Being a theologian for the church

(Phil. 3:12: ‘not that I have already achieved all this…’) Over the past week, in a variety of ways, a number of connected strands of conversation, each of which I regularly find myself overhearing or involved with, have all come to notice or prominence. All relate to the question of the connection of ‘theologians’ to the life of the church. Often there is an expressed sadness or concern that the various churches – particularly, in my hearing, the Evangelical and Baptist churches that I have the privilege to serve – are not willing, or at least not willing enough, to hear or to use the insights of theologians. As I drove back from giving a lecture in a church conference, in could see in my head a somewhat angry deconstruction of at least several of these strands, which began with the reflection that my own experience is so far from a general unwilllingness to be heard or used that I find that claim almost incomprehensible. Instead of being angry, however, I want here to attempt a constructive account of how ‘theologians’ should, ideally, be related to the life of the churches. ‘Theologians’ has been in quotation marks so far to indicate the need for a definition. Let me suggest as a first approximation, ‘those whose Christian vocation includes sustained attention to the doctrines of the faith’. considered as a Christian vocation, there are at least two appropriate strands to this: disseminating doctrine; and purifying doctrine. Dissemination is about helping the churches to access the deposit of faith, both in order to know it better, and in order to correct misapprehensions concerning it. These misapprehensions might be omissions (‘we don’t talk about this anything as much as we should, if we were being faithful to our heritage…’) or errors (‘So-and-so is wrong to claim that Baptists have always believed that…’). The proper task of the theologian here is to be a witness, as unbiased as possible, to the tradition; if I am to be the lens through which a church sees the tradition, then I have a duty (we are talking about theology as Christian vocation here, remember) to be as clear and undistorting lens as possible. Purification, by contrast, is about challenging the theological tradition: the theologian may come to the view that, in certain ways, some doctrinal positions are in fact wrong, although settled, and so stand in need of reformulation. She may campaign in various ways for such reformulation, publishing, lecturing, and arguing for a few months or for an entire career. The proper task of the theologian here is to be a passionate – and biased – advocate. This is not a ‘descriptive’ vs ‘evaluative’ distinction, as giving an account of the tradition itself demands the making of evaluative judgements. The judgements here are more nearly historical than doctrinal, but they are judgements, nonetheless. The question of the doctrinal tradition is always going to be a somewhat complex and messy one, perhaps particularly for churches which trace their heritage to the Reformation. They have their birth in a process of doctrinal correction and reformulation, and they profess to remain institutionally committed to further reform, should it appear necessary. In recent decades, the academic theology that relates to them has often suggested that some drastic reformulations are in fact needed, and some of these can seem to have attained a measure of general acceptance in academic discourse. To give an account of what is now standard theology thus requires judgements to be made about the success and importance of various proposed reformulations. To take an example, consider the question, ‘what is the gospel?’ (a query I’ve seen in several contexts recently), I have a very complex historical narrative in my head which is not easily reducible to a simple answer: differing Lutheran, Calvinist, Roman (& Anabaptist) accounts of the nature of justification; Eastern Orthodox accounts of deification, and the measure of academic interest they have attracted recently; diverse Evangelical traditions, exploring sometimes the link between social justice and salvation, whilst sometimes seeking to protect a very narrow soteriological narrative as being ‘the gospel’; recent developments in academic study of Paul, and the revisionist proposals arising from there; my own estimations of the importance or success of each of these positions; and some awareness, at least, of how my estimations on this last point might differ from the estimations of others. I also have some personal beliefs and commitments which would shape my own constructive attempts to narrate the good news adequately. I can answer the question – or any such theological question – then, in a number of ways. First, is the questioner...

Read More

Old style evangelical gender politics

This post, by Mark Sayers, is well worth a read (ht Mike Bird on FB). It reflects briefly on the transformation of masculinity that occurred as part of the broader evangelical attempts at social transformation in the first half of the nineteenth century. Writing about the same phenomenon, John Wolffe comments: Evangelical concepts of manliness were a challenge to contemporary secular male values, whether among [sic] those of the British gentry, landowners in the American South, or convicts forcibly resettled in Australia. Emphasis on ‘honour’, machismo and lineage was confronted by a stress on ‘calling’, moral virtue and the family as a spiritual community of mutual affection rather than merely an expression of patriarchal sovereignty.’ (The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers, and Finney (IVP, 2006), p. 141) As far as I am aware (and I’m not a historian), this strand of the widespread social transformation wrought by nineteenth-century evangelicalism is relatively under-studied. There is a fair bit of work out there on the evangelical reconstruction of femininity to embrace more public and political roles, but very little on changes in masculinity – Rotundo on American Manhood and Tosh, A Man’s Place both deal with the question in some measure, but I struggle to think of much else. Nonetheless, the evidence for both the conscious attempt to recast masculinity, and its (somewhat patchy) success is not hard to find. Evangelicalism taught men to be gentler, less aggressive, and more considerate; whilst not often refusing the prevailing cultural assumption of male dominance in the family, the Evangelicals repeatedly and explicitly re-cast it in less patriarchal ways. As I noted, the reshaping of femininity has been more studied. This is not just about radicals like Josephine Butler, although there is no doubt that her explicitly feminist agenda was inspired by her evangelical commitment; rather, it was general, and based on two central evangelical tenets. On the one hand, evangelical women experienced a fundamental spiritual equality with men, which inevitably strained the boundaries of a patriarchal society; on the other, evangelical social concern led them to devote their leisure time to campaigning, and so to public action and political involvement; a woman who, after her conversion, ceased to attend the theatre and instead became active in campaigning for social improvement necessarily began to redefine her position in the culture. Hannah More was quoted (in an anthology entitled The Young Bride at Home, which was as much of a radical feminist tract as its title suggests) as saying: ‘[Women are] equally with men redeemed by the blood of Christ. In this their true dignity consists; here their best pretensions rest, here their highest claims are allowed.’ This experience of a fundamental equality had significant and demonstrable effects on expectations and constructions of femininity in the evangelical world; the wives of evangelical clergy, for instance, were expected to take an active role in ‘the Lord’s work’ alongside their husband. In 1832, Hints to a Clergyman’s Wife was published, giving extensive advice on how to be a co-worker with one’s husband; the author encourages even nursing mothers to find ways to be publicly active in Christian work. Methodist and holiness movements provided a particular intensification of this theme, as a woman who could lay claim to the experience of entire sanctification was in a demonstrable position of spiritual superiority to men who could not, a situation creating a significant pressure to reverse cultural-normative gender roles. Phoebe Palmer’s astonishing evangelistic ministry is the most obvious example of this, but there are many others (Hannah Whitall Smith’s entry in the Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals notes that, at the Brighton Convention for the Promotion of Christian Holiness in 1875, ‘[t]he most popular sessions … were those in which Hannah preached her practical secrets of the happy Christian life to audiences of 5000 or more, mostly clergymen who were theologically opposed to the preaching ministry of women’). (In all of this there is a third basic evangelical conviction at work, what we might call missiological pragmatism. John Wesley relied on it in recognising Mary Fletcher’s preaching ministry. Fundamentally, for real evangelicals, if people are getting saved, we’ll make the theology fit somehow!) Hannah More is also a fine example of my second theme. She sold millions of tracts in her lifetime (two million by 1796, and plenty more afterwards), writing powerfully and popularly about pressing political and social issues, not least slavery. She was not above satire and parody (‘Ye that boast “Ye rule the waves,” / Bid no slave ship soil the sea, / Ye that “never will be slaves” / Bid poor Afric’s land be free.’). In her only novel, Coelebs in Search of...

Read More

Books on gender and ministry from an evangelical perspective

I’ve been asked by several people in recent months to recommend books on this subject. I can’t claim to have read everything on the topic, and I probably have a bias to British authors, but here are a few suggestions – not necessarily all the best books, but a selection that, taken together, will open up most of the standard arguments well. I’d welcome other suggestions in the comments. Lis Goddard & Clare Hendry, The Gender Agenda (IVP, 2010): Lis and Clare are both Anglican ministers, but take different sides on this debate; the book is a series of emails they exchanged exploring many of the standard issues and arguments. It is accessible to the general reader, without being simplistic, and offers sympathetic presentations of two different positions. This would be the first book I’d give to most people – fair, generous, and informative. Gundry & Beck (eds), Two Views on Women in Leadership (Counterpoints) (Zondervan, 2001, rev. 2005) (chapters by Linda Belleville, Craig Blomberg, Craig Keener, and Tom Schreiner, with responses by each). A bit more technical; again, a sympathetic and non-controversial presentation of different viewpoints; the format means the arguments are more connected than Goddard & Hendry.) Pierce & Groothuis (eds), Discovering Biblical Equality: Complimentarity without Hierarchy (IVP/Apollos, 2004, rev. 2o05). A heavy and technical presentation of various aspects of a case for women in preaching and leadership positions, including serious treatments of all the crucial passages by respected evangelical Biblical scholars (Fee, Marshall, …) Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (IVP/Apollos, 2004). A large and comprehensive presentation of every aspect of the case for ‘complementarianism’. (This isn’t a great book, really, but I know of nothing that does the same work better – does anyone else?) Millard Erickson, Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Kregel, 2009) Explains and explores a curious contemporary argument that gender subordinationism somehow reflects the Trinity; I confess that the argument seems to me to rely on a simple, albeit rather common, misunderstanding of ecumenical doctrine, but some people seem to find it convincing, and Erickson does a good job of explaining what’s going on. Scott McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking how you read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and William Webb, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (IVP, 2001) both address the question of hermeneutics – how we should find meaning in the Biblical texts – and how that applies to gender relations and roles. On specific texts, the best places to go are the commentaries. Any good evangelical commentary will summarise various points in the debate, before offering a reason for the author’s preference for one side or another. At a basic level, try the relevant volumes in Tom Wright’s NT for Everyone, or the Bible Speaks Today; for more in-depth discussion, try, for example, Fee on both 1 Cor. and 1 Tim., or Thistleton on 1...

Read More

If you don’t want Tim Tebow, we’ll have him!

OK, the ‘Tebowing’ thing has been on the edge of my consciousness for a while now, mentioned on Twitter feeds and the like every so often. I could see various American friends getting exercised about it, concerned that it promoted ‘slot machine prayer’ theology, in which public intercession by a quarterback could be expected to ensure divine aid for his side in winning the game. Of course this isn’t good theology, but a not-dissimilar belief in the efficacy of prayer in promoting selfish wants is almost universal in Christian piety in my pastoral experience, and this example seemed less awful than some others (unless you happen to be a Steelers fan, I guess…) I confess that I didn’t get why everyone is so excited about it: I follow American football very vaguely, and so wasn’t aware just how much hype and expectation there was around this particular athlete. (I think the last time I watched a Broncos game on TV, some guy named Elway was calling the plays…) Beyond that, sporting competitors kneeling to pray after a success is not new, and was even being recommended as a form of witness twenty years back by the UK organisation Christians in Sport, if my memory serves. Whether we like it or not, sportspeople (and musicians, and TV/film personalities) are hugely interesting to children, and indeed to many others, and a visible indication of Christian faith is possibly of some significance. So I was leaving the Tebowing on the edge of my consciousness quite happily; I was aware that (several of) my American friends were heartily wishing the whole thing would just go away; beyond that, I was rather uninterested. Then John Franke posted this story by Rick Reilly on Facebook. There’s no mention here of Christian faith; instead some uncomfortable echoes of a native American Pelagian gospel of self-reliance (‘I am the captain of my fate…’); I am sure the money involved is almost insignificant in the context of Tebow’s salary, and I suppose most of the practical arrangements are done by his ‘people’. But it’s a story of someone, known for his Christianity, doing good things in a spirit of self-forgetfulness and humility. (The line ‘he’d just played the game of his life, and the first thing he did was find Bailey and ask if she’d got some food…’ speaks very well of the man’s character in this respect.) I know it is just one story – albeit by a writer who commands some respect – and I realise that there might be a lot more to be said, and also that much of it might be less wholesome. As I read Reilly’s piece, however, I thought of the stories I’ve recently read of our own, British, sports stars. Lots, of course, about commitment and dedication to training – Lendl’s comments on Andy Murray; tales of Olympic hopefuls. But beyond that, outside of tales of professionalism – well, recently it’s been alleged assaults on ex-girlfriends, racial abuse, a cricketer taking money to make a spot bet come good (& being such a rubbish cricketer that he failed!), and plenty of the usual diet of greed and petulance. Not much about people who care more about looking after a sick child than celebrating their own performance, even when the rest of the world is praising them to the skies. Now maybe it’s happening, unreported by our press. Maybe Wayne Rooney is doing this every week; it’s not impossible. Assuming, however, that there is no strange press silence, I’d rather our playgrounds and pubs were buzzing about someone like Tebow than, well, any premiership footballer I can presently name. And if the price of that is some slightly mawkish and very public displays of devotion, and some dubious narratives of divine interest in the outcome of sports games then, you know what, I’d live with it. Really, if you don’t want him, send him over here. We could do with a decent role model, someone living his faith in public in genuine and powerful ways, just now. (Of course, it could never happen. He’d have to learn to play a proper sport, one not involving body armour and breaks to catch breath every few...

Read More

Why Baptists can’t (currently) be ‘complementarians’

I gestured at this argument in an introductory book on Baptist theology I have coming out soon; reading the proofs, it occurred to me that a more substantial discussion would not be out of place. Probably, I ought to write a journal article – ‘had we but world enough and time…’ One of the themes of the book is the extensiveness of ecclesiology; I argue (contra various people) that Baptists are distinguished only by their ecclesiology, but then argue (contra various other people) that ecclesiology is actually quite far-reaching, and so our distinctiveness here makes (or should make) us a quite distinct body of believers. I illustrate this in various ways, with various arguments, as the discussion proceeds; one has to do with the question of gendered accounts of various church ministries. Historically Baptists have some ‘form’ on this issue; we were already being castigated in print for allowing women to preach in 1646 (Thomas Edwards’s Gangraena, unsurprisingly). Of course, that practice has not remained universal in the history since, but, considering the period before the founding of the Salvation Army, only the Society of Friends can realistically claim to have be more open to the ministry of women than Baptists were. BUGB was amongst the first denominations to open the ordained ministry to women in the C20th, and has now committed to ‘radical equality’. If some of the churches have lagged in recent times, the denomination has led. My reflection, however, was very contemporary. No student of evangelical theology can fail to have noticed that the justifications for denying the ministry to women have changed in recent decades. Very crudely, a ‘proof-texting’ approach, resting on appeals to a couple of (apparently-decisive) verses, has been replaced by a developed theology of gender, in which male ‘headship’ is intended by God in creation, and so shapes proper gender roles in family and church (& possibly wider society). I am happy to acknowledge the power of this presentation, even whilst disagreeing with it. In its best forms (I have never seen in well-expressed in a published piece – it may be there, but I’ve missed it – but in conversation, I have heard remarkably impressive presentations) it feels to me a bit like the best versions of dispensationalism: it is an overarching narrative which appears to make sense of many otherwise-troublesome Scriptures, and which can be rejected only by the articulation of an equally convincing counter-narrative. As such, I respect those who profess commitment to it, whilst disagreeing with them. Unless, that is, they are Baptists. If this ‘headship’ account of how to interpret Scripture is correct, then Baptist ecclesiology is wrong. And vice-versa. On this definition of what it is to be a ‘complementarian’, Baptists cannot be ‘complementarian’. The ‘headship’ account of ‘complementarianism’ turns endlessly on a narrative of ‘authority’. Men are created to exercise authority; women to sit under authority. In the family, the man (all men?) are to take a lead, the woman (all women?) are to follow. In the church, a woman should not exercise authority over a man; in the world, even, in some worked-through accounts, a woman should not be in a position where she is required to tell men what to do (John Piper speculates openly as to whether women may properly drive buses on this basis). Now this can be made sense of in an episcopalian or presbyterian polity. In either case, the church is composed of those who exercise authority (clergy/elders) and those who submit to it (the rest). If only men are permitted to exercise authority, then only men should be clergy, or elders. I have Anglican and Presbyterian friends committed to a male-only ministry and, whilst I disagree with them, I accept completely that their stance is defensible and coherent given the current terms of the debate, and their churchmanship. I cannot say the same of Baptist friends, however. In a congregationalist polity, which is at the core of Baptist identity, authority, which is of course held by Christ alone, is mediated through the church meeting. All members, female and male, have an equal role in discerning Christ’s call on the gathered church; all members, female and male, have an over-riding (and so equal) responsibility to watch over each other, and to bring rebuke and challenge when they see a sister or brother fall into sin. In a Baptist church authority is necessarily exercised by all the members, over all other members, indifferently. Unless membership is denied to women, which has – in my view shamefully – happened in Baptist history sometimes, women and men, and all other believers, regardless of status, are called to an...

Read More
get facebook like button