I enjoyed Jess’ post yesterday and the comments following. Everyone had something interesting and insightful to say. I suppose not everything that was said can be reconciled – people were not in agreement – but here are my own thoughts.

I’m always interested in what NEO has to say on business as he has a wealth of experience to draw upon (Scoop’s comments about the different types of work he has done are also interesting). I suspect that NEO doesn’t comment in this vein more often because it would be a busman’s holiday for him – and I don’t blame him. For my part, after a long day of drafting defences, trying to negotiate settlements, updating the client, and compiling trial bundles, I’d rather not do anything too reminiscent of that.

As part of the various mailing lists from Knowledge Management, I receive daily bulletins about developments in litigation and the financial services sector. I am also signed up to lists on private client / private wealth and other topics that sometimes play into work as a banking litigator.

These days I tend to skim the bulletins as my energy flags and chargeable and administrative work beckons. Jess’ point about working from home being just as tiring (or more) than working in the office is apt. Some of that, however, may be non-related reasons, such as working on a particularly demanding project.

I don’t miss the commute, though. Losing around 2 hours or so each day, stuck on the crowded bus, was not fun; so eliminating that part of the day has been a blessing. I’m not in a hurry to go back to the office as such, but I wish that otherwise we could get back to normal socialising. One of the hardest things about all of this is not being able to hold my niece or hug my sister or brother-in-law. My niece is too young to properly understand what is going on, but I imagine she picks up on things in that mysterious way young children do.

Things are not easy and we all feel ground down by this year. Many of us started out with a feeling of optimism, that the government would be able to start making reforms, fresh from the December election with a clear, ostensibly solid majority in the Commons. Weary of the Rump Parliament, we had hopes that the Prime Minister would bring a fresh energy and zeal to our troubled land.

That may yet happen. While this year has mostly been wasted from a legislative perspective, I do believe that God has been quietly working behind the scenes. If we are to have any hope of transformation, it must come from both the top and the bottom. We must have laws that are fit for purpose, but we must have a society of conscience that will treat people well, whether or not the law compels them to do so.

Maranatha.

This post is about reasons why it is important to devote time to reading the Tanakh (Old Testament).

1. Getting the full message

Years ago I was presented with a study bible, which is the main bible I read. I am very fortunate in that it not only contains guidance for understanding passages, but also has critical apparatus (textual variants) and intertextuality references. There was a phase when in my daily reading I would read not only the passage or chapter I had set myself, but would read any verses that were related as indicated in the margin.

The Old Testament is the foundation of the New Testament. It is frequently quoted directly and alluded to. However, if we were to rely only on the New Testament, we would not have the full picture. The New Testament authors and speakers usually assumed their audience was familiar with the underlying passage and expected them to contemplate the implications of the instant teaching for the rest of the passage. This might mean going to the local synagogue to read the scroll (or have it read) or recalling the rest of the passage from memory.

Let us consider the following example. In Luke 4 we see Jesus preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth (this also happens to be one of my favourite passages in Scripture, and I like the artistic presentation of it in Franco Zefirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth”). Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah by reading from Isaiah 61:1 to beginning of verse 2.

If we go to the Isaiah passage we see that Jesus stopped part-way through a sentence. This tells us several things.

• The time of wrath mentioned in the rest of Isaiah 61:2 and following had not yet come.
• Jesus is the one who will execute God’s wrath on the Day of the LORD and He is the one who will rebuild Zion.
• The fulfilment of Isaiah in the first advent involved real, concrete actions: miraculous healing and provision. So too, will the eschatological wrath of God and deliverance of Zion involve real, concrete acts by Jesus the Messiah.

There are also questions arising from the New Testament that cannot (conclusively) be answered from the New Testament alone. The question of who or what the “restrainer” is in 2 Thessalonians 2 is one of these questions. Paul’s writings and the Book of Revelation provide important data, but eventually the reader has to consult the Book of Daniel, and possibly other Old Testament books.

2. The beauty of the Old Testament

The Old Testament contains some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring passages ever written. These in turn have inspired writers in subsequent cultures and periods. We would not have Milton’s Paradise Lost or Samson Agonistes if the Old Testament had not been written.

For my part, like countless others, I love the rendering of these passages in the KJV. Consider the following.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

-Isaiah 53:3-6, KJV

I need not tell regular readers here what the import of this passage is – but I will say that it produces just as much awe as any passage in Revelation about the Day of the LORD – for we are sinners and that God should give His only Son to die for us is wondrous. Consider this passage therefore complementarily – for it too reveals what we truly are.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

-Isaiah 64:6, KJV

3. The Old Testament is a candle in the dark night of the soul

The Old Testament does not shy away from the human condition – far from it. As Philip Yancey and various other authors have pointed out, it depicts us in all our moods and conditions. It shows God’s people railing at Him, crying out for an answer to the problem of evil.

St Peter tells us to cast all our cares on Christ, because Christ cares for us. This is one of the most beautiful verses of the New Testament – but it builds on people, such as the Psalmists, doing just that in the Old Testament. This crying out to God has sustained the Israelites in their sufferings through the generations, and is rendered powerfully in song in the animated film, The Prince of Egypt, which is an artistic depiction of the events of the Exodus. In the song, “Deliver us!”, we see an artistic echo of these verses from Exodus:

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey…

-Exodus 3:7-8, KJV

In the early days of my conversion, when I read the bible in the course of a year, Ecclesiastes had little impact upon me. But when I started experiencing and coming to terms with depression, it spoke powerfully, and continues to do so. The Old Testament is a valuable resource for the dark moments in our lives.

4. It exposes us to the past

I have always been interested in history and archaeology. This is one of the reasons I studied Classics at university, went into teaching (for a season), continue to read academic material, and contribute here at AATW and on social media.

I am not the most conservative author here, but, unlike many others, in history I am so conservative as to consider that modernity begins with the classical period of Greece, particularly the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. Although for much of history the rate of change has generally been very slow, especially compared with recent years, and although the cultures we see in the New Testament are, in many respects, far removed from our own, the New Testament has an immediacy about it that comes from its proximity to us on various basic levels.

The same is not necessarily true of the Old Testament, which reveals Bronze Age culture to us (and then goes into the Iron Age). This is a very different world and we have to work hard with ancient complementary sources to really understand it. This Bronze Age world is weird and exotic to our modern eyes.

5. Preserving the integrity of the Gospel

Lastly in this list of reasons, I should like to mention the danger posed to the integrity of the Gospel by various attacks on the Old Testament. This is essentially a slippery slope argument. The more we chip away at the historicity of the Old Testament, the more we undermine the New – because the one is based upon the other. Ultimately, if the whole edifice collapses, we are doomed – if Christ was not raised, neither will we be.

This does not mean that we should read the Old Testament crudely (I read Genesis in a manner compatible with evolution, the Big Bang, etc). It does mean, however, that we must be prepared to defend the historical core of the Old Testament and believe that God does and will act in history. This has implications for our eschatology also, which I often describe as “future history” (for I find the shock of this oxymoron to be useful as an aid for getting my point across and provoking my readers to reflection).

One may naturally enquire, what is that which withholds, and after that would know, why Paul expresses it so obscurely. What then is it that withholds, that is, hinders him from being revealed? Some indeed say, the grace of the Spirit, but others the Roman empire, to whom I most of all accede. Wherefore? Because if he meant to say the Spirit, he would not have spoken obscurely, but plainly, that even now the grace of the Spirit, that is the gifts, withhold him. And otherwise he ought now to have come, if he was about to come when the gifts ceased; for they have long since ceased. But because he said this of the Roman empire, he naturally glanced at it, and speaks covertly and darkly. For he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities, and useless dangers. For if he had said that after a little while the Roman empire would be dissolved, they would immediately have even overwhelmed him, as a pestilent person, and all the faithful, as living and warring to this end. And he did not say that it will be quickly, although he is always saying it— but what? that he may be revealed in his own season, he says, “For the mystery of lawlessness does already work.” He speaks here of Nero, as if he were the type of Antichrist. For he too wished to be thought a god. And he has well said, the mystery; that is, it works not openly, as the other, nor without shame. For if there was found a man before that time, he means, who was not much behind Antichrist in wickedness, what wonder, if there shall now be one? But he did not also wish to point him out plainly: and this not from cowardice, but instructing us not to bring upon ourselves unnecessary enmities, when there is nothing to call for it. So indeed he also says here. Only there is one that restrains now, until he be taken out of the way, that is, when the Roman empire is taken out of the way, then he shall come. And naturally. For as long as the fear of this empire lasts, no one will willingly exalt himself, but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavor to seize upon the government both of man and of God. For as the kingdoms before this were destroyed, for example, that of the Medes by the Babylonians, that of the Babylonians by the Persians, that of the Persians by the Macedonians, that of the Macedonians by the Romans: so will this also be by the Antichrist, and he by Christ, and it will no longer withhold. And these things Daniel delivered to us with great clearness…

These are St John Chrysostom’s thoughts on 2 Thess. 2:6-9. St John Chrysostom lived from c. AD 347 to 407. In his lifetime, the Roman Empire still existed in both the West (Rome/Ravenna) and the East (Constantinople). This passage clearly shows that he believed the Man of Sin is the Antichrist and that the Antichrist is a future figure (i.e. St John Chrysostom was not a preterist).

Earlier in this commentary on 2 Thess., St John Chrysostom indicates that the Antichrist will sit in the temple in Jerusalem (presupposing that it will be rebuilt), although he considers that the Antichrist taking his seat in the temple of God also means the church in some fashion.

His interpretation of the restrainer/restraining force is a common one – viz. the Roman Empire. It does not seem to be confirmed by history, however. Although St Paul does not say expressly that the Antichrist will appear almost immediately after the removal of the restrainer, most would naturally read the passage this way. The Antichrist did not appear swiftly after the fall of either the Western (AD 476) or Eastern (AD 1453) Roman Empire. We know this because the Antichrist is destroyed when Christ returns – Christ did not return soon after the fall of the Roman Empire.

In St John Chrysostom’s words, St Paul writes “obscurely”. The identity of the restrainer has proved a vexing problem for commentators and exegetes over the years.

Jess’ piece yesterday raised an interesting point about the connection between theology and prayer. Further to that post, I wanted to share some thoughts of my own.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he Hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high: being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

-Hebrews 1:1-4 (KJV)

We need theology and the Holy Scriptures, from which our theology is derived. Theology helps us to understand Christ better and to know how we should act. But Christ is our Creator and our Saviour, and He is the way to the Father.

In the earliest days after conversion it is common for Christians in the West, where resources tend to be more easily available, to read the Scriptures seriously and to seek guidance for understanding them (commentaries; catechisms; etc). As time goes on, a theology emerges.

The Christian who is dedicated to pursuing truth will refine his theology in the fires of experience and discipline. Simplistic readings of complex passages may be expanded or rejected.

Many will also wish to read the whole of the Bible and to memorise key passages. They embark on plans to read the Bible during the course of a year, and with time, passages become familiar and are easily recognised when cited by others.

These things are good – but they also run into challenge. As the Christian matures, he will be exposed to doubts, which are part of God’s process for testing and refining our faith. The great figures of the Bible demonstrate these pains and concerns at the low points of their lives. Elijah wished to “lie down and die”, because he believed he was the last one in Israel loyal to Yahweh. Without wishing to cast aspersions on his character, one wonders if this was not simply despair at the weakness and wickedness of humanity. Was there doubt in God somewhere in his heart?

St Paul wrote, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10, KJV). The context of this passage is external pressures, rather than inward doubts, but it lays out a central point of St Paul’s theology: we are not alone.

It is Christ – through the ministry of the Holy Spirit – who carries us, who strengthens us when we are weak. When, in spite of all things, we make it through, it is Christ who has achieved victory in us, and it is Christ who is glorified, to the glory of God the Father.

It is Christ who carries us, and we lay hold of Christ by faith. Theology is tested, but Christ remains.

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

-1 Corinthians 13:13

The Millennium

I often reflect on the seasons as symbols of Judeo-Christian ideas, especially when I am out walking. I think of the resurrection of Christ and the saints and our being born again of the Holy Spirit in spring. I think of the Fall and the consequences of sin in autumn and winter.

The summer is now drawing to a close, and we find ourselves wondering just what will happen with schools and universities in a COVID-19 world. Looking back to the run up to the longest day, it was a time of joy for me, because I despise the darkness of winter. In the old days of commuting to and from the office or my workplace before that, I used to hate going home in the dark.

Summer-time is when I feel closest to the Millennium. I can almost see it; almost taste it. The Millennium is important to me, not just as a part of my eschatology, but as a core component of the Gospel, of my biblical hope and moral outlook on life.

When we consider that God’s standard is perfection, that justice must be perfect, we realise that even here in the West, where we have so much to be grateful for, we still fall short of God’s ideal for this world. The Millennium is important as a time when the world sees an increase in the quality and quantity of justice, in the quality of life itself. Nations that disobey Christ are punished. The Law goes out from Zion. The saints rule and are vindicated.

However, the Millennium also teaches a valuable lesson – outward righteousness is not enough. At the end of the Millennium, when Satan is released from the Abyss, he seduces much of the world into a war against Christ and His people. It is not enough to be ruled by goodness externally – without being born again of the Holy Spirit, we are doomed.

Thus Christ’s millennial rule, wonderful and deeply longed-for as it is, must give way to the New Heavens and the New Earth, to the time when He will commit all things to the Father.

The economy

I observed in my heart before the COVID-19 crisis that the proliferation of hairdressers, bars, and certain other types of economic activity was not sustainable. I believed that when the next recession hit (and I believed one was imminent on the grounds that they seem to happen roughly every 10 years), a lot of these businesses would be the first to go, because their patrons would have little to no disposable income and credit would be hard to come by.

I am no prophet. I did not foresee and could not have foreseen that a pandemic would be the trigger for recession, or that these businesses would be particularly affected because they involve congregation and close physical contact.

I was concerned, however, about the amount of money the average person was spending on these things, living from paycheck to paycheck, and the proliferation of credit. I was concerned about the cultural impact of vanity and “eat, drink, and be merry” attitudes. I was concerned that our education system was not preparing people for work. I was concerned that our economy did not have enough manufacturing and primary industry to balance out our service-industry bias.

If we can overcome COVID-19, I would like to see our government reform our economy, our education system, and our financial system.

Hagia Sophia

I think it is time this blog had some thoughts on the conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque and the now open neo-Ottoman rhetoric emanating from the government of Turkey and its supporters. I have been watching Turkey for some years now, and while these developments are upsetting, they are not surprising.

The Turkish government considers that the last true Caliph was the sultan of the Ottoman empire. When Attaturk abolished the caliphate, an “inter-regnum” began. This government is dedicated to reversing the secularisation of Turkey and end of the Ottoman empire by the 100-year anniversary of the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate/caliphate – i.e. by 2024.

The Ottoman empire at its greatest extent ruled North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia, parts of the Caucasus/Greater Armenia region, the Balkans, Greece, and Arabia. It had a hot-and-cold relationship with the Persian Safavvid empire, with the two contesting rule of Mesopotamia.

The current Turkish government desires not only direct rule of the territories once controlled by the Ottoman empire, but also influence in the wider Islamic world and special influence in Turkic-ethnicity dominated nations, namely the nations of Central Asia (as well as influence among Turkish and Turkic minority groups in nations such as Germany and Russia).

These things are causes for concern, as events that occur in the Middle East usually have wider ramifications for the world, especially in these days of globalisation. Turkey’s and Iran’s influence are opposed by Saudi Arabia, the Arab Gulf States, and Egypt. Whether in proxy wars or direct conflict, much harm is resulting and will result.

Education – not fit for purpose

Amidst the business of GCSE and A-level grades that has caused such tumult this August, we should spare some thoughts for the bigger problem of cultural and intellectual decay in the UK. Education is now an important pillar of society. As Christians and adherents of virtue epistemology, how can we not weep in our present situation?

The UK does not traditionally have a doctrine of “church and state”. In fact, our law requires state schools to hold assemblies of a broadly Christian character. The system, as a whole, however, has failed to teach students about Christianity or the skills of critical thinking. As I have written before on this blog, when I taught sociology of religion, I first had to teach religion because my students did not have the foundations on which to build the sociology.

We are confronted with a zeitgeist in which many parts of our population believe that science has “disproved God”, and yet know absolutely nothing about proper scientific methodology, philosophy of science, or epistemology generally. Meanwhile, basic life skills, such as managing a household budget, finding legislation, and operating a joint bank account are not taught.

Our education system is not fit for purpose. It does not provide the skills that are actually needed to enter the workplace; it does not teach the law or the principles of good citizenship; it does not produce God-fearing, patriotic citizens. This is not to say our teachers do not work hard or that parts of the curriculum do not try to address these issues – but the system has failed.

There are several poisons in the swamp of our education system. One of them is the influence of the Labour Party at both formal and informal levels. Teacher training is decidedly skewed by liberal ideology and a large proportion (perhaps a majority) of teachers are Labour-voters and members of unions (whose control rests in Labour-voting hands).

The workplace, meanwhile, insists on people having degrees in order to obtain various jobs that actually do not require degrees, but only skills that can be learned on vocational courses. The universities support this culture because it means money for them. Thus people are landed with debts that – in abstract terms – they should never have needed to incur.

Meanwhile, the straight-jackets imposed via national curricula deny teachers and schools (even, to some extent, independent ones) the flexibility they need to properly fulfil their mandates. Thus we churn out students who have been exposed to subversive literature, but who cannot write grammatically correct sentences (or spot the fact that they have failed to produce such sentences).

On top of this, we have the incoherence of trying to impose rigorous and finely-differentiated grades on arts subjects where such measurements are not possible in the contexts of essays and other such genres of writing. While one can assess the general quality of a piece of work and assess the relative merits of different pieces, the attempt to impose the kind of grading we use today is ultimately futile and means the dissemination of false ideas.

Our society is corrupt – it will take changes in our culture as well as our laws to heal it.

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

-1 Timothy 2: 12-15

I have not had the opportunity to comment at length on Chalcedon’s series on women in ministry. As I have several different lines of thought, a post seemed more appropriate than a comment at this stage. In particular, I felt that the passage above needed confronting. This post will therefore have a few different sections, not in any particular order.

Priesthood

It is important to note that the English word “priest” is derived from the Greek word presbyter, which does not mean priest in the sense of a person who offers sacrifices. A presbyter is an elder (sometimes an ambassador in Greek or delegate). Presbyters were also elders who governed local communities (whether by holding office according to a local constitution or through wealth or local tradition).

This word seems to have entered Christianity from the synagogue, which is hardly surprising since many early churches were synagogues that had recognised Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah or groups that had broken away from synagogues or Jews who formed new messianic communities.

In the synagogue, the elders were the board that helped to oversee the life of the synagogue and they probably took leading roles in certain ceremonies, supporting the rabbi. For this reason, many Christians have concluded that presbyters in the New Testament are really the boards of elders that oversaw local churches and/or clusters of local churches.

If churches had been licit in the early Empire, they would have been responsible for representing them to the local authorities or even to the Senate or Emperor. As it was, they may still have done this in a non-official manner. Indeed, when interrogating and investigating churches under superstitio law, the Roman authorities may generally have preferred to ask the elders about matters.

Nowhere does the New Testament use the sacrificer Greek word for priest, hiereus, as a synonym or adjunct to elder. Whenever this word is used, it refers to the Jewish priests in the Jerusalem Temple, sacrificing under the Mosaic Law, or pagan sacrifice of animals, or the Christian community being consecrated as priests to God in a metaphorical sense, extending the Torah’s description of Israel as a kingdom of priests.

For this reason, although it seems clear that the Orthodox and Catholic idea of eucharistic priesthood evolved from an early stage in Church history (and therefore churches descended from them or from the earlier stem-line have this concept), it is not certain that the Church in the days of the Apostles had it. Therefore, for dissenting churches that go by the Bible alone, and reject certain developments in teaching and praxis, the in persona Christi / in capite Christi line of reasoning is not relevant to the question of women in ministry, because they reject the hiereus / sacerdos interpretation of presbyter or the celebrant at the eucharist.

For these churches, the questions are simply these.

1. Is it right for women to serve in leadership positions (oversight, management, teaching, church-planting, and representation of the church to outsiders)?
2. Is it right for women to conduct the eucharist?

There are no universal answers to these questions within the dissenting communities, because they take different approaches to biblical interpretation, falling along a spectrum.

Some view Paul’s teachings as binding for all time. Therefore, they bar women from leadership positions (though they may disagree about what counts as a leadership position in the sense Paul intended in the above passage and related ones).

Others view the New Testament ethical tradition as a set of principles that have to be applied in context and consider that different contexts may yield different results. These may therefore allow women to serve in roles that would not be open to them in more “conservative” churches.

A third group adopt a middle position, which is that some of Paul’s teachings are binding, because they sit within the firm teachings of the Lord / Apostolic leadership, but others are not, being rules he imposed on the communities he was directly responsible for, and subject to context.

Reading 1 Timothy 2

Paul’s passage above appears simple, but I personally understand why, in this century and the previous one, churches have wondered whether it is an absolute bar to women serving in some areas of ministry. The following problems arise when reading this text more closely.

1. Is Paul’s reference to himself meant to be taken as referring to (i) the authority he wields as a missionary over the churches he planted and/or (ii) personal preference?
2. How exactly did Paul understand the opening chapters of Genesis?
3. Would Paul have considered this teaching subject to change if circumstances altered (e.g. such as the level of education women received and/or the roles they were allowed to hold in commerce, government, and society generally)?

For my part, I do not consider Paul’s teaching to be particularly radical in context. In his day, women were not allowed to serve as rabbis or elders; they did not generally hold formal positions of authority within Roman or local governments and certainly did not serve in the legions. Power that they did wield in local communities was generally exceptional and unofficial, in the form of influence through connections with powerful men or as strong business women.

The picture is different nowadays with equality laws, changes in society generally, and the introduction of women into leadership positions in various churches. But two points are found in the passage that would seem to suggest changes in our societies do not affect the fundamental nature of the sexes and the plan and purpose of God for creation. (1) Paul asserts that Adam was created before Eve and (2) Paul asserts that Eve was deceived by the Serpent, but Adam was not.

The thrust of Paul’s teaching seems to be that men are ordained by God to have authority of women, and not the other way around. Note that Paul refers to the creation of Adam (i.e. before the Fall), not the pronouncement of God about relations between the sexes in the protoevangelion. Genesis shows man and woman working together in co-rulership over creation as the image of God, but it clearly teaches that Adam was made before Eve.

As for deception, Paul seems to be teaching that women are inherently more likely to be deceived, and therefore it is unwise to put them in teaching positions. This strikes me as very problematic (as is his application of the primacy of Adam above). I imagine that he would concede there were exceptions to this general rule; but I have no doubt that if he made such a concession, he would then add that it does not change the general calculus, and thus it is safer to err on the side of forbidding women to teach.

It may be true that, owing to the educational practices of the time and other cultural considerations, women would generally not be suited to teaching and other leadership positions – but does that mean we ought to be bound by Paul today? I think, to answer this question, we must make a careful consideration of Genesis and Paul’s use of it – but that is beyond the scope of today’s post, which is already lengthy. I intend to write about that topic subsequently.

The Anglican Communion

Lastly, I have a few comments about how this matter has been handled in the Anglican Church. While I spent four years attending an Anglican church at university (which was evangelical-charismatic) and some time at my college chapel (which was Anglo-Catholic and where I received communion from a lady priest, who was very kind to me), I am certainly not an authority on Anglicanism. However, four points do strike me in this controversy.

1. The women-in-ministry issue is not truly isolated because the different factions and agendas form alliances in the Synod and in other contexts. Proponents of women in ministry may, in many but not all cases, also be proponents of other “liberal” agendas, such as gay rights, etc.
2. For those who espouse a liturgical understanding of Christian priesthood, I really do not see how women can be understood as priests, given the reliance in Tradition in this schema and Tradition’s unequivocal opposition to women priests.
3. I really do not know what the “official” position on priesthood is in the Anglican communion, since parts of the Anglican tradition tend in the dissenting tradition and other parts tend in the liturgical direction.
4. I question the motives of many in pushing for women to be ordained to the priesthood and episcopacy – and motives do matter in Christianity. Where things are forced on people and no respect is shown for conscience, we violate Paul’s teachings in 1 and 2 Corinthians and Christ’s teachings about serving one another and bearing each other’s weaknesses in love. I believe this issue has divided the Anglican Church and harmed it in divers other ways.