the Equality Act says about gender reassignment discrimination.
Yes. There’s nothing in that document about restricting facilities to biological sex being unlawful.
S
Two things:
I don’t need to blather. I have cited the law. Which is clear. It may change due to pressure from activists. At present it protects people who live as the opposite sex even where they have not undergone gender confirmation surgery.
The Scottish law, which has no relevance here, was not massively unpopular – in Scotland. It came about after an extensive consultation. Hysterical English terfs notwithstanding.
Still, you are in good company Emma Nicholson doesn’t understand the law either?
Only of it’s a proportionate means of reaching a legitimate aim. Which is very rare.
I don’t need to blather.
Pasting in a large document, rather than simply linking to it, when nothing in that document supports your argument, counts as blathering, I think.
The Scottish law, which has no relevance here, was not massively unpopular – in Scotland.
Two-thirds of Scottish voters polled oppose it: https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23256763.gender-recognition-reform-polls-people-say/
I think that counts as ‘massively oppose’
It came about after an extensive consultation.
But only pro-self-ID activist groups were invited to contribute to the consultation, so it was a little one-sided and not surprising that it came up with something so massively unpopular with the public.
Only of it’s a proportionate means of reaching a legitimate aim. Which is very rare.
I see the problem. You’ve read the section on provision of single-sex services and misunderstood it by thinking it’s about asking people to use the correct facilities for their sex when facilities are provided for both sexes. You need to read more carefully. That section is about, eg, when a gym offers women-only classes, not about a gym asking people to use the correct changing rooms.
Of course there exists a solution to all this, which is for everywhere to offer a facilities for men, facilities for women, and a separate facility for anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable using the correct facility for their sex, for whatever reason. Provided people are being honest about just wanting to pee, and not, say, trying to get validation for their delusion that they are ‘really’ the opposite sex, then that solves all problems.
I linked to it before. The point of pasting it is that, even though you deny it, everyone else can see that you are lying.
You might fervently wish it said something else. But it doesn’t.
Gender reassignment includes those living in their acquired gender without a GRC. In black and white.
I linked to it before. The point of pasting it is that, even though you deny it, everyone else can see that you are lying.
Okay, well, I guess they can also all see how you’ve misread it, so that’s all good.
Penelope,
Please specify which paragraph of which Act of Parliament they would be breaking and why.
” there is no such thing as gender ideology”
Thank you. Exactly that. The majority of trans people are just living their lives.
“trans women (two words; trans is an adjective) do not conform to gender stereotypes. Some women are decidedly feminine; others are butch.”
So enlightened. As you say, trans is an adjective… often applied to describe a process that occurred in the past. And yes – there is a huge range of trans women, just as there is a huge range of cisgender women. What else would you expect?
And finally, exactly about drag queens – that’s the whole point (as you say). They’re camping it up, and doing parody. Being honest, that can be a wee bit problematic for a trans woman, because some people will then associate ALL trans people with those OTT, camped up drag queens. Just like Ian seems to have done here: eliding the two.
But that’s what drag artists are doing: camping it up, doing parody. Not my scene. Never watch the shows. But I affirm their right, their diversity.
Trans people are just ordinary people, for goodness sake. Seeking to live ordinary lives.
It’s such a shame when people try to subvert them, whether because of religious ideology, some radical feminist ideology (nb many feminists affirm trans people), or maybe most heinously, right-wing populist politicians who try to elide a single trans prisoner here or there with the idea that trans women are generically threats and perverts. It’s just base smearing.
Whether it’s populist conservative politicians, or the folks at Christian Concern, or the Daily Mail… the smearing and the subversion of people’s lives is blatant and clear. You see it, sadly, even with people in the Church of England who should know far better. They use the memes of populism. Trans woman become ‘blokes dressed in frocks’… fake actors… threats to our daughters… all the common catch-calls of the populists. I’m minded of the poem by Yeats:
All day I’d looked in the face
What I had hoped it would be
To write for my own race
And the reality:
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved—
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer—
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.
Populism which trivialises others, masqueraded as wit, or cleverness…
Trans people may be your doctors, your airline pilots, your children’s teachers, your shop assistant, your nurse, your soldiers, your family. Just human beings living their lives, doing their jobs.
Please don’t parody them.
Thank you Susannah.
I hope people listen.
Trans people may be your doctors, your airline pilots, your children’s teachers, your shop assistant, your nurse, your soldiers, your family. Just human beings living their lives, doing their jobs.
Yes. Exactly. Let’s live and let live. I have no desire to stop men pretending that they are women or women pretending they are men. They can dress how they want to dress, call themselves whatever names they want to call themselves, play-act as the opposite sex t their heart’s content. If that makes them happy, good luck to them I say, as long as they don’t try to enforce their delusions on the rest of us.
I am being serious and not parodying them when I say that they should not be able to take part in women’s sports. Don’t take my word for it – Caitlyn Jenner, who as Bruce Jenner won the Olympic decathlon, said (on 1st May 2021) “It’s an issue of fairness and we need to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”
They’re not listening
…
In professional sportswomen, unlike invertebrate politicians, mayors and headteachers, trans persons seeking to compete in women’s sports are bumping into people who have given their lives over to their sports and are consequently highly motivated enough to push back against them.
Do you think it right that trans persons shjuld be able to compete in women’s sports?: Please include a clear Yes or No in any answer.
Do you think it right that trans persons shjuld be able to compete in women’s sports?
Most sports now seem to be moving to the only sensible solution: an ‘open’ category in which anyone can compete, and a women’s category in which only women (actual women, not men who identify as women) can compete.
That way nobody is banned or excluded and everyone can compete on a fair basis.
Like I wrote above: let’s live and let live.
@ Susannah Clark
With no intention to be personal or offensive ….
Those who espouse “transgenderism” argue that a human person is assigned their gender at birth, based on their observed anatomy. Consequently, when a biological male identifies as female and then has related surgery, they speak of that medical practice as “gender confirmation” vs. “gender reassignment,” because they believe their anatomy now reflects their true identity as a human person.
Transgenderism claims that an individual’s identity as male or female – that is, his understanding of him/herself—can be in conflict with the biological sex that he was assigned/conceived with. A biological male, so it’s argued, can have a female gender identity, and vice versa.
Here is where the snake begins to devour its tail. Consider a male who thinks his gender identity is female. He identifies with the female form because he thinks his gender identity is female. He may even seek to assimilate such a form via surgery and doctor-prescribed hormones. But already we’re running into problems. Our gent denies the connection between biological sexual forms and gender identity. He thinks his biological maleness doesn’t indicate his gender identity. But at the same time, he’s seeking a connection between gender identity and biological sexual forms insofar as he identifies with and seeks to take on the female form to match his female gender identity.
There’s another way in which the transgender philosophy is logically incoherent: it ends up defining woman in terms of what it means to be a woman. To the question, “What is a woman?”, a transgenderist can give one answer: “a person whose gender identity is female.” The answer can’t be a biological female because transgender philosophy separates gender identity from biological sex. Nor can the answer be female social stereotypes since gender identity is supposedly innate, and thus, it’s supposed to precede such stereotypes. Therefore, female gender identity is the only game in town when it comes to defining what a woman is.
Can you see the problem? It’s a vicious circle! This view of woman defines the word in terms of woman, inserting what we’re trying to define into the definition. It’s a recursive nightmare.
Another problem emerges: to what does female gender identity refer? If it refers not to biological sex, or to societally enforced norms, or to the inner sense of self (lest we end in a vicious circle), then female gender identity seems to refer to nothing. As Robert P. George puts it, “there seems to be no ‘something’ for [the inner sense of gender identity] to be the sense of.” If female gender identity refers to nothing, then it’s unintelligible.
The only way out here is to say there’s no difference whatsoever between a male and female gender identity. But that would exclude many people who are accepted as members of the “trans” community.
Thus there’s a contradiction: there’s no connection between biological sex and gender identity, and yet there is a connection, at the same time and in the same respect.
Headache!
The Catholic Church has a different perspective; one that is grounded in genuinely confirmed reality. One is born either or male or female.
In this light, the Church recognises that every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male or female (Gen. 1:26-27). And so we should help people discover their true identities as children of God, not support them in the attempt to reject their undeniable biological identity.
That said, we can reject the ideology but we should act in love toward those who experience gender identity confusion, and reprove those who engage in name-calling and other uncharitable behaviour toward them.
Hi HJ,
Thank you for the lecture (albeit communicated rationally and with good intent). I am sure this is not the place to go into detailed debate on this subject. We have all been de-railing poor Ian’s article enough!
Just to say: *you* find problems in gender transition.
People like myself find immense solutions, release from suffering, and psychological ease.
God bless you for trying.
Yes, I think that’s a key point in Oliver O’Donovan’s 1980 essay (largely reproduced in his Grove booklet). He suggests that the “rainbow” coalition is actually unstable, in that LGB largely see gender as fluid, whereas for transgender people it is (was) very much based around a strong concept of the male and female genders…
“Hence in trans ideology, men and women have very stereotyped roles and appearances, and transitioning means rejecting one set of stereotypes and adopting the other. Hence both ‘transwomen’ and drag queens display sometimes bizarre stereotypes of what these men think women should be.”
I think you’ve been watching too much Ru-Paul!
I have no idea what you mean by ‘trans ideology’. That’s usually an expression used by right-wing populist politicians, or some radical feminists. As a person who transitioned myself, I don’t belong to any trans ‘community’, I don’t even know what ‘trans ideology’ means or is about, and (like many trans people) I am just living my life.
I’d put it to you that there is actually more of a thing called ‘religious ideology’. Did I need ‘ideology’ to nurse my patients? Did I need ‘ideology’ to work at school. Do I need ideology to go shopping? to do the washing? to visit a lonely person? I wish you could understand that people who transition don’t want to ‘act out’ stereotypes – I wear trousers or skirts – but I don’t even think much about it (too sleepy until I’ve had my first coffee).
Being honest, I’m not that keen on the way drag artists appropriate women’s dress, because it’s OTT, deliberately camp, and kind of parodies women. But that’s a drag artist’s thing.
You seem to have a real problem with trans people, judging by the way you campaign against their authenticity in statements like these, and against their affirmation in the Church. But that’s – YOUR ideology, Ian.
I’m not into ‘ideology’. This is just my life.
Also, trans people – like cisgender women for example – come in all shapes, sizes, expressions, and styles. I know trans women who dress butch as anything, I know trans women who dress… well like other women… but it’s not about ‘performance’ or trying to act out stereotypes… it’s just about being yourself and living your life.
If a person can do that, free of gender dysphoria (which is a terrible and real thing), and grow more whole in Christ, and be more productive in his/her community… and find greater congruence and ease… why lambast that as ‘ideology’?
Presumably because you do have your own religious ideology, and trans people don’t fit in that ideology, and you see them as some kind of… I dunno… threat? subversion? offence?
The very fact you try to portray transwomen as “these men” and suggest they are acting out some kind of monstrous parodies of other women… it feels… a terrible simplification of the realities of people’s lived lives… which are mostly normal to the point of being banal.
It’s a kind of ‘othering’.
I have no idea what you mean by ‘trans ideology’
‘Trans ideology’ (also called ‘gender ideology’) is the view that there exists a thing called ‘gender identity’ that people have, that sometimes matches their biological sex and sometimes doesn’t.
Hope that helps.
Of course it’s ‘othering’. It’s a deliberate tactic to figure the typical as the canonical.
And othering is a deliberate tactic to avoid questions of identity which inevitably can’t be described without falling into the employment of “feminine” and “butch” stereotypes.
“Why is the body so important to gender identity (in terms of the administration of hormones and surgery), when the whole point of transgenderism is not important to gender identity. That is, I am not what my body I says I am; I am what I think I am. To put more concisely, if gender is a mere social construct, then why the need for physical treatment? – The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self; Carl R Trueman
* more enlightened perspective*?
The Introit ends with .. “as it was in the beginning and ever more shall be…”
It all becomes progressive self-refuting, self cancelling, never ending nonsense.
From the perspective of those advocating for “progressive” innovations
…looks like deckchair arranging, blind to the iceberg.
I wonder if the describing of God as “daddy” (or some, allegedly, a softer term) makes “Father” more distant from it’s biblical sense and feeds the falsity that it is gendered as in human father /mother.
Isn’t this a misuse of Jeremias re Abba? Though it’s more personal than “Father” it’s not baby speech. Or have I remembered wrongly.
“Abba” is exactly baby speech. It is the first word that a baby is capable of pronouncing.
Don’t think it’s quite as simple as that…
James Barr writes:
“If the New Testament writers had been conscious of the nuance of ‘Daddy’ they could easily have expressed themselves so; but in fact, they were well aware that the nuance is not that of ‘Daddy’ but of ‘Father’.” . . . [T]he semantics of abba itself [based on various evidences] all agree in supporting the nuance ‘Father’ than the nuance ‘Daddy’.”8
It is fair to say that abba in Jesus’ time belonged to a familiar or colloquial register of language, as distinct from more formal and ceremonious language. . . . it was not a childish expression comparable with ‘Daddy’: it was a more solemn, responsible, adult address to a father.9
Michael S. Heiser writes:
Scholars have demonstrated that (a) the Aramaic term abba was not exclusively used by children but frequently by adults in adult discourse, and (b) reducing the term to childish (though affectionate) prattle guts it of important interpretive nuances.10
And Darrell Bock adds:
Believers may address God with the endearing term (Abba) because he is “our Father,” yet (we) should never use this term in the spirit of unsavory familiarity but with the full acknowledgment of his majesty.11
Though abba is a term associated with intimacy and relationship, to address God as “papa” or “daddy” reduces his glory. God our Father is also Master of the universe, Creator of all things, Revealer of mysteries, and Judge of every hidden thing.12 He is “the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth” (Psa 47:2).
When children call their father’s “Abba” in twenty-first-century Jerusalem, it does indeed mean “daddy,” or “papa.” And that it’s the same Aramaic word Jesus and Paul used 2,000 years ago when addressing God the Father makes me pause.
But we don’t need ‘abba’ to mean ‘daddy’ for the words to be marvelous on our lips. That the sovereign Lord of the universe would make us his children and allow us to call him by an intimate, familial name is astounding. It is better that ‘abba’ holds the intimacy of our adoption alongside the holiness of God. We don’t want a Father like our fathers.
We want a perfect Father who is high and lifted up.”
None of which answers the question – If a child had wanted to say ‘Daddy’, which word would they then have used?
No alternative has been offered.
So the conclusion is not ” ‘Abba’ isn’t ‘Daddy’ ”. Rather, it is ” ‘Abba’ isn’t always ‘Daddy’ [and by the same token isn’t always ‘Father’ either]” – or ” ‘Abba’ is sometimes ‘Daddy’ and sometimes ‘Father’ ”.
To which we add the child-talk intrinsic nature of the word, already touched on by Anton. I made much of this in my thesis. In connection with the repetitive vowels and consonants in the talk of the youngest children; and ‘Maranatha’; and ‘when I was a child I spoke as a child’ (why make this particular point in this particular context?); and ‘be not babes’.
“So the conclusion is not ” ‘Abba’ isn’t ‘Daddy’ ”. Rather, it is ” ‘Abba’ isn’t always ‘Daddy’”
I don’t disagree… and never indicated such.. The qs
…. on the lips of Jesus is the word more “father” than “daddy” though both are highly personal?
And do some Christians babyfy in an unbiblical way, mirroring baby talk more than warranted? Concerned about the rightful intimate aspect but taking it too far?
Do you recall Jeremias view? I gave the relevant book away on retirement (sadly, lack of space)
I was more criticising Barr’s stance, not yours.
Jeremias was the one criticised by Barr, in turn.
I remember watching a documentary about Jews, I think living in London. In one scene a young man (30s) is speaking to his father on the phone, either in Hebrew or Aramaic. I obviously didnt understand a word, but the one word which i recognised him saying from time to time was ‘abba’. To me it conveyed both respect and intimacy. That summed it up for me.
I too find it amazing that I can call the God who created the universe, Father or dare I say it, Papa.
Peter
PC1:
Abba can mean ‘beloved’, and be used as a term of affection for various family members. e.g. a Father’s son or daughter could be described as his ‘abba’ (his ‘beloved’); and vice versa.
I think you mean Apostles’
Thoroughly agree with you on this Ian. Having a discussion about God as sexless, drawing on the feminine images that are provided in Scripture is a good thing. Re-writing parts of Scripture to flip the gender is absolutely not on. And should anyone attempt to re-write the Creeds they ought to be disciplined.
I wonder though if part of the problem is that in Anglicanism (and Protestantism beyond) we’ve stepped away from the most obvious female images – Mary and the Saints. Catholic and Orthodox Churches have kept Mary very prominent, and she is not just coincidentally a woman, but celebrated as Theotokos or Madonna. In our desire to distance ourselves from Roman Catholicism, have we excised the women too completely and left ourselves with an overly masculine worldview that some now want to correct but in a mistaken way? We have the Magnificat (Mary’s song) as a beautiful and key component of Evensong, but how much use does it get in the rest of our services?
Thanks AJ, that is interesting. Having been a Roman Catholic, I actually think that is 180 degrees mistaken. There are two dynamics: the first is that seeing the divine female in Mary makes God seem all the more male in comparison; the second is that proximate Mary makes Jesus distant in his perfection. She ends up taking his place as ‘one like us in every way, yet without sin.’
Agreed. The female principle is wisdom, who in Proverbs 8 is personified with female characteristics. The ancient Greeks, albeit pagan, were right to have a female rather than a male deity for wisdom.
@ Anton
It’s worth pointing out for others, if not you, that Proverbs 8 is a a poem of praise using imagery. and feminine is a metaphor – not analogy – and the word is grammatically feminine.
In Proverbs 3 and 8, Wisdom is personified as a woman. “Sophia” is a transliteration of the Greek noun meaning “wisdom.” In Hebrew, the word for wisdom is “chok-mah” (grammatically a feminine word).
Some argue that “Sophia” is in the female goddess of the Bible – a co-creator with the Hebrew God. For others, “sophia” is the God of Israel expressed in feminine imagery. Some feminist ‘theologians’ in their “reimaging” of God go so far as to claim Sophia is the divine entity who took the form of a male human to accommodate patriarchal culture.
In actuality, that wisdom (sophia) is an attribute of God similar to justice, holiness or mercy. “Sophia” is nowhere used as a name for God. Wisdom is personified, but this personification is a literary device. (“Folly” is also personified as feminine in the book of Proverbs).
English does not use grammatical gender (classifying words as masculine, feminine, or neuter). The Hebrew language (in which Proverbs was written) does use grammatical gender. So, “she,” as we understand it, is not necessarily “she” as it was intended in Hebrew. The gender assignment is grammatical, not necessarily indicative of the physical gender of the object. In English, the word wisdom is grammatically neuter, but not so in Hebrew. The Hebrew word is chok-moth, and it is grammatically feminine. In Hebrew, it would have been natural to speak of wisdom as a “she”.
We are not in any disagreement about this, Jack. And my life as a research scientist can shed some light on it too. In Proverbs 8, wisdom is portrayed with feminine characteristics, calling people to gain her and recognise her beauty. The process of coming to know intimately a body of knowledge has clear analogies with wooing. Wisdom’s femininity is also why scientists see beauty in the workings of the creation, and is behind the sexual metaphors used by Francis Bacon and other Renaissance men for the (then) new project of probing nature’s inmost secrets. There is a passion in the doing of science.
@ Anton
Hence “elegance” …
Yes indeed Jack. The question I can answer today that I could not answer when an atheist is WHY are the laws of physics beautiful?
And – also brought up as an RC – the problem with some Marian devotion is that she becomes the focus for women, whilst Christ is a male saviour for males. That is, of course, a distortion, but it is a tendency.
I feel like a lot of men revere Mary as an idealised mother. A mother figure they miss or need. She may also be a kind of idealisation for them of the purity of women.
I know the problems of idealisation, and putting a particular version of woman on a pedestal…
Even so, I don’t begrudge them if they do that. I find it quite endearing in a way, that they have impulses within that want to open to the female, rather than close it down.
And besides all that, Mary was “most favoured”. She was the Mother of God, after all. And I do believe the saints intercede on our behalf if we ask them in faith, and most obviously Mary must have the ear of her son.
There are mysteries to how all this works, but I believe in a dynamic that involves the saints and I do believe that Mary can be active in the realms of prayer, intercession, and sometimes kinds of interactions of a supernatural kind. The Communion of the Saints who have passed away is not, I believe, something that will only happen in the future. I believe it is happening in the ‘now’ of eternity, that it exists now in relation to us, and so although I primarily pray to Jesus there are some times when I feel prompted to interact in prayer with the Holy Virgin or Teresa or Therese. Usually on those occasions, I don’t think the trigger comes from me but from them, in little prompts.
There is a whole other thesis, that the reason why so many people reverence Mary is to fill a vacuum which is the intuitive longing and need of the Motherhood of God, and the female aspects of who God is. (Which kind of brings things back to the article again.)
You might like the book “Alone of all her sex” which is an analysis of the Marian cult by the secular feminist (brought up Catholic) Marina Warner.
Susannah Clark
“I feel like a lot of men revere Mary as an idealised mother. A mother figure they miss or need. She may also be a kind of idealisation for them of the purity of women.”
Really?
Mary is shown special reverence by Catholics because she is the Mother of God. We believe Jesus gave us us His Blessed Mother as our spiritual mother, a heavenly advocate who intercedes for us.
Mary perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. She is the perfect model of obedient discipleship and service. She gives us the clearest and most inspiring picture of what the ideal woman and mother should be like,
“There is a whole other thesis, that the reason why so many people reverence Mary is to fill a vacuum which is the intuitive longing and need of the Motherhood of God, and the female aspects of who God is.”
Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you!
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
Not in Happy Jack’s experience. Do you have evidence for this assertion?
What assertion?
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
This one:
… the problem with some Marian devotion is that she becomes the focus for women, whilst Christ is a male saviour for males.
Yes. My experience as a Catholic.
Not yours.
Mine.
I think Catholics are Christians but the one thing which I just cannot understand is their view of Mary and how lifted-up she is. I would be interested to know the history of the formation of such an understanding.
Peter
Orthodox too. It is surely her role as Theotokos – the mother of God. A unique gift and a unique human.
PCD @ 5:44 (and elswhere)
You seem to be confused. Or rather, you do make it up to suit your particular purpose or point.
Mary – Mother of God is female sex, specific gender stereotype.
Son of God is male sex specific, gender stereotype.
It is not Patriarchy, though it is binary gender sex specific. No queering either.
Sorry Geoff not a clue what you’re on about. I did write above that Mary is Theotokos which does make her a woman. Where have I said otherwise?
PDC @ 8:49 pm
Confused, yes. Unable to understand? With your high intelligence and queer themed doctorate, I doubt it.
I rate you more highly in your intelligence.
Or maybe it has been put too simply, into simple binary sexual categories, that you yourself agree and which confutes your adherence to queer :
1. Mary = female=mother to
2 Jesus = male= son
3 Equals: binary male female identity.
4 Equals: not assigned at birth
5 Equals: description of biological reality
6 Equals: it has nothing to do with a patriachal culture but a mere description of what is and was in space, place and time.
7 Equals: a historical reality of male female distinction that has persisted from time immorial, that ensures the continuation of humanity: a historicity that gender queer fluidity, inclusive of trans, seeks to deny malign and denounce in all its trans and queer and its + (plus) categories, spectrums or blends
8 An identitarianism that has been prosecuted with such intensity only for approximately the last decade or so, but which has had a long philosophical gestation period.
There is enough in this comment for you take issue with and therebye avoid the main points which are in the preamble and numbered points 1-7.
Geoff
I find it hard to follow your syntax. Probably my fault.
Yes, Mary was female. Jesus was/is male (unless he was/is intersex, see above).
That doesn’t prove that sex is a binary as recent scientific studies have shown.
Human couples, one of whom has large gametes and one small reproduce. Except the Virgin Mary of course.
Trans people have existed for centuries, maybe millennia, in many cultures. Judaism recognises at least 7 gender identities.
All of this knowledge is available without recourse to queer theory or queer theology.
Queer theory is a hermeneutic lens, I don’t use it to decide what to put on my toast.
“Queer theory is a hermeneutic lens, I don’t use it to decide what to put on my toast.”
Wonderful.
@ Anton
The alleged timing of the development of Church doctrine on Mary with gnostic writing doesn’t mean the latter drove the former. It took the Church centuries to formulate its position on the Incarnation and Trinity and her early focus, understandably, was on the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ and resisting heresy in these areas.
Here’s a Catholic account and history of the development of early doctrine:
<blockquoteDevotion to Our Blessed Lady in its ultimate analysis must be regarded as a practical application of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. Seeing that this doctrine is not contained, at least explicitly, in the earlier forms of the Apostles’ Creed, there is perhaps no ground for surprise if we do not meet with any clear traces of the cultus of the Blessed Virgin in the first Christian centuries … It is not impossible that the practice of invoking the aid of the Mother of Christ had become more familiar to the more simple faithful some time before we discover any plain expression of it in the writings of the Fathers. Some such hypothesis would help to explain the fact that the evidence afforded by the catacombs and by the apocryphal literature of the early centuries seems chronologically in advance of that which is preserved in the contemporaneous writings of those who were the authoritative mouth-pieces of Christian tradition …
Be this however as it may, the firm theological basis, upon which was afterwards reared the edifice of Marian devotion, began to be laid in the first century of our era. It is not without significance that we are told of the Apostles after the Ascension of Christ, that “all these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren” (Acts, i, 14). Also attention has rightly been called to the fact that St. Mark, though he tells us nothing of our Christ’s childhood, nevertheless describes Him as “the son of Mary” (Mark, vi, 3; cf. McNabb in “Journ. Theol. Stud.”, VIII, 448), a circumstance which, in view of certain known peculiarities of the Second Evangelist, greatly emphasizes his belief in the Virgin Birth. The same mystery is insisted upon by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, after describing Jesus as “Son of Mary and Son of God“, goes on to tell the Ephesians (cc. 7, 18, and 19) that “our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived in the womb of Mary according to a dispensation of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost“, and he adds: “Hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity of Mary and her childbearing and likewise also the death of the Lord—three mysteries to be cried aloud”. Aristides and St. Justin also use explicit language concerning the Virgin Birth, but it is St. Irenaeas (HJ: 130 – c. 202) more especially who has deserved to be called the first theologian of the Virgin Mother. Thus he has drawn out the parallel between Eve and Mary, urging that, “as the former was led astray by an angel’s discourse to fly from God after transgressing His word, so the latter by an angel’s discourse had the Gospel preached unto her that she might bear God, obeying His word. And if the former had disobeyed God, yet the other was persuaded to obey God: that the Virgin Mary might become an advocate for the virgin Eve. And as mankind was bound unto death through a virgin, it is saved through a virgin; by the obedience of a virgin the disobedience of a virgin is compensated” (Iren., V, 19; cf. Durand, “L’Enfance de Jesus Christ“, 29 sq.) … It was natural then that in this atmosphere we should find a continually developing veneration for the sanctity and exalted privileges of Mary …
More startling is the evidence of certain apocryphal writings, notably that of the so-called Gospel of St. James, or “Protevangelion” (HJ: assumed to have been in circulation soon after circa 150 AD). The earlier portion of this, which evinces a deep veneration for the purity and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, and which affirms her virginity in partu et post partum, is generally considered to be a work of the second century. Similarly, certain interpolated passages found in the Sibylline Oracles, passages which probably date from the third century, show an equal preoccupation with the dominant role played by the Blessed Virgin in the work of redemption (see especially II, 311-12, and VIII, 357-479). …
The existence of the obscure sect of the Collyridians, whom St. Epiphanius (d. 403) denounces for their sacrificial offering of cakes to Mary, may fairly be held to prove that even before the Council of Ephesus there was a popular veneration for the Virgin Mother which threatened to run extravagant lengths. Hence Epiphanius laid down the rule: “Let Mary be held in honour. Let the Father, Son and Holy Ghost be adored, but let no one adore Mary” (ten Marian medeis prosknueito). None the less the same Epiphanius abounds in the praises of the Virgin Mother (see Lehner, pp. 197-201), and he believed that there was some mysterious dispensation with regard to her death implied in the words of the Apocalypse (xii, 14): “And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert unto her place”. Certain it is, in any case, that such Fathers as St. Ambrose (HJ: Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397) and St. Jerome (HJ: 342–347), partly inspired with admiration for the ascetic ideals of a life of virginity and partly groping their way to a clearer understanding of all that was involved in the mystery of the Incarnation, began to speak of the Blessed Virgin as the model of all virtue and the ideal of sinlessness. Several striking passages of this kind have been collected by Kirsch (I. c., 237-42). “In heaven”, St. Ambrose tells us, “she leads the choirs of virgin souls; with her the consecrated virgins will one day be numbered”, while St. Jerome (Ep. xxxix, Migne, P.L., XXII, 472) already foreshadows that conception of Mary as mother of the human race which was to animate so powerfully the devotion of a later age. St. Augustine (HJ: 354 – 430) in a famous passage (De nat. et gratis, 36) proclaims Mary’s unique privilege of sinlessness, and in St. Gregory of Nazianzus‘s (HJ: 329 – 390) sermon on the martyr St. Cyprian (P.G., XXXV, 1181) we have an account of the maiden Justina, who invoked the Blessed Virgin to preserve her virginity. But in this, as in some other devotional aspects of early Christian beliefs, the most glowing language seems to be found in the East, and particularly in the Syrian writings of St. Ephraem (HJ: 306 – 373). It is true that we cannot entirely trust the authenticity of many of the poems attributed to him … the tone, however, of some of the most unquestioned of Ephraem’s compositions is still very remarkable. Thus in the hymns on the Nativity (vi) we read: “Blessed be Mary, who with-out vows and without prayer, in her virginity conceived and brought forth the Lord of all the sons of her companions, who have been or shall be chaste or righteous, priests and kings. Who else lulled a son in her bosom as Mary did? who ever dared to call her son, Son of the Maker, Son of the Creator, Son of the Most High?” Similarly in Hymns 11 and 12 of the same series Ephraem represents Mary as soliloquizing thus: “The babe that I carry carries me, and He hath lowered His wings and taken and placed me between His pinions and mounted into the air, and a promise has been given me that height and depth shall be my Son’s” etc. This last passage seems to suggest a belief, like that of St. Epiphanius already referred to, that the holy remains of the Virgin Mother were in some miraculous way translated from earth. The fully-developed apocryphal narrative of the “Falling asleep of Mary” probably belongs to a slightly later period, but it seems in this way to be anticipated in the writings of Eastern Fathers of recognized authority. How far the belief in the “Assumption“,/i>, which became generally prevalent in the course of a few centuries, was independent of or influenced by the apocryphal “Transitus Mariad”, which is included by Pope Gelasius in his list of condemned apocrypha, is a difficult question. It seems likely that some germ of popular tradition preceded the invention of the extravagant details of the narrative itself …
Evidence for Marian doctrines is found in the Bible – just as the doctrines of the Incarnation and Trinity. It took the Church centuries to better comprehend Scripture and understand Mary is prefigured in the book of Genesis, participates with Jesus in the Gospels, and observed fighting Satan in the book of Revelation. From the very first pages of the Bible to its last book, Mary’s role in salvation history is astonishing. The typology prefiguring Mary’s role took time to be discerned and is crucial in understanding relationships that exist between the Old and New Testaments. The Church, with the aid of the Holy Spirit was able to sift and root out gnostic heresies in this process.
Thank you for your long notes on Mary, HJ.
Very helpful and thought-provoking.
And yes, in similar and accompanying manner: the communion of saints.
I have disagreed with you on a number of things, but on these subjects I believe you are touching on truth, with intelligence and insight.
I also like the way you accommodate the concept of transmission, and how understanding may have emerged /been revealed at grassroots levels to ordinary people, and then been received by the Church through subsequent reflection on the scriptures.
There is always a danger that people in church hierarchies (and theologians) may look down with a little disdain at popular expressions of religion, as if common people don’t also matter to God or be chosen by God sometimes to encounter and express emergent aspects of faith.
All things of course may need to be measured and tested, but popular and local and ‘low level’ expressions of faith may not all just be emotionalism. God is sovereign and can act supernaturally (of course) and does not despise the humble.
the firm theological basis, upon which was afterwards reared the edifice of Marian devotion, began to be laid in the first century of our era
An assertion in your long post, Jack, for which the rest of it adduces no evidence whatsoever.
Queer theory is a hermeneutic lens, I don’t use it to decide what to put on my toast.
But what you put on your toast doesn’t matter. The truth about God is the most important thing in the world, and you use queer theory to try to work that out, don’t you?
Or are you really trying to say that God is just a trivial, unimportant part of your life, less worth mentioning than a piece of toast?
It got going at the time of the gnostic gospels, which the church rightly rejected about Jesus but accepted about Mary.
@ Anton
“It got going at the time of the gnostic gospels, which the church rightly rejected about Jesus but accepted about Mary.”
What specific beliefs about Mary were “accepted” by the Church from the gnostic gospels?
From ch.3 of Stephen Shoemaker’s book “Mary in early Christian faoith and devotion”:
The ancient traditions of Mary’s Dormition and Assumption offer one of the most important and yet underutilized sources for understanding the rise of Marian piety and cult within early Christianity. Part of the reason for their neglect is no doubt the sheer complexity of this literary corpus, which amounts to some forty different texts scattered across nine different ancient and medieval languages.
Shoemaker has studied these manuscripts. There was an explosion of Marian devotion following the Council of Ephesus – matching the time of the gnostics – and none of the documents involved date back to her time.
@ Susannah Clark
It can. Click on this link and you’ll see, top right, a link to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, as well as the Summa and the Church Fathers.
https://www.newadvent.org/
@ Susannah Clark
Happy Jack makes no claim of originality or authorship for his rather lengthy comment and so praise is not merited, but thank you.
The Catholic Encyclopaedia is a great resource for the history of the early Church, the Church Fathers and the development of doctrine through the centuries. It is also a good source for correcting the misrepresentations of Church teaching. HJ commends it to all.
Can it be found online?
@ Susannah Clark
Posted this in wrong place!
This link gives access to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, the Summa and the Church Fathers.
https://www.newadvent.org/
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
>>I prefer liberal Judaism<<
Of course you do. But its a modern reinvention that misrepresents the Talmud.
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
The Talmud is not Holy Scripture, nor does it read Scripture through the lens of revelation of Jesus Christ. The Mishnah makes all sorts of imagined claims. The mystical texts of the Kabbalah are also dubious as sources of God’s revelation.
Now to its substance. Ask an Orthodox Rabbi – not a reformed or liberal one.
What the rabbis were in fact addressing were birth defects and other physical aberrations, to understand how the affected individuals should observe Jewish laws that differ for men and women. The phenomena described in the Talmud are mischaracterised by those who promote modern notions of gender identity.
Transgender advocates latch on to one singular phrase, “Rabbi Yossi says, an androgynous is a Creation of its own” [Bikkurim 4:5], yet do not finish the sentence: “and the rabbis could not prove conclusively if he is man or woman.” In other words, this discussion of a minority opinion makes clear that the determination is an objective one, to be made by a neutral judge. The individual’s subjective self-perception is irrelevant; the only question is how he or she was created by God.
There no recognition of “gender identity” in Rabbinic literature, but aberrations that are neither desirable nor a human choice; rather, they are unfortunate physical defects which under Judaic law must be addressed. ‘Gender’, as conceived of in modern thought, was not even a concept in the Talmud separate from biological sex. It is not founded in Judaic tradition.
Judaism teaches that God created male and female so that they might partner with Him in creating a next generation. Bottom-line – surgical and pharmaceutical interventions do not render a woman able to produce sperm or a man able to conceive, gestate, and deliver a baby. Indeed the Torah itself very clearly forbids cross-dressing (Deut 22) and castration, understood to apply to men as well as animals (Lev 24:22),
Orthodox Judaism teaches that it’s far better for a person to come to embrace what Divine Wisdom has bestowed upon each and every one of us.
I prefer liberal Judaism.
@ Ian
A correct Catholic appreciation of Mary does not see “the divine female in Mary …
mak[ing] God seem all the more male in comparison”; nor does it lead to experiencing “Jesus distant in his perfection” with her replacing Jesus’ place “as ‘one like us in every way, yet without sin.’”
This is a distortion of the actual teaching, although HJ acknowledges some may succumb to these tendencies. In fact, HJ would claim a proper understanding and veneration of Mary leads to a well rounded worshipping of God, through Jesus Christ.
I agree.
@ Susannah Clark
Careful Susannah, you may be unwittingly led into the errors of the “Romanists”!
: )
I am a ‘padawan’ of a deeply insightful Reverend Mother.
Francesco de Osuna is my tutor.
I basically inhabit the contemplative practices of the Discalced Carmelites, in prayer though not in life circumstances.
To me Spanish 16th Century Catholicism is my homeland. Weird really, because to many here I am (perhaps fairly) seen as a social ‘liberal’ but actually in terms of practice – and my vocation – I am deeply conservative.
I am hugely sympathetic towards the Catholic Church, support the rights of those who support male-only priesthood and its fidelity, believe in the real Presence in Mass, have had supernatural encounters which differentiate me from many ‘social liberals’, and Catholic traditions of contemplation are hugely important to me (in the tradition of Teresa and Therese). They are my lifestyle. I believe in the Communion of Saints, and the land of the Saints, and their interaction. I revere the Holy Virgin without worshipping her. I believe the Church of England started in the late 5th/early 6th Century, not the 1530s.
All that said, though I might consider entry into the (Roman) Catholic Church, I would be considered a heretic by that Church, just as I am by some Puritans within the Church of England. Furthermore, I would not be willing to renounce my gender. I am more extreme than well-known, more liberal evangelicals who post here – like Andrew Godsall and David Runcorn – because I have a more provisional and contextual view of the authority of scripture than they do.
I am also aligned (through the charismatic renewal movements of the 1970s) to some expressions of charismata in the Catholic Church, which are quite distinctive from more general pentecostal tradition.
I find you interesting and intelligent to the point of sensitivity, but I am a million miles from you (and people like David Runcorn) in my belief that the Bible was written in fallibility, contains human misconceptions, and operates as a conduit for the Living Word, rather than being ‘the Word’ itself. I believe the Bible narratives are deep and profound, but contain the limitations (cultural, scientific) of its authors. Rather, I believe that God uses text to open us to our own encounters, interacts with us today in continuing revelation (by the amazing Power of the Holy Spirit, who I know first hand), and speaks to our consciences which are not bound in robotic obedience to literal text.
The Living Word of God continues to call us into our being and becoming (our vocation) day by day… through reflection on the bible, through prayer, through openness to the active flow of the Love of God… which we cannot covet or contain, but must pass on.
Love, after all, turns out to be all. The creative power and flow of the love of God, like streams of water, in constant flow and energy to reach out to others, to touch, to heal, to convict. Because yes, I believe in Judgment. I believe in supernatural forces of evil. I believe in the conquest of evil in the sacrifice of Christ.
But we are unlikely to come to agreement. I am hard on myself. I don’t like to sentimentalise. For example, I absolutely believe that the biblical texts condemn man-man sex. I don’t buy the ‘explanations and contortions’ used by those who claim the authority of the Bible but try to fit its words to their beliefs. Rather, I believe the Bible condemns gay sex, but also believe that the Bible is wrong (expressing cultural prejudices of its fallible authors).
Be all that as it may, my vocation is prayer. And so I pray. That’s what I am about. God will be my judge. That will not be up to me.
@ Susannah Clark
Thank you for sharing your personal testimony on your faith. Indeed, you are, in many respects, a nascent Catholic – apart from your belief that the Bible is not the infallible Word of God.
Happy Jack would say “human misconceptions” come from interpretations of Scripture. God didn’t dictate Scripture, but its inspired authors cooperated with God and, despite their “limitations (cultural, scientific)” wrote the words the Divine Author wanted. It falls to us to understand these texts.
HJ also agrees Scripture is “a conduit for the Living Word”. Catholics don’t subscribe to bibliolatry or sola scriptura. They share your belief that “God uses text to open us to our own encounters, interacts with us today in continuing revelation” – within the parameters of defined Church doctrine – and most certainly “speaks to our consciences”. However, HJ believes we are called to properly form our consciences and give due obedience, through the assistance of grace, to the commands of Jesus and His Church.
Thank you. I find considerable clarity and purity in your words.
My wish is for the Church of England to be a more Catholic church, not for my own sake, but for the sake of the Nation.
My father and his family were Scottish Presbyterians. My mother’s family were catholic Jacobites whose lands were confiscated, though we later got them back.
I incline towards catholicism, for some of the reasons I have detailed above.
Mainly because I live it in my prayer life and contemplative practice, which has profoundly expanded my spiritual experience and my life.
May the God of all Grace be with you.
@ Susannah Clark
Happy Jack’s father was the eldest son of an Orthodox rabbi who converted to Catholicism during WW2 – triggered by the Battle of Monte Casino and posting in Jerusalem during the King David Hotel bombing. His position was that Catholicism was the fulfilment of Judaism. He was born and grew up in Belfast in the 1950s and early 1960s, where being a Catholic whose father was a British soldier and a Jew, presented certain challenges.
HJ respects the beliefs of others (or tries to) that are well formed and thought through, even if he disagrees. That’s why he enjoys challenging and being challenged by other viewpoints.
May God Bless you too.
Nothing wrong with rewriting the Creeds. They are simply good summaries of the scriptural faith written against the heresies of their time. We face different heresies today than in the fourth century. In fact a Creed against liberal theology, that would include an affirmation incompatible with ‘queering’ of the gospel or with calling God ‘she’, would be a good thing.
Nothing wrong with rewriting the Creeds. They are simply good summaries of the scriptural faith written against the heresies of their time.
Yes, sometimes one gets the impression that some people think the creeds are more important than the Bible!
And one definitely gets the impression that some people think the Articles are superior to scripture.
Anton :
Can we make the Creeds more explicitly Scriptural – by using Bible terms for Bible things.
Thank you.
Who could object when it was marginal to the service? But once it is front and centre, who can object when they didn’t object earlier?
This reminds me of something I was just reading where someone coined the term ‘Law of Merited Impossibility’ or, as he puts it, ‘It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.’
Basically if anyone of a conservative bent raises doubts about where any particular bit of ‘progressive’ insanity might lead, they are told that they are being silly, scaremongering, nobody is actually suggesting whatever it is they’re scared of. And then whenever that thing actually comes about, the line switches — seamlessly — to of course it’s a good thing that this thing, that they said would never happen and was just a right-wing scare story, is actually happening.
(eg here’s a good example of someone being laughed at in 2019 for suggesting that people are saying that men can menstruate (you can hear the response ‘A very small percentage of people are saying that’): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhrSUQSB_Xs
Fast-forward to 2023 and we have people openly whipping up violence in the streets against anyone who tries to point out the truth that men can’t menstruate)
You can imagine the same tactic being used here: anyone concerned that slipping in such a prayer will lead to a wholesale abandoning of the Church’s doctrine on Jesus will be told ‘don’t be silly, nobody’s suggesting that, we’re just using a minor part of the service to draw attention to the feminine imagery used about God in the Bible, you’re just trying to scare people.’ And then a little later when people are preaching from the pulpit that Jesus was queer, it switches to ‘ yes we’re queering Jesus and suck it up you bigot’.
The lesson of course is: don’t take anything the ‘progressive’ side says at face value, and assume that any inch that is given they will want to turn into several dozen miles.
(Conservatives in the Church of England seem finally to have noticed this, and be standing up over these Prayers for Love and Faith, but as long as stuff like this described service happens without any discipline, I can’t help thinking it is far too little and far, far, far too late).
Just to stir the pot a little, given that God the Son became a male human being, and in my understanding continues to retain said male human body now, even if ‘glorified’, is there not a sense in which God is indeed male?
Peter
PC1 :
Are you suggesting that Jesus was a man, (cf. John 8:40; Acts 2:22, et al),
and is now ” a glorified man ” (cf. Acts 7:56; 1 Cor. 15:21 (NIV)) ?
Cf. 1 Timothy 2:5 :
” For there is One God and one mediator between God and mankind,
a man [anarthrous, Gk. ‘anthropos’], Christ Jesus.”
cf. The ‘Emphasised Bible’.
read carefully what I said – God the Son became a male human being.
PC1 :
“God the Son” –
Yet another non-Scriptural, post-New Testament, man-made term.
But, why not – for people who deal in post-New Testament, ecclesiastical, human “Tradition”, rather than in Scripture.
AJB,
Discipline: would that include the ABY who may be seen as opening the door, condoning and granting a permissive licence, to a deconstruction and reconstruction of the Triune God of Christianity?
After all it seems to be a factor along with the Cathedral’s open heresy that stimulated Ian’s article and a heresy that seems to be supported by some commentators here.
How would that work out?
In general we can all observe that men and women tend to approach things in a different way and so, within the family, differing circumstances are likely to be better handled by either a mum or a dad. Obviously either one will need to do their best when the other one is not available or no longer around. But there does seem to be an ideal division of roles for some circumstances while flexibility is the order of the day for other things.
I wonder if it could be said that God’s masculine side is more relevant for handling our fallen human situation. We need someone to tell it like it is, to lay down the law, to set boundaries, to chastise us, to rescue us from our spiritual danger, to lead us through to safety as we face the inevitable spiritual battles of our time on Earth. Could it be that in the Garden of Eden the fullness of God’s character was displayed, but that the disastrous rebellion that happened meant that God’s handling of the situation would inevitably involve actions requiring an approach more readily perceived as masculine in nature?
We should not second guess God’s thinking or motives, but simple use of imagination might give us a helpful insight in to why God might chose to use the male pronoun and why our Saviour, Jesus, was born as male rather than female. I think we’d do well to accept that’s how things must be for now: we’ve already done enough rebelling without inventing new ways of thinking about God which can only cause us confusion or another issue of profitless controversy. The bright side is that, one day, we will finally see our Lord God ‘face to face’ in the fullness which our sin has caused temporarily to be restricted. Till then we see dimly.
Happy Jack has posted this before:
There are good theological reasons why God is revealed as a Father – by metaphor and analogy – and His Revelation in Christ cannot be disputed.
“By calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature.
The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father. “
(Catechism of Catholic Church #239)
Both mother and father are active agents of conception. But the father, being male, initiates procreation; he enters and impregnates the woman, while the woman is entered and impregnated. There is an initiatory activity by the man; and a receptive activity by the woman.
The father and mother are both parents of their offspring and both are necessary for procreation. However, the father has a certain priority as the “source” or “principle” of procreation. This “priority as source” is complemented by the mother’s priority as first nurturer, due to her procreating within herself and carrying the child within herself for nine months.
This difference between fathers and mothers for the Fatherhood of God is crucial … We compare God’s act of creating to a human father’s act of procreation through impregnating a woman, we speak only metaphorically of God as Father.
In the conjugal act in marriage, the man acts from the outside in. Hence this better images God because the man’s the transcendent authority who delivers the seed. It’s the woman who receives the seed and brings forth life. That’s why she better images God’s immanence in creation. She also images the Church who receives God’s grace.
See: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8279
The Episcopal Church of the US, which has been riven by differences on sexuality, and is in freefall decline in church attendance.
The link supporting this statement is to stats for 2019, which showed a mere 2.7% decline in Sunday attendance. Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative decline was 21.6%, which is not far from freefall. Over the same period C of E attendance declined by 17.3% – not as bad, but not by much.
We also have figures for 2021. TEC Sunday attendance dropped between 2019 and 2021 from 547,107 to 312,691, i.e. by 43%. This really is freefall.
C of E Sunday attendance dropped in that period from 613,100 to 447,000, or 27%. While not as bad, that is also freefall.
If the suggestion is that much of the fall is due to the respective churches abandoning orthodoxy and spiritually fornicating with the world, I could not but agree.
Ha S. As I suspected, HJ uses seed as a synonym for sperm!
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
Never a substantive response …
[Sperm is derived from the Greek word “sperma” (meaning seed)
We know that. From the time when sperm was thought, by many, to hold the life that was planted in the garden of the womb. And you are using it in that sense, to imply male priority. But it isn’t.
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
HJ is implying no such thing!
This is about transcendence and immanence – the fusion of the sperm with the oocyte is metaphor. One penetrates; the other receives; one is external; the other internal.
Answer that …. instead of distracting and deflecting.
Yep, you’re using a patriarchal metaphor to describe God. The metaphor doesn’t even work because it’s not authentic. It’s a myth in the pejorative sense of the term.
This didn’t paste last time I tried. It’s an article on the myth of penetration and reception – sperm and egg.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/494680&ved=2ahUKEwiV26LGyaKAAxVL6qQKHWY9AGEQFnoECAwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw39Jutw3Pwg0i5iic1jOxhl
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
Except Happy Jack presentation of the metaphor made no claims about what happens once the sperm enters the vagina, or how it interacts with the egg once there, or that the woman’s role was less worthy or of lesser importance!
Its not a metaphor about sperm and eggs – but of God acting outside of creation and initiating said creation.
The old joke “is the Pope a catholic?” Springs to mind. Everything that comes out of the Archbishop of York’s mouth depresses me – is the Archbishop is a Christian?
I worked in York Diocese for 6 years during Archbishop Sentamu’s time. He was a great leader – outdoor baptisms at the Minster, always a card addressed to you and your husband or wife at Easter and Christmas handwritten. He actually preached the Gospel.
And NO we should not call God a feminine pronoun – Jesus instructed us to call him Father. We have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ description of him is the father of the Prodigal Son – even though he has taken his inheritance and wasted it, the father still loves him and runs to embrace him when he returns home. Anyone having trouble with their own father experience needs to learn this story.
He may have preached it. He didn’t live it.
Dear Penelope :
Re : A response to your comments on Archbishop Sentamu –
“We all stumble in many ways”.
cf. James 3:2.
Tricia :
I remember Archbishop Sentamu being interviewed on Channel 4 News outside a big, swimming pool structure where adult people were being immersed (‘baptized’), and the Archbishop saying :
“Immersion was just how the first Christians got baptized !”
Amen. God bless him !
Earlier this week I learned that our vicar, female, and in the post only since November, intends to marry another woman. So she will go through a civil marriage and subsequently be given a ‘blessing’ to confirm that God is happy with it. To me this illustrates the point that, while many try to maintain a distinction between the theology of women’s ordination (which they approve of) and the theology of same-sex marriages (which they do not approve of), in reality the one leads, on the macro scale, to the other. The distinction between the roles of father and mother so well expressed by Alastair Roberts above, and indeed by Ian himself in a previous blog, apply not least to the particular role of vicar. The virtues that tend to be associated with ‘manliness’, and which Jesus himself exemplified to perfection, no longer attach to the role. They are largely obsolete in both society and Church. The consequence – as the attendance statistics show – is that people cease to go to Church, because the Church is the same as the world, and therefore there’s no point. As I have said before, the Spirit has departed.
If one leads to another, how come there are gay partnered male clergy? Did the idea of ordaining men lead to gay clergy?
Exactly this.
There is no logic to the suggestion that a lesbian vicar marrying a woman = ordaining women is wrong…
…unless gay vicars marrying men = ordaining men is also wrong.
“If one leads to another, how come there are gay partnered male clergy? Did the idea of ordaining men lead to gay clergy?”
The difference is that there were only gay partnered male clergy by intentional deception (both the individual concerned and anyone involved in his training/appointment who ‘asked no questions’); obviously that situation was never publicly acknowledged or affirmed. The pressure to legitimise and even affirm gay relationships didn’t become significant until after women’s ordination was instituted and there was an immediate and substantial entry of women into the ranks of the clergy. It’s only an observation but I think women as a whole tend not to engage enthusiastically with theology (your stats on those who comment here must surely confirm that!) but I also note that they tend to be more generally liberal in outlook.
Some would protest that temporal correlation doesn’t necessarily prove causation, and that is true. However others would observe, and there’s clear evidence of, there being an ideological movement in opposition to normal family structures which has a natural progression through feminism on to homosexual affirmation and thence to the ‘trans’ insanity which is now upon us, with paedophilia on the horizon; in this progression feminism could be viewed as the low hanging fruit, and would naturally precede movement on the gay issue.
We are of course talking in broad terms: there will be excellent women clergy just as there are hopeless male clergy. And I’m hoping my sisters don’t get to read this comment!
The reasons why women don’t engage with theology here:
They have better things to do than engaging in schoolboy debates. Not to be gender essentialist, but that kind of point scoring does seem very male.
They are not interested in being abused nor mansplained.
Clearly, there are exceptions: Susannah and myself being two.
There are lots of female theologians and biblical scholars. You should try reading some.
Dear Penelope;
“They [women] have better things to do than engaging in schoolboy debates”, is surely a mishtake.
Didn’t you mean to say : “scholarly debates” ?
Pellegrino
Quod scripsi, scripsi
Clearly, there are exceptions: Susannah and myself being two.
As I understand it Susannah Clark is male? So not actually a counter-example.
Not that it matters. The point of an argument is to discover the truth, and for that all that matters is the arguments, not anything about who is putting them forward. That’s why no one knows my sex. It would be better if everyone was anonymous and no one knew anything about anyone else’s person. It would ensure that all interaction was focused on the ideas.
Well not being funny, ‘S’, but Ian has already slipped up and disclosed your name twice in the past (and it is a gendered name), but I believe in respecting how people want to be addressed, so I continue to address you as ‘S’.
Ian has already slipped up and disclosed your name
Ian does not know my name.
Well that’s strange. You can trawl the threads for yourself but on two occasions he addressed you as Simon.
But maybe that was some mishap of the weird columnar reply system.
I was disappointed in the failure of my intuition when I read it, because I always assumed you were female before that.
Now who knows.
I’m the opposite of you, in that I am more interested in people first, and only second in a few of their ideas.
I still think you’re ‘chicken’ for not revealing yourself!
Anyway, I’m leaving this site now for an indeterminate period of time, because I am handling a family bereavement and also have books to write. Time to log off. Take care.
Susannah
Dear Penelope :
” Quod scripsi, scripsi “.
What you wrote is written, but are you really sure you’re right?
🙂 🙂 🙂
God bless you, Penelope.
“I also note that they tend to be more generally liberal in outlook.”
I’m not sure the Bishop of Lancaster would agree with you!
But I do think women in ministry have brought untold gifts to the Church of England.
Not to mention the insights and perspective of 50% of the population.
Given the Church of England does not believe in a sacerodotal ministry. nor believes the ordained priest/bishop is ontologically changed and acts in the “person of Christ” in confecting the sacraments, Happy Jack can see no Scriptural objections to a female ministry in this ecclesiastical community.
Don
I think you have it backwards on pedophilia. I dont think its controversial to say the past and current CofE leadership has deliberately covered up sexual abuse,including sexual abuse of children. It is now facing huge pressure to change, not to legitimize sexual abuse, but to stop doing it!
Because the whole of western civilisation and culture has been feminised, and the rise of homosexuality among men is what you get when the created order is subverted in that way. It is generally acknowledged (one only has to think of the way in which they are caricatured in soap operas) that male clergy as a group are what a previous generation would have called effeminate. Obviously that is a generalisation, but some of the reason why it is true is because the progressives, having gained power, purged the more masculine clergy from their ranks. Those who objected to women’s ordination found that they had no place.
“Because the whole of western civilisation and culture has been feminised.”
You sound like Vladimir Putin.
Do you want to go back to the 1950s?
Do you want to go back to the 1950s?
Obviously not.
1850s, now you’re talking.
You’re so naughty sometimes…
Well, scripture is right about one thing; male terror of effeminacy is a constant.
*Deep East Enders accents*
“Alright bro?”
“Yeah, you OK?”
“Ow’s that bloke what come up to you and started talkin’ abaht crochet?”
“I dunno, but if ‘e does it again, I’m gonna deck ‘im…”
Etc…
The desperate anxiety to appear tough and not ‘one of them’…
Vladimir riding bare-chested on his horse…
Sexual insecurity.
Steven
Gay people have always existed. It’s not a cultural choice.
It’s a cultural choice to treat gay people as humans, a disease or as criminals
More statistical evidence that denial of God the Creator leads inevitably to perversion of the created order and particularly the consequences described by the Holy Spirit in Romans 1:26-28. A Gallup poll published last year showed the following percentages identifying as LGBTQ in the USA:
Generation Z (1997-2003): 20.8%
Millennials (1981-1996): 10.5%
Generation X (1965-1980): 4.2%
Baby boomers (1946-1964): 2.6%
Traditionalists (before 1946): 0.8%
Those who practise or condone such perversions are haters of God, according to the Holy Spirit, and deserve to die (Rom 1:31-32).
An important here is that the number of homosexuals in a population is not a constant. It rises as the rejection of marriage, child-bearing and -rearing, sexual fidelity and male authority becomes normalised – by a society that, not believing in the Creator, believes it can refashion what it means to be human according to its own light. The Church has not resisted this because it too does not believe in Creation. It just reflects the same trends and is now so corrupt that ‘it is not good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet’.
One perversion leads to another. The ultimate perversion is schools, including church schools, teaching children that they don’t have to accept the bodies they were born with: they can choose, take drugs and undergo surgery. Good God, what have we come to that those who think of themselves as Christian cannot see this.
For these reasons Babylon the Great will be cast down and destroyed, like a great millstone thrown into the sea.
A Gallup poll published last year showed the following percentages identifying as LGBTQ in the USA:
Generation Z (1997-2003): 20.8%
[…]
An important here is that the number of homosexuals in a population is not a constant.
I don’t think the poll shows that. Note ‘identifying as’. The vast majority of those 20.8% are attracted to the opposite sex and not at all confused about what sex they are; but that’s seems as boring these days, so such a teenager who might previously have said they were ‘straight’ will these days dye their hair blue and claim to be ‘bisexual’ or ‘non-binary’ or just non-specific ‘queer’ instead.
“Those who practise or condone such perversions are haters of God, according to the Holy Spirit, and deserve to die.”
Gee thanks.
Don’t worry. I’m a condoner, so I’ll join you in the lake of fire. Can’t be much hotter than southern Europe right now!
We’ve got a date ; )
Thanks for your comments, Dr. Steven Robinson..
There may well be more than a grain of truth in what you say.
God bless you.
Steven
Lgbtq is a much wider category than merely gay people. Bisexuals are actually the most numerous. Bisexuals are strictly speaking not gay. Trans and Queer are not necessarily gay.
These terms also mean different things to different generations.
Self identification is a better measure of social acceptability than it is of who is actually gay. It would be better to do some physical measurements of attraction or at least ask them where they fall on the Kinsey scale, rather than how they identify
Steven
Another pertinent point that occurs to me – 2003 Lawrence V Texas was a Supreme Court ruling that consenting adults had the right to have sex in private, meaning that state laws criminalizing gay sex (and gay identity) were determined unconstitutional. Before that you could face jail in the US if you had sex with your boyfriend in your home.
2011 the US military dropped Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and allowed gay people to openly serve in the military.
Anyone born before 1985 could potentially be signaling that they were inclined to become a criminal by answering “yes” to that survey and anyone born before 1993 could potentially harm their career prospects by answering “yes” to that survey.
My own guesstimate is that 1-2% of people are gay, 10-15% are bisexual and less than 1% are asexual. Less than 1% are trans, less than 1% are intersex. 5-10% do not feel 100% male or 100% female and therefore wish to declare themselves some variation on non-binary.
Non-binary and bisexual people are less likely to have a clear direct need to come out and more likely to keep their status to themselves if there is a social cost.
This would add to 18-30% of all people being LGBTQ in some sense whereas only 1-2% would be strictly gay.
SR,
While Ian Paul cited Dr Alastair Roberts whith approval, ( and AR has written and spoken extensively snd expansively on questions sexuality and gender – see his web site) where he parts company with AR is when AR goes on to develop his agumentation to conclude that church leadership is male.
@ Steven Robinson
>>[w]hile many try to maintain a distinction between the theology of women’s ordination (which they approve of) and the theology of same-sex marriages (which they do not approve of), in reality the one leads, on the macro scale, to the other.<<
HJ agrees.
The political promoters of "Mother god" understand the power of language. The words we use in our speech influence how we think and act and become reflected in liturgy and ordination. This term corrupts our understanding of God – and also our understanding of earthly fatherhood and motherhood, and the relations between the sexes in the conjugal act.
Ian, you say ‘The difficulty here is that, because all the human people we know are either male or female, few languages have a commonly used personal pronoun that is not sexed, and that includes the Hebrew (and Aramaic) and Greek that the Bible is written in.’
Actually, no. Of the sample of 378 languages in WALS Online, 254 have no gender distinction in independent personal pronouns.
Ah ha!
One of the people in the football team I played for explained they were non-binary, and their preferred pronouns were ‘they’ or ‘them’ or ‘their’.
That made easy sense to our team-mates (many of whom were lesbian anyway, so weren’t rigidly heteronormative) and besides that, it was simply respectful.
One of the people in the football team I played for explained they were non-binary, and their preferred pronouns were ‘they’ or ‘them’ or ‘their’.
And they should absolutely never be discriminated against for that.
And equally no one should ever be discriminated against for not using their preferred pronouns.
Live and let live!
Well a religious zealot could have insisted on calling them ‘she’, but it would have been a bit of a dickish thing to do, particularly as misgendering often includes a good bit of passive aggression.
Live and let live with someone like my friend would have been to think to myself (if I had conservative views): ‘Oh for goodness sake, I may not agree with gender concepts like this, but if that’s how she wants to identify, I’ll cut her some slack, and go with the flow, instead of making simple social interaction a battle ground of religious ideology.’
I mean, all she wanted to do was play football. She wasn’t seeking to be a religious debate. It’s the same in schools. Just cut a kid some slack. If they ask for certain pronouns to be used, don’t be a dick about it… give them some space, show some respect as they work out their path. That teacher who made a huge fuss (and distressed a pupil) was in my view being a dick. He could have let it go, but he insisted in making it a big, humiliating religious controversy.
The kid was just a kid going to school. My friend was just a person who loved playing football. They preferred to be addressed as ‘they’. It doesn’t cost much to respect that wish.
They preferred to be addressed as ‘they’
And are absolutely entitled to make that request, and should not be discriminated against for it.
And other people are absolutely entitled to either go along with the request, whether out of a belief in gender ideology or just out of politeness, or to reject it and use the correct pronouns instead, for whatever reason, and none of them should be discriminated against for their choice, either.
I think a teacher has more protective responsibilities than that, to follow the agreed policies of the school they work at. I don’t think they should have individual right to diverge from agreed school policy… because though indulging their own freedom may feel good to them, they may nevertheless do emotional harm to a young person, or humiliate and embarrass them. A think school policy needs to exist to protect children from that eventuality.
I think a teacher has more protective responsibilities than that,
Who was talking about teachers? I thought we were talking about adults making requests of other adults, which the other adults can then choose to accept or not.
Dear Susannah,
Just as a matter of interest, Susannah, what position did you usualy play in your soccer team :
1. Resolute, shot-stopping Goalie ?
2. No-nonsense defender ?
3. Midfield maestro ?
4. Clinical, goal-poacher ?
God bless, you.
Goalkeeper.
I played for my university and in the North London league.
I had to give up much active sport for cardiac reasons, and I really miss it.
My advice to anyone here is: while you have your health, use it, enjoy it, live it.
I was very active in sport for most of my life: running, playing football, and mountaineering.
Our physical fitness is a gift. And the ‘team camaraderie’ that goes with it.
How about you, Pellegrino? Do you like particular sports?
God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth. Then He made Eve out of a rib from Adam.
He states that when am man leaves his parents to marry, the two become one.
He told Moses to tell the Israelites in Egypt (Gen.3: 14 ” I am who I am”) What else do we need to know.
God’s plan was to put two genders on the earth (In the ark as well) God is the creator of all, the world, the animals, birds, all creatures.
He is before the beginning of creation. He is the only one who knows when Jesus will return.
I do not think that we should make a judgement on who He is, other than what he says.
I also think these kinds of debates come from our self-centeredness’ and bring more confusing to His church .
“God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth. Then He made Eve out of a rib from Adam.”
Didn’t happen – it’s a myth
“the ark…”
Didn’t happen – it’s also a myth
These Bible stories are deeply evocative, but they are stories.
Adam and Eve (if they had existed) would have had parents, and our species evolved from earlier primate life forms.
Noah (if he had existed) did not somehow in his spare time manage to collect penguins from Antarctica, wombats from Australia, polar bears from the Arctic, llamas from the Andes, Galapagos tortoises from the Pacific islands, pandas from China, and various species of tree frogs from deep in the as yet unexplored Amazon rain forest.
But that’s okay. Because these stories in the Bible aren’t reporting actual facts. The ‘Fall’ didn’t happen because the non-existent Eve from the story ate a forbidden fruit after talking to a snake. Death did not come into the world because of what a fictional character did in a fictional story. Death had been happening in the world for hundreds of millions of years before humans even existed – you only have to witness the fossil records.
It’s quite possible to believe in God, and many events in the Bible, without having to ‘literalise’ these myths (and fictional tales like Jonah in the whale). But if we insist on a fundamentalist literalism, then we quite understandably alienate truth-seekers who then regard our teaching as fantasy, and contrary to what the vast majority of people can understand from science.
There is plenty more in the Bible from which we can draw understandings of God, and all kinds of different texts written in various styles. The Bible does not fall apart if some of it is actually mythical.
But that does not detract from the point that Jim is making. The divine intent and pattern of sex differences is very clear from these passages even if you consider these accounts to be mythical.
Didn’t happen – it’s a myth
Even if it is a myth, it’s not a myth made up by men: God placed that myth in His word to tell us about Him and about His creation.
So if the story of Adam and Eve is a myth, what do you think God is trying to tell us through it?
All myths are made up by humans.
All myths are made up by humans.
The ones in the Bible weren’t. They were inspired by God.
Your godess is far too small and puny to create ex nihilo.
Far to small to become incarnate, God the Son.
Far too small to reveal himself reliably throughout the whole of scripture.
As a father Susannah how do you explain you having a daughter?
Creation ex nihilo has no warrant in scripture.
Creation ex nihilo has no warrant in scripture.
Yes it does: John 1:3
@ Penelope Cowell Doe
>>Creation ex nihilo has no warrant in scripture<<
Eh?!
Psalms 33:6 – By the word of the LORD [i.e., not by existing matter] the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
Isaiah 44:24 . . . “I am the LORD, who made all things . . . “
Wisdom 1:14 For he created all things that they might exist, . . .
John 1:3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. .
1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Ephesians 3:9 . . . God who created all things;
Colossians 1:16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.
Hebrews 2:10 . . . he, for whom and by whom all things exist . . .
2 Peter 3:5 . . . by the word of God [i.e., not by existing matter] heavens existed long ago . . .
Revelation 4:11 “. . . our Lord and God, . . . didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.”
I suspect PCD means there is no warrant in scripture for saying Jesus was created ‘ex nihilo’, as God is not created, God is.
I suspect PCD means there is no warrant in scripture for saying Jesus was created ‘ex nihilo’,
That would be an odd thing to mean as Geoff never suggested Jesus was created (which would be Arianism & I’m pretty sure Geoff isn’t an Arian).
But a useful myth which demonstrates that woman is the first gendered human. Adam didn’t become ish until Eve was created!
Female priority. Yay.
But a useful myth which demonstrates that woman is the first gendered human. Adam didn’t become ish until Eve was created!
You mean sexed, not gendered. Male and female are sexes, not genders (the genders are masculine and feminine).
And the two sexes both came into being at the exact same time, when the human race was divided into two.
I assure you the two sexes existed long before humans evolved or humans wouldn’t even be here!
Susannah not S is correct here.
Except in one respect. In saying ‘I assure you’ she acts as though it is a given that this thought has never occurred to S before. Unlikely – and therefore sarcasm is to be suspected.
I assure you the two sexes existed long before humans evolved or humans wouldn’t even be here!
So what do you think God is trying to communicate to us through the myth of Adam and Eve? Why did He cause that myth (and not other creation myths) to be included in the Bible?
There must have been a reason, right? God doesn’t do things without a reason, right?
“So what do you think God is trying to communicate to us through the myth of Adam and Eve? Why did He cause that myth (and not other creation myths) to be included in the Bible?
There must have been a reason, right? God doesn’t do things without a reason, right?”
You attribute too much authorship to God.
But as you have frequently pointed out before (and I respect you for recognising it) this is the core issue where people are struggling in the church of England: about the extent to which God ‘wrote’ the Bible, the extent to which people wrote it, and the extent of ‘authority’ of the surface narratives. Can the Bible ever be wrong about things?
My answer is yes it can, but it can also offer us profound insights as well.
I know you and I both agree that the crunch issue in the Church of England today is not sexuality, but the nature of Biblical inspiration and authority.
Susannah
But the female has the priority 😉
Your queer hermeneutic, contributes to a less than careful reading and makes frangible toast of your comprehension of the whole canon of scripture, it seems.
Geoff
“Orthodox” theology was decided on almost entirely by wealthy straight white men. Your background race gender and orientation all contribute to what you notice in scripture
‘“Orthodox” theology was decided on almost entirely by wealthy straight white men.’
And your evidence for this is?
Chris Bishop
Even today church leaders and theologians are mostly taken from a pool of relatively wealthy straight white men, more so in the past. Part of the CofE’s troubles on sexuality stem from the Iwerne camps which specifically sought to recruit wealthy straight white young men into positions of influence and power.
This means that other perspectives are shut out and denounced as not “orthodox”. I really would challenge you to find a theologian who has truly influenced Anglican doctrine who is not a straight white male from a wealthy background.
“Orthodox” theology was decided on almost entirely by wealthy straight white men.
White men?
Really?
I know we don’t have any photographs of the attendees at the Council of Nicaea, but given the areas they came from, it seems unlikely the majority would have been had the skin colour we now consider ‘white’.
I really would challenge you to find a theologian who has truly influenced Anglican doctrine who is not a straight white male from a wealthy background.
St Paul
S
I wasn’t really meaning the writers of scripture, but the people whose theology has defined church doctrine. I suppose Paul was both a writer and interpreter of scripture.
I think if you go back to the first centuries you can find Christian leaders who were not wealthy white males. St Paul and a small minority of the bishops at Nicaea were non-white, Paul was from a relatively wealthy background as were most of the bishops. Paul was also a Roman citizen, which was the ultimate status symbol at the time.
It has been suggested that Paul was what we would now call gay – he didn’t marry and **from a late 20th century/early 21st century gay perspective** it’s easy to read that into his writing.
You’re going to tell us that Augustine was white next…!
S
I would also note that modern conservatives often have a tough time with Paul’s attitude to marriage. Paul is not “orthodox”. Paul wrote that it was better not to marry and this is usually softened to “single people are just as important as married people” or just completely ignored in conservative churches.
What a different CofE we would have if single people were considered more faithful than those with a spouse and four children
‘Paul wrote that it was better not to marry’ Once again a great example of proof-texting. I am really struck by how often those at the liberal end love this way of reading the Bible. It is not a good way to develop your theology!
I think if you go back to the first centuries you can find Christian leaders who were not wealthy white males. St Paul and a small minority of the bishops at Nicaea were non-white, Paul was from a relatively wealthy background as were most of the bishops.
It’s kind of inevitable that most theologians will have been on the wealthy side. For a long time the wealthy were more likely to be able to read and, especially, to be able to own books. Even today the most wealthy you are the more likely you are to have spare time to spend on theology. That’s not to say there haven’t been autodidact theologians from less-well-off backgrounds, but it’s hardly surprising they are the exception rather than the rule.
It has been suggested that Paul was what we would now call gay – he didn’t marry and **from a late 20th century/early 21st century gay perspective** it’s easy to read that into his writing.
We don’t know whether Paul married or not. He was single by the time he wrote at least one of his letters, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been a widower. There just isn’t enough evidence to tell either way.
There’s absolutely no evidence that he was attracted to men, although equally there’s no evidence that he wasn’t (being married wouldn’t be evidence that he wasn’t, a marriage could have been arranged regardless of to whom Saul was attracted). But it doesn’t really matter either way. What matters is what he did and what he wrote, not who he was attracted to.
Ian
Most of the depictions of Augustine are white, but again you are ignoring my point.
Ian
Could you explain why you think Paul was not saying that remaining single is preferable to getting married?
Actually 14 of every kind of “clean” animal and 8 humans.
Illuminating, thank you. This article follows many similarly erudite exposure of heterodox teaching within the CofE; and yet nothing changes. Is this simply a structural problem which results an inevitable drift sway from orthodoxy and orthopraxy? Personally I think this would explain why Bishops Michael Nazir-Ali, Jonathan Goodall, Revd Gavin Ashendon et al have shaken the dust from their sandles. I’m running low on reasons to stay in the CofE. Any suggestions?
Yes, plenty.
1. The doctrine of the Church remains unchanged, and I think will never change. The C of E is constitutionally very conservative. We are a scriptural church.
2. There are many, many good things happening in the C of E. In our city there are growing churches, young people coming to faith, asylum seekers being welcomed, the city authorities being engaged.
3. People come and go. I think in the next few years we will see some real renewal of God in the C of E and elsewhere.
4. Those people have gone to the RC, at the cost of any integrity for people who were ministers in a Protestant Church. And the RC is not immune from these concerns either!
Hope these help.
Yes, thank you. St Matthew’s in the rural parish of Rushall, Wiltshire, is where we are called and remain.
@ Ian Paul
>>Those people have gone to the RC, at the cost of any integrity for people who were ministers in a Protestant Church. And the RC is not immune from these concerns either!<<
That's a bit harsh and judgemental , Ian.
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
HJ knows little about their individual reasons for joining the Catholic Church, but n the case of GA, his reasons for leaving the CofE were obvious and very public.
These quotes are from an article he wrote a year before his resignation as an Anglican cleric:
He lists the “half truths” and deceptions behind the heterodoxy in the Anglican Church. Yes, this same ideology and spirit is knocking at the gates of the Catholic Church – and Gavin is aware of this. However, both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are able to resist and, God willing, it will not prevail, because they have dogmatic and doctrinal boundaries that are not “porous to the demands of the passing culture”.
He concludes his piece with:
‘Therapeutic Marxism’
What on earth is that? Just some kind of populist catch phrase, like ‘cultural Marxism’?
As for “This movement attacks whatever is associated with anything heteronormative, white, or masculine with the intention of ‘redistributing power’…”
That sounds dangerously like racism. I really don’t feel comfortable with that.
If there’s been “dystopian repression” when it comes to race, it’s often been endured at the hands of white people, and to this day in the UK ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from poverty, health inequalities, poor housing etc.
As for his ‘justice v purity’ dichotomy… that is really disappointing. It is absolutely clear in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and texts that justice matters hugely. It can never be ‘either… or’. And as for not focussing on oppressed minorities… I suggest he does a bit of lectio divina on the Magnificat.
I actually identify positively with some traditions of Roman Catholicism, and I don’t accept that people who move from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism necessarily do so with any loss of integrity.
But I have to say the passages you quote come across as quite reactionary, and at some points dirty.
My spiritual heartland is Carmelite. I believe that the Counter Reformation was in some ways a high point of Christian civilisation. But I’m not sure the author you quote brings great wealth to the Catholic tradition.
Susannah,
Could it be suggested that you read the linked review of MT’s book to gain some understanding of what is described as Cultural Marxism, within and without the Christian Church.
It is where queer theory is rooted.
Geoff
There’s no such thing as cultural Marxism – though it is used as an antisemitic trope.
So, it’s certainly not the fount of queer theory.
There’s no such thing as cultural Marxism
Of course there is. Are you trying to claim that Dutschke and Gramsci, both of whom advocated cultural Marxism, didn’t exist?
Nope. It’s an invention of organs like the Daily Heil.
It’s an invention of organs like the Daily [Mail].
So you’re saying Gramsci didn’t write:
‘ Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society’?
The Daily Mail made that up, did it?
‘S’,
‘Cultural Marxism’ is being used as a populist trope by the right-wing media, by right-wing populist politicians, and by such stellar Christian [sic] mouthpieces as Andrea Minichiello.
It’s a political and ideological campaign.
So you are welcome to join their club.
There is no ‘gay conspiracy’. Gay and trans people are the collateral damage in right-wing culture wars. You can see it in the far right in the USA. You can see it in the Daily Mail etc. You can see it in the right of the Conservative Party, desperately scrabbling for populist votes as their support base haemmorages. They are all embarked on a ‘culture war’ which is actually about trying to cling on to power. It’s not about real values. It’s the pursuit of power.
Religious people are ‘useful idiots’ in their campaign.
As PDC rightly points out, ‘cultural marxism’ is an empty and meaningless smear.
This is nothing to do with real Marxism or Communism (I’m on the political left myself, and for those on the left the real issues are economics and class).
Surely a person like you can recognise that the Daily Mail is an instrument of privileged players, who are playing the public on behalf of vested economic interests… and that right-wing populists are reprehensible and repugnant… and that Andrea of Christian Concern hardly stands for the most intelligent expressions of your own social conservatism, or those who seek to be taken seriously in the Church of England.
‘Cultural marxism’ is a trope for hitting LGBT people with, a term to throw at people when a person runs out of arguments.
We can have a perfectly serious, prayerful, thoughtful discussion about the gender terms applied to our language of God… the point of this whole page (purportedly)…
… but no… we’re back on ‘cultural marxism’ as a facile term to be hurled at gay and trans lives.
Our bad. We aren’t actually doing the washing this weekend. We’re not putting out the bins. We’re having secret meetings in darkened rooms with posters of Che and Mao on the walls, plotting “The Gay Conspiracy”.
What the actual……
Gay and trans people are the collateral damage in right-wing culture wars.
To claim the right wing started the culture wars is a bit like blaming Poland for the second world war. Every single ‘culture war’ was started by the left trying to shift culture leftwards.
As PDC rightly points out, ‘cultural marxism’ is an empty and meaningless smear.
So are you saying Gramsci never wrote those words? Are you saying socialists and Marxists haven’t been trying to ‘captur[e] the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society’?
Surely a person like you can recognise that the Daily Mail is an instrument of privileged players, who are playing the public on behalf of vested economic interests…
I care about ideas and whether they are true or false. A true idea can be put forward by a repulsive person; a wonderful person may put forward a false idea. The source of the idea is of no interest to me, only whether the idea is true or false.
‘Cultural marxism’ is a trope for hitting LGBT people with, a term to throw at people when a person runs out of arguments.
No, it isn’t. It’s a description of Gramsci’s strategy of creating the conditions for a socialist/Marxist revolution by capturing the institutions of a culture and using them to disseminate ideas that reject the norms of Western society. Do you dispute that Gramsci advocated such a strategy? Do you dispute that his followers have put it into action? Do you dispute that they have been wildly successful?
I assure you most trans people are perfectly capable of disseminating their own ideas from inside their own lived experience. And I also assure you that many trans people are not Marxist.
It is better to listen *to* us, and our lived experience, rather than to talk *about* us, and attribute Marxism to us.
We are real people who handle real challenges, and it’s not to do with Marxism. It’s to do with living our lives.
I assure you most trans people are perfectly capable of disseminating their own ideas from inside their own lived experience. And I also assure you that many trans people are not Marxist.
I’m sure that’s true, but it has no bearing on the question of whether ‘cultural Marxism’ exists.
Geoff
Isn’t “cultural Marxism” what the elite on the far right call racial equality?
Isn’t “cultural Marxism” what the elite on the far right call racial equality?
No, it is not.
That seems to be very much like what took the late Rev Melvin Tinker and his large congregation out of the CoE, but not to R Catholicism.
……………..
Cultural Marxism see:
MT’s book, *That Hideous Strength: How The West Was Lost- The Cancer of Cultural Marxism In The Church, The World And The Gospel Of Change*
A review is here:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/that-hideous-strength-how-the-west-was-lost/
…………………..
I seem to recall that GA said something to the effect that he had returned to his spiritual home though I clearly stand to be corrected.
Cultural Marxism
… is basically just another term for what Rudi Dutschke called ‘the long march through the institutions’, and what Gramsci was advocating when he said the Left should develop an alternative set of values and impose them by a counter-hegemony.
You could hardly call the UK a Marxist country. On the contrary it is deeply reactionary.
You could hardly call the UK a Marxist country
Certain sections — universities, the media, for example — are very Marxist. But you’re right that the voters in general are more sensible, thank goodness.
PDC @ 3:37pm
That is a mere assertion without substance.
Here are some notes collated some while back to confute that assertion (paras. 4.5.1 and 4.2.5 of the notes are firmly on-point, highly relevant to the burden of Ian Paul’s article):
1 It is relevant and necessary to trace the roots of what has been described as “cultural/educational Marxism” into which much of the trans movement falls.
2 There are two recent publications that trace the source of much of what is going on in gender matters inclusive language such as CiS. Interestingly, from different starting points, secular and Christian, they both arrive at a similar source
2.1. Social/cultural Marxism is an inclusive cover-all term that can be applied.
3.1“The Coddling of the American Mind” by free speech campaigner, lawyer Gregg Lukianoff and Social Psychologist, prof Joathan Haidt (L&H). They are both atheist who are deeply concerned about what they term, the “three great untruths” affecting and informing the attitudes and practices damaging universities, which have “devastating consequences for young people, the educational system and democracy itself.” And it’s secular.
3.1.1 There are references to Marcuse (M) and critiques of Marcuse’s 1965 essay, “Repressive Tolerance” (RT). Marcuse proposes replacing RT with “liberating tolerance” (LT) which means “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.”
M recognized this was in opposition to the spirit of democracy and the liberal tradition of non-discrimination . He advocated the use of “repression and indoctrination.”
3.1.2 In the words of L&H; “In a chilling passage… M argued that true democracy might require denying basic rights to people who advocate for conservative causes, or for policies he viewed as aggressive or discriminatory, and that true freedom of thought might require professors to indoctrinate their students.” Read that again.
Comment: this: secular utopia is secular dystopia. And it’s happening now, progressively so, by self-proclaimed progressives, cultural marxists
3.2This is all part of what LH term “concept creep” and subjective emotional reasoning, to expand the meaning of hate speech and a “call-out culture (where) almost anything that is interpreted by anyone as having a negative impact on vulnerable members of the community-regardless of intent can be call hate speech.”
3.3 LH show in this drift towards (or rather, where there is a confluence of the waters of philosophical and identity politics breaking into foaming white -water- rapids over the last decade through the agencies of what LH term the iGen , internet generation) what has been described by Lord Jonathan Sacks as both a moral and pathological dualism and a categorization of people into “good”v “bad/evil.”
3.4 Supporting this twin dualism is a framework of “bureaucracy safetyism” and a new culture of expansive and expanding vulnerability, which exponentially generates victimization, in turn, leading to a moral dependence on groups and individuals who have been “slighted” who come to rely on external authorities (such as pressure groups, organizations even the state) to resolve their problems. Ultimately this leads to a withering away, “atrophy,”of other forms of conflict management.
3.5 Buttressing and underpinning the dualisms and the framework is the yearning or “quest” for justice. Here, the authors focus on “Social justice(SJ) ” – a moral philosophy for a fair and just society.”
3.5.1 SJ comprises “intuitive” notions of justice which relies on a combination of “distributive justice” (a perception that people get what they deserve) and “procedural justice”- a perception that the rules and processes are fair and trustworthy.
3.5.2 It can be seen how the emphasis on SJ is based on intuition and perception x 2), not on objectivity. But the idea of fairness contains a greater or lesser degree of objectivity. Although fairness is spoken in terms of “equity”, it practically amounts to, seeks, is reduced to equality of outcomes, even though, if there is a different outcome between people groups or individuals there is no correlation to the outcome to prove that there is evidence of bias, systematic, individual, or otherwise.
3.6 Where does all this take us? It takes us to a place where arguments may be made, discussions take place from a common view, starting point, on terms that thinking secular society may understand.
3.7A helpful list of “Distorted automatic thoughts” on which the feelings /intuitions are based is set out in the appendix, much of which can be seen in modern discourse, as a simple form of discourse analysis and self-analysis of our own contributions. The list derives from CBT, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. In Christian terms, it is the renewal of the mind through the washing of the word.
4 From a Christian perspective is a book which also bring to light the substantial significance of Marcuse: ” That Hideous Strength: How the West was Lost- the cancer of Cultural Marxism in the Church, the World and the Gospel of Change” by Melvin Tinker. (First ed)
4.1 It is a pungent book that curries Christian flavour, not favour in the church. It stings the eyes open, bringing a much-needed watchman’s or “wakeman’s” clear trumpet-call on the porous walls of the church. It is a call to speak out, to contest, to be a Christian contrarian, as was CS Lewis. Furthermore, it is as needful within the church as well as without.
4.2 But it is a call to speak from a knowledge of western culture in which we swim as icthus fish. Like salmon, we need the ability to swim in salt and fresh water, church and secular.
It is not just for Anglicans. The RC church is also a target of cultural Marxism.
4.3 For me, of the real eye-opening significance are chapters 3 and 4 which trace the main sources of cultural Marxism and its development through:
4. 3.1 the methodology of Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School, formerly, the Institute for Marxism, then The Institute for Social Research, the goal (according to Williams S Lind) “was not truth but praxis or revolutionary action: bringing the current society and culture down through unremitting, destructive criticism.” Truth is locked into its own point in history, so it is historically relative.
Comment: It is a place where biblical revisionist dwell.
Marcuse was/is a key influence in the Frankfurt school.
And through the employment
4.3.2 Kirk and Marsden admen methods in the use of propaganda:
“It makes no difference that the ads are lies, not to us, because we are using them to ethically good effect, to counter negative stereotypes that are every bit as much lies, and far more wicked ones:not to be bigots, because the ads will have their effect on them whether they believe them or not”
This relies on: 1 emotional manipulation
2 Uses lies
3 is subjective and one-sided
NOTE Personal story telling (anecdote ) is important in this regard. The books of Ozanne and Vicki Beeching are examples within the church. The media is awash with personal trans stories. And of course there are courses/conferences on story telling
4.4 Strategy and tactics are laid bare by Tinker. Avoidance, not answering key points, and only putting their side is endemic. Little wonder that Tinker seems to be something of anathema within some parts of the Anglican liberal church.
4.5 But the book doesn’t end there. The words “and the gospel of change” are part of the front cover sub-title.
4.5.1 He considers the spiritual battle, the “battle for Christ” the reality of God in Christ, in
1 his Deity, 2 his humanity, biologically male 3 “what is in Christ, is the whole created order, made by him, sustained by him, having its goal in him (Colossians 1:16,17)
4.5.2 This is in opposition to the World Council of Churches belief in God, Mother-Father Spirit” and all its derivative beliefs, such as the revealed in the publication of a bible entitled: “Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, corrected to reflect that Christ was a woman, extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
4.5.3 Key to this is biblical and systematic theology, and preaching combined with engaging with the culture, so there must be knowledge of God and of the culture, to compare and contrast, with “courageous refutation”. Perhaps in the manner of CS Lewis, a Christian contrarian, from which the title of the book derives.
And your assertion derives from reading right wing contrarians confecting anti semitic tropes.
And your assertion derives from reading right wing contrarians confecting anti semitic tropes.
Note the lack of any actual arguments; just an appeal to the genetic fallacy and an attempt at an ad hominem smear.
I think Geoff can comfortably claim to have won this one.
PDC @5:15m.
Jonathan Sacks was quoted. As far as I’m aware, prof J Haidt is a secular Jew.
For a PhD some of your posts are somewhat healthily thin, and your response rebukes your learning and indeed provides evidence of what has been drawn out from both books. Thanks for the corroboration.
“won this one…”
Lads, when do you get that we are not in a school debating society.
Geoff, bless him, was even more long-winded than me. Why should PCD engage with that forest of ‘cut and paste’?
For most LGBT people, life is not a Marxist conspiracy. Life is simply for living. The problem is ideologues repeatedly attack who we are, how we live, though in reality we just live very dull and ordinary lives.
Marriage is not leading to huge numbers of divorces because of ‘cultural marxism’ (invented term). Marriages fail because of heterosexual people. And that’s sad. But don’t blame ‘the gay conspiracy’.
Marriage is not leading to huge numbers of divorces because of ‘cultural marxism’ (invented term)
You do realise all terms are invented, right?
Glad I’m healthily thin.
I think you must be mistaking me for someone who has the time and inclination to engage with vacuous verbiage.
I couldn’t care less about winning. I’m not 16. My only regret is that I promised myself I wouldn’t respond to trolls.
So, enjoy your willy waving.
Susannah what it the purpose of the article and your comments? Duscussion?
PCD has admitted her biblical hermeneutic is queer theory.
That has been traced from notes I mades from two paper books I’ve had for a good while which reach a conclusion that is highly relevant to Ian Paul’s article. And the only response from a PhD exponent of Queer theory are unhealthily thin and indeed provide evidence of the correctness of the arguments adduced in their lack of substance and prurile twitter- like responses
BTW there is no scriptural support forr Holy Spirit being female. God is Spirit but is referred to as the Spirit of God the Father and of God the Son.
I could provide developed scriptural argumentation for that and more on God the Holy Spirit from books I have.
How are counterfeit spirits to be discerned?
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Geoff
@ Geoff
That’s a good set of notes on “Cultural Marxism” and the strategy and tactics. HJ hopes other will read it.
Geoff
I think the reason left wing ideas are tolerated more than right wing ideas is that left wing ideas tend to involve inclusion and right wing exclusion, left wing individual freedom and right wing authoritarianism.
Here in the states all the new censorship laws are actually about restricting LGBT speech and speech around slavery and the civil rights movement, *but* it’s conservatives who say they feel canceled.
My view is that’s its clearly not that conservatives have actually been canceled. There’s no “Don’t Say Trickle Down Economics” law. It’s that there’s nothing positive or joyful about conservatism. Inclusion of all, equal rights and equal opportunities are attractive. Rejection of equality, science and religious freedom is not attractive.
left wing individual freedom and right wing authoritarianism.
Yeah, left wing societies like North Korea, China and the USSR are really big on individual freedom. Sheesh.
Not if you are wedded to the apostolic succession and an officer class set apart by priestly ordination. Both are errors with harmful consequences, I believe, although I gladly acknowledge that there are many committed Christians who believe them and who are ordained, and some good congregations within such systems. But I suspect that God is starting to call time on these ideas.
@ Anton
Au contraire, God is starting tom call time on those ecclesiastical communities with no authoritative teaching authority, no valid sacraments, or those without a threefold ministry with apostolic succession.
The polity I’ve specified is the one which grew like wildfire in China under Mao and is growing in Iran today. It flourishes under persecution, unlike institutional churches which either die out or just hang on until relieved from without. And persecution is rising worldwide…
Chinese housechurches couldn’t care less – they probably don’t even know – that Rome reckons they have no valid sacraments. They have the Bible and they have the Holy Spirit. When you have God’s anointing, who needs man’s?
Chinese housechurches couldn’t care less – they probably don’t even know – that Rome reckons they have no valid sacraments.
And indeed the official Roman church in China has been sold comprehensively down the river by the Vatican, with the Chinese government being granted the authority to appoint bishops, etc (perhaps in return for cash into the Vatican’s coffers?)
Amen. BTW the book you recommended ‘mis representing Genesis is a good read. Thanks.
Au contraire, God is starting tom call time on those ecclesiastical communities with no authoritative teaching authority, no valid sacraments, or those without a threefold ministry with apostolic succession.
How does this assertion square with the fact that the only faithful denominations left are the most Bible-faithful Protestant ones (presbyterian, faithful Baptist, etc) while the Roman denomination, under its crazy Pope, is about to abandon faith in the Bible for good (and some of its provinces, such a Germany, already have)?
Let me correct that for you, S:
“How does this assertion square with the fact that the only faithful denominations left”… are the ones that conform to what I believe.
There. Job done.
@ S
As St John Henry Newman says:
Read this article by Edward Feser.
HJ thinks it is a helpful analysis in the sense that it suggests Pope Francis is permitting ambiguous teachings and allowing different ‘pastoral’ approaches without acting to clarify these or, critically, formally teach doctrinal error (which is an impossibility), thus leading to a breach of communion with him and schism:
If his thesis is correct, it means the Catholic Church is lacking a pope who leads; that Pope Francis is failing in his duty to “lead” and “feed” the sheep by permitting heterodox praxis and sowing confusion. It’s possible that by God’s Providence, Pope Francis is a pope bringing the poison in the Church, around since Vatican II, finally to the surface. By God’s grace we were blessed with two exceptional popes, Pope St John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI, before Pope Francis and their legacy will be hard to erode. One must ride out the storm knowing that God will bring good from it in His own time.
Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now.
Yes, Christianity will survive, by God’s providence. But that doesn’t mean any individual denomination will survive. Denominations can die, either by dwindling away or by fracturing into many.
And the denomination that has its base in Rome is merely one denomination among many, it’s not special and it doesn’t have some special protection against the same institutional apostasy currently afflicting other denominations; and as the linked article outlines what was once the Roman denomination’s biggest strength in maintaining orthodoxy is being dismantled.
So to return to my point: the thesis that God is ‘call[ing] time on those ecclesiastical communities with no authoritative teaching authority, no valid sacraments, or those without a threefold ministry with apostolic succession’ does not reflect reality, in that the clear intended implication is that God is ‘calling time’ on Protestant denominations, when actually it is the Roman denomination that is in a crisis of lack of leadership.
@ S
Jesus says: “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18). This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from Him.
Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from unity with the pope in 1054. The Protestant churches were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517.
Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles. The line of popes can be traced back, in unbroken succession, to Peter himself. No other church can claim to be the Church Jesus established.
The Catholic Church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, despite constant opposition from the world and despite “tares” in her midst. This is testimony to the Church’s divine origin. She is more than a mere human organisation, especially considering that her human members, including some of her leaders, have been unwise, corrupt, or prone to heresy.
Any mere human organisation with such members would have collapsed. The Catholic Church is today the most vigorous church in the world (and the largest, with a billion members: one sixth of the human race), That is testimony not to the cleverness of the Church’s leaders, but to the protection of the Holy Spirit.
This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from Him.
His Church, yes. Not any particular denomination.
Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles.
But the Roman denomination doesn’t faithfully teach the doctrines; it has been wrong on a number of issues, some of which it has subsequently fixed, some of which it continues to be in error about. That’s why the Reformers had to leave it, to gut rid of the erroneous doctrines and get back to the true doctrines of the Bible.
The line of popes can be traced back, in unbroken succession, to Peter himself.
Even if true, so what? What matters is faithfulness to God’s Word, not continuity of office.
No other church can claim to be the Church Jesus established.
All Christians are part of the Church Jesus established. Matthew 18:20
That is testimony not to the cleverness of the Church’s leaders, but to the protection of the Holy Spirit.
I wouldn’t dispute that the Roman denomination has been protected by the Holy Spirit — how else could it have recovered from the various errors of doctrine it has fallen into over the centuries?
But it is not the only faithful denomination, indeed, right at the moment it is far from the most faithful denomination.
It may yet, by the grace of God, recover from its most egregious errors. Or it may fracture and dissolve, with the German churches going one way, the Africans another, the churches of Latin America yet another. I don’t know. I suppose a lot will depend on who the next Pope is.
But I do know that God protects those faithful to Him, and He doesn’t care whether a denomination has in its possession a chair that was sat in by Peter, only whether the denomination is faithful to His Word. And on that measure — as you must agree, given the article you linked to — the Vatican is falling far short.
>>… it has been wrong on a number of issues, some of which it has subsequently fixed, some of which it continues to be in error about.
… how else could it have recovered from the various errors of doctrine it has fallen into over the centuries?
… It may yet, by the grace of God, recover from its most egregious errors.
… indeed, right at the moment it is far from the most faithful denomination.<<
You make a series of assertion here without substantiating any of them with evidence.
And in case you missed the point of Happy Jacks's post, he'll reiterate it: Human leadership BY poor, bad or sinful popes is distinct from the Providential Protection of God.
And in case you missed the point of Happy Jacks’s post, he’ll reiterate it: Human leadership BY poor, bad or sinful popes is distinct from the Providential Protection of God.
And in case you missed my point, I’ll repeat it: the denomination based in the Vatican is not special, it is merely one denomination among many, and the fact it has benefitted from God’s providential protection in the past is no guarantee it will continue to do so if it continues on its present path of abandoning faithfulness to the Bible while other denominations which stay faithful certainly shall enjoy God’s providential protection.
@ S
And still you fail to say what these “egregious errors” might be, or how the Catholic Church as a body, (not particular bishops or priests), is “abandoning faithfulness”, you say to the Bible; HJ would say to God.
A side comment is that the church of the which the Chief Operating Officer of Hereford Cathedral was formerly church Warden would be utterly horrified (to out it mildly) by this corruption of Psalm 23. It was a church where the establishment was wedded to the Book of Common Prayer and where he was cantor at BCP evensong. This further suggests to me that this was a deliberate piece of roguish defiance by a small clique within the Cathedral.
I hope so. Can you say which church? Yes, I agree that it was roguish defiance—but why do those in charge allow such a hijacking? Isn’t that a failure of leadership?
You can call God he, she or they.
Yes it matters
To : Peter J.
Read John 17:1-3.
Are you any good at mentally computing ?
God bless.
Yes
What is it that you think this passage says?
The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need, She makes me lie down in green meadows
Hang on. Shouldn’t that be ‘The Lady is my Shepherd’?
Interesting reflection by Gavin Ashenden on the Archbishop of York saying that the Church should re-think calling God our “Father”.
How devotion to the Mother of God helps us to better know God as ‘Our Father’
I think this is a bit of a heap of nonsense.
@ Ian
Probably because you believe veneration of Mary results in: “two dynamics: the first is that seeing the divine female in Mary makes God seem all the more male in comparison; the second is that proximate Mary makes Jesus distant in his perfection. She ends up taking his place as ‘one like us in every way, yet without sin.’”
GS takes an opposing position. He proposes that veneration of Mary doesn’t diminish – or exaggerate – God as Father, but brings us closer to Him. He offers this view in a climate of “toxification of all things masculine”, an “over-energised feminism”, and “a metaphysical assault on the accessibility of God the Father”.
HJ
What stands out to
me is not what you pull out to emphasise but what amounts to something akin to spiritualism, which is referred to with seeming approval and that is getting the presence of Mary through the rosary. Is there a difference?
And so it appears that Mary, as mother of God, takes a higher place of prominence of either person of pre-creation Triune God the Father or God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, as a presence or to whom we pray and worship; devote our lives.
All this is so distracting from the the purpose of theology, to know and worship the true God.
As it happens as part of our church’s preaching series and scripture readings were John 14:1-14 and Psalm 23. The sermon was on Psalm 23. And it all part of our communion service in including the Nicene Creed.
Psalm 23 was set in the context of
our coventanting God, the LORD, as our shepherd and pressing forward to Jesus being that, our, Good Shepherd , John 10.
One of the songs was The Lord is our Shepherd by Stuart Townend.
All of this was pre-planned eell in advance and not as a response to the the occurrences mentioned in Ian’s article.
As a slight aside I set next to a Chinese family from the USA, who spoke out the liturgy and sung lustily with conviction.
All so very delightful uplifting in worship of God in unity and diversity.
To, Geoff; Happy Jack, and “Uncle Tom Cobley” :
You say, Geoff, that :
“the purpose of Theology is to know and worship the true God”.
Remind me, again, of Whom Jesus said was :
“the ONLY True God” (John 17:1-3).
As our Father God said,
“Listen to My Son” (Matt. 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35).
Please listen, and God bless.
@ Geoff.
What GS actually shared:
This is not a conjuring up of the “presence of Mary … akin to spiritualism”.
Surely GA not GS?
This is not a conjuring up of the “presence of Mary … akin to spiritualism”.
Are you sure? Because ‘ The encounter through the rosary of what was to become a friendship with Our Lord’s mother’ sounds a lot like a ‘getting the presence of Mary through the rosary’.
Would you agree that what Ashenden is describing is that, when performing the ritual of the rosary, he felt the presence of Mary, a presence personal enough that it develop lead into whathe calls a ‘friendship’?
And that certainly at least sounds akin to some spiritualistic practice where in a séance someone might feel and communicate with the presence of a late loved one?
And that such practices certainly have no place in Christianity, where the only person we should be seeking is Jesus, the sole and only mediator between humans and God?
@ S
The rosary is meditative prayer, not an attempt to “conjure up” or “evoke” the spirit of Mary. The Church condemns attempts to conjure up spirits and manipulate the spiritual realm. This is categorically different from Christian prayer and asking for the intercession of those who have died in Christ. The rosary does not “conjure up” or manipulate anything or anyone.
Should GA have experienced the presence of Our Lady, then this will have been a great blessing, not the result of “magic” or a “conjuring” ritual.
Marian apparitions or the experience of her presence, are a way she connects us us to her Son, Jesus Christ. While on earth, Mary’s ministry was completely dedicated to reflecting the love, joy, and peace that comes from following Jesus. That doesn’t stop now that she is in Heaven. Mary continues to help us find the Lord; this is why she is such a powerful intercessor.
God’s purpose in private revelation is never to replace the public revelation contained in Scripture and Tradition. The goal of authentic private revelation is to help people live out their faith more fully.
[Now read GA’s word again with this in mind]
Should GA have experienced the presence of Our Lady, then this will have been a great blessing, not the result of “magic” or a “conjuring” ritual.
Pure sophistry. If you tell people to perform a ritual in the hope of making contest with the presence of the soul of someone long dead, that’s an attempt at conjuring the spirits however you dress it up.
@ S
Are you being wilfully obtuse or just being disagreeable?
Prayer to Mary – or the saints in Heaven – is not “perform(ing) a ritual in the hope of making contest (sic) with the presence of the soul of someone long dead … “
Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe the saints are alive in Heaven, interceding before God. We do not believe their bodies are simply rotting in the ground with their souls in an unconscious state.
One of the egregious errors of the Roman denomination, mentioned above, is how it constantly sets up spurious intermediaries between believers and God, whether that’s priests or Mary; but do we really have to redo the Reformation?
@ S
Any time a Catholic utters a petition to a saint, it is a request for that saint to pray to God for them. The “Hail Mary” contains the request, “pray for us sinners”. The saints do not have the power in and of themselves to answer our prayers.
John describes Heavenly worship in these terms: “The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Rev. 5:8) The angels also play a role in bringing our prayers to God: “The smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.” (Rev. 8:4) If intercession among members of the body of Christ on earth is “good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour” (1 Tim. 2:1–4), how would such behaviour not also be pleasing to God in Heaven?
It’s true that Jesus’ intercession is sufficient – as the Catholic Church affirms. But this isn’t a reason to reject seeking the saints’ prayers in Heaven. If Jesus’ sufficiency as our intercessor precluded our asking the saints in Heaven to pray for us, then there would be no reason to ask the “saints” (born-again Christians – Col. 1:2) on earth to pray for us. Why not go straight to Jesus?
The intercession of fellow Christians – that’s what the saints in heaven are – does not interfere with Christ’s unique mediatorship. Paul says that Christians should intercede: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and pleasing to God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:1–4). Clearly, then, intercessory prayers offered by Christians on behalf of others is something “good and pleasing to God,” not something infringing on Christ’s role as mediator.
No Christian would say we shouldn’t pray for each other. It follows, the sufficiency of Jesus’ unique intercession is not an obstacle to the invocation of the saints’ intercession.
***, ever lovable and full of grace, always has delivered the Christian people from their greatest calamities and from the snares and assaults of all their enemies, ever rescuing them from ruin… The foundation of all Our confidence… is found in ***. For God has committed to *** the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will, that we obtain everything through ***.
Is this is fine piece of Christian writing, with *** being a placeholder for Jesus? No, it is Pope Pius IX writing about Mary, in his 1849 Encyclical Ubi Primum.
Is this is fine piece of Christian writing, with *** being a placeholder for Jesus?
Ah, you fooled me. It uses the pronoun ‘her’ so I thought obviously it must be about Jesus.
@ Anton
Taken on their own, outside of the fullness of Catholic theology, Pius IX’s words do seem excessive. However, in context of Catholic Marian teachings and other Church teachings, it is clear he isn’t replacing Jesus with Mary.
The Pope’s ultimate reference is to Jesus Christ. He is the foundation who is found “in Mary.” Jesus Christ is the one who is the source for “every hope, every grace, and all salvation,” and He comes to us through Mary.
Mary’s role as mediator dates to the very early Church. It arises from her cooperation in the Incarnation and in the Redemption of mankind. Through her “yes” (Lk 1:38), she became the Theotokos (God-bearer), and, as the “New Eve” she is “the Mother of all living.”
Justin Martyr writes:
…showing that the contet as as much drivel as the words themselves.
And who said that Eve was a virgin when the serpent deceived her? I hadn’t realised that the Western hangup about marital sex went back as far as Irenaeus and Justin Martyr.
@ Anton
>>And who said that Eve was a virgin when the serpent deceived her?<<
From a reading Scriptures alone it is impossible to say one way or another if Eve had sex with Adam. Genesis does not say Adam and Eve had sexual relations in the
Garden of Eden.
It was a belief of all orthodox Christian writers of the patristic and medieval periods. Here’s some of the considerations:
– There is no reason to believe that Genesis is a chronologically accurate account.
– If Eve had conceived, the child would have been born without original sin.
– Gen 2:25, is a Hebraic euphemism for sexual activity.
– Genesis 4:1, after the Fall, is the first reported instance of Adam “knowing” Eve.
It has nothing to do with an aversion to sex.
Perhaps you’re confusing the Church with one of the early heretical ‘protestant’ groups you admire – the Cathars. Now they believed sex and reproduction were evil.
However, contraception, abortion and homosexuality were acceptable.
From a reading Scriptures alone it is impossible to say one way or another if Eve had sex with Adam. Genesis does not say Adam and Eve had sexual relations in the Garden of Eden.
So it’s pretty dodgy to base any doctrine on the idea, isn’t it? (Of course all the Roman Mariolatry is dodgy).
Perhaps you’re confusing the Church with one of the early heretical ‘protestant’ groups you admire – the Cathars. Now they believed sex and reproduction were evil.
‘He just used her body… and not even the right side!’
@ S
The dogma is the Immaculate Conception and it is not “based” on Eve being a virgin before the Fall.
Here’s the relevant passage from Ineffabilis Deus:
Eve’s virginity, as you can see, is not the central – it’s Mary’s innocence and sanctity. The text of the encyclical describes these and other attributes listed by the Father’s as “splendid eulogies and tributes , pointing to Mary’s sinlessness. The corner-stone of the dogma is this:
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is one of the most obvious reasons why I am no longer a Catholic. It is not true, nor is it logical, nor scriptural.
I do not admire the Cathars. They were heretics, albeit peaceable. I admire their contemporaries, the Waldenses. Your crew under Innocent III did their utmost to exterminate both.
You write: that Eve was a virgin when the serpent deceived her… was a belief of all orthodox Christian writers of the patristic and medieval periods.
The patristic period might have been close to Christ in time but the culture of the ancient Greek world was totally different from the Hebraic culture in which the church was born. Consequently the ‘church fathers’ deserve no special priority. And the mediaevals got their views from the fathers.
Those who go beyond scripture are asking for trouble. The falling-out between Rome and Constantinople in 1054 was over something that the scriptures are silent about and totally unnecessary.
@ Ian
>>The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is one of the most obvious reasons why I am no longer a Catholic. It is not true, nor is it logical, nor scriptural.<<
The dogma is:
Well, it’s certainly logical that God would make Mary a “fitting” mother for the Son of God, a perfect example of holiness, by giving her a special grace to protect her from the wound of original sin.
Is it scriptural? Well, that rather depends on how one reads and interprets Scripture; accepts or declines the authority of the Catholic Church; and on whether doctrine develops and the role of Tradition in such development.
So, for you it may not be “true” – but for others it is so.
But then her mother needs to be ‘fitting’ too…and so on. Scripture is pretty clear that Mary is not perfect; overall the account of her is quite negative, and she is not the slightest bit prominent amongst the apostles. I decline the authority of the RC separate from Scripture, and reject the idea that God’s final revelation of himself needs ‘development’. If you beliefve that, you do not believe that Jesus was ‘the fulness of the godhead bodily’.
Well, it’s certainly logical that God would make Mary a “fitting” mother for the Son of God, a perfect example of holiness, by giving her a special grace to protect her from the wound of original sin.
No, it isn’t. It implies God was ‘fussy’ about the womb He inhabited; that an ordinary woman’s womb wouldn’t be ‘good enough’ for Him.
In other words it is basically the opposite of the idea that God humbled Himself to become human and be incarnate in the womb of a mere human being. It suggests that first the human had to be ‘made worthy’ of carrying God.
This is in utter conflict with all the points in the Bible where it is pointed out that God humbled Himself to become human and specifically didn’t seek special treatment (like a super-special sinless womb!).
Not to mention being in conflict with all the other places where God always makes sure to pick the least special, least expected, least imposing people to do His work — your Gideons, your Davids, Josephs, etc etc.
Is it scriptural? Well, that rather depends on how one reads and interprets Scripture; accepts or declines the authority of the Catholic Church; and on whether doctrine develops and the role of Tradition in such development.
That seems a long way of saying ‘No’.
So, for you it may not be “true” – but for others it is so.
It is not possible for some thing to be true for people and not for others. Either something is true or it is not.
@ Ian
“But then her mother needs to be ‘fitting’ too…and so on.”
Why would her mother and father need to be free from the possibility of sin if, as the dogma teaches, Mary was granted a special favour by God at her conception? Mary wasn’t divine!
“Scripture is pretty clear that Mary is not perfect; overall the account of her is quite negative, and she is not the slightest bit prominent amongst the apostles.”
Negative? Hardly. Mary was human but sinless. She displayed human emotions just like Jesus.
She played a prominent part at the start of John’s Gospel; not to mention the accounts of Annunciation, Visitation and Crucifixion.
In John’s Gospel, from the start the Divinity of Jesus is asserted, implicitly but clearly, by Mary. “They are out of wine.” she says (John 2:3). What is Mary suggesting that He do? “Do whatever he tells you,” she says to the servants (John 2:5). Mary confidently anticipates the miracle. Our Lord says, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come,” (John 2:4) which looks like a rebuke, but makes clear that, but for her intervention, the miracle would not have been performed. John takes care to say that this was the first public miracle of Jesus. Its origin was the complete faith of Mary in Jesus’ Divinity.
There are two moments in the Gospels in which Jesus appears to downplay Mary’s importance in front of a crowd; Matthew 12:46-50, and Luke 11:27-28.
Jesus was addressing a Jewish audience. What point was He making? God had promised David that a descendant of his would “build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” (2 Sam. 7:13) With Jesus, we find this kingdom brought into history. Jesus’ point in both Matthew 11 and Luke 12 is to teach that, although He is the fulfilment of God’s promise to the House of David, the kingdom of God isn’t what Israel expect. Membership in this new ‘dynasty’ is not based upon blood or marriage, but upon faith – we are all invited into Jesus’ family, through faith.
The woman in the crowd was thinking along bloodlines when she cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” He’s not saying, “Mary is not blessed.” Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, had earlier proclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42). The point here is that her blessedness isn’t because of bloodlines. Rather, it’s because of faith, which is why Elizabeth continued, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Mary has a true maternity—not merely along bloodlines, but, more importantly, in faith. Mary thus becomes our spiritual mother too.
Hanging upon the cross on Good Friday, “Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27) Revelation 12 depicts the Queen of Heaven as the mother of Jesus (Rev. 12:5) and says that “her offspring” are “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.” (Rev. 12:17).
“I decline the authority of the RC separate from Scripture, and reject the idea that God’s final revelation of himself needs ‘development’. If you believe that, you do not believe that Jesus was ‘the fulness of the godhead bodily’.”
Yes, HJ understands you reject the authority of the Catholic Church. But who has said or suggested Jesus isn’t the ‘final revelation’ of God; that He isn’t ‘the fulness of the godhead bodily’?
It took the Church centuries to work out – from Scripture, prayer and theological reflection of the Fathers – the Incarnation and God as Trinity.
Mary was human but sinless
The only person who has ever been human but sinless is Jesus.
ESV translation of Genisis 1:27 is significant, and God described as husband and believers as feminine in relation to God
Phil Almond
Philip Almond :
Re : Genesis 1:27 ESV.
Phil’s comment : “God is described as a husband and believers as feminine in relation in relation to God “.
Where’s your working out ?
It is interesting that attendance at Cathedrals remains high. During my time at the Cathedral it was clear that there was a strong yearning for more radical explorations of faith and how we love it out in our daily lives. That went alongside quite traditional styles of worship, even if expressed with good quality contemporary music. On several Sunday mornings during my time we held a jazz mass and at the first of those there were over 500 people.
How many cathedrals run courses in evangelism or discipleship?
Have repeated drives of evangelism and discipleship actually led to revival in this country?
No.
There are millions fewer people attending church. You can argue that liberal churches are in even steeper decline, but numerically compared to 2000 or 1970 the Church of England – across evangelical as well as liberal and catholic traditions – overall is in decline.
The problem is not the messaging but the package. The vast majority of people don’t buy into 16th Century Reformation claims about the authority of the Bible. They simply don’t.
Christianity is trying to advocate ‘vintage’ over ‘personal conscience’. It’s too rigid. It turns most people off. What you’re left with is enclaves (critics would say ghettos).
Individual churches may draw in people to a degree, but nationwide decades of evangelism etc have not stopped church attendance declining. The momentum of the 16th Century Reformation is failing. The people of this country no longer connect with its paradigms.
Why do you think that is? (Asking not out of provocation, but because I’m genuinely interested and saddened.)
I believe conservative evangelicalism repels far more people than it attracts. Liberal and catholic churches may not be attracting people either but they are alienating fewer.
The view of the Church in the eyes of the vast majority in this country is that it is backward-looking, and the evangelical brake on change over issues like sexuality is seen as an example by most people, and alienates them.
The Church can evangelise all it likes, but if the package alienates, you’re not going to get revival. You’re not even going to stop decline, except in a scattering of isolated ‘magnets’ for people looking for certainties, some of whom are migrating from other churches, meaning a gain of nil.
Overall, conservative evangelicalism is not an expanding model nationwide, even if other traditions fare even less well in some cases.
So is the need endless evangelism campaigns (I’m speaking as a former Evangelism Explosion activist)? Or is the real issue that Christianity itself is being boxed up and packaged in ways that simply don’t connect with enough people, and alienate even more?
(note to readers: apologies but I am only engaging with Ian this week because of death in the family and limitation of time)
Sorry to hear about that. Perhaps you should excuse yourself from commenting at all for a while…?
‘the Church of England – across evangelical as well as liberal and catholic traditions – overall is in decline’. So what? The church in England is not; and it is evangelical churches which are growing.
‘The vast majority of people don’t buy into 16th Century Reformation claims about the authority of the Bible. They simply don’t.’ Of course they don’t, because they are not Christians. So what?
‘Overall, conservative evangelicalism is not an expanding model nationwide, even if other traditions fare even less well in some cases.’ Sorry, you are factually in error here.
There is clear statistical evidence that where there is an intention to evangelise and grow, this happens more than when there is not. And one of the prime practices of such church is offering easy ways for outsiders to explore faith. It is very odd that you are unaware of this.
Thanks Ian. I’ll leave it there, and you make points worth reflecting on.
The vast majority of people don’t buy into 16th Century Reformation claims about the authority of the Bible.
Those claims were held also by Catholic and Orthodox both before and after the Reformation. The Reformers’ claim was that Rome was not *living* by the scriptures. Only since the ‘higher criticism’ appeared in the last 250 years have people across all denominations (certain protestants first, admittedly) begun questioning the scriptures. This is proving to be a quite short-lived heresy as God prunes the unfaithful liberal branches – shorter than the heyday of Arianism, to be sure.
The view of the Church in the eyes of the vast majority in this country is that it is backward-looking
Now that is correct. The problem is that the large churches are looking back only a few hundred years when they would be looking back 2000 years.
How many cathedrals run courses in evangelism or discipleship?
Do cathedrals actually demand anything of their congregations? Are they really congregations at all, or just audiences of people who treat the services as free concerts in pretty old buildings?
A traditional Anglican service is many things, but it is not a concert. It is strongly participatory for the congregation.
I have no idea about statistics on that issue. We ran that kind of thing regularly in different ways. I’m sure many cathedrals have a Canon Missioner who probably spends the majority of their time on diocesan mission, as ours did, but gave a proportion of their time for the Cathedral’s outreach and evangelism.
@ Ian
Come now, they’re too busy putting on Star War displays!
Or helter skelters (Norwich). Or dressing people up as asparagus (Worcester). Or Extinction Rebellion’s neopaganism (Bristol).
The cathedrals are bizarre.
Anton;
I remember that in the Press that there was one Cathedral (perhaps Norwich ?) that had a Helter skelter, plus a golf putting course – but what was really amazing is that you had to actually pay, a not insubstantial sum of money, to use them !
I quite like asparagus.
During my time at the Cathedral it was clear that there was a strong yearning for more radical explorations of faith and how we love it out in our daily lives.
Really radical, or just ‘giving a buzz of faux-radical excitement but only so long as it doesn’t offend contemporary social mores’?
“S” –
“Radical explorations of faith and how we love it out it on our daily lives”.
A misquote; or an allusion to Gal. 5:6 ?
A misquote
[sic]
A cathedral service is about the best bargain free ticket anywhere, for what you get. No wonder it is so much in demand.
It is also, secondly, an opportunity to receive and not give, and to stay anonymous, as people do at night clubs and so on. Not that all attendees are in that category. Some of them give a very great deal.
Christopher (Shell) :
You mean, some Cathedrals charge an entry fee, but the Cathedral services are free (for those who live within five mile radius ??) ?
In your general experience, how long are are the Cathedral Sermons – and are they generally, spiritually uplifting ?
Cathedral services are free for everyone. Some cathedrals charge an entry fee for being a tourist. Some cathedrals have schemes that waive that fee for local practicing Anglicans (e.g. I know Ely Cathedral has a scheme that allows people on the electoral roll in churches in its diocese free entry).
Length of sermon will depend in part on which service you’re at, but generally I’d expect the high Church pattern of about 10-15 minutes. In my experience they can be great. Bristol Cathedral got me back to church in my 20s.
Thanks for your comments, AJ (Bell).
God bless you.
The trouble is that most people are within close access of only 1 or 2 cathedrals, so speaking generally is hard. Westminster Abbey has a good standard of sermon, superb music, dignified services.
Thank you for your comments, Christopher.
Several writers have referenced REVIVAL
I seriously wonder what they think revival might look like in their particular *faith* community? Also do they have any historic revival events within their *faith communities to recount? Otherwise you are simply bandying about words without knowledge.Job 38:2
God bless you, Alan.
Good to see you back, sir.
I’m 40.
I moved to the US in 2019, but before that I regularly attended a variety of churches in the UK from birth (church of Scotland, Methodist, cofe conservative evangelical, cofe charismatic, cofe cathedral, with occasional visits to the baptists and urc).
The churches that were “growing” were mostly retaining and recruiting people who were already Christians and put a lot of effort into counting attendance.
I can recall only meeting four people in this time (there my have been more) who joined Christianity. Two had complex social issues and were not welcome for very long. The other two became Christians and eventually CofE priests after walking into churches outside of service time and being convinced by the holy spirit.
Generally my experience of church has been one of decay and denial. Evangelism drives seemed more about reinforcing the right theology amongst people in the church than about bringing in new people.
That is the point – if we depart from Scripture we lose the power of the Holy Spirit to convert people. I have seen a number of folks without faith previously come to faith and committed church membership. I sometimes think that if we Christians devoted as much energy to discipling as we do to some of these debates (necessary though they are sometimes), we would see a very different church.
Funny how those who advocate self-identification, deny it to God!
Indeed!
Thank you for writing this.
Could you expand on what you mean when you say, “Gen 1 is very clear that neither sex on its own is the image of God.”?
You seem to be saying here that Genesis 1 teaches that no individual man is made in the in image of God and no individual woman is made in the image of God, but only when we have a couple or a group comprising both men and women can we speak of those people together being in the image of God. However, I’m not sure if that is what you intend to say, and it’s not clear that is what Genesis 1 teaches.
I think Genesis 1 teaches that every man is made in the image of God, but not because of his maleness and that every woman is made in the image of God, but not because of her femaleness, i.e. I don’t see “male and female he created them” as teaching that maleness and femaleness are essential for the image of God to be displayed to the full extent intended by God, instead, I see “male and female he created them” as teaching that every human being is made in the image of God, every male and every female.
I haven’t got the book to hand, but I think in Sex and Service of God, Christopher Ash makes the point that non-human animals are all male and female, but none of those animals is made in God’s image and so we should be slow to conclude that the “male and female he created them” is intended to teach that maleness and femaleness are central to what it means to be made in God’s image and reflect his likeness.
I don’t see “male and female he created them” as teaching that maleness and femaleness are essential for the image of God to be displayed to the full extent intended by God, instead, I see “male and female he created them” as teaching that every human being is made in the image of God, every male and every female.
It’s not either/or. Things can be made ‘in the image of’ something in different ways.
Consider things made ‘in the image of’ man. One way in which something can be made in the image of man is in form — so for example a statue, or a child’s doll, is made ‘in the image of man’.
But another way something can be made in the image of man is in function — so for example a robot arm on a factory assembly line is made ‘in the image of man’ even though it doesn’t visually look like a man at all — but it functionally replaces a man.
So what does it mean to be made ‘in the image of God’? Well, it doesn’t mean to be made in the form of God, because God doesn’t have a form. We aren’t made in the visible image of God because God is invisible.
So it must mean that we share some other attribute of God. But what? Well, what’s God’s main attribute? His creativity. God created the universe. And, indeed, we share that ability — we can create. Obviously not universes, but we can create poetry, music, stories, houses, bridges, ships, everything. And each individual man and woman is in this sense a complete image of God because each individual man and woman is capable of creating, just like God but on a smaller scale, irrespective of sex.
So yes, in that sense you are correct that ‘maleness and femaleness are [not] essential for the image of God to be displayed to the full extent intended by God’.
However God is also creative in another way — He created life. And an individual man or an individual woman can’t do that. But put them together and they can create life. So an individual man and an individual woman each fully displays the image of God. But a man-woman couple also fully displays the image of God — just in a slightly different way.
Just like the doll and the robot each fully display the image of man, but each in a different way, so an individual human and a male-female couple each display the creative image of God, just in different ways.