How to simply grow the church


Yesterday I had a delightful, brief conversation with a friend about what is happening in different dioceses.

Friend: Our bishop has turned our diocese around.

Me: How has he done that?

Friend: By not cutting clergy posts, and not appointing an archdeacon. Instead we have focussed on the question of stewardship.

Me: Surely it isn’t as simple as that?

Friend: No, not entirely, but other dioceses are doing the same. The problem is that too many have developed a groupthink from 20 years ago, that when you are struggling financially the answer is to cut clergy posts.

I was struck by this, because another friend had shared a post I wrote seven years ago on church growth, so I am sharing it again here. It offers a vital background to the recent spats about church planting, the role of clergy, ‘limiting factors’, and whether or not the decline in attendance for the Church of England will ever turn around.


CofE_Infographic_730width_v4A number of years ago, a friend of mine was leaving theological education to go back into parish ministry. ‘I’ll just go and grow the church for a few years’, he said blithely. I thought he was a fool to be so presumptuous. Yes, growing a church is easy: all you need to do is leave any security of home or livelihood, choose someone who will betray you, perform miracles, including raising the dead, upset the authorities, get crucified, and rise again. Easy!

The Church Growth Research Centre, set up and funded by the various institutions of the Church of England, has just reported (‘From anecdote to evidence‘) on factors in church growth. Of course, this is not the first time that people have been thinking about the human factors in church growth. The Revivalism in 19th-century America, led by Charles Finney and others, was driven to a large extent by a belief in creating the right conditions by which people would come to faith. And more recently the Church Growth Movement of the 1970s, led by Donald McGavran and C Peter Wagner at Fuller Seminary in California, advocated the Homogenous Unit Principle as vital for growing churches. (There is a good evaluation of this in a Lausanne Occasional Paper.) At every point, the idea that there are specific ‘conditions for growth’ is hotly contested. After all, Paul talks about his work and the work of other leaders as important, but only in the context where ‘God gives the growth’ (1 Cor 3.6). And Jesus appears in the gospels to attribute the growth of the kingdom to often mysterious, divine, forces. I have long pondered the phrase in Mark 4.28: the soil produces the grain ‘all by itself’, in Greek automate. (The word only occurs here and in Acts 12.10).

So it was no surprise to see Justin Welby hedging his bets—or perhaps taking a ‘both/and’ approach—in the press release for the Church Growth report.

The turnaround of the church is fundamentally in the hands of God. God is faithful. He has shown that in Jesus Christ, and He shows that to us every day in our lives—and in the lives of our churches together. But He calls on us to be his feet, his hands, his mouth, his eyes, his ears, who listen to and serve and love the people around us, who above all witness to the reality of the love of Jesus Christ.

A good executive summary of the findings can be found here. It makes interesting reading, and deserves to be taken notice of at every level. There were a number of things that stood out for me, and some implications which I think need teasing out more fully.

One interesting observation is that growth does not correlate with theological tradition—no one tradition within the Church has a monopoly on growth. This is worth reading with a little ‘hermeneutic of suspicion‘, since it would be difficult if not impossible for a Church-funded group to say otherwise. And it would suggest that the mix of traditions in the C of E stays constant, when we know this is not the case. But the report also makes two other observations the undermine this. The first is that churches grow (amongst other reasons) if the leadership are intentionally focussed on growth. This can happen anywhere, but some theological and church traditions are more amenable to this than others. The second is that cathedral attendance has grown significantly, and it would be hard to suggest that cathedrals have no ecclesial tradition!

CofE_Infographic_730width_v4This last fact (which has been noted before) offers two key challenges to the local church. The first is to recognise that different styles of worship appeal to different people, often at different times of one’s life. A key recipe for growth, then, would be to retain diversity of worship styles across different congregations meeting in the same building. This is reinforced by the fact of growth in ‘fresh expressions’ of church, particularly ‘cafe-style’ services. (You need to be careful with this term; I have been to supposed cafe-style services which were just traditional, but seated around tables.) This is surely a really good argument for planting congregations of different styles at different times of day within the same ‘church.’ Don’t think that just starting up a worship band will solve all your growth problems. People want depth as well as cultural resonance—and UK culture is pretty diverse these days.

But the second key challenge posed by the growth in cathedral worship is this: what kind of growth are we looking at? Counting ‘bums on seats’ is one thing, and not unimportant. But this growth has particularly been in cathedral mid-week services, and has been described as ‘believing without belonging.’ Is it even this? Attending a formal service with choral music without any sense of communal relationship could be nostalgia or (the sceptical might say) hedging one’s bets as the grave looms nearer! If ‘church growth’ is anything, it must include growth in discipleship and understanding, not just numbers. Still, discipleship cannot happen without attendance, so this must be a good start.


The report goes on to explore question of leadership, and notes:

The leadership qualities which stood out in the survey as being significant in relation to growth included:

  • Motivating
  • Envisioning
  • Innovating

Other important elements of leadership behaviour which are likely to be associated with growth include:

  • Having the ability to engage with outsiders and newcomers
  • Being intentional about worship style and tradition
  • Having a vision for growth and doing new things to make it happen
  • Prioritising growth
  • Being good at developing a vision and goals
  • Abilities in training people for ministry and mission

Although no more is made of this, these observations have significant implications for training of clergy and other leaders. What strikes me about these qualities is that, although there are elements of skill that are present here, fundamentally these things are about a person’s basic orientation in life—they are about character. So if we want leaders who are going to grow churches, we need training which focuses less on skills and competence, and more on the deep formation of character. Is it possible to do this whilst cramming a full-time theology degree into a part-time programme, with either continued work or ministry involvement alongside? Or do we need to set aside our future leaders for a process of formation? This is of course a question about full-time versus part-time training. I realise that this is not the only question to ask about training, but it is an important one, and I think it has been sidelined by more pragmatic considerations progressively since the Hind report more than ten years ago, which in effect turned theological education into a market. We will live to regret it—assuming growth overtakes decline, that is.

A second implication for training relates to the second part of ordination training, the curacy. As John Leach pointed out some years ago in his Grove booklet P 72 Visionary Leadership in the Local Church, curates should all be placed in growing churches, to ‘breath the air’ and form their own expectations for ministry and leadership.


Finally, this report has a serious challenge to diocesan and national strategy, though it is one that is hidden, since it is by way of omission. At every point there is the implication, never spelled out, that congregations need leadership—trained, theologically competent, but most crucially stipendiary leadership, that is, leaders who are set aside to give time to lead the congregation. I have never heard of any pattern of church growth, in any context, at any time of history, which did not involve leaders who had been set aside for the task of leadership. (Look at the importance of this to Paul in Acts 18.5.) To imagine that we could lose 40% of stipendiary clergy in the next 10 years through retirement, and not see continued, even dramatic, further decline in attendance is to live in a fantasy world. This is not to be clericalist, or deny the importance of lay leadership. In my diocese (Southwell and Nottingham) the last bishop Paul Butler committed to replace lost clergy posts with stipendiary lay posts, and in fact one of the examples in the Church Growth report was one such case. But nationally to plan for a decline in stipendiary leadership is to plan for the church as a whole to decline.

Almighty God,
you have entrusted to your Church
a share in the ministry of your Son our great high priest:
inspire by your Holy Spirit the hearts of many
to offer themselves for the ministry of your Church,
that strengthened by his power,
they may work for the increase of your kingdom
and set forward the eternal praise of your name;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen

(Collect for Ember Days)


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112 thoughts on “How to simply grow the church”

  1. Hi there, interesting article, this link doesn’t work. ‘hermeneutic of suspicion‘. Secondly, I believe that there US stats that indicate there are differences between liberalism and orthodoxy for church growth…but maybe when you talk about church traditions you mean something different, like amish versus methodism.

    Finally, this article defines church growth differently to how I would. I see church growth as bums on seats, christian growth as growth in spiritual maturity, and then there is growing ‘identification with the group’, which you could label as almost anything. The last two are not the same, but I suspect lead to the first.

    Reply
  2. I’m not sure how stewardship can be addressed on a diocesan wide basis. It is surely a matter for each local church to address. Where dioceses can help is by being transparent about finances, by minimising bureaucracy and by calculating parish share based on the cost of providing stipendiary clergy (with exceptions for UPA parishes) not on attendance.

    I don’t understand the obsession with stipendiary clergy. Much of what they do could be done by youth workers, administrators, lay pastors etc who are cheaper and more flexible.

    And losing 40% of stipendiary clergy doesn’t have to mean decline if we also close 40% of church buildings. rather than spread clergy more thinly.

    Reply
  3. I don’t quite see the logic that planning a reduction in paid leaders is automatically planning for a decline in the church. Is it not quite possible that there are too many paid leaders for the number of people who actually attend church?

    Reply
    • (1) The extensive use and prioritisation of cathedrals is absolutely right.

      (2) If more people start turning up at the cathedrals and fewer at the churches, then this could mean that the trend is towards less commitment and more privatisation, individualism, anonymity. This is confirmed by the trend towards urban living.

      (3) There is little connection between an aesthetic motive and an evangelistic one.

      (4) ‘Growth’ in what sense? The increase in cathedral attendance has never signalled or been associated with growth in numbers of Christians. So what is the growth that is spoken of here – is there any?

      (5) Cathedrals and communities are not to be pitted against each other. That is a basic philosophical error (false either/or). Both of them are good things, and where we have a good thing we want each good thing to increase in its own right. It is a bit like saying ‘George is now doing better at school, so it will be ok if Samuel henceforth does worse.’.

      Reply
      • Or (to summarise) we are seeing a negative trend (less commitment/involvement, less discipleship) and it is being palmed off to us as something positive. A second philosophical error, therefore.

        The negative trend is not increased cathedral attendance (far from it) but decreased average commitment or personal ‘involvement’ among church attenders in general.

        Reply
    • Thank you Andrew. I haven’t read this yet. I think there are many factors in Cathedral growth. One is the ‘professional’ liturgy. People are used to slick presentation, and I don’t mean that in a pejorative way; I think that’s also partly why urban evangelical churches grow, slick professionalism.
      Another factor is the anonymity; Cathedrals can carry many ‘passengers’. People who drop in for midweek evensong, people who like to drop into a Sunday Eucharist without being cooped to run the toddler group or become PCC treasurer……..
      I just love the liturgy and the music, and, mostly, the sermons, especially if you get a Canon Professor speaking ☺️

      Reply
  4. As a state church the Church of England has two functions which are now poles apart. Despite the talk about future growth, it seems that those with responsibility for guiding it into the future are failing to offer a coherent way of fulfilling both functions effectively at the same time. If, as seems obvious, they cannot come up with a way of doing so they should be clear about it. True spiritual growth (in numbers and/or maturity) may indeed depend on the unfathomable movement of the Holy Spirit; but it still behoves Christians to play their part in setting up the conditions for it to happen. How can this happen if we are now in a compromised position?

    Despite what we might want to believe, the role of being a state church is largely secular. The demands which concern state politics involve such things as representation of the people, the pragmatics of organisation, and the need for social cohesion. England is not a theocracy: there’s no longer any reason to pretend to ourselves that the state is run by godly men and women on behalf of a godly population. The Church of England is a historical inheritance which probably remains in existence because the state views it as beneficial (for social cohesion), that it is a harmless and occasionally useful part of the establishment, and that it would be a legal nightmare to disestablish.

    By God’s grace and through the work and witness of many heroic clergy and lay people over the years (who had an exceptional inheritance of doctrine, liturgy and parish resources) many Christians were able to present a good case that the CofE was ‘the best boat to fish from’. However the elephant in the room has always been the question of what would happen if the values and ideology of the state (government and people) diverged so far from Christianity that it became overtly antagonistic to the essential beliefs and moral presumptions of its state church. Many of us would say that we are now in this position; we would say that what has been happening is that the CofE has been bending to the opinions of the state rather than acting in the prophetic role of witnessing to the word of God and calling for repentance. Has the desire to maintain our rather comfortable place in the establishment superseded the inconvenience and unknown consequences of remaining faithful to our spiritual calling?

    And it is our other function – our Christian witness as God’s people, the call to holiness and the eternal perspective – which should really be what fires us up as a church. It’s a vision firstly of individual members’ faithfulness for however many years God gives each one of us to live on this earth, and secondly of our duty and excitement in presenting to other people the truth about God so that they too may become citizens of his eternal kingdom with a new life of eternal vastness and the intimacy which a child of God can have with his or her heavenly father.

    As an example, there’s a verse in the book of Proverbs which says, ‘The human spirit can endure in times of illness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?’ I believe our nation’s establishment, in its agnosticism and folly opted to crush people’s spirits as a means of controlling their behaviour in a psychological rather than a medical response to the problem of Coronavirus. There is obviously a lot more going on than that, but this is not the place! But far from reminding people that God is sovereign and can bring us through this temporary challenge, the Church of England – the state church – has doubled down on its establishment instinct and loyalty and, for a while, literally locked God out of the picture; it has failed dismally in its Christian witness at precisely the point when it is urgently needed and would be highly beneficial.

    How then can we be talking about growth when we have yet to decide (as a whole church) whether and how we can any longer continue with integrity and effectiveness in the dual position of spiritual pastors and Christian witnesses to the people of England and also recipients of privilege from our allegiance to an English establishment which so plainly disagrees with our core beliefs? It’s true we have to get on with the job right now, starting from where we are at the local level; but radical rethinking of whole organisation and processes while we are so clearly divided over what we believe and whether we can any longer fulfil a role both as the state church and a radical Christian witness seems to me to be premature.

    Reply
    • Living in Love and Faith confronts the Church with a choice: paper over the cracks in one way or the other and kick the tin can further down the road, or realise that this is the moment of truth, much deeper and more important than the sexuality disagreement (important though that is): do we agree with Martin Davie that the Church’s slogan must be ‘It’s eternity stupid’, or do we not.

      Phil Almond

      Reply
      • Yes indeed, Martin Davie has put it in nutshell. And he has solid support from St Paul: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

        Reply
    • “… radical rethinking … seems to me to be premature.” I think you meant “… radical rethinking … seems to me to be overdue.”

      Reply
      • I know what I meant; and I said what I meant. If you read my whole sentence again you might wish to revise what think I should have said!

        Reply
        • O gosh! Apologies. But we are in agreement I think. Suggesting here that the Establishment of the C of E (specifically, the C of E in England, not writing about Wales or Scotland) is not a privilege but a burden – as Colin Buchanan put it, a slavery compounded by the difficulty that so many of the slaves do not feel it and therefore have no desire to escape from it.

          Reply
          • Sorry Jamie, there was no need to apologise. I was brief, brutal and ungracious (partly for reasons of limited time!)

            But, yes, I’m sure we would both agree that there are likely to be inherent tensions when a Christian church is tied to the state. I think it can only make sense when the church (particularly its leadership) remains a fearless witness to Christ and the Christian gospel. If they lose the will to do that, they are in effect denying Christ, and the Holy Spirit’s power will depart from the church – apart from individual parishes (in the case of the CofE) where clergy and people remain faithful.

            So I agree that radical thinking about church growth is overdue but I’m not sure God will bless our efforts if we haven’t first made the radical choice of putting to death in our hearts that love of privilege about which Colin Buchanan spoke. We need to do the radical thinking in the right order if we are to arrive at coherent plans which God can use.

  5. From someone who has described separation as the CoE leavinng him, rather than him leaving the CoE.
    It alludes to far more than the title may suggest, including the some of the points Don Benson makes about it being the state church.

    https://www.christiantoday.com/article/has.the.church.of.england.become.just.as.afraid.of.speaking.about.death.as.everyone.else/137105.htm

    Even so, S’s link is tragically, prophetically- progressive; funny. Little has changed, other than intensification.

    Reply
    • Little has changed, other than intensification.

      The only but that’s dated is Sir Humphrey’s crack about politicians wanting to talk about morals while bishops want to talk about politics. The bishops are still banging on about politics, of course, but no politician these days would dare express a moral opinion.

      The bishops were ahead of the curve on that one.

      Reply
      • The language of our politicians is more moralistic than it has ever been, only it’s morality based on rejection of God. The moral terms in which the political response to the virus was framed (Save lives, protect the NHS), continuing today in the moral pressure placed on those who do not wish to be vaccinated, is one example. The Church bought into this totally and shut its doors. The regular appeal to human rights (women’s rights, including the right to abort, LGBT rights, the right to free meals, the right to kill oneself etc) is another manifestation. ‘Wokism’ is essentially atheistic morality reduced to its ultimate self-righteous absurdity, and nearly all politicians are woke to some degree or another.

        Sir Humphrey was spot on at the time, and continues to be now. The Church of England’s decline, a long-term phenomenon, is a direct consequence of the decadence – at heart, the immorality – satirised. Just in terms of attendance numbers, in the 10 years up to 2019, the last recorded year, it shrank 20%. If there has been further qualitative decline since Sir Humphrey, it is seen more at the local leadership level, with clergy being increasingly unwilling to say anything of a moral nature: anything that reminds the congregation that God will hold us all to account at the end of our lives. Not all churches warrant the stricture, but “God loves you, and accepts you just as you are” is the dominant theme. And of course, that is an amoral message.

        Reply
        • Funny that. The Jesus I encounter in the gospel had the odd idea that women and LGBTIQ people were people too, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and the apple of God’s eye.
          He also had the odd idea that saving lives and feeding people were good things.
          Silly woke snowflake.

          Reply
          • LGBTIQ people in the gospels? Agreed that Jesus affirmed and knew the extreme value of each person, not each action or lifestyle – but not agreed that he would make a 21st century classification which has not been a normal way of classifying otherwise than in our very limited culture. Why would he do that? To treat Jesus that way as captive to a distant culture is to commit intellectual suicide re how people will henceforth regard your historical judgments.

          • The Jesus I encounter in the gospel had the odd idea that women and LGBTIQ people were people too, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and the apple of God’s eye.

            Certainly Jesus as objectively recorded in the gospels (which is the important thing, not any subjective ‘encounter’) treated everyone he met as a person, but where do you get ‘we are fearfully and wonderfully made’ or ‘the apple of God’s eye’? The latter especially sounds a lot like the modern ‘God is nice and He made you however you are and loves you just as you are’, which doesn’t really mesh with the records we have of Jesus, who rarely if ever met anyone without telling them that they were in some important way wrong and needed to change, whether that was by leaving their home and following him, stopping their sinning, giving away their money, or repaying those they had stolen from.

            ‘Affirming Jesus’, who just tells people they are ‘the apple of God’s eye’, doesn’t really appear in the gospels, I think he is just your invention. The one recorded in the gospels is Demanding Jesus and He most definitely does not go around telling people how wonderfully made they are.

          • “Certainly Jesus as objectively recorded in the gospels (which is the important thing, not any subjective ‘encounter’) “
            The Gospels don’t have any *objective* recording. The writings in the gospels are not transcripts. There were never any tape recordings. They were all written with the benefit of post resurrection spectacles. They were written as Heilsgeschichte: an interpretation of history emphasizing God’s saving acts and viewing Jesus Christ as central in redemption. It’s all about an encounter.

          • It’s difficult to know what that means, as it sounds so vague. It is not what our earliest sources tell us. Papias says that Mark took care not to leave out anything (i.e. events etc) that Peter had told him.

          • That is also contested Christopher, as you must be aware. The sayings from Papias lack real context. And Papias is clear that Mark was interpreting Peter. Both Peter and Mark were working from memory. Papias is clear that Mark didn’t write them in any order. Papas is clear that Mark didn’t ever hear Jesus and didn’t accompany him. None of that adds up to anything that is remotely objective. Peter was not always the most objective of disciples, from what we understand.
            Papias’ testimony simply reaffirms that the gospels are not transcripts and that there was no tape recorder.

          • The Gospels don’t have any *objective* recording.

            If you mean they aren’t impartial, then that of course is true. But my point isn’t about the objectivity if the recording but about the objectivity of reading, ie, what is important when interpreting Jesus as recorded in the gospels is what is actually there on the page (however it got there), not one’s subjective experiences.

            In this way the Bible is no different to any other text: you have to engage with what’s actually there, not just use it to form your own subjective impressions of ‘encountering’ the text.

          • Christopher

            So Christ isn’t resurrected? The historical Jesus is all we know of Christ? He didn’t send his Spirit?
            Besides which, the historical Jesus was affirming of queer people: barren women, children, eunuchs.

            S
            If you don’t know those citations I suggest you try reading the Bible.

          • If you don’t know those citations I suggest you try reading the Bible.

            They come from the Psalms. But you wrote:

            ‘ The Jesus I encounter in the gospel had the odd idea […] that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and the apple of God’s eye.’

            When does the Jesus presented in the gospel express anything like these sentiments?

            When Jesus in the gospel is challenged about why He consorts with sinners, does He reply, ‘Of course I spend time with them, for they are fearfully and wonderfully made, the apples of God’s eye’? Or does He say, ‘Because they are sick and need a doctor’?

          • Or when the Jesus in the gospels speaks about oneself, does He say, ‘Celebrate yourself, for you are wonderfully and fearfully made, the apple of God’s eye’?

            Or does He say, ‘Deny yourself, and take up your cross’?

          • S

            Has anyone let you into the secret that Jesus is God yet?
            It’s right there in the gospel.

          • Besides which, the historical Jesus was affirming of queer people: barren women, children, eunuchs.

            None of those groups are ‘queer’. Barren women can be heterosexual and as most people are heterosexual they most often are, simply by statistics, so not ‘queer’. Children are pre-sexual, so neither homosexual nor heterosexual, so not ‘queer’. And eunuchs were maimed by a cruel operation, and usually bought and sold as slaves — there’s no reason to think they themselves were any more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual, given they had no choice in the matter, so again, not ‘queer’.

          • Has anyone let you into the secret that Jesus is God yet?
            It’s right there in the gospel.

            This I assume is you admitting that you can’t find any instances of Jesus in the gospels expressing anything close to the sentiments you claimed He did, and therefore admitting that you were totally wrong. I therefore accept your concession.

          • Andrew-

            None of which is the point about Papias that was under discussion. However, you like these other points – because you like negative things? An unaccountable mindset. Sensible people like positive things, the exact reverse. And academics like being comprehensive, i.e. not being selective but adding together all the evidence both the helpful and the unhelpful, and seeing what we end up with.

            The point was about the content that Mark got from Peter. He was with Peter when Peter spoke about events, and took care to record all those events that he remembered. The other things you say are true, and we often make them in different contexts than this. But it is hard to see how they make that first point less true. You would only need to make the other points (a) if they were relevant, (b) if anyone had ever denied them.

            It is almost as though you see any positive point at all about historicity and are so alarmed that you have to quash it with 5 negative ones. Which is where objectivity and lack of bias go out of the window.

            It reminds me of the rather unintelligent mindset that scepticism is always clever and affirming historical accounts is always naive.

          • Penny-

            To be a child is to be queer?

            To be a child? is to be queer?

            Hands up those who have never been a child.

            Queer is abnormal/minority in some way. To be or have been a child is to be in the 100% majority.

            I am not sure barren women would appreciate being called queer one bit. It would just create unnecessary alienation.

            I have never in fact understood how anyone can enjoy or like being called queer. But (some) homosexual people seem to be the only group one can think of that is pleased to receive this designation. This being the case, it is not nice to lump other people with it against their will. It is a bit like being called odd, and to call someone odd shows no will to understand them.

            Healthy people like receiving healthy designations, not thin and alienated ones.

          • S

            I didn’t realise you were a Marcionite.

            Also, you don’t get to decide who’s queer, hence the Q in LGBTIQ +. Halvor Moxnes is good on this.

          • It’s as bad as ‘anonymous Christians’ – going round to unsuspecting people – prominent among which are all children everywhere – saying ‘You’re queer whether you like it or not.’. Ugh.

            ‘Halvor Moxnes said it.’ ‘Phew! That’s all right then. I thought for a moment that I was being got at.’

            I know a lot of good parents and a lot of good teachers. I do not know one who would do other than be repulsed by the idea of calling their children ‘queer’.

          • I didn’t realise you were a Marcionite.

            Maybe because I’m not? At all? And I’m at a loss as to whether you think I might be?

            Have you managed to find anywhere in the gospels where Jesus expresses any sentiments that are even within a million miles of those you attributed to ‘The Jesus I encounter in the gospel’?

            Also, you don’t get to decide who’s queer, hence the Q in LGBTIQ +.

            Interesting. So who does get to decide who’s queer? Do the people you are lumping into ‘queer’ get any choice in the matter? Is there a forum where they can object to being dumped into a bucket with people they may have nothing in common with at all? Or do you just expect to be able to slap a label on them and have them like it or lump it?

          • “None of which is the point about Papias that was under discussion.”

            It’s exactly the point that *is*under discussion. You introduced Papias. I responded. Mark might not have left anything out that Peter told him. Papias May say that. But Papias makes those other points as well. That Mark was *interpreting*, which is rather different to copying. That Mark changed the order, which of course can change the meaning.

            The point under discussion was objectivity. Mark is not an objective recorder of events, and your appeal to Papias makes that more, not less, clear.

          • The point under discussion was objectivity. Mark is not an objective recorder of events

            The point under discussion was objectivity of reading, ie, of basing one’s interpretations on what is actually on the page, rather than your subjective impressions .

            It was you who brought in the misinterpretation that it was about objectivity of recording , which it wasn’t.

          • Christopher

            As I have just recommended to S, read Halvor Moxnes. Also Lee Edelman, Judith Halberstam, Karen Bray and Jose Munoz are good on the child as queer.

          • S

            Simple. You clearly think the Jesus of the gospels is different from the God of the HB.
            The one who told us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
            You obviously think Jesus wouldn’t agree with that.

            Oh, and LGBTIQ + people aren’t sinners. Well, no more than the rest of us.

          • On no authority can you or anyone else call any of my children queer, and parents throughout the world will echo that. Whatever clever-clever analysis has been done.

          • Oh dear Christopher, you’re always suggesting that people read what are they teaching the children? So may I suggest you read Halvor Moxnes, ‘Putting Jesus in his place’. He’s a NT scholar, thesis on Romans. Right up your street.

          • Simple. You clearly think the Jesus of the gospels is different from the God of the HB.

            Can’t really answer that one until you explain what you mean by ‘HB’. Holy Bible? Something else?

            The one who told us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
            You obviously think Jesus wouldn’t agree with that.

            Actually I think Jesus would have agreed that we were once fearfully and wonderfully made, but that since we were made we were broken by sin — it’s called the Fall — and so we are no longer fearful or wonderful, but crippled, degraded and depraved shadows of what we could be and were meant to be, in need of the restoration and healing that He came to provide through His sacrifice and the blood He shed for us.

            The thing you have to bear in mind about the psalms is that they are occasional writing. Each one conveys a facet of the truth. For every psalm 17 there’s a psalm 6. No single psalm shows the whole picture, so you can’t just pull a line out of a psalm and base theology on it.

            (Also I note that psalm 17 is credited to King David. Well if King David really did write:

            Though you probe my heart,
            though you examine me at night and test me,
            you will find that I have planned no evil;
            my mouth has not transgressed.

            Then it’s bollocks, isn’t it? david was quite the sinner, and he definitely planned evil and transgressed. So I wouldn’t necessarily rely on anything he has to say, the self-serving hypocrite.)

            Oh, and LGBTIQ + people aren’t sinners. Well, no more than the rest of us.

            Which is to say, they are sinners. Just like the rest of humanity.

          • Oh dear Christopher, you’re always suggesting that people read what are they teaching the children?

            Well I’ve never suggested anyone read anything else and I always outline any arguments I’m making, so perhaps you could explain to me how a child, who is pre-sexual and so neither homosexual or heterosexual, but who (just by statistics) is overwhelmingly likely to grow up to be heterosexual, can be ‘queer’.

            And do the children get any say in this? Or do you just get to label them? I thought you were against applying labels to people without their consent but apparently it’s okay when you do it to children?

          • “If you mean they aren’t impartial, then that of course is true. But my point isn’t about the objectivity if the recording but about the objectivity of reading,”

            Thanks S. I was in fact responding to Christopher in his point about Papias.
            BUT it is very good to see you acknowledge that what is recorded is not necessarily exactly what happened.

          • S

            I decided some time ago that I would no longer engage with you because you are firstly a troll, and secondly will not argue in good faith – at least with those whom you regard as ‘liberal’.
            Unfortunately, I broke my own resolution.
            People are usually anonymous on social media for one of two reasons:
            a) they are in some way vulnerable and are anxious about instigating a pile on;
            b) they are a troll.
            Since yoy have given no indication of being the former, I must conclude that you are a troll.
            As for examples of your not arguing in good faith; you constantly nitpick and quibble over perfectly unexceptionable views.
            For example, your problem with the term encounter to describe how one meets Jesus in the gospels. We encounter God in scripture and in worship; we eat Jesus at the Eucharist. Unless, we are gifted with visions and revelations, like St Paul and Julian of Norwich, how else are we to encounter God? How and where do you encounter God, S?
            Secondly, you show your ignorance of NT scholarship, cf. your exchange with Andrew regarding God spilling ink. There is no reason why you should have knowledge of NT scholarship – most people don’t – but carping at people who do just makes you look rather silly. BTW HB stands for Hebrew Bible (i.e. those writings which we also call the Old Testament). And in this HB, long after the fall, God tells us that we are fearfully and ownderfully made. Not *were*, but *are*.
            An example of this is your conclusion that eunuch must mean a man with crushed testicles. Actually you don’t need to read any NT scholars, but only Matthew 19, to see that Jesus was using the term metaphorically, as well as literally. Some queer people claim eunuchs as queer ancestors, but that really isn’t the point here. Jesus is claiming the kingdom for eunuchs, barren women, children, sex workers, tax collectors, people who leave the dead to bury the dead, rich young men who give up all their possessions, people who hate their family…….all liminal people (i.e. queer). That message is as scandalous today as it was 2000 years ago, but we (the church?) try to play down the scandal and make the gospel respectable. That’s no doubt why Christopher, who is a NT scholar finds the idea of the queer child unacceptable. Both he and you assume that queer always maps onto sexuality.
            Furthermore, I infer that you believe that there is always a ‘correct’ answe, and that this is why you constatntly quibble. I don’t much care if Halvor Moxnes (a NT Professor in Oslo) is ‘correct’ in his reading of Matthew 19; I find it persuasive and it’s not a salvation issue . Similarly, pace the conversation between Andrew and Christopher re the Papias document, I don’t believe Mark relied on direct eyewitness evidence from Peter, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s fascinating, it might influence how we read scripture, but it won’t ‘save’ us. Jesus did that. So I bid you farewell. Not only have we wasted too much precious time on this exchange, it has also taken us a long way from church growth.

          • Penny-

            I have no idea whether ‘queer’ always maps onto sexuality.

            It is only a coined word anyway, so it can mean exactly what its coiner wants it to mean. It can lump together disparate categories of people, if its coiner so wishes. We others may think the coiner is confusing rather than clarifying by lumping together disparate categories of people. So why on earth should we use an unappetising word like that?

            But on this we can all be very clear:
            If people do not regard themselves in that way
            or do not own the classification
            or react negatively to it

            then what business has anyone to lumber them with such a designation and order them that they cannot escape from it even if they want to?

            Coining words and applying them to vast categories of people is the easiest thing in the world.

            The vaster the collections of categories, the vaguer the meaning.

            So, my question: Are you happy forcibly to apply this word to people who react negatively to it and want no part in it?

          • Andrew-

            All that happened was simple everyday things:

            (1) Peter preached

            (2) Mark remembered the content

            (3) Mark obviously did not know in what order the stories happened

            (4) So when Mark came to draw up his account he had the right stories but had to devise a thematic non-chronological order apart from in cases where the order was obvious (Holy Week, start of ministry etc.).

            So Mark just did what everyone else would have done in the same situation. Why then should he be criticised for it?

          • Penny –

            Your position on Papias seems to me
            (1) unevidenced, baldly stated without support
            (2) unnuanced, extreme
            (3) in defiance of the very early evidence that does exist

            It is not Papias but Papias’s Elder (presumably John the Elder, an eyewitness, but if not he then someone of his eyewitness generation) who says that Mark wrote down ‘accurately’ ‘all’ that he recalled of what Peter had told, though not in order.

            Since few strong chronological markers are given in Mark anyway, the relative chronology is neither here nor there when it comes to assessing individual stories’ historicity.

          • Christopher: I am not aware that anyone was criticising Mark for anything? All that was said was that his testimony was not objective, which even S agrees with. I really am not sure what your point is.

          • What do you mean by not objective? Details and specifics? He is not unobjective either. He is just doing what one does in that situation.

          • What do you mean by not objective?

            If — if — he is using ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘impartial’, then he is of course right: Mark is not impartial. He is writing with a purpose. He has picked a side. So in that sense Mark’s records are not objective.

            That doesn’t mean Mark is making stuff up of course. And if Mr Godsall is using ‘objective’ in any sense other than ‘impartial’ — for example if he’s using it in the sense in which it is the opposite of ‘subjective’ — then he’s wrong. Mark’s records are not subjective. They record (in edited form) external events, not internal states and feelings, and in that sense Marks records are objective, not subjective.

          • Jesus is claiming the kingdom for eunuchs, barren women, children, sex workers, tax collectors, people who leave the dead to bury the dead, rich young men who give up all their possessions, people who hate their family…….all liminal people (i.e. queer).

            What exactly do you mean by ‘liminal’ here? The term means ‘threshold’, ie, something which is on the boundry between two categories, not really part of either. So for example the seashore around the tideline is a ‘liminal’ place, as it is sometimes covered by water and sometimes not, so it is neither a permanent part of the land nor a permanent part of the sea.

            So in what sense is a first-century Israeli tax collector ‘liminal’? What two worlds does he stand between? I guess you could say the Jewish world and the Roman world, but that seems like a bit of a stretch, and doesn’t apply to any of your other categories. What two worlds do eunuchs stand between? Barren women? And children… teenager are definitely a liminal category, as they are not fully children, but not fully adults. But children? How is that a ‘liminal’ category?

            (Yes, I do demand terminological exactitude. I won’t apologise for that. It is important to be clear about what you mean, to avoid vagueness and equivocation.)

            Both he and you assume that queer always maps onto sexuality.

            Well, in the term’s common modern usage it does, doesn’t it? I mean maybe you’re trying to use it in an older sense, but you do realise that if you do you will look as silly as those people who say, ‘I’m feeling very gay today. I mean I’m happy! Didn’t you know that gay means happy? What did you think I meant?’

            The more important point though is that if you say groups A, B, C, D and E are all ‘queer’ then you imply they all have some property or properties in common that (a) unites them and (2) distinguishes them from other groups (that are not ‘queer’). I think it’s reasonable to ask you what properties those are?

            (I guess you could instead claim you’re using it as a kind of Wittgenstein ‘family resemblance’ term, like ‘games’ or ‘birds’ but in that case you have to still have to justify that there is some important resemblance worth mentioning, and also accept that it’s next to impossible to reason about such ill-defined classes, or draw conclusions from them.)

            And finally finally — didn’t Jesus claim the Kingdom for everyone? Does that mean that by your definition everyone is ‘queer’? Am I queer?

            Furthermore, I infer that you believe that there is always a ‘correct’ answe, and that this is why you constatntly quibble.

            Not always. Depends on the type of question. ‘What really happened in the Marabar Caves?’ doesn’t have a ‘correct’ answer (even to ask the question, really, is a category error).

            Sometimes, though, one gets the impression that you think there is never a correct answer, and that’s even more wrong than thinking there is always one.

          • It’s entirely obvious from reading the thread what is meant by objective.
            The writings in the gospels are not transcripts. There were never any tape recordings. They were all written with the benefit of post resurrection spectacles. They were written as Heilsgeschichte: an interpretation of history emphasizing God’s saving acts and viewing Jesus Christ as central in redemption.
            Peter preached. That was by no means impartial. Mark wrote it down, in order to persuade readers of the truth of the gospel.
            This is all basic.
            Nowhere does Mark ‘make anything up’. But everywhere is the *possibility* that the writings don’t entirely match what actually happened 30 or more years before.
            None of that means it isn’t true. All of that means it isn’t a transcript of a tape recording of the actual event.
            This is basic scriptural analysis.

          • “The Bible is a collection of books gathered together over many centuries. It contains laws, poems, stories, letters, wisdom sayings, and prophetic pronouncements. Whenever you read it, every word you read has a human history. Every one of them was written by a human hand, in a particular place and time. Every one was touched by many other hands before it ended up in this collection we call the Bible. The Bible therefore rings with the voices of all kinds of people. It is shaped by their differing backgrounds, their cultures, their assumptions and their experiences – including their affections and desires, their intimate relationships, and their sense of their own identity.”
            That’s the sense in which it is not objective.

          • Nowhere does Mark ‘make anything up’. But everywhere is the *possibility* that the writings don’t entirely match what actually happened 30 or more years before.

            There’s a big difference, though, between ‘don’t entirely match’ — which implies, perhaps, some differences in phrasing, or who exactly was present, or numerical details — and what you think, which is that none of the miracles recorded actually happened, isn’t there? In fact an absolutely huge difference?

          • That’s the sense in which it is not objective.

            Tell you what. As you like setting out a list and then demanding people assign themselves to a category, here’s all the meaning for the adjective ‘objective’ from the OED. Which one do you mean?

            As I wrote above, if you mean 8.a , then you’re right that Mark’s gospel is not objective. If on the other hand you mean 3.a or 3.b then you’re wrong. If you mean 4.a then you’re just weird.

             A. adj.
             I. Senses relating to objects, their function, and perception.
             
            1. Of or relating to an object. Obsolete. rare.
             
            2. Theology.
             
             a. Associated with or considered in relation to its object; material as opposed to formal. Obsolete.
             
             b. Of or relating to the end or purpose as the cause of action (see also objective cause n. at Compounds). Obsolete.
             
             3. Philosophy.
             
            a. Existing as an object of thought or consciousness as opposed to having a real existence; considered as presented to the mind rather than in terms of inherent qualities. Opposed to subjective adj. 2. Obsolete. […]

             b. That is or belongs to what is presented to consciousness, as opposed to the consciousness itself; that is the object of perception or thought, as distinct from the subject; (hence) (more widely) external to or independent of the mind. […]

             4. attributive. Optics.
             
             a. Designating or relating to the lens or combination of lenses in a refracting telescope, microscope, etc., that is nearest the object to be viewed. Frequently in objective lens. Cf. sense B. 3.
             
             b. Astronomy. Designating or involving a prism or a diffraction grating that is located in front of the objective of a refracting telescope, and disperses the incident light such that the image of any object is seen as a spectrum, thus enabling the spectra of a group of stars to be recorded in a single photograph. Esp. in objective grating, objective prism, objective spectroscope. 

            †5. Of a line, point, etc.: belonging to or being an object to be delineated in perspective. Obsolete. 

             6. That is an object of sensation or thought to a person, faculty, etc. (now rare). Also: Philosophy, †related as object to subject (see object n. 5) (obsolete). 

             7. Grammar. Expressing, designating, or referring to the object of an action;[…]

             8.
             
             a. Of a person or his or her judgement: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts; impartial, detached. Also (formerly) (now rare): dealing with or laying stress upon that which is external to the mind; concerned with outward things or events rather than inward thoughts or feelings. 

             b. Medicine. Designating a sign of disease that can be observed by another, as opposed to a symptom perceived only by the patient. 
            †II. Senses relating to objection.
             
             9. Characterized by objecting; that states objections (cf. objectively adv. 1). Obsolete.

          • Christopher

            I did not write that individualk barren women, children, sex workers, eunuchs were quuer, but that they are fugured as queer in Jesus’
            eschatological sayings on the kingdom/resurrection life.
            ‘These texts are not social descriptions of life in the group of followers of Jesus…they represent what we might call a symbolic world, “spaces of representation”‘.
            ‘Jesus’ symbolic world did not resemble that of married couples and their households; instead, marriage was explicitly barred from the heavenly world. The eunuch breaks with the masculine role, the barren woman with the role of the ideal housewife and mother; and the single child with the child integrated into the hosuehold structures of obedience to parents.
            This transgression of roles did not mean the abolition of place, but its transformation.

            Yes, queer is a coined words So are all words. They are all made up.
            Some are flexible, some change their meaning(s).

            No, I didn’t cite my source for the unreliability of Papias. You didn’t cite your source for believing his account to be authentic.

          • I did not write that individualk barren women, children, sex workers, eunuchs were quuer, but that they are fugured as queer in Jesus’
            eschatological sayings on the kingdom/resurrection life.

            What you actually wrote was:

            ‘Besides which, the historical Jesus was affirming of queer people: barren women, children, eunuchs.’

            When you introduce a list with a classification like that, does that not usually mean that the elements of the list are meant to be members of the class?

            For example, if I were to write ‘the Labour party is now entirely the domain of over-credentialled people: academics, unemployed media studies graduates, queer theologians’ then I am saying that people who belong to the classes listed all have the property of being over-credentialled, am I not? I think I am.

            So I don’t think you can deny that, at least as written, you were saying that barren women, children and eunuchs all are classes of people who have the property ‘queer’.

            If that’s not what you meant, fine, and thank you for clarifying that your original statement was mistaken, but you should have written it differently.

          • S, I’ve explained the way in which it isn’t objective. Let me say it one last time, and then I’m not saying anymore on the subject. Here you go

            “The Bible is a collection of books gathered together over many centuries. It contains laws, poems, stories, letters, wisdom sayings, and prophetic pronouncements. Whenever you read it, every word you read has a human history. Every one of them was written by a human hand, in a particular place and time. Every one was touched by many other hands before it ended up in this collection we call the Bible. The Bible therefore rings with the voices of all kinds of people. It is shaped by their differing backgrounds, their cultures, their assumptions and their experiences – including their affections and desires, their intimate relationships, and their sense of their own identity.”
            That’s the sense in which it is not objective.

          • I’ve explained the way in which it isn’t objective.

            You keep using that word, ‘objective’, but you won’t explain what you mean by it.

          • S: if you can’t read the explanation I’ve posted at least twice then you must have a problem with your computer.
            Penny is exactly right. You are simply a troll. I won’t be engaging with you in discussion any further.

          • I too believe Andrew is using ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘impartial’. But he has frequently adopted a stance wherein nobody is impartial. Could he therefore cite someone who he thinks is more objective than Mark at 40 years’ distance?

            Penny, your use of ‘authentic’ puzzles me. It is the wrong word. The reasons for taking Papias’s account seriously are:
            (1) He was eager to find out the early history and quizzed people to that end. To someone like that, accurate information is beloved whereas inaccurate information is a waste of time. He took care to seek out only the best sources (eschewing those who were not ‘a living and abiding voice’), so he would not be in much danger of getting inaccurate information.
            (2) He is quoting an eyewitness assuming (3) is correct. Albeit a younger eyewitness.
            (3) The eyewitness in question was a towering figure who likely wrote the 4th gospel (2nd to be written). This is because the alternatives seem largely to be ruled out, since they would require that more than one person could call themselves ‘The Elder’ without exception – see Johannine letters – which would be a confusing title unless there were indeed only one of them. This would be unlikely enough even if Papias had not cited John the Elder as one of his two living eyewitness sources of information. But in fact he had done so, making the identification still more likely.
            (4) John the evangelist is not above being critical of Mark, and upends all the Gethsemane sayings as part of his higher (and less human, certainly more in control and conventionally victorious) Christology.
            (5) The combination of commending Mark’s accuracy and also his pains to be comprehensive while also pointing out the flaw that Mark was never in a position to provide a fully accurate chronology – this suggests a balanced judgment. If someone commends and also criticises that suggests they are speaking pretty accurately.

          • Christopher

            You’re very sure of Papias’ claims from a few fragments and some refs in Eusebius.
            I’m less sure.

          • “I too believe Andrew is using ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘impartial’. But he has frequently adopted a stance wherein nobody is impartial. Could he therefore cite someone who he thinks is more objective than Mark at 40 years’ distance?”

            Christopher: no one was impartial when it came to writing the scriptures. Even S acknowledges that much. Read what I have written, and that is very clear.
            And of course I can’t cite anyone more objective. You are missing the point. No one is objective, especially at 40 years distance. This is a basic point about biblical studies. They are not transcripts, and there were no tape recordings.

          • With regard to “LGBTIQ people”, I suspect that Jesus was too intelligent to have accepted that sham ideological construct, if it had been proposed to him. It no more denotes any genuine category of people than does any other equally illogical and misleading initialism that anyone might take the notion to concoct.

          • Penelope:

            “Also, you don’t get to decide who’s queer”

            Nor do you, Penelope. The only people – apart, just possibly, from vicious criminals – whom you are entitled to call “queer” are those who have personally and explicitly asked you, or at least permitted you, to do so. (I would guess that such people will probably have serious personality problems, but that is their business.) You have no right whatever to apply that derogatory label to anyone else – either an individual or a group of people, e.g. gays – so kindly have the elementary courtesy to stop doing it.

          • Which is exactly my point. If you consider no-one to be objective, then it is not a devastating criticism of Mark to call him not objective. It is merely what you *would* say if you consider no-one objective. Meanwhile some central characteristics of liberalism are illustrated:

            (a) returning ad infinitum to the same old points
            (b) having made no progress in the interim but just criticised and effectively been parasitic on those who have made progress
            (c) thinking that muddying the issue is progress, when it is just a delaying tactic in the eyes of those who love truth and believe it is often attainable
            (d) sweeping generalisation (no-one has ever been objective)
            (e) not addressing the question that even if in fact no-one had ever been objective, some would have been far more objective than others, so who are they and how do they manage it?

          • You are entirely missing the point Christopher, which conservative people tend to do. But no matter. At least the LLF document *has* grasped the point, and for that we must be extremely grateful.

          • To catalogue the ways that falls short of accuracy:
            (1) You speak of ‘the point’ as though there were only one.
            (2) You say I am mistaken, but do not in any way demonstrate that by outlining wherein I am mistaken.
            (3) You lump me with ‘conservative people’ and in doing so make 2 errors: (a) you have often noted that I am not ideologically conservative at all (though I can be as conservative as you like when the evidence points that way) and have sought to benefit from that in NT matters; (b) you are depersonalising and saying that everybody in that category is the same. Am I guilty of the same? I am just noting that I have seen patterns repeating themselves in discourse with self-styled liberals.

          • Penelope, these are simple yes/no issues, so why forbear from being straightforward? What is there to hide?

            Do you agree with forcibly labelling people with this label who react to it with revulsion?

            How do you assess psychologically those who would own or take on a negative label?

            Do find a label meaningful if it lumps together all kinds of minorities together with a group (children) that is such a majority that it includes everyone who has ever been born?

            And finally would you approve parents and/or teachers sitting their precious children down and telling them that they are queer?

            This is a million miles from Jesus heading in the opposite direction. Jesus sat the children down, blessed them, They ran to him. He said that their perspective was the right one.

          • Christopher: let’s just see which points we can agree on.
            Firstly, would you be so kind as to tell me what you think of S’ theory, described here, that if people made inaccuracies when writing or copying bits of scripture, then God caused a bottle of ink to spill over the manuscript to render it useless and prevent any errors in scripture?

          • Christopher

            You are a NT scholar. So how come you don’t understand figurative speech?
            In Matt. 19 is Jesus telling his followers, who have left families to follow him, that they are ‘literally’ eunuchs?
            Are you going to tell followers of Christ that they are eunuchs?
            Are the barren women and children ‘literally’ queer (by which I suppose you mean gay)?
            Jesus is valourisng ascetism over against the patriarchal family structure.
            Children are no longer the property of their parents; they are presexual beings and inheritors of the Kingdom.
            As I said before, read Halvor Moxnes. Have you access to ebooks in an academic library? Maybe you could order a copy for your bookshop.

          • Christopher and William

            And BTW, it’s not a ‘negative label’.
            It’s a slur repurposed to describe ‘an identity without an essence’.
            Just as Jesus did with the sour ‘eunuch’.

          • It seems like an inner drive to tar as many people with the label ‘queer’ as possible.

            Whether the term is or is not pejorative, many will experience it as such. You have not answered the main question – ought it to be imposed on anyone? And in particular ought it to be imposed on those who do not like or own it?

            Why would I order in a book that had no chance of selling? On the advice of someone who did not know my shop, to boot? And a book that advocates something that so many would strongly disagree with? The quintessential thumbs-down.

            This is incidentally an interesting point. The books people ask for in Catholic and Anglican bookshops have never been more dissimilar.

            You seem amazed that a word has a certain usage. Of course it will have that usage if people *deliberately* start using that word that way.

          • Christopher

            Your ideological approach is showing again.
            How can you ‘tar’ people with a term which is neither insult nor slur?

            I have now explained on two occasions how the concept and term queer is being used figuratively, and you are still going on about particular people being called queer against their wishes.

            I appreciate that an academic work might not be appropriate for a popular religious bookshop, although I would be delighted if I found work by ‘top’ NT scholars in shops selling popular religious books.
            I am also alarmed that you think neither you nor your readers would agree with the book’s premise. Do you believe Jesus was wrong to teach that children, barren women and eunuchs would inherit the Kingdom?

          • if you can’t read the explanation I’ve posted at least twice then you must have a problem with your computer.

            At no point have you explained what you mean by the word ‘objective’.

          • I too believe Andrew is using ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘impartial’.

            The problem is that Mr Godsall equivocates. At times he seems to be using the word ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘impartial’, yes: so he makes the point that ‘the gospels are not objective history’ in the sense that they are not impartial recordings, which is of course true. They are no more ‘objective’, in that sense, than a barrister’s summing-up. They are making a case.

            But then at other times he seems to elide that with ‘objective’ in the sense of ‘objective reality’: so he implies that ‘the gospels are not objective history’ means that the gospels are not concerned with what really, actually happened, but rather with the effect those experiences had on the early Christians. So for example his claim that it doesn’t matter whether any of the miracles of Jesus, for example, actually happened, in objective reality, because what is important is the subjective impression Jesus left on those who met Him.

            This latter is obviously false, just as much as the former is obviously true. But Mr Godsall uses the same word for both, and so tries to create the impression that they are the same thing — that if the gospels are written to present a case, that means that neccesarily it must not matter whether the events described actually happened. Put like that, you can see what nonsense it is. But muddying those waters is Mr Godsall’s modus operandi.

            And at other times he uses the term ‘salvation history’ and I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, neither has Mr Godsall ever provided a comprehensible explanation.

            This is why it is important to always make Mr Godsall nail down, specifically, exactly what he means by any term he uses. Because if you don’t, and you give him half a chance, he will twist it and use the same term with a different meaning so that instead of saying something trivially true is is saying something incredibly contentious.

            Either that or he’s busy trying to create constructive ambiguity, to produce some form of words that all sides can interpret in such a way that they can sign up to, despite the fact that their actual beliefs are logically incompatible.

          • Ideological – how?

            ‘Tar’ – yes because you say it is not an insulting word but it is the prerogative of those who are classified that way by you to say whether they are insulted and/or mischaracterised by it.

            Popular religious bookshop – exists only in your imagination, but it is not impressive that you impose your imagination on everyone else and also secondly don’t consider the possibility that the image conjured up by your imagination is only one of several possibilities.

            You would be delighted if you found? No, you will be delighted because you will find. Top NT scholars? – Plenty.

            Books have more than one premise and you know very well that I have never even remotely opposed what you say I oppose in Jesus’s teaching – else I would have said so, and you cannot find anywhere I did – any more than I oppose white rabbits.

          • Yes, Penelope, “queer” IS a negative label. Countless gay men will remember it as the word that was used constantly by those who made their lives a nightmare by bullying them at school or on the way home from school, the word that was bellowed intimidatingly at them from passing cars, the word with which their personal property was defaced – oftentimes together with various obscenities – in indelible marker ink, for example. Those who escaped such treatment will remember it as the word that terrorized them into keeping their heads down, and continually reminded them that a similar fate lay in store for them if they were “rumbled”. Others will remember it as the word shouted by gangs who beat them up or threw bricks through their windows. Still others will remember it as the word used by anti-gay religious abusers.

            And while some people may be happy – God only knows why – with that opprobrious label for themselves, if you are including gay, lesbian and bisexual people in general in that classification, then yes, you ARE calling countless people “queer” against their wishes. And you have no right whatever to call other people’s children “queer”, no matter what esoteric meaning you are giving to the word. Just knock it off, will you?

          • William and Christopher: you both seem to not get the point that queer theology is a respected discipline, having grown out of queer theory. I don’t much care for quoting Wikipedia entries but this is simply an overview

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theology

            I know that this is the area of academic work that Penny is involved in.

            A significant theologian from this discipline, the late Marcella Althaus-Reid, gave a stunning series of lectures at Exeter University in the early 2000s, which were jointly sponsored by the Diocese and the University. They were extremely well received.

            I don’t recall anyone asking Professor Althaus-Reid to ‘knock it off’ when she was speaking and using the term ‘queer’.

            Nor do I recall my mother being told to ‘knock it off’ when she used to say “there’s nowt so queer as folk”.

          • “Popular religious bookshop – exists only in your imagination”

            Christopher I was very pleased to see that your bookshop carries works by noted ‘liberal’ theologians and writers, like Richard Rohr and our own Richard Burridge, David Ford, Basil Hume, Roman Williams and so on. As well, of course, as the usual religious bookshop ‘tat’! The bookshop at Buckfast Abbey holds a very impressive and comprehensive selection of theology. So long live Roman Catholic bookshops I say! As I have often said here, Roman Catholics represent a much broader spectrum theologically than they are often portrayed.

          • Andrew:

            “William and Christopher: you both seem to not get the point that queer theology is a respected discipline…”

            Respected by whom or by what? I wouldn’t touch anything called that with a barge-pole, let alone respect it.

            “I don’t recall anyone asking Professor Althaus-Reid to ‘knock it off’ when she was speaking and using the term ‘queer’.”

            Well, someone should have done, and if I’d been there I would have done, no matter how stunning the lectures might have been.

          • Yes Roman Williams is the Catholics’ answer to Rowan – we have high hopes for him. Books on liberation theology – we might sell one or two a year; on feminism none try as we might; on variant sexuality none. That is not to say that these perspectives are not found here and there in books we do sell. But when the book focuses on them nobody buys it.

          • Andrew

            I am deeply envious of you havung heard Althaus Reid. She is soemthing of a hero of mine and I would dearly iove to have heard her lecture.

            William

            I will, at your request, not call you queer. I will not, however, ‘kindly’ desist from using the concept, not ‘knock it off’; so please don’t patronise me (especially when you are clearly ignorant about queer theology and queer theory).
            And now I msut return to writing my chapter on The Queer Art of Failure. Just about to quote Halberstam ‘the child is always already queer’. Bye.

          • I will, at your request, not call you queer. I will not, however, ‘kindly’ desist from using the concept, not ‘knock it off’; so please don’t patronise me (especially when you are clearly ignorant about queer theology and queer theory).

            And now I msut return to writing my chapter on The Queer Art of Failure. Just about to quote Halberstam ‘the child is always already queer’. Bye.

            Given that William was, presumably, once a child, doesn’t that mean you’ve just broken your promise not to call him ‘queer’? In the very next paragraph, no less!

          • Penelope:

            So someone who clearly has no compunction about using insulting language (that’s an understatement) about gay people, classifying them as “queer”, has the gall to turn round and say “please don’t patronise me”. As far as I’m concerned, that has to be the joke of the week.

          • William

            Queer is not a slur. It has, as I said been reclaimed by the queer community and the academy.
            Queer theology and queer theory are academic disciplines.
            Many queer people proudly claim the queer label.
            You do not, so I will not call you, as an individual, queer.
            My research uses queer hermeneutics; I write queer theology; I read queer theology.
            No one is forcing you to read queer theology. No one is forcing you to attend lectures by queer theolgians. But it would be nice if you could drop the condescension and sneering (especially on a subject about which you appear so lamentably ignorant).

          • But is it not ignorant to say that any discipline that might get invented is thereby coherent?

          • Penelope

            “It has, as I said been reclaimed by the queer community…”

            By the queer community? What precisely is that, when it’s at home?

            “…and the academy.”

            What academy?

            If you subscribe to some theory and/or theology which you describe as queer, then I certainly won’t query that. I don’t doubt that on that point you know best.

            “Many queer people proudly claim the queer label.”

            Whether or not they should, people do have a tendency to take other people at their own valuation, so if some are so monumentally stupid as to go round “proudly” labelling themselves “queer”, they should not be surprised if others take them at their word and assume that there must indeed be something wrong with them.

            While I don’t claim any knowledge of “queer theology”, nor do I see why any theology should need to be queer, what I do have considerable knowledge and personal experience of is the long-standing use of the word “queer” to insult, demoralise and intimidate gay people and to express venomous hatred of us. As for sneering, I have every right to sneer at the proposition that we should “reclaim” that abusive term, and I shall continue to do so.

        • The language of our politicians is more moralistic than it has ever been, only it’s morality based on rejection of God.

          Depends what you mean by moralistic language, I guess. To me moralistic language is the language of duties and ‘ought’s, two things that would would never ever hear a politician talk about.

          The moral terms in which the political response to the virus was framed (Save lives, protect the NHS), continuing today in the moral pressure placed on those who do not wish to be vaccinated, is one example.

          I actually thought that it was noticeable at the beginning of the current kerfuffle how the retreat of politicians had actually left them without any good way of talking about people having duties other than either those they chose for themselves, or those that were imposed on them by the state, hence why the initial response was so heavy-handed and legislative, and how ministers kept blurring the lines between guidance and the law to imply that things which were perfectly legal (but against the guidance) were in fact disallowed.

          And even now you can see the immense backlash that government ministers are getting for attempting to bring ideas of ‘personal responsibility’ into the national conversation. People, it seems, are happy for politicians to tell them what they must do, but react strongly against politicians opining on what they ought to do; and as a result politicians have stopped doing it (or at least, the only ones who are left are the ones who don’t, in a sort of democratic Darwinism).

          So, while I think it does in some part depend on definitions, I’d stick to my claim that no politicians these days dare to speak on moral matters — but that very silence itself is a moral stance (or rather, an abdication of a moral stance), and in that lacuna is where the Devilish modern morality of secular humanistic hedonism flourishes.

          Reply
          • Here is Neil Oliver on the subject:
            https://twitter.com/i/status/1416463112367132674

            Many have remarked how the NHS has become the focus of a new (atheistic) religion, and the defence of lockdown and like non-pharmaceutical interventions become akin to a cult. The explosive growth of the religion has occurred in the absence of meaningful Christianity. Man is a moral being. If the Church cannot speak to that moral core, then in a post-Christian world the desire to justify oneself expresses itself in other ways. Self-righteousness is everywhere, and politicians play to it, for they don’t lead morally, they follow. So does the Church, alas. The Church should be prophetically speaking against the self-righteousness and pointing to the one who became our righteousness. The Christian message has never been more relevant. But the institutional Church is dead. The Glory has departed, as surely as it departed from the temple in Ezekiel’s day.

          • Here is Neil Oliver on the subject:
            https://twitter.com/i/status/1416463112367132674

            Well, I mean, certainly I would echo all that, and like many I find his Groundhog Day analogy of having freedom dangled and then snatched away at the last moment unoriginal but apt; and I share his fear of how long it will take to get back to normal, and in my darker moments his doubt about whether we will ever get there (though in my more optimistic moments I remember that most totalitarian regimes eventually fall).

            I’m just not sure what it has to do with politicians using the language of morality.

            Many have remarked how the NHS has become the focus of a new (atheistic) religion, and the defence of lockdown and like non-pharmaceutical interventions become akin to a cult.

            And again I think that is absolutely accurate. Again though I think it’s slightly beside the point of the question of whether politicians are scared to use the language of morality, or to address moral issues or take moral stances.

            Take, for example, the issue of differential outcomes for children in education. It’s well established, I think, that the single biggest factor in whether a child does well in education, and therefore in later life, is whether they have a stable home with (preferably) their own two parents, together, bringing them up. Cultures that have that stable family pattern (middle-class whites, Asian and African immigrants, etc) do well. Cultures which don’t (working-class whites, etc), don’t.

            But not one single politician in the UK even talks about this issue. Conservatives highlight the issue of underachieving white working-class children, but not one of them brings up that the root cause is family breakdown, if there was ever a family structure there at all. Labour politicians rant about inequalities by race, but again, not one of them will point out that the single biggest-value intervention would be to promote stable family structures. Liberal Democrats… well, who knows or cares what either of the Liberal Democrats thinks.

            And this isn’t the only such issue, but it’s one of the ones that shows most clearly that politicians these days simply refuse to go anywhere near moral issues, even when their refusal to do so is causing ongoing irreparable damage to the fabric of society and, more importantly, to those children caught up in the chaos inflicted upon them by their parents.

          • Labour politicians rant about inequalities by race … Inequality is a moral concept, so this example sufficiently makes my point. You don’t recognise the moral strain because you’re wanting politicians to support a recognisably Christian view of what is good and bad. But that is to miss the point I was making. According to their own view, based on a rejection of biblical Christianity, they are highly moral, and indeed Christians are morally backward. The Abortion Act, the pernicious Equality Act, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act and other such laws were all introduced on moral grounds.

          • Inequality is a moral concept, so this example sufficiently makes my point.

            Well, no. Inequality is a mathematical concept.

            You don’t recognise the moral strain because you’re wanting politicians to support a recognisably Christian view of what is good and bad. But that is to miss the point I was making. According to their own view, based on a rejection of biblical Christianity, they are highly moral, and indeed Christians are morally backward. The Abortion Act, the pernicious Equality Act, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act and other such laws were all introduced on moral grounds.

            No, actually, I disagree. Well, maybe not about the Abortion Act, but that comes before the period I’m identifying as when politicians became terrified of speaking about morality. But the others you cite weren’t introduced on moral grounds, but because of lobbying; and quite often lobbying on the basis of ‘it’s wrong for the law to privilege one way of living above another’, ie, explicitly against the idea that the law should have a moral dimension.

            And the reason they passed is that politicians tacitly agreed that, indeed, the law should not be involved in morality: that the law should not privilege one way of living (eg, in stable family structures) above any other way. And therefore that morality, being no concern of the law, should also be no concern of politics, because politics is about defining the laws and if laws shouldn’t be concerned with morality then neither should politics.

            Now, you could argue that ‘the law should not be concerned with morality’ is itself a moral stance and to be honest I’d probably agree. But nevertheless, it is a stance which means that politicians see the making of moral statements — that is, statements telling people how they ought to live — as outside their remit.

            If you disagree, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find one example of a politician making a normative moral statement (ie, a statement about how people ought to live, rather than what the law should be) in the years 2015-2019 (just to avoid confusion with the pandemic). Can you?

            (Other than Tim Farron — and I think what happened to him rather proves the rule).

          • S, just keep on saying it. They know the remedy but care less for applying it than for ‘image’.

            Unbelievable.

          • To disavow any connection with morality is to disavow any connection with what is good and right.

            If politicians are not promoting what is good and right, and if the law is not promoting what is good and right, then what exactly is it that they are doing? Outlining boundaries for what is permissible?

          • “if the law is not promoting what is good and right, then what exactly is it that they are doing?”

            Christopher I think from what has said before S doesn’t agree with you that homosexual acts should be re-criminalised

  6. And that encounter is to be born again, from above; life transformative, to live a life, not as we want, but as we ought, a life of sanctification, holiness. It is a life that has been converted to Christ, dwelling in him, and he in us of union with him.
    As such it is a life that recognises and abhors sin one’s self.
    It is a life of knowing Jesus and knowing the Father, an eternal life, starting now (John17).
    It is a life generated by the indwelling Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit of creation, the same Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead. The Spirit of Holiness bringing uniin with the thrice Holy Trinity.

    Reply
  7. Steven, you say ‘the Glory departed’?
    Nit picking here but as I see it Jesus is the New Temple of Ezekiel’s prophecy. The Glory has returned and remains. The East Gate is closed.
    In this His New Temple He has seven lampstands/stars which are the church. He can if needs be put any one of them outside if the lamps on them are missing or unlit.

    Reply
    • Jesus is clearly not the New Temple of Ezek 40-48, unless you think he has dimensions and can be measured. However, I do agree that the Church is Christ’s body and that that body is his house or temple, in which he dwells as the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is his glory, and that has gone. No one is being converted. The gospel is not understood and not being communicated.

      You are mixing metaphors in your penultimate sentence (and Rev 1 does not mention any temple), but in relation to the lamps, the lamps have no oil and they are no longer burning. If we no longer shine his light, we are good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot (Matt 5:13-14). A lukewarm church that does not speak his words will be vomited out.

      Reply
      • Steven,
        I hope you don’t mind a bit of a diversion from politiking…
        The Ezekiel temple has dimensions, yes, but not much height is mentioned, therefore it is God’s prophetic plan, as it were, for Jesus The New Temple. The measurements that are given give a clue: it points to Jesus as a man who obviously had and still has dimensions; fully God, fully man.
        This Temple of Jesus was destroyed and rebuilt in three days. We are now part of it, living stones and also the priest/kings who enter by the north and south gates to present our lives as sacrifices.
        Revelation can be interpreted two ways depending on whether one is Jewish or Gentile. The lampstands can be seen as part of the Temple fittings by Jewish listeners or as fittings in a Roman palace by gentile listeners. Every scene in Revelation is set within a Temple/palace. Where else would Jesus be but in his house, in his own atrium to receive a guest of high esteem like John!
        By chapter 4 John is invited to ‘come up here’, i.e. from the entrance lobby of the palace/atrium, to the holy of holies/inner sanctum. All the following chapters of Rev. reveal some aspect of the Temple. It seems pedantic to maintain that because no Temple is mentioned in ch1 that there is no Temple. The metaphors are mixed quite often in Rev. to help us understand paradox. Eg the Lampstands and Stars are it seems to me aspects of the same thing. To us we seem to be little clay lamps placed upon golden lampstands. Our oil and fire being the Holy Spirit. Together with the Spirit we are also like Stars in His hand.
        Probably you come from a Scofield tradition and expect to see Ezekiel’s Temple built upon the site of Herod’s temple? I believe Jesus has already fulfilled it in himself. The new Jerusalem will be its ultimate reality.
        Thanks for getting this far!

        Reply
  8. S.
    Dissonant cascade.
    The Army wants to be the Police
    The Police want to be social workers
    Social workers want to be priests
    Priests want to be C.E.Os
    Everyone wants to be someone else.

    Reply
  9. Of course, Steve,
    Why would it be otherwise in the mandated deification of self, where it is blasphemy to deny, decry, denounce the creed; “You can be whatever you want to be.”
    It is where, “Be thou my vision Oh Lord of my heart, Be all else but naught to me , save that thou art…” is replaced with “Mine be the glory…”

    Reply
      • Not in any of the state schools I attended, though the prayer Jesus taught us was learned by rote and recited in school assembly at the start of the day. More likely to have Bob Dylan recited in the sixth form.

        Reply
        • We had a Christian head at our state primary school. I remember fainting in the crush to the tune of ‘be thou my vision’. When our row turned to file out I hit the wall! Secondary modern me. Can you tell?!

          Reply
  10. (I know I am late to the party but perhaps missing the bar fight was a good thing…)

    I recollect from a long time ago Dennis Lennon (whom some might remember) saying that “we should count but weigh.” It seems to me that the job given to the eleven in Galilee is certainly a major part of what the Church (in the sense of the whole body of Christ) should be about: making disciples by baptizing and teaching. In Matthew 28, the eleven are not called apostles but disciples. So, then disciples beget disciples. If people are well developed in their discipleship, then growth follows as disciples make disciples.

    Perhaps the best example of this is the extraordinary growth that seems to be happening in the largely underground church in Iran. It seems this is founded on all being discipled by a mentor, and then becoming mentors themselves. Even though this can lead to prison or death. There are not many ordained, stipendiary folk among them. It is recognised that those in leadership (many, even a majority, women) need training. I doubt if there are many ‘passengers’ in the Iranian church.

    I would also point out that ‘Anecdote to Evidence’ points out that 52% of ‘Fresh Expressions’ are lay led, and these have been successful in drawing in both those who have not been to church before and those who had dropped out of church. James Harding, in a session for LLMs in London, asserted that the most successful Fresh Expressions were those which were lay led.

    AtoE also comments on the importance of lay leadership in the church more generally, but the important thing it seems here is that the lay leadship ‘rotates’ so that the same person does not do the same job for years and years.

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