Category: Book Reviews

Reviews of randomly assorted books.

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tgoThis book comes from Welsh retreat centre Ffald-y-brenin, but that place, and author, Roy Godwin, are not the point.  Here’s something from the book, in Roy’s words, that gets to the heart of the real issue for me:

A number of years ago I felt a cry rising up in my inmost being – “There has to be more than this.” As I remembered my dreams of what living as a child of God would be like, there was that cry again.  There has to be more than this.  I was stirred by memories of great days in the past when God had seemed so close, but that’s where they were – in the past. Oh God, there must be more than this.

Looking at church initiated the same cry. There is so much good, so many signs of blessing in many local churches and fellowships, but looking more broadly at the national scene raised the question “Is this really all that the Father has in mind for the bride of his Son?” (pp180-181, emphasis mine)

This book taps into a divine sense of dissatisfaction.  I don’t think it’s unique to our time and place; I see it echoed in the lives of many Christian saints, both historical and contemporary.  It’s a dissatisfaction that is eschatological in nature (Romans 8:22-23) and speaks to the sense that until our Lord returns there is still more gospel work to be done.  The Great Commission to go and make disciples remains in place.

In our experience, Gill and I have encountered people and places that are entirely satisfied with the status quo.  Any dissatisfaction is a commiseration about the good old days rather than a cry for more.  This is a dry place to be.

But for those who are dissatisfied the next question, of course is “What do we do with it?”  How do we act on it?  We have seen a variety of responses.  All are well-intentioned, but some are problematic.  The essence of the problem is this tension: in order to get good things done we take control, but nothing will satisfy if we do it in with and for ourselves.

We’ve seen it in mission agencies where the dissatisfaction leads to impatience, lack of care, vision without process, and ineffectiveness.  We’ve seen it in congregations where that dissatisfaction turns into yet another program which is an attempt to scratch the itch so as to return to comfort, or prove worth, or not seem lazy, or simply “do what good churches should do.”  We’ve both been driven in these sort of ways.  It’s a frustrating place to be.

There’s a difficult tension at the heart of an effective ecclesial spirituality – to be dissatisfied, stirred, motivated, urgent, expectant; and let God be God and build through us, not in spite of us.  It isn’t quietist or passive – things get still get done.  But it is built upon a foundation of prayer, and being attentive to God’s Word and the providential promptings of His Spirit.

The Grace Outpouring hits us at the sweet spot of that tension.  It promotes the dissatisfaction, it stirs us to action, and so it pivots us to turn to prayer, expectant prayer.

Roy, and co-writer Dave Roberts, do this simply by sharing the story of Ffald-y-brenin.  Yes there’s some explanation and some reasonable theologising and all the other things that get a point across, but in the end they just want to share what God has been doing.  Dave writes in his foreword:

…as people who model our lives on a storyteller, we’re best advised to do as he did and tell the stories of what God has done. So we invite you to join us as this story unfolds. We’ll draw out principles and go to the root sources in Scripture, but we hope that what you read will help paint pictures on the canvas of your imagination that will allow you to be provoked by the Holy Spirit to prayer, compassion, and a mind-set that desires to bless others. (p14)

I can’t do justice to the story here, but it truly does creatively provoke.

Along the way we do encounter some of the definitive Ffald-y-brenin experiences.  To consider two of them:

Blessing: In the story Roy shares how his was initially an “accidental” tradition – to speak a blessing over all those who come to Ffald-y-brenin.  To be a recipient of it is profound.  Gill and I experienced this first-hand when we travelled to the centre a few weeks ago; tired and exhausted from a long day of travel and some of the complexities and perplexities of life we were shown to our room, and then to the chapel, where life-giving utterly-relevant personal words were spoken over us in Christ’s name.  I hadn’t read the book before we went; I wasn’t expecting it!  It set us on course for a deep and meaningful time with God.

We don’t always know what to do with “blessing.”  In some popular thinking blessings are almost like magic, talismanic words; this is usually unhelpful, and inhibits access to the gospel.  For others, “blessing” is simply an indistinct form of prayer.  Roy is right when he distinguishes blessing from intercession; as he points out to offer a blessing in Christ’s name is a bold, daring, and necessarily humble action of someone who takes seriously the priesthood of believers and the ambassadorial nature of the Christian vocation, and seeks to exercise it with generous care.  It may not be a rigorous theological treatise, but I admire the thoughtfulness:

We’re invoking the very character of God himself into the lives of those we pray for.  They’re getting a foretaste of being adopted into God’s family.  We’re opening a door for them to glimpse something of the kingdom of God. God is saying, “I’m going to bless you with everything I’ve blessed my children with.” (p36)

There is something right and properly kerygmatic in turning our holy dissatisfaction into words of blessing, to articulate, to proclaim the creative life-giving heart of our Lord and Saviour specifically, personally, and locally.

House of Prayer / New Monasticism: In the story a Welsh Christian retreat centre becomes a “House of Prayer” and Roy expands and expounds this by referring not only to the daily rhythm of prayer that is exercised at the centre, but also to the outward-looking movements that are as near as hospitality and acts of service, as far as intercessions for nations and global movements, and as deep as the revivals of the Celtic and modern Welsh church.  I reflected earlier about how this compares to our English context.

Gill and I have brought the daily rhythm of prayer into our home and are seeking to share it in some form with our church.  The daily reminder, using words of Scripture to cause us to bring to mind the characteristics and promises of a faithful God, has blessed us.  We have somewhere to give that holy dissatisfaction a proper beginning, a turning to God, a daily repentance, a discipline of intercession and expectation.

Towards the end of the book Roy connects the dots with the amorphous movement that is becoming known as the “New Monasticism.”  It has deep and ancient roots of course.  In current manifestations it invokes simplicity, purity and accountability in ways that express the holy dissatisfaction in profoundly counter-cultural ways.  They are ways that tear down middle class idols.

…Local House of Prayer involves sacrifice, just as it did in the Old Testament times. Among our offerings we will bring our worship (not necessarily singing) and the spirit of the community around us.  We will need to set aside our rights, judgmental attitudes, pride, and self-righteousness.  We will lay down our bodies and our patterns of thinking as living sacrifices for God’s glory and his purposes. (pp167-168)

IMG_0843After returning from our recent visit to Ffald-y-brenin, Gill and I have been pondering these things.  What I have read of here, and what we have encountered has informed our dissatisfaction.  It has renewed our passion for God’s Word and Spirit, and a determination to rely on him, rather than to burn-out in our own strength.

These things have been stimulated by our visit, and we will return.  But it’s not about the place, or the person.  It’s about doing the hard yards of following God.  Of seeking him in the dissatisfaction, not collapsing it, not running away from it, but facing the pain and patience of it, and actively pursuing his way; so that at the end of it all he is glorified as God’s people are blessed to be a blessing.

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9780801097713Like churches themselves, there’s a tendency for those of us in pastoral ministry (ordained and lay) to become self-referential; the aim of a “good” pastor is just to be good at it, for some insipid definition of “good” and indistinct definition of “it.”  As an older priest once told me when I was young and green when I asked about his aims in ministry, it was simply “to survive, Will, to survive.”

I know what he means now.  Sometimes the vocation becomes merely a lurch of survival from Sunday to Sunday on a merry-go-round of meetings and rotas.  It can look like duty and diligence and all manner of virtuous things, but it’s hardly the stuff of a world-changing gospel.

All of us in ministry need an occasional reordering, a return to a sense of vocation that cuts across the self-referential malaise and gets us looking Jesus-ward again.

Vanhoozer’s and Strachan’s The Pastor as Public Theologian is a book for such a reordering.  It aims to “reclaim a lost vision” and does so in a way that is not just timely but also (as Eugene Peterson claims on the cover) urgent.  Personally speaking, it has been a long time since I have read a book throughout which I have exclaimed “Yes!” and “That’s right!” and “This! Absolutely this!”

The authors begin by decrying the tendency to dislocate theology from the work of on-the-ground ministry by relegating it to the academy.  The separation of “practical” and “theological” is truly a false dichotomy.  With my background in both Pentecostal and Reformed streams it’s one that I have flailed against.  It is why I have sometimes described my framework for ministry as that of an “applied theologian.”  Application and theology go together.

We are reminded that the straitjackets of this dichotomy are still prevalent.  Expectations on the pastor take the shape of counsellor, business analyst, sociologist, manager, entertainer, or educator.  It’s these expectations that creep into board meetings, “action planning,” and even (if they happen at all) times of prayer.

The book has been edited to include a number of short “pastoral perspective” chapters from other contributors.  One of them, Gerhald Hiestand, wonderfully describes this malaise by recognising that pastors are often “swimming against the current of the atheological swamp that is contemporary evangelicalism.” (p29).

In this way, Vanhoozer and Strachan are not just writing to pastors, they are also writing to churches.  The reordering they stimulate is not just about church leaders, but about the nature and shape of the church itself.

Theology is in exile and, as a result, the knowledge of God is in ecclesial eclipse.  The promised land, the gathered people of God, has consequently come to resemble a parched land: a land of wasted opportunities that no longer cultivates disciples as it did in the past. (pp1-2)

We are writing to you, churches, because you need to be encouraged to rethink the nature, function, and qualifications of the pastors whom you appoint to serve you… We also think you need to reclaim your heritage as a theological community created by God’s Word, and sustained by God’s Spirit, and to remember that you are part of God’s story, not that God is part of your story (pastor-theologians ought to be able to help you with this!). (p2)

The key phrase used throughout is the double-barrelled “pastor-theologian.”  It usefully interacts with their fundamental concerns about the false dichotomy.  But it is an awkward phrase with no clear scriptural anchor point.  There are some other words which might better serve the purpose.

For instance, the work of the “pastor-theologian” is the work of a missionary.

The word “missionary” has its own baggage, of course, but it makes clear that whenever Vanhoozer and Strachan describe a pastor-theologian in action, they actually end up dealing with missiological issues.  They end up discussing the demonstration and application of the gospel in the shifting culture of the real world.  This is necessarily theological work; how else do you apply the gospel but by first understanding it?  And it is also countercultural work; how else do you apply the gospel but by finding the touchstone points where it pushes back and has something different to say?

Missionary language would have helped the authors as they show us the challenges of this work. Missionaries understand the difficulty of articulating and demonstrating the application of the gospel in the real world.  They know that the countercultural gospel, when filled with the theological richness of Christ’s death and resurrection, will always be resisted, passively or otherwise.

Make no mistake: it is not easy to go against the cultural grain, and in a real sense, the faithful pastor will always be a countercultural figure: what else can pastors be when they proclaim Christ crucified and then ask disciples to imitate their Lord by dying to self? (p3)

The flock of Jesus Christ is threatened not by lions, bears, or wolves (1 Sam 17:34-35) but by false religion, incorrect doctrine, and ungodly practices – not to mention “principalities and powers” (Eph. 6:12 KJV). Consequently, pastors who want to be out ahead of the congregations must be grounded in the gospel and culturally competent.  Public theologians help people understand the world in which they live and, what is more important, how to follow Christ in everyday as well as extraordinary situations. (p23)

In this aspect of pastor-theologian as missionary I particularly valued Melvin Tinker’s short contribution which is a missiological reflection with respect to the UK.  Reflecting on a “Babylonian captivity” in English culture, he describes symptoms that I am coming across in my current context:

The nature of the “captivity” shows itself… by relativism in public and private ethics, valuing people by their looks and work, secularization with the marginalization of religion in public life (“privatization”).  Taken together, the Christian certainly feels like an alien and is alienated.  The gap between what is believed and how it can be practiced (without guidance) can reach cavernous proportions in people’s minds, and so the temptation to capitulate to the world by privatizing religion is strong. (p62)

Secondly, it would have been more helpful for “pastor-theologian” to be understood in terms of the five-fold ministry, and particularly with regard to the apostolic.

The five-fold ministry of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher is unpacked by Paul in Ephesians 4.  These are gifted roles which have the purpose of “building up the body” to maturity in Christ.  Vanhoozer and Strachan explicitly apply the same function to the pastor-theologian who has the work of “growing persons, cultivating a people” (p125).

I would have thought it would have therefore been more helpful to interact closely with these five offices.  Rather, although the teaching, pastoral, prophetic, and evangelistic work of the pastor-theologian are all teased out at one point or other, it is an implicit correlation.

Instead, they fill the phrase “pastor-theologian” theologically by exploring its ambassadorial nature which “participates” (p48) in the “prophet, priest and king” (p39) offices of Christ’s new covenant ministry.  This is helpful, but in sum it most readily describes an apostolic form of ministry; the apostolic ministry is inherently representational of Christ (“as the Father sent me, so I send you”, John 20:21) and, in practice, informs, guides and demonstrates the missiological exercise of the other four.

Apostolic ministry is also marked by a kenotic (self-emptying) character that carries the church, in her suffering and adversity.  This is a characteristic that Vanhoozer and Strachan pick up and apply to the “pastor-theologian”:

Here is the central paradox: the pastor is a public figure who must make himself nothing, who must speak not to attract attention to himself but rather to point away from himself – unlike most contemporary celebrities.  The pastor must make truth claims to win people not to his own way of thinking but to God’s way.  The pastor must succeed, not by increasing his own social status but, if need be, by decreasing it. (pp13-14)

The prophet did not generally minister from a position of earthly power but rather by entering into the people’s suffering. (p46)

The pastor images the old-covenant priest by modeling for the church a set-apart life.  This righteous model is designed to inspire, edify, and if necessary critique the people – all for the sake of encouraging them to pursue the Lord with zeal so that they too may be transformed.  The pastor is no more (or less) righteous than the people.  Ministry does not scrub away personal imperfections and weaknesses, but rather magnifies them, drawing pastors to first lay claim to divine grace before ministering it to their people. (p51)

Pastoral leadership ought to march to the beat of a different world-defying drummer, participating in Christ’s kingship by personifying the cruciform wisdom of God. (p54)

In the end the authors rest the theological task (and hence its doxological, liturgical, didactic, and pastoral expressions) of the pastor-theologian on something fundamentally epistemological and Christ-centred.  It is a “ministry of reality” (p108), a communication “in word and deed, in person and work, [of] the reality of the new resurrection order: the renewal of human being” (p107) and of culture.  Whatever really is, is in Christ, and is therefore known in him.

There is a touching point for this in my own Anglican context.  Vanhoozer and Strachan’s reordering of vocation brings us continually back to consider time again that which is in Christ.  Our ministry is formed and shaped by what is in Christ because what is in Christ is fundamental reality, an epistemological fixed-point in space-time.  Moreover, “Scripture alone provides an authoritative account of what is in Christ (p114).”  A shared scriptural epistemology is therefore essential not only to the building up of the church (because what is in Christ is the rich common ground of true koinonia) but consequentially essential to the unity and collegiality of pastors themselves.  As I have reflected on in other places, this is at the heart of current Anglican disagreements.

It is clear that I resonate with the vision that Vanhoozer and Strachan attempt to reclaim.  After all, this blog is called “Journeyman,” which also alludes to a “jack-of-all-existential-trades” (p104) vocation!  I’d be happy for that to mean for myself, to be “in some sense a public theologian, a peculiar sort of intellectual, a particular type of generalist.” (p15)  I am with Kynes (another minor contributor to the book) who recognises that theology is not dead, but living.  Its appeal is both affective and cognitive.  It is “truth, goodness, and beauty” (p134).

This beauty excites me, it drives me to prayer.  It lingers when I think of the society and community in which I am now placed.  It is the beauty of our Saviour who gave himself for this world.  It is the beauty of God’s rag-tag people.  It is the beauty of the new life to which this world is called.  It is worth a lifetime of effort.

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jewishgospelsI have an ongoing interest in the interaction between first-century rabbinical Judaism and Christianity.  On each exploration I find increased depth and colour to my reading of the New Testament.  I picked up Boyarin’s book The Jewish Gospels on something of a whim and for the title alone.

Boyarin’s project is to reduce the divide between what are classically considered as the distinctives of Christianity over against Judaism: the divinity of Christ, and the necessity of suffering in the messianic expectation.  He seeks to demonstrate that these distinctives are present (although not always widely accepted) within pre-Christian Jewish thought and expectation; they are not novelties invented in the light of Christ, but pre-existing understandings that are re-appraised in the light of a kosher, crucified and risen Messiah.

In this he is aiding the increasing mutual affirmation that is currently apparent in Judaeo-Christian relations.  I follow Romans 11 enough to see this as a good thing: Gentile humility and Jewish messianic faith leaves my heart strangely warmed.  Boyarin’s location of classic Christian theology in Jewish messianic expectation serves both.

Of particular interest, however, is Boyarin’s hermeneutic.  This informs exegesis more broadly and I have added it to my toolchest:

Firstly, the title “Son of Man” was not code, or a dimunition of “Son of God” (a clearly messianic term, drawing on the image of the human Davidic kings); it is a deliberate connection with the one with the Ancient of Days in Daniel, and has always connoted divinity.

The occupant of one throne was an ancient, the occupant of the other a young figure in human form.  The older one invests the younger one with His own authority on earth forever and ever, passing the scepter to him.  What could be more natural, then, than to adopt the older usage “Son of God,” already ascribed to the Messiah in his role as the Davidic king of Israel, and understanding it more literally as the sign of the equal divinity of the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man?  Thus the Son of Man became the Son of God, and “Son of God” became the name of Jesus’ divine nature – and all without any break with ancient of Jewish tradition.
(pp 46-47)

Secondly, much of the controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees relates to the Pharisee’s novel approach to the manifestation of their Jewish identity.  Jesus represents a conservative and traditional view, resisting the legalistic and narrow innovations of the Pharisees.

Jesus’ Judaism was a conservative reaction against some radical innovations in the Law stemming from the Pharisees and Scribes of Jerusalem. (p104)

Jesus… was fighting not against Judaism but within it – an entirely different matter.  Far from being a marginal Jew, Jesus was a leader of one type of Judaism that was being marginalized by another group, the Pharisees, and he was fighting against them as dangerous innovators. (p105)

Thirdly, the messianic expectation of the Jews was not triumphalism, (vicarious) suffering was expected.

The notion of the humiliated and suffering Messiah was not at all alien within Judaism before Jesus’ advent, and it remained current among Jews well into the future following that – indeed, well into the early modern period.  The fascinating (and to some, no doubt, uncomfortable) fact is that this tradition was well documented by modern Messianic Jews, who are concerned to demonstrate that their belief in Jesus does not make them un-Jewish. (pp132-133)

I do not have the wherewithal to properly and academically test this framework.  I can only consider the internal logic, and the sense in which they help me to tell the gospel story faithfully to Scripture.  To that extent it is helpful.

I have a few concerned questions about his analytical framework.  His redactional analysis of Daniel presupposes an “intra-Jewish controversy” in which “the author of the Book of Daniel, who had Daniel’s vision itself before him, wanted to suppress the ancient testimony of a more-than-singular God, using allegory to do so” (p43).  He therefore doesn’t present to us an Old Testament witness to Triune thought as a clear proclamation of Scripture, but as a tension within Scripture, a rejection of one part in order to express the emphasis of another part.

This willingness to divide Scripture does not strengthen his argument.  I don’t want him to stand outside and objectify Scripture, I want him to tell the covenant, gospel story.  He gives the material for it, but doesn’t narrate it.  This is a book of intriguing insights but it us readers who have the the task of assessing, applying and proclaiming them.  

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41WVRwkQ6RLIf you want a decent overview of contemporary men’s ministry, this will give it to you.

I was lent a copy of Anthoney Delaney‘s Diamond Geezers as I’ve been focussing (somewhat) on “men’s ministry” recently.  There’s no doubt about it, this is a book for men.  It’s style, content, manner and demeanour shouts “men’s shed” and “man cave” with a barbaric yawp, using blokey vernacular and a mate-in-the-pub mode throughout.

The substance of the book is in the title.  For those who can’t speak vernacular English, geezer is short for “a gentleman of the common type, esp. pertaining to integrity and worthy of respect.”  Diamond is a superlative positive qualitative adjective.  If you were to re-title this in Australian it would (with a bit of a wince at the overly-ockerness) “bonza blokes.”

DGBut the word diamond is quite deliberate.  Delaney takes a six-faceted look at being a diamond geezer.  He deals with six “f-words” which are basically an exhaustive list of the things that are found when working with men: fitness, finances, failures, family, friends and father.  That is, blokes need to deal with their health issues, their wealth issues, their daddy issues, their loneliness, their relational brokenness, and their insecurities.  Tying it all up is the call to live life for Jesus.

By taking this approach, Delaney has produced a robust and reasonably complete exhortation. For myself, I was prodded, provoked and prompted in the chapter on “friends.”  It wasn’t just a sob story (“We’re alone too much, even when we’re with people” p99) but also had a number of challenges, including risking vulnerability, being willing to share life.  Delaney avoids making it all about mush (crf. Paul who had close friends but also “knocked over fences people wanted to sit on.” p108).

Diamond Geezers aren’t afraid to get a bit closer, a bit more real. p101

In other sections Delaney does well to not just deal with the presenting issue (say on financial or physical disciplines) but to prod so that the readers realise that the issue isn’t really the issue, and that burrowing down to the root cause of pain is necessary.  But it’s not always like that.  Occasionally I felt that he was buying into the “be a successful man” game rather than cutting across it to encourage masculine growth in Jesus terms alone.  Occasionally it’s a guilt trip, and a little bit Nike (“just do it”), which can hurt rather than help.

The value of this book is for use as a grace-aware method of communicating “let me tell you some home truths, fella.”  For those blokes (and there are many of us) who simply need some sense knocked into us and to wake up to some realities, this does that with the right trajectory.  For those who are wrestling more deeply, there is a chance that the gem of grace that breaks through could be encountered here, but that would be providence more than planning.

For that deeper work this book isn’t the answer, and may even frustrate.  Such deeper work requires wise counsel, practical courage, and perhaps some real diamond geezers around you to help push you along.  Which means, in the end, the answer isn’t this book, but Jesus working through his people.  But then, that’s always the case, right?  And I’m pretty sure Delaney, clearly a diamond geezer himself, would agree with that.

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tcyccGill and I have read many books during our life in ministry.  Many are helpful, a few are frustrating, and quite a lot are downright disappointing.  But some are set apart by being theologically robust and wonderfully relevant and accessible.  These are the books that we end up buying multiple copies of and giving away.

It’s been a long time since I came across a book that fits into this category.  I have found one with Tim Chester’s You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions.  Chester himself describes it as an “anti-self-help book written in the style of a self-help book” which is probably why I like it so much; it subverts all that pop-psych spiritualised self-discovery claptrap that’s out there.

The book was referred to me after I spoke at a Men’s Weekend Away held by our church. By God’s grace among the fruit of that weekend, a number of men are self-motivated to meet together regularly for peer-led discipleship, nurture and accountability.  It was they that discovered this book.  It is a fantastic resource.

The felt-need addressed by You Can Change is, in the broadest view, the perceived irrelevance of typical church life.  In that stereotype the things of church – spirituality, theology, community – are valued and appreciated, but with a frustration that they don’t seem to do anything.  The gospel of Jesus can, in some sense, be understood, expressed, and even promoted; and yet at the same time it can feel like nothing ever changes.  The struggles, temptations, failings and flaws of our very person remain unaddressed and sometimes unabashed.  The gospel moves around us at arms length and our maturation stalls in an eddy of “sinful behaviour and negative emotions.”

The beauty of Chester’s book is that he doesn’t attempt to meet this felt-need by filling the gap between gospel and personal experience with his own ten-step branded model of success-for-the-motivated-Jesus-man; he simply reflects on how to close the gap by applying the gospel as directly as he can to the areas of personal life where change is wanted.

From the “personal experience” side of the gap he encourages his readers to be considering a “change project” as they read; a type of negative behaviour or emotion, or “it might be a Christian virtue, a fruit of the Spirit that you feel is particularly lacking in your life” (p21).  Each chapter ends with questions for reflection that allow the specific area of change to be engaged.  It’s the sort of thing that is perfect to stimulate discussion in a small accountability group.  The structure of the book makes this clear; the chapter titles are:

What would you like to change?
Why would you like to change?
How are you going to change?
When do you struggle?
What truths do you need to turn to?
What desires do you need to turn from?
What stops you from changing?
What strategies will reinforce your faith and repentance?
How can we support one another in changing?
Are you ready for a lifetime of daily change?

These questions are answered from the gospel side of Chester’s approach.  Throughout Chester is Christocentric, cruciform, and fully appreciative of the providential sovereignty of God.  Consider:

So whom do you want to be like? What would you like to change? Please don’t settle for anything less than being like Jesus and reflecting the glory of God. (p20)

Of significant value is the way in which Chester constantly takes the focus of ourselves and turns us towards God again and again.  This is both in what we might call the light sense of re-apprehending the love of God, and it is also in the heavy sense of realising that our sin is also God-centred – a rejection of him, a rebellion, a hardening.

Wrestling with sinful behaviours is something we all share, myself included, and this is a useful corrective.  It is so easy to almost romanticise destructive habits as a wrestle, a battle, or a proving ground.  In this way we reinforce our attachment to those destructive ways as the self-affirming thing that I must overcome, thus eliminating any reliance on God’s grace, and so once again pushing the gospel away to arms length.

We want to put things right.  We want to think of ourselves as a “former user of porn” rather than a “porn addict.”…  For us, sin has become first and foremost sin against ourselves.  If I sin, then I’ve let myself down.  What I feel when I sin is the offense against me and my self-esteem, not the offense against God. (p25)

In this way Chester has one of the best grasps on a biblical harmatology that I have encountered.  As we duck and weave, it simply pokes and prods and reminds us that its not about us.  We are not the solution, we must turn to Christ because “external activities can’t change us… because sin comes from within, from our hearts” (p42).  We need our hearts to be changed, and that has ever been God’s work.  Indeed, “we become Christians by faith… we stay Christians by faith… we grow as Christians by faith,” (p43) “God wants us to walk in obedience, not [our own] victory” (p118).

We’re changed when we look at Jesus, delight in Jesus, commune with Jesus.  But no one can embrace Jesus if still guilty of sin.  And no one will embrace Jesus if still feeling the guilt of sin.  So change begins only when we come under grace with its message of divine pardon and welcome. (p50)

We are changed by God’s grace, we are saved and sanctified by God’s grace.  By God’s sovereign grace the Holy Spirit simply is at work in us, to change us.  Our sin as Christians is not therefore a failure to turn to Christ, its a choice to pull away from him.  This is Chester’s central comfort and his main provocation:

I used to think sanctification was a bit like pushing a boulder up a hill.  It was hard, slow work, and if you lost concentration you might find yourself back at the bottom.  But it’s more like a boulder rolling down a hill.  There’s something inevitable about it, because it’s God’s work, and God always succeeds.  The sad thing is that often I try to push the boulder back up the hill.  I say in effect, “Don’t change me yet, I like doing that sin.” (p55)

If we truly want the grace of holiness, we must get lower, humbling ourselves and leaving the lifting up to God. (p118)

Around this central focus Chester addresses the felt-need questions.  There is very little that is novel in his approach.  Occasionally he seems to be close to some of the twelve steps.  At other times what he proposes is basically a form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  But it is all useful, and, above all, applicable.

There are two dangers that Chester avoids really well.  The first is the risk of wrong passivity – ‘if God has done it and is doing it then I don’t have to do anything at all.’  The second is the risk of wrong activity – ‘if I can only fulfil this or achieve that then I will be OK.’  He doesn’t avoid this by silence.  There are practical suggestions, and proposed exercises, elements of choice that engage with the nominated change project.  In summary they are:

1. Keep returning to the cross to see your sin canceled and to draw near to God in full assurance of welcome.
2. Keep looking to God instead of to sin for satisfaction, focusing on the four liberating truths of God’s greatness, glory, goodness and grace.
3. Cut off, throw off, put off, kill off everything that might strengthen or provoke sinful desires.
4. Bring sin into the light through regular accountability to another Christian
(p173)

It’s the fourth point that has been the context in which I have read this book: the community of a men’s weekend and the groups that are subsequently developing.  My hope and prayer is that for the men who read this book, myself included, that grace-filled community, which is so utterly absent in our pious illiberal secularist world, will be the place where Christ is met anew, and reflected in our individual and communal life.

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

We’ve arrived at the final chapter, and some final thoughts from me.  This chapter is by former-barrister, now mediator, Stephen Ruttle.  He gives us language to describe the current troubles, and a sense of how far or little we have come and are likely to go.

As a mediator Ruttle is, like many of the contributors to this book, a firm centrist.  While he admits that this could include a propensity to avoid disagreement (p208) and sit on the fence, and while he recognises that he is not impartial on some theological or moral matters (p207), his presentation of mediation as “assisted peacemaking” (p195) after the way of Christ which makes it missional (p204) has great merit.  For those who aspire to speak across the centre there is some wisdom to glean here.

Ruttle’s approach is strengthened by his realism about outcome and his focus on process:

“This chapter assumes that there are profound disagreements between Christians on important issues and that these disagreements are a fact of life which are unlikely to be resolved, at least in the sense that everyone will come to a common viewpoint.  The questions that then arise are: How well can we disagree?  Can we live together or not? If so, how closely? If not, can we separate with blessing rather than with cursing? Can we love each other despite these disagreements? How well can we “do unity”?” (p197)

In particular, his conception of “agreement” as being able to incorporate anything from full reconciliation to amicable separation means that his thoughts can be applied to the current troubles.  If only “total agreement” is on the table, the conversation is already over.  But if the ground under dispute is about good disagreement then there are things to talk about: honesty about the current situation, recognition of existing separation, re-connection where possible, honest exploration of faults and wounds, agreement about the extent of possible future separation, practical and symbolic implications etc. etc.

Similarly, his presentation of the mediation process is also insightful, and illuminates the current Shared Conversation strategy more than much of the rhetoric around them does.  On page 213, he outlines the process as: “GOSPEL” – Ground rules… Opening Statements… Storytelling… Problem identification… Exploring possible solutions… Leading to agreement (p213).  It’s a crazily complex situation of course, but from my observation the current process is passing through S (storytelling) and beginning to get honest about P (Problem identification).  Many are much further on that that of course.

It’s still unclear what solutions and forms of agreement are possible in the current situation.  Ruttle defines possible successes as (in order of depth):

 A) Participation (p214); B) Ceasefire (p215); D) Resolution of the defining issue (p215); E) Resolution of the underlying issue (p215); F) Restitution (p215), G) Forgiveness (p216), H) Reconciliation (p216), I) Transformation (p216)

Depending on how “resolution” is defined and if “restitution” could incorporate some structural/institutional response to reduced common ground, I can see the possibility of a way through to G).  This is further than what the cynic in me suggests is possible; and my caveats are deliberate!

This chapter also taps into some frustration.  Ruttle gives some advice for participants in mediation to “step back” and work out the real issues, and to “slow down” (p209).  Particles of wisdom such as these are already apparent, albeit chaotically.  Many have “stepped back” over the years – we know what the issues are, and their epistemological underpinnings.  And many have “slowed down” and persisted in meeting together through indabas and Covenant processes; the issue has been hot since 2003 and it’s cutting edge has been keen for many years before that.  At some point there is also wisdom in not “drawing it out.”

Ruttle’s realism also connected with me on a personal level.  As I read the following description I was recollecting the cost I counted at a particular time when I was the man in the middle.

It can be very lonely, marooned in the middle in a sort of no-man’s-land.  I find myself increasingly stretched as I continue this work, particularly where I have my own opinions and judgments on the rightness and wrongness of the issues at take, or the people involved in the mediation. (p206)

The biggest difficulty in applying Ruttle’s words to the current circumstances, however, is this: who exactly is our mediator?  We do not have a mere fracas between neighbours, or a financial dispute in which an impartial third-party can enter in.  The issues at stake here are at the depths of a shared ecclesiology, our very identity and how it is expressed in following Christ.

It is here that Ruttle’s allusion to Christ’s mediatorial work breaks down a little.  Yes, Jesus came to cross boundaries, and bring together former “enemies” (just read the first three chapters of Ephesians!).  But he was not a mediator in the way Ruttle describes his work.  Jesus also spoke, he spoke truth, and called us to follow him.  He doesn’t pick sides, he defines the side.

And so this chapter brings us to the place where we have gone again and again in this book – the epistemological question: how do we know what Christ is saying? How do we seek God together?  The only satisfactory direction – and what I hold is the Anglican direction – is to return to and come under Scripture, not merely locatively, but attitudinally.  The extent to which we are unable to share in that posture is the extent of our troubles, and that is what we must deal with, and deal with it well.

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

I’ve encountered the two most helpful chapters of this book.  Both of them are personal experiences of good disagreement in practice.  Both of them bring a thorough grounding in the irenic gospel way.  In one case there is agreement to disagree.  In the other, structural and doctrinal separation occurs, but relational grace abounds.

The first chapter is From Castles to Conversations written by Lis Goddard and Clare Hendry who have been published as interlocutors on the question of female ordination.  Here are two people from two sides of a very heartfelt theological fence, and they wrote a book together.

They also write this chapter together, in alternating sections in the first person.  The characteristics that have come to the fore throughout the rest of this book – honesty, trust, vulnerability – are embodied here.  But what is also clear is the foundation on which their gracious interaction stands: the authority of Scripture.  They may disagree on how Scripture directs them, but they agree that it is the only place to look for direction.  Goddard writes:

For us, good disagreement was based on mutual trust that the other person was open to the challenge of God in Scripture as we were. (p156)

They bring openness and honesty and incredible vulnerability.  As Hendry points on on page 160, the implications for each of them if they were to change their mind would be immense!  They were willing to risk that in honest engagement.  They responded to each other fulsomely, and approached themselves with humility.  This was human, spiritual, devotional engagement.  Goddard writes again:

I can anticipate situations where I may conclude that someone is profoundly wrong, but I cannot anticipate circumstances where I would regret getting to know them, spending time listening, allowing myself to be challenged to return to Scripture and to my knees. (p161)

Writ large, this is the wonderful essence of semper reformanda.  Honest conversation, constantly challenged to return to the Word of God in Scripture.

One would hope, therefore, that it can be quickly applied to the current troubles.  But it can not be so readily applied, and not just because “every new issue we face is different because the layout of the ground is different” (p167).  Hendry and Goddard shared an epistemological common ground, a common view on how they would seek together, a covering that gave them protection, and direction.

In particular, and this is an instructive point for those leading the Shared Conversations, they realised that experience, even well-shared experience is not an adequate foundation for good disagreement.  Hendry writes:

If we spoke only from our experience, and allowed that to be our authority for holding the positions we did, it would be unworkable.  It closes down conversation, as we would either hold back from saying things because we didn’t want to hurt each other or end up undermining each other.  We needed a reference point from which we could evaluate what we both thought and believed, and that had to be God’s word.  Because we were both allowing our experience to come under its authority it was possible to be honest and vulnerable, to trust each other and properly engage and debate with each other. (pp156-157)

It’s the epistemological question again.  The common ground of “how do we know?”, “how do we seek?”, “how do we walk together?” remains tenuous in the current concerns about human sexuality.  Both Goddard and Hendry hold a similar concern:

Lis: As we face new realities, we need to be clear what our baselines are, where we stand as we talk, how we disagree.  Clare and I were able to come out of our castles and know the Bible was, for both of us, the central, key authority on which we built everything else… If that priority is not held in common, then the ground shifts. (p167)

Clare: I would find it hard to work closely with someone whose teaching I believed to be unbiblical on central issues, such as denying the atonement, or undermining the uniqueness and divinity of Christ, or adopting a lifestyle rejected by Scripture.  I could not in all good conscience say, “That’s fine. You believe that and I will believe this, and it’s all OK”, if it was something that undermined the gospel.  Equally, it would be hard to work closely with someone who did not take the authority of Scripture seriously. (p167)

Nevertheless, we are encouraged to not “stay in our groups”, and reminded that “it does not meant that by engaging someone else’s viewpoint we are necessarily condoning it” (p168).  The reduced common ground in the current troubles may have a number of implications, including having “dividing well” as a possible constructive outcome and/or methodology.  But what is needed, as is always the case, are people who know who they are, where they stand, and why, and who are able to genuinely speak across the centre, whether it be a simple scratch in the ground, or an impassable chasm.

The second chapter is from an American perspective of a church that has been through the painful process of departing the The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the US.  Truro Anglican Church is now part of ACNA, was subject to litigation from TEC, and has subsequently lost ownership (but not use) of its property.  Its a definitive story of the mess that was consequential to the events of 2003.

Tory Baucum, who is Rector of Truro (and a Canterbury Six Preacher), brings his ability to speak across the centre.  He looks to the actions of Jesus in approaching the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 and explores it in some depth.  The exegetical framework is intriguing and insightful, wrapped up in the word “nuptial” (see p175) in which Jesus spiritually woos the woman towards covenantal renewal.

One could even say she is “Samaria incarnate”, divorced from her covenantal people and excluded in shame.  Samaria itself is embodied in her multiple alienations (p176)

For the current purposes, Baucum expresses speaking across the centre as a willingness to do what Jesus did: to “enter Samaria” and offer grace before truth, to approach with receptivity, humility and reciprocity (p180).

There are also lessons from church history.  His comparison of responses to post-Reformation conflict is hepful: Des Cartes who internalised faith, and De Sales who engaged with generous relationship (p184) across the Catholic-Reformed divide.  It informs my current cross-cultural existence; I am learning that the natural British mode is so much more Cartesian than Salesian!

But in the end it is Baucum’s actions that make his lesson.  Despite the litigious circumstances he explains how he reached out to his local Episcopal bishop in relationship.  This relationship was reciprocated, and there have been grace-filled outcomes.  It is instructive that this has not been dependent on reunion, and it wasn’t even dependent on the resolution of legal dispute!  Truro Church remains structurally and doctrinally separate, but:

We are no longer a church at war with others, even though our commitment to orthodoxy is stronger and our standards of holiness are higher than during our days of division.  We are not a church that simply wishes to cohabit with differences.  Instead we are a church that seeks to give life to our adversaries just as we do to our family and friends.  The same gospel that teaches us marriage is the union of husband and wife in the bond of Christ’s love also teaches us to be peacemakers. (p192)

It’s an excellent example, and an enlivening framework.  It only raises one concern, and that is an implied paternalism.  The risk is this: to “enter Samaria” is to presuppose a somewhat asymmetrical situation: as the Jesus-figure, we offer grace and truth to the shame-ridden woman figure.  That is, we speak with grace from a presumption of holding the truth.  I suspect it would work if both parties came together with the same asymmetry, in balanced, opposite directions – but it could also be a barrier.

It is a similar dynamic to this: I know of a Christian leader who “entered Samaria” by genuinely engaging with a prominent gay activist.  At one point, on a public stage, he felt lead to give this activist an affirming hug.  I understood the intention, but it could also have been taken as paternalistic: you are broken, you need a hug.

Baucum, Goddard and Hendry have ably demonstrated that it is possible to speak across the centre.  It is something that is essential to good disagreement.  But it’s not simple, it does require trust on both sides, and with it being dependent on others, it runs the risk of failing.  There are pitfalls, likely mistakes, and the risk of misinterpretation.  The outcome may not be all that is hoped for.  But it is necessary, and they have proved it in practice.

Next: Part 10, Mediation and the Church’s Mission by Stephen Ruttle

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

To be frank I found this chapter to be frustrating.  In my mind there’s two approaches to interfaith interactions: the “hide yourself” strategy, and the “generously be yourself” strategy.  The first is, at its end, is a form of nihilism.  The second is honest but difficult.

There is much to admire in Bp. Toby Howarth’s approach in this chapter.  A generous gospel is apparent.  The frustration lies in what I see to be some small, but significant, mis-steps.

Right up front, he recognises gospel distinctives and imperatives:

Some believe that religious disagreement is essentially illusory.  If, they say, we could only see deeply enough and clearly enough the essentials of our superficially differing faiths, we would understand that we really all agree… My assumption in this chapter is that there is real substantial difference between religions… Not only do we believe and behave differently, many of us would like to see people from other religions change so that they believe and behave as we do, converting to belong to our faith community. (p132)

I wholeheartedly agree with this.  In the aftermath of the Martin Place hostage-taking in Sydney late last year we encountered this assumption of illusion.  I wrote at the time:

So when I stand in unity with my Muslim neighbours, it is not because we have been able to transcend our differences, it’s because we have found within (informed, shaped, and bounded by) our world view a place of common ground.  And so the Christian doesn’t stand with a Muslim because “we’re all the same really” – no, the Christian stands with the Muslim because the way of Christ shapes our valuing of humanity, our desire to love our neighbour, and even our “enemy” (for some definition).  I can’t speak for the Islamic side of the equation, but I assume there are deep motivations that define the understanding of this same common ground.  Take away that distinctive and you actually take away the foundations of the unity, the reasons and motivations that have us sharing the stage right now.

The attempt to render religious differences as illusion is therefore incredibly illiberal and actually antagonistic to a healthy, harmonious, multi-religious society.  I’m glad Howarth affirms this.

Similarly, Howarth’s experience are beneficial contributions to the more general “good disagreement.”  In this series of reviews the importance of honesty has been mentioned a number of times.  Here Howarth reminds us that this necessarily includes emotional honesty, even vulnerability and admissions of fear.

The consideration of the Non-Violent Communication (NVC) approach is therefore helpful.  It “encourages people… to listen not only to others but also to their own feelings and needs” (p136).  This is necessary to ensure that we are not mishearing others: I have often encountered those who are emotionally reacting against what they think my position is, not what it actually is; I should avoid doing the same.  Vulnerability also puts one’s own emotional reactions out in the open, where they can be assessed and addressed.  This cuts across and defuses bigotry.  I attempted to reflect on this during the divisive 2012 same-sex marriage debate in Tasmania, but it was a one-sided exercise.

The current mode of good disagreement in the Church of England is the Shared Conversations process.  To the extent that this achieves constructive honesty and vulnerability it’s a necessary step for good disagreement.  I doubt it is sufficient for actual agreement on the issues at hand.  In the short-term it may actually lead to an increase in pain, because honesty and vulnerability fully articulates the cost of a position or prospective decision.  Having had one’s vulnerability fully acknowledged, and genuinely comprehended, there is no sense in which the wounds can be covered by ignorance; decisions will need to be made in full knowledge of the potential hurts.

In the interfaith scope Howarth recognises this reality; the tensions of maintaining relationship with the Hindu community in the light of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s commitment to evangelism (pp137-138) is a great example.  The consequent act of maintaining relationship, even sharing meals, with the Hindu community is delightful.  But it doesn’t remove the offence, it merely mitigates it.  It’s a generous, gracious, neighbourly response.

The reason why good fences make good neighbours is because they protect against encroachment and thus provide a place of safety from which to be gracious.  Irresolvable differences can be left in perpetual abeyance only when there is a degree of separation, as there are between religions.  Unfortunately, in the current internal conflicts about Scripture and sexuality, we are dealing with conflict in the family, where there is not enough separation to prevent encroachment, and so the potential for gracious interaction is reduced.

There is therefore a degree of inapplicability of these interfaith thoughts to the current conflict.  This is compounded by a few mis-steps that I think Howarth exhibits:

Firstly, he fails to avoid a false-dichotomy between story and doctrine.

Story is always present in religious disagreement.  Sometimes we pretend that it isn’t… In my experience, male religious leaders are particularly prone to addressing difference in this way.  We look at texts; we discuss doctrines. (p136)

His attempt at a both-and (“while this important… it often needs to be complemented” p137) reinforces story and doctrine as essentially competitive, requiring a balance.  His caricature of Trinitarian presentation on page 138 may be accurate in some circumstances, but he has himself flattened the experience of doctrine.  It is not enough to fill it out with reference to the historical Nicene narratives, but by the Trinitarian experiences of everyday folk in the here and now.

Doctrine fills out story and story fills out doctrine!  Doctrine gives me language and understanding in which to live out my story.  My story grounds my doctrine and pushes me to mull and mull until it is real and applicable.  We don’t need story to balance out doctrine; we need our doctrine filled out with the real world, and our experience of the real world filled out with lively doctrine.

Secondly, he doesn’t adequately deal with the reality that it takes two to tango.  What do you do in dialogue if the other side won’t talk, or won’t come to the same place of honesty and vulnerability?

I admire this sentiment:

Foundational to the different approaches that I have referred to here is a commitment to the often slow and painstaking work of developing relationships, especially by listening to the other person’s story and sharing one’s own. (p139)

But this presupposes that the other person is willing to share, and willing to listen.  At what point is it inappropriate to give yourself over to another?  Mark Durie, who regularly dialogues with Islam in the Australian context, considers how even generosity can be misinterpreted negatively.  Similarly, there are many who see the ever-increasing illiberalism of progressive politics, and the misuse of anti-discrimination law in particular, as removing a safe-place for the sharing of a traditional point of view.  I would hope that many would err on the side of risk-taking vulnerability, but how do you protect against possible entrapment?

And finally, there is the dangerous and self-defeating direction of hiding the gospel for the sake of engagement.

Howarth does not eschew Christian distinctives.  He values “persuasion and conversion” (p144) and notes that “not all conflict is destructive” (p145).  Nevertheless he does slip from the “generously be yourself” mode to the “hide yourself” mode.

The problem is that of the elevation of abstraction.  This is when Jesus is reduced to a particularisation of an abstract gospel. For example, it is common to hear logic along the following lines: Jesus loves people, therefore we are called to love, therefore if we all love one another then your philosophy and my Christianity are essentially the same.  Jesus is used as a particularisation of an abstract aspiration, in which differences are illusory.  The gospel actually operates in the opposite direction: We are called to Jesus, Jesus loves (in fact, defines ultimate love), therefore we love as Jesus loves.

We see hints of this abstraction when Howarth uses Jesus to particularise the abstract desire to not “focus on dividing communities along religious lines rather than fighting the poverty and oppression itself” (p147).  We see hints of it again in the exposition of the Samaritan woman when “God is present, in Christ, as the walls come down.” (p148) Jesus has become the particularisation of the abstract divinity of torn-down walls.  Similarly the covenant encounter of Jacob with God in Genesis 28 (p149) is taken out of context, applied to Jacob’s later interactions with Esau in Genesis 33, and so covenantal divine encounter becomes a particularisation of abstract brotherly reconciliation.

This no mere nitpick.  It’s a difference that is at the heart of cross-purposes in the current debate.  One side moves from the abstract (“How do we love, accept, and include?”) and defines them by Christ (“By following him”); the other moves from Christ (“Jesus loved, accepted and included”) and absolutises the abstract (“We must follow the path of love, acceptance, and inclusion”).  The difference is subtle – both mention Jesus – but substantial. In one Jesus is the goal, in the other he is simply a particular form of a larger concept.  In one Jesus defines and contrasts, in the other he simply informs.  Same language, different meanings.  Without recognising it we cannot disagree well.

In conclusion, there are some valuable insights in this chapter.  It challenged me at a number of points to examine my feelings and motivations, as well as my thoughts about such things as establishment and the role of the state in religious affairs.  But in the end, there was frustration.  I’m all for kenosis, and empathy, and generosity… but in the end we are still who we are, defined by Jesus, and that is the starting point of dialogue; awareness of self.  If we try to examine dialogue from afar, if we confine ourselves to objectivity and mediation from the abstract, we lose our very sense of identity, and have nothing to say.  And silence is very rarely good disagreement.

Next: Part 9: From Castles to Conversations by Lis Stoddard and Clare Hendy & Ministry in Samaria by Tory Baucum

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

This chapter is the first in this book to exceed my expectations.  The focus is less on the division and more on the possible ways forward.  It is not prescriptive, it simply gives a potted history of ecumenical movements, and the descriptions are insightful for the present concerns.

The helpfulness of this chapter shouldn’t be a surprise.  I observed earlier that there are many ways in which the Church of England appears to act as a conglomerate of churches already.  It’s not absolute of course, there are many things in common particularly at the episcopal level, but it is not a stretch for the dynamics to apply.  It is interesting, for instance, that the authors see fit to put constructive “liberal-evangelical” dialogue, such as that between David Edwards and John Stott who are both Anglicans, within the scope of ecumenism (see p115).

Three observations:

1) The most helpful characteristic of ecumenical interactions is that of honesty.

Good ecumenical interactions do not presume full agreement, and dialogue often serves to “bring areas of disagreement into sharper focus in order to clarify the real sticking points.” (p117)

This is good disagreement in the sense that it is actually disagreement.  It is honest and does not demand a pretence.  A holding together of both unity and truth is the right aspiration, but unity is not constructed of it’s own bricks.  Unity’s material comes from discussions on truth:

The result of honest conversations between divided churches may be that different positions are shown to be incompatible and contradictory, and therefore the divisions must remain. This does not make the conversations fruitless but, on the contrary, pinpoints where change is necessary for unity to proceed. (p117)

Of course, avoiding a pretence is easier when it’s different churches talking.  But between Anglicans, who share, for instance, a common language of prayer, it’s a lot harder.  Some collective honesty about differing semantics would bring us closer to the more constructive dynamic described here.

To this end, confessionalism can be significantly helpful.  When done well (a big caveat), it clarifies meaning, it removes pretence, it allows conversation.  I was told once of an Australian Bishop of a non-conservative variety who, to the surprise of some, welcomed the Jerusalem Declaration that arose from GAFCON.  His response was, without any hint of disparagement, of this kind: “Now we know where you stand and we know where you’re coming from.  That is helpful.”  Irrespective of whether this anecdote is true or not, that’s the sort of attitude that advances things.  Confessionalism risks clarifying the divide (which may be fearful to some), it may even risk the “split” (whatever that means), but without it we have an inhibiting lack of clarity.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my own experience, if an honest appraisal of difference is not achieved, and if possible separation is not acknowledged, or even embraced, there is likely no room for reconciliation at all.

2) Separation doesn’t preclude all forms of unity.

I was struck by the reference to Francis Schaeffer’s idea of “co-belligerence”, “that churches can go into battle together on specific issues of social concern, without the need for doctrinal agreement.” (p114)

I like the term “co-belligerence” and have seen it in action.  In my time in Tasmania I was involved in the response of churches to what became known as the “social tsunami” of 2013 in which a radical socially revisionist state government attempted to impose a whole swathe of divisive legislative changes.  It was a most ecumenical experience – I met with everyone from across the entire range of Christian expressions, from Roman Catholics to Quakers, from Pentecostals to Presbyterians.  Someone expressed it this way: “I thought we’d be in this corner fighting by ourselves, and then I turned around and there were all these others with us!”  We were being co-belligerent.  The doctrinal common ground was thin, to say the least, probably limited to the very basics of what the WCC of churches provides (see p24) and yet there was a substantial form of unity.

Similarly, I count as dear friends many who differ from me on points of theology.  There are many things about which I think they are incorrect, and, in some circumstances, worthy of being opposed.  Yet, despite this, I am convinced of a shared spirituality.  We pray to the same God.  We trust in the same Christ.  There are times when we are separate, and firmly so!  Yet we can bless each other, even if we cannot bless each other’s position.  (Of course, the flip side is there are people who are correct doctrinally, but not right in spirit, but that’s for another time).

There are many things where Anglicans truly do act as one.  Advocacy for refugees is a near and present example.  This sort of unity is not necessarily at risk of honesty about differences being embraced and explored.

3) Even minimalist common ground can still quake.

The ambitions of ecumenism are described in this chapter.  The “organic unity” of sweeping reunion across the board, particularly in terms of shared modality is one of them (p120).  The other form of ambition is “reconciled diversity” (p122) in which certain expressions of unity cohere to a minimalist fundamental common ground, and all other things are held separate.

I am pondering how these apply to the Anglican concerns.  Ostensibly the Church of England is an “organic unity”, yet beyond the structural necessities, doesn’t appear to be behaving so.  But I am an Anglican from further afield, ordained in the Anglican Church of Australia.  There Anglicanism is a federalised arrangement of dioceses in which even General Synod canons can be ignored in each local place.  The wider perspective is that of independent national provinces.

It is a clearer perspective of a diversity with minimalist common ground.  That ground is, in history, that of the so-called Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.  These are the four (only four!) things that are fundamentally necessary to being Anglican.  They arose during colonial times, and have more recently been wrestled with by fresh expressions and church plants working out their ecclesial identity.  They are, to quote:

1. the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
2. the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith
3. the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself: baptism and the Lord’s Supper
4. the historic episcopate, locally adapted.
(p127)

It’s tight enough to define something real, but it’s still very loose.  It is as minimal a base of fellowship as ecumenical movements such as the WCC.  It should be robust.  As the story goes, when someone episcopal was once asked about the Anglican “split”, the response was “how do you split blancmange?”  Anglicanism, historically, has not been brittle.

Yet now, even the Quadrilateral, raises the problematic questions.  Number 3) is pretty safe.  Number 4) has been changed in its character through the provision of alternative oversight and mutually exclusive network of episcopal “recognitions.”  Number 2) is far from guaranteed.  And Number 1) is the crux of the issue: differing epistemologies no longer able to cushion themselves from each other by ambiguities.

Is the Anglican common ground shifting?  We need to be honest about that.

Next: Part 8, Good Disagreement Between Religons by Toby Howarth

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

Ashley Null. Big fan.  He is an absolute authority on Reformation History.  I heard him speak on Cranmer at the Anglican Future’s Conference in Melbourne earlier this year.  He is a true exegete of history: he connects you with the essence of history, not merely its facts and propositions.  In his contribution here Null brings the accounts of divisions amongst the early Reformers, particularly controversies about the nature of the eucharistic elements, as background information for what good disagreement might look like.

His basic point is this:

The Reformation should not be written off as an era of only “bad disagreements”… the confessional identities which still divide Western Christianity today are, in fact, the enduring result of that era’s successful attempts at “good disagreement”, if only within specific streams. (p85)

Even if not fully achieved, unity and agreement were sought after.  Disagreements were, by and large, carefully and constructively managed; it was only on matters which, in good conscience, could not be held indifferently, that separate identities were embraced.

If there is an ongoing question that this book forces upon the current troubles it is this: “What sort of disagreement is this?”  Is it overcomable difference of opinion, or is it fundamental matters of foundation?  Take a look at the following facebook discussion stemming from an Ian Paul post to see the complexity of this in the real world, beginning with a reasonable conclusion that the differences are not (to coin a phrase) indifferent:

How then does Ashley Null’s essay help us?  I’m not sure that it does much more than give us some historical analogies.  Although perhaps these can serve as some object lessons for us.

Null’s exposition of the eucharistic controversies get us somewhere towards that.  Here he speaks of the Northern and Southern reformers – Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Zwingli and the like – and the genuine desire to “call one another “brother” and to engage in intercommunion” (p90).  There is good conflict resolution, an agreement on what they disagreed on, and on the relative importance of those disagreements, articulation of the common ground, honesty about the differences, exploration of language that would hold acceptable ambiguity and so on.  It’s a genius that the Anglican tradition was later to elevate to an ideal!  But despite this “good disagreement” in the end there was actually disagreement and separation.

To correlate to the contemporary debates, we can use this legacy to note that there has actually been a great deal of good disagreement already – balanced resolutions, indabas, reports, and now shared conversations and (very) delayed decisions. History affirms us.

But the correlation also fails: Luther et al. began from existing disunity (excepting a vague sense of embryonic protestantism) and were attempting to find unity.  In the current situation we have an ostensible unity around presumed essentials, which some wish to modify.  On the face of it, the only positive (non status-quo) decision that can be made is to move away from the essentials, and therefore weaken the unity (“live and let live”) or fracture it according to conscience (“let us walk apart”).  Courtesy and gentleness must still abound, but it’s a very different dynamic.

In that regard I found Null’s contribution a little irrelevant, with conclusions that are basically motherhood statements: “scandal for the church to be divided,” “theological truth mattered”, “not all theological issues were of equal importance.” (p106).

The most assertive thing he does is remind us of the base authority of the Bible.  Cranmer saw the Bible both as the “sole basis of unity in the essentials of faith and morals” (p107) and also as the basis for “wide parameters for the development of institutional life.” (p107).  Scripture as the basis for both unity AND diversity.  But if Ian Paul’s facebook post tells us anything, it’s that it’s our understanding of Scripture, and therefore our understanding of unity and diversity itself, that is on the table!  Without that common ground even history will struggle to help.

Next: Part 7, Ecumenical (Dis)agreements by Andrew Atherstone and Martin Davie

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