‘A love I seemed to lose with my lost saints’: Mission and evangelical identity
This weekend passed was our church mission weekend; it was excellent. It was led by Eddie Arthur of Wycliffe Bible Translators, ably supported by Sue Arthur, Judy and Iska, two of our members who spent seventeen years in Papua New Guinea working with Wycliffe, and continue to be involved in Bible translation from their present home in Fife, and Hilary and Peter, who worked with Wycliffe in South Asia and now work in the UK office, and with whom we also have long-standing links. I have, I think, three reflections as a result that I would like to blog about: one on the place of mission in evangelical identity; one on conversion; and one on the Bible. One of the wonderful things about the weekend was the connections: these are our people; we know them and love them; it happens that one of the couples has a daughter a similar age to our elder two, and they have become friends during visits over the years, and now keep in touch on social media. Because of connections like that, their triumphs are our triumphs: there was an astonishingly moving moment during the weekend when Eddie held up a Kamula New Testament and told the – amazing – story (the Kamula people in Papua New Guinea were, literally, headhunters and cannibals just a generation ago; they asked for the Bible; our church members became involved, created the written language, and translated the NT and portions of the OT; now many of the Kamula are headhunters once more, evangelists to the neighbouring peoples…). Then he looked out at our little church congregation and said ‘You did that – thank you!’ And it wasn’t cheesy or forced; this was, in part, our project, carried forward by our people, who we had sent out, prayed for, and supported through many years. Eddie and the team led the weekend extremely well; it was interactive, fast-moving, very positive and upbeat, informative, encouraging and challenging. I do not, however, suppose we would have held such a weekend without these personal connections – and, for a mainstream evangelical congregation like ours, that is a significant shift from where we would have been a generation ago. I have reflected several times in public on the place of a formal or informal list of ‘saints’ in every Christian tradition: every vibrant Christian spirituality, it seems to me, is deeply formed by a set of stories that convey a vision of what Christlike living might look like in our generation and context. For British evangelicals, the missionary biographies unquestionably fulfilled that role; overseas mission defined us as a movement, and overseas missionaries were our heroes, our ‘childhood saints’. Zealous evangelicals went overseas; the rest of us gobbled up their news hungrily, prayed for them, and gave, often sacrificially, to support them. Even I remember the tail-end of this: the church into which I was converted, just over 25 years ago now, and which sent me to train for ministry, had a chair that had belonged to William Carey in its pulpit; even when we moved here to St Andrews, only ten years ago, retired visiting preachers at this church (we had a pastoral vacancy when we arrived) would recall David Livingstone (there’s a local connection) or another of the authorised list of great missionaries; our children’s church library still holds tattered biographies of Gladys Aylward and the rest. These were the stories we expected would shape our young people’s faith, and inspire the continuation of our own. What changed? Three things, I think. The first was a loss of interest in the idea of conversion; more on that in another post. The second was a measure of success of the missionary enterprise; Henry Venn imagined an African church that was self-led, self-supporting, and self-propogating; his dream came true some generations ago in much of Africa. (He never imagined an African church that was sending missionaries to the UK, but this has been the reality for over a century, as Israel Olofinjana has repeatedly demonstrated – see for one quick survey, his blog here, but see also his various books; in recent years this ‘reverse mission’ has become extraordinarily significant; the expansion of the, Nigerian, Redeemed Christian Church of God across the UK in the last two decades is one of the great untold missionary stories – approaching a thousand churches planted, several with membership in the thousands.) Of course, there are many unreached people across the world still; but in many areas, quite rightly, Western missionaries made themselves redundant. The third, and most significant, is the end of the British Empire. Of course this is a...
Read More‘Hate something? Change something!’ On gender bias in conferences
I have a recurrent experience with car ads, which I think is their fault not mine: I can often, years later, remember every detail of the ad except which particular car it was advertising. I suspect this is a result of the mismatch between the grandiose claims made by marketeers and the tiny differences between actual cars. One ad, years back, ran under the slogan ‘hate something? change something!’ – as best I recall one manufacturer or another had improved their diesel engine slightly in some particular, and the marketing department decided to make this an example of world-transformation up there with the American Civil Rights movement or the ending of apartheid… I love the slogan, though. For myself I translate it as ‘don’t moan; transform!’ There are a few things I care about enough to really not like; it would be easy to talk a lot about them; the challenge instead is to do something that will actually make some difference (which may involve some intentional talking, of course). One of the things I try occasionally to do something about is gender balance in those bits of the church I can get my hands on – mostly UK Baptist and evangelical life. So I became interested when Helen (@helen_a13, aka ‘the tweeter formerly known as @fragmentz’) and @God_Loves_Women started asking questions on Twitter about gender representation on UK Christian conference platforms (based on Rachel Held Evans twitter comments about the gender (im)balance at something called ‘The Nines’ in the USA, and an American journalist offering an analysis of the ‘biggest Christian conferences in the evangelical world’ – he used ‘world’ in that odd US English sense of ‘North America’; cf. ‘World Series Baseball’). I tweeted a few names and lists of conferences to include, and looked forward to seeing the results sometime next month… …I should know GLW better than that. Her analysis went live the next morning, and makes sobering reading for anyone involved, as I have been, in organising and running conferences. It suffers the problems of any statistical analysis (you know the old one about a statistician being someone who can lie with her head in the freezer and her feet in the oven, and claim that on the whole, she is feeling completely normal?). But these stats are too skewed to enable any excuses, and I suspect that we all know that if we did the more granular stuff it would just look worse. There’s something here to moan about – or to transform. How might we do the latter? First, there are already some brilliant blogs on the subject: Hannah Swithinbank asks conference organisers to front up and be honest. If you failed to get a decent (which means representative, as well as skilled) speaking team, tell us – publicly – how hard you tried, and what you are going to do different to do better next time. Martin Saunders talks about the effort the UK Youthwork Summit put in to achieve gender balance, and so gives a model for others to follow Jenny Baker points helpfully to some of the underlying structural issues that need to be named and changed. Jonny Baker is typically direct about how easy it should be. Second – guess what? The church is not the only community that faces this particular problem. People have talked very practically about increasing female representation at science conferences; at game developer conferences; at conferences on writing JavaScript – and probably lots of other places. There are great ideas here we could happily borrow… What else could we do? Here are some ideas, thrown out at random: 1. Picking up on Hannah’s points: if your gender ratio is rubbish, commit – publicly – to do something about it at the conference. Create one bursary for every excess male speaker, to be awarded to a gifted young woman; have your top speakers meet with them day by day through the conference to help and encourage them into using their gifts; next year, give them a slot on the programme; … 2. People say they can’t find female speakers – so is there space for a directory, listing great women, their particular gifts and expertise? 3. On twitter, Jenny Baker said she and others had tried the directory idea, and people had been reluctant to put themselves forward. So build a group through intentional mentoring, training sessions, and safe practice spaces; meet people, and encourage them to get involved; … (I know Jenny and Wendy Beech-Ward are doing this already; I wonder how much support they are getting from conference organisers who complain about their inability to find women to speak?) 4. Or, instead or as...
Read MoreWhy should we be afraid of a UK Religious Right?
Last week’s Theos report asks the question ‘is there a religious right in Britain?’ and concludes not. The piece is well-researched and well-argued, and seems to me convincing. The Religious right in the US has coalesced around eight issues, of which perhaps two or three are on any UK Christian group’s political agenda; it has well-established links of influence with one political party, whereas UK groups either have no real influence, or work indifferently with all parties; UK Christians can be shown to be more left of centre than the general population on many or most questions of social and economic policy; and so on. At most, we can see two things. First, the beginnings of some symbiotic relationships between a couple of – small and unrepresentative – groups and certain sections of the press, notably the Daily Mail, where there appears to be a shared interest in presenting a (largely false) narrative of Christian marginalisation; this is disturbing, partly because of the undeserved prominence it gives to the Christian groups in question, and partly because the narrative is false, and should not be given publicity. Second, there are or have been broad religious coalitions which have pushed hard on specific policy questions: Sunday trading; abortion; and now equal marriage. These coalitions have been ad hoc and single issue, however, with no attempt at entanglement, or at creating a movement that can be mobilised on other issues. There is, clearly, nothing in the UK comparable to the USA’s religious right. The report begins with extensive evidence of media concern over the rise of a UK religious right, which gives justification for devoting time to the question. What it does not explore, which seems to me an interesting question, is why we are so worried about this? The report details dark hints in much of the quality press, reports a whole edition of Dispatches on Channel 4 given to the question, and generally presents a picture of deep concern over any possibility of a religious right emerging in this country. Why? I should say I am no fan of the religious right. My own political views are of course complex, but on the decisive economic issues, I am comfortably to the left of all mainstream parties in Britain.Even on touchstone moral issues, I generally tend to a libertarian position: laws should only restrict our choices when there is a clear and obvious danger of harm. If the American religious right, and those groups that look most like it in the UK, disappeared tomorrow, I would celebrate. But I believe passionately in freedom of speech, and that means believing that people I disagree with are allowed to say their piece as well. Further, I assume that in a mature democracy, this respect for freedom of speech is, or should be, general. The fact that a section of the media/the establishment/’all right-thinking people’ find an imagined UK religious right objectionable is not sufficient reason to object to its (possible) existence, or to complain about its (alleged) public voice. So, why are we concerned? In particular, why are we more concerned about right-wing Christian pressure groups than any other pressure groups? Phrasing the question like this seems to me important: many answers seem to come down to ‘undue influence,’ ‘privileged access,’ and the like. These are proper matters for concern – but, as far as I can see, the concern is about the possibility of the subversion of proper political process, not about the identity of those doing the subverting. Let us agree that any attempt to gain undue influence is improper; still, why the particular concern over right wing religious groups? We might answer by saying that they are the prime suspects – they do this more, and more effectively, than anyone else; if true, this would be good reason to single them out. The claim is profoundly implausible, however: after Leveson, we have very good insight into the levels of access to government allowed to certain businesses; to object to Christian Concern whilst saying nothing about News International would seem to be in gnats and camels territory… So, why the concern? We might say that specifically religious groups should stay out of politics. There are two versions of this claim, one of which is worth considering. One version concerns the ‘secular’ public square, and the idea that religious opinions are private matters which should not intrude on public reasoning. This was a noble vision in Locke and others: only that on which all can agree, because proved indubitably from unassailable starting points, is admissible in public moral reasoning. Unfortunately, this noble position has been shown to have a fatal...
Read MoreA truly ‘conservative’ evangelical account of gender and church office
I want here to take issue with the term ‘conservative evangelical’: a ‘conservative evangelical,’ if words retain any meaning, should necessarily be actively committed to promoting the equal ministry of women and men at every level of church office.
Read More‘Egalitarianism’ as a slippery slope?
I have heard or read a number of people recently arguing that an ‘egalitarian’ (hate the term…) position is to be rejected by evangelicals because it necessarily involves an approach to the the Bible which tends towards the erosion of Scriptural authority. This argument comes in two forms, one which has a degree of prima facie plausibility but is weak, and one which would be powerful but is in fact simply implausible. The plausible/weak form is based on hypotheticals: ‘someone who treats 1Tim 2 or Eph 5 like egalitarians do must therefore …’ The problem with this is the hidden premise in the argument is the theological (exegetical/hermeneutical) imagination of the one making the argument: in fact what is being said is ‘I cannot imagine a way of responsibly understanding Scripture that allows these conclusions…’ The limits of my, or anyone else’s, imagination are not particularly interesting theological data; historical reality (how have people who take this view in fact dealt with Scripture?) is far more interesting, which brings us to the second form of the argument. This involves an assertion that it is a matter of historical fact that someone who accepts an ‘egalitarian’ position will probably – not necessarily, but probably – soon cease to be evangelical because they have lost any adequate account of the authority of Scripture. An acceptance of the ministry of women is a/the first step on a slippery slope to liberalism, and that can be shown by historical example. This would be a strong argument if it were plausible. Any serious student of evangelical history can point to positions that do seem generally to correlate with a later loss of evangelical faith – the most obvious would be the refusal (on solid grounds of Biblical authority, usually) to use traditional but non-Scriptural language in talking about the Trinity. If it could be shown historically that there is in fact a correlation between the acceptance of the ministry of women and a later denial of Biblical authority then that would be a telling point. There is only one problem: there is no historical support whatsoever for this position; in fact, I would argue that there is a significant body of historical data pointing in precisely the opposite direction. Since the Reformation, there has been a broad correlation between a high view of Scriptural authority and an acceptance of the ministry of women. Those who advance the ‘egalitarianism as slippery slope’ position often rely on assertions drawn from personal experience: ‘I have seen this over and over again’; ‘in three decades of ministry it has become clear to me’; ‘I, sadly, can think of many former friends who…’. There is a place for personal reminiscence in forming historical argument, but it is a carefully delimited one. Responsible scholarship knows the extent to which our narration of our own experiences tends to be conformed to what we think we should have observed. I am sure Christian pastors and scholars who say things like the above are honestly reflecting what they think they have experienced, but I am equally sure that, were we able to test their narratives against the facts of their life, we would find the intrusion of a considerable amount of unconscious bias. What is needed is proper historical scholarship: in the case of the Trinitarian language issue above, there is a classic case (drawn from older Dissenting history rather than evangelicalism): the Salters’ Hall synod of 1619. We have lists of those who subscribed to a traditional confession of faith, and of those who refused on grounds of fidelity to Scripture; we can trace their future careers, or the later denominational alignment of their churches; the correlation is easy to demonstrate on the basis not of imperfect recollection, but documented historical evidence. Where is the equivalent detailed historical work that shows that those who embrace the ministry of women tend to fall from a conviction of the authority of Scripture? It is just not there. I submit that there is a good reason it is not there: there is no available historical evidence to support assertions that ‘egalitarians’ tend to cease being evangelical. Such assertions are, when tested against historical evidence, simply fantasies. More than this: as any student of evangelical history knows, until the second half of the twentieth century, evangelicalism was more consistently hospitable to the teaching and leading ministry of women than any other Christian tradition except the Quakers. (And the change in the C20th was generally other traditions becoming more hospitable, not evangelicals becoming less so.) Major evangelical leaders have often accepted the ministry of women: Wesley and Booth stand out, but there are many,...
Read More
Recent Comments