A Catholic Kind of Archbishop of Canterbury?

If last week I posted a few thoughts (with tongue in cheek) about Leo XIV being an Anglican kind of Pope, then this week let's have a go at the converse, A Catholic Kind of Archbishop of Canterbury? But no tongue in cheek.

First, I have noticed some Anglican concerns about how long it is taking to choose the next ABC, with unfavourable comparisons to the seped with which the new Pope was chosen. While there is much to learn from the Catholic church, and, yes, we could, arguably, be a bit quicker, let's acknowledge that it is very unlikely that Anglican (whether in the CofE itself or across the Communion) would ever agree to an electoral body for the next ABC which consisted of:

- only males

- only bishops

- about 80% membership picked by the previous ABC

I think not! We are not going to have A Catholic Kind of Process of Choosing the Archbishop of Canterbury Ever :)

Secondly, it may or may not be a bad thing that a bit of time has elapsed in the Anglican process.

Thirdly, since catholic means universal, we can observe that this time around (due to initiative by Archbishop Welby) there is greater representation of the Anglican Communion in the Crown Nomination Commission put together for the occasion (from 1 to 5 members). 

In the past week the process of choosing the five has been completed and it is a delight report that the Reverend Canon Isaac Beech, a New Zealander, a member of Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa, has been chosen to represent Oceania (which, by the way, is not "the South Pacific" but South Pacific plus some of Asia plus North Pacific). See further here. 

For a complete overview of where the process is at, see what Andrew Goddard has to say here.

Fourthly, perhaps the bigger "catholic" question about the next ABC is whether the next ABC will have universal reach into and around the Communion, as well as into and around the CofE?

Consider the following issues:

- could we have a female ABC (as many in the CofE would like) v would that work well in wider Communion relationships (noting that some Anglican provinces do not ordain women as bishops)?

- if an English bishop is chosen, will that person connect with the CofE if not appropriately "moderate" v will that person connect with most of the Communion if not explicitly conservative, especially in connection with That Topic?

- what if a non-English (non-Welsh/Scottish/Irish) bishop were chosen, for example, an African bishop was chosen, who then would have greater acceptability to the wider Communion (the vast majority of which is African) v would any non-English bishops, from any part of the world, other than Great Britain and Ireland, be acceptable to the CofE as a whole?

Of course, fifthly, ultimately, the greatest "catholic" question re the new ABC is whether she or he will have ability to enhance unity in the CofE and in the Communion?

Incidentally, the title question to this post has a further aspect: customarily the ABC is successively evangelical ... catholic ... evangelical and it is now the catholic turn!

An Anglican Kind of Pope?

Okay, my tongue is somewhat planted in my cheek but let's see if there is a modicum of truth in my title.

Since last week's post, the smoke has burned white and Cardinal Robert Prevost, lately of Chicago, the Augustinians, Peru and recently domiciled in Rome with a red hat, is now Pope Leo XIV.

There seems much to like in Leo XIV, not least from a personal perspective, that he stands with Francis' critique of JD Vance on ordo amoris, which is also my position. Alternatively put, Leo may be an American but he is not a Trumpian American.

He also in statements since his election is affirming of the Francis way of modernising the church. Yet, liked by "traditional" Catholics, he is wearing all the papal vestments including the mozetta, and living in the papal apartments. 

What is in a name? Well, may be not that much if one's parents named one X or Y because "they liked" it. But there is quite a lot in a name chosen by popes because they set out to live up to and to live out that name. John Paul 1 and John Paul 2 wanted to capture the best of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI who straddled the (as it turned out) epochal decades of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including Vatican II. Francis chose that name because of his "bias to the poor." Now we have Leo XIV, with specific resonance to Leo XIII, who wrote Rerum Novarum on the rights and duties of capital and labour, upholding the dignity of the labourer and challenging capitalists to live out obligations to their fellow humans. Sort of Marx without actual socialism (because not espousing collective ownership of the means of production). I haven't been to Peru but I can imagine that many years sent in Peru would point one to an encyclical such as Rerum Novarum.

There is more to the Leo XIII and (likely) Leo XIV connection than the Christianising of political economics. I leave that to other commentators. The point for now is that for those on the Catholic left, there is a lot to like in Leo XIII and for those on the Catholic right there is nothing to dislike in Leo XIII, and thus all (as I read across X and open up some of the articles tweets point to) have much to hope for in Leo XIV, including the chiefest critics of Francis.

Clearly, to this point in recitation of things said in the past few days, Leo XIV is very Catholic, so Catholic we might even say that it seems very unlikely that any Catholic will come up with the jibe (sometimes made about Francis) that the Pope was not Catholic!

We might also note - with much appreciation - that Leo XIV is a Christ-centred man of God, as Robert Imbelli draws out in this article.

Why bother then with a tongue in cheek remark about Leo being an Anglican kind of Pope?

Well, I have seen a number of commentators these few days past talk about Robert Prevost as a man not given to taking sides, but keen to walk a careful middle line. For instance, here is Dan Hitchens writing about "Leo XIV and the Best-Case Scenario" (meaning the best case for conservative Catholics to take heart even though Leo looks like "Continuity Francis" in certain respects):

"Trawling the Holy Father’s Twitter history, as one does, suggests a churchman who has made it to the age of sixty-nine without feeling any need to choose a side in the Catholic culture wars. Yes, he is outspoken on the rights of migrants; but he’s also seriously alarmed about the trans issue. Yes, he retweets the more progressive Catholic publications; but he also shares writings from the sturdily orthodox Cardinal George and Archbishop Chaput. Yes, he admires Pope Francis and likes the idea of “synodality”; but (unlike some people) he does not seem to regard either as a kind of inspired update on the gospel that calls into question what the Church has been doing for the last two thousand years."

How much more Anglican can you get than that? 

:)

(Update (after first comment below): Anglicans do not need to walk the middle line as individual members of the Anglican Communion. But Anglican bsihops do find themselves walking the middle line ...).

PS For a beautifully written account of aspects of the contemporary Catholic scene with respect to Pope Francis and now Pope Leo, see Colm Tobin's reflections-with-advice-at-the-end.

Smelling the Sheep

Josie Pagani heads up her latest column for the Stuff newspapers with "Restoring politics as a broad church". Her general political point is that some of what we are seeing in politics such as Trump's resurgence in the USA (and, we might add, noting UK election results over the weekend, Farage's Reform party's success) is the result of  a widening gap between those who opt in to running the place and those who opt out. Her overall argument is that "politics" needs to become a "broad church" - more inclusive of, and better recognising the plight of those who have opted out or, perhaps, just feel left out:

"Our politics cater to those who opt in. They see those who have fallen off life’s train, but they don’t know what to do for them. Governments throw them pity, at best, and the gap keeps widening between those who are part of the system and trust it, and the big chunk of people who have opted out and mistrust.

...

The more politics leaves people behind, the more unstable politics will become. Sooner or later, they will come for you.

Social observer Chris Arnade jokes that Donald Trump’s opponents are the kids who sit in the front row of class while Trump’s supporters are the kids at the back of the class.

...

To be a political party only for those who opt in, in a country where too many are opting out, will lose elections."

Pagani notices that, nevertheless, some hope from the centre-left is emerging as both Carney and the Liberals in Canada and Albanese and Labour in Canada and Australia have had solid wins in very reent elections.

But laced through her column are some citations of remarks made by Pope Francis who, of course, tried to make his church as broad as possible, with a special emphasis on inclusion of the poor and the marginalised. Thus Pagani notes:

"Pope Francis spent his life thinking about poverty, and how to reach the excluded.

He had a catchphrase, “reality is more important than ideas”. He wanted believers to move beyond abstract doctrines, and deal with the world and its people as they found them.

“Smell the sheep,” he used to say. Live and eat with the people.

... and ...

There is another politics that can reach people. Pope Francis said the church must be “a field hospital after battle”, a refuge and place of repair. It must “go to the peripheries, which are often filled with solitude, sadness, inner wounds and loss of a zest for life”."

These words resonate with me - a mere Anglican and not too sure whether I am centre-left or centre-right :).

Facing reality. Smelling the sheep - i.e. understanding people in the actuality of their lives - often messy lives. Taking care not to live in the world of ideas (or blogs!!) but among and with people. Church as a hospital more than a schoolroom; church as refuge more than a fighting vehicle; church with people difficult to love rather than filled with lovely "nice" people.

None of this is easy. All of this fleshes out the gospel stories in the 21st century. What does it mean for church to be "the body of Christ" - the living, breathing, perspiring (or smelly!!), sometimes bleeding, sometimes sore-muscled living expression of Jesus on earth.

Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed IN HIS CHURCH - the bodily resurrection of Christ.

All of this as we head to next Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday! 

Can people change?

Look it could be a very long blogpost if I tried to answer the question in the subject line with appropriate comprehensiveness and scholarly depth, so let's offer as succinct a partial answer as possible!

First, this three word question arguably lies at the heart of Pope Francis' papacy and he tried to answer the question affirmatively. He wanted the church to change and he knew that ecclesiastical change occurs as individuals change.  Although his proposals for change had doctrinal implications, he never changed (i.e. never presided over change of) any doctrine; but he was keen on a church changed its self-understanding. For example, less concerned with doctrine, more concerned with practice; less focused on outward dress, more attention to inward demeanour. All, of course, in pursuit of the body of Christ looking like the gentle, merciful Jesus of the gospels. As a Jesuit he was schooled in the conviction that drawing close to Jesus, allowing the gaze of Jesus on one's life, bringing the whole of one's life before Jesus in "examination" was crucial to transformation of life (cf. Ignatian "Spiritual Exercises).

If nothing else, and with acknowledgement that most of the current voting cardinals have been appointed by Francis, the selection of the new Pope will tell us something about the extent of change he has wrought across the whole Roman church.

Incidentally, there are many things being said about Francis' papacy and one starting point is to head to First Things  where various assessments can be found and perhaps the best and fairest of them is by Robert Barron (and mentioned already in comments to my previous post).

For a Kiwi comment or two on the funeral mass itself and what will be looked for in a new pope, see what Cardinal John Dew, and our Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, have to say, via RNZ News.

Secondly, and still in Rome, our three word question relates to President Trump himself. Perhaps the most extraordinary photo of the day of the funeral mass - when amazing photos have been taken, not least of the vast congregation gathered - is the photo of Presidents Trump and Zelensky in earnest, peace seeking conversation seated in St. Peter's itself. (Photo from here, which acknowledges Associated Press.)

What a contrast from the terrible media session a month or two back in the White House with J.D. Vance and Trump seeking to carve Zelensky (and Ukraine) up in one easy as you go bullying session.

How moving that in the house of the Prince of Peace, kings and rulers should seek peace - that Trump and Zelensky should speak directly and face to face on how peace might actually be achieved (i.e. not by parroting Putin's talking points). The Guardian has articles here and here about this extraordinary moment.

Has Trump changed? Has Francis's life had an impact on him? Has a "Franciscan" miracle occurred, even after Francis' death? [Hint: we may never know this side of Glory.]

Thirdly, Damien Grant, a regular Stuff columnist here in NZ, is moved by news of the Pope's death to opine about the course of his own life - brought up Catholic, later rejected that upbrining.

Relative to the question of whether people can change, Grant offers this reflection:

"I rejected Catholicism while still at school, but this wasn’t a casual schoolboy rebellion. I struggled with the contradictions, as I saw them, inside my faith. God is omniscient and omnipotent. He created the universe, from the laws of physics and the architecture of the big bang all the way through to my DNA that formed the instant I came into existence.

"From that moment until now everything that has happened to me has been a product of His creation and my response to that creation. And the atoms and laws of the universe that constitute my being exist only as a result of His actions. Given his omniscience, the path of my life, and afterlife, was known at the instant that He brought the cosmos into being.

Given this; how could the Christian Brothers, the denomination responsible for my education, maintain that I possessed free will? Everything that you are in this instant is a product of everything that has happened to you and how you have previously reacted to that stimulus, right back to the involuntary actions from the moment of conception.

If God is as defined by Catholicism you have as much free will as a crystal vase tossed from a moving car on a trajectory towards the asphalt. There were other issues but I entered adulthood free from the moral restraints imposed, and demanded, by a belief in the teaching of Christ."

On this logic, people may change if there is freewill and no God! Nevertheless, I think that Grant simplifies the mystery of predestination and freewill (if you are a Christian) or of determinism and freewill (if you are a philosopher).

Nevertheless Grant later in the column affirms the good role faith has played in changing people:

"Yet the longer it has existed, the better it has become. Christianity has changed those who believed but has also been changed and the fragmentation of Christianity has contributed to modern religious intuitions reflecting the values of the communities."

Grant concludes his reflections with this thoughtful question (my bold):

"We are increasingly disengaged from the religious foundations that are responsible for the best aspects of our civilisation. Pope Francis was alive to this issue and often spoke about a spiritual desertification that has come about as “…the result of attempt by some societies to build without God, or to eliminate their Christian roots.” He concluded that the Christian world was becoming sterile, depleting itself like overexploited ground where the soils once deep Christianity was being denuded.

The solution proposed by Francis is a return to faith but for many that is intellectually impossible. So we must confront the great dilemma of our age; How do you prevent a secular society degenerating into a Nihilist one when we have relied upon religion to provide the moral basis of our civilisation?"

Can people change?

Answer: I hope so. Change is desperately needed! 

2025 Thoughts on the Resurrection Narratives (plus) (updated)

First, the "plus":

- Since beginning to write this post, we have heard the news that Pope Francis has died. I am both glad to read all the lovely things said about him and his ministry, agreeable to the considered reflections on his shortcomings, and feeling no need to add to fine words said by others. As good as anything anywhere by way of comprehensive appreciation and critique is this reflection by Liam Hehir, a Palmerston North lawyer and lay Catholic theologian. (For those who think Liam is being unkind, try this by Carl Trueman by way of comparison).

- For the considered words of our Archbishops on Francis, read here.

- Futher on ++Welby: an interesting reflection "In Welby's Wake" by Alistair MacDonald-Radcliff. 

- NZ's most controversial theologian, the Reverend Dr Lloyd Geering is now NZ's second oldest man and time has not wearied him of his views (including, most controversially, on the resurrection, hence, I assume, an interview of him published at Easter). [Behind a Paywall.]

- Good signs of an uptick in interest in Christianity across the Ditch.

- Last week I referenced news out of Britain of a quiet revival. Ian Paul has a helpful interview about this news here.

The Resurrection Narratives [Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 [and Acts 1], John 20-21, 1 Corinthians 15] continue to fascinate me, and especially, obviously, at this time of the church's year.

It may or may not be helpful to refer to last year's ADU post, for example, to see if my thinking is evolving ... like the narratives themselves (Mark through to John)!

Here is this year's thinking:

Why is Mark's account (16:1-8, rather than the longer ending which is clearly a pastiche of stories hither, thither and yon) so brief and abrupt, without even one appearance of the risen Jesus, only the promise of an appearance?

Might 1 Corinthians 15:6-7offer a clue? "Then [Jesus] appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died. Then he appeared to James, and afterwards to all the apostles." (Note 1. This was likely written in the early 50s AD, i.e. within 20 years or so of Jesus' death and resurrection, conceivably around the time Mark's Gospel itself was written [an earliest date for which is c. 45 AD]. 2. "all the apostles" here means those designated apostles beyond "The Twelve" who have already been mentioned in verse 5.)

That is, when Mark writes his story of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, he has no particular need to tell his community of readers about resurrection appearances of Jesus because that community was [quite likely] in touch with people drawn from the 500+ people mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6-7, if not with Peter himself. Mark's interest is not in what is readily at hand (testimonies to the resurrected Jesus) but in what might be lost sight of, the mighty deeds and inspiring teaching of Jesus, as well as the stirring story of his suffering and death. Thus his resurrection account is brief and contains, essentially, the bare confession of the resurrection, "He is risen."

If so, then Matthew, Luke and John's longer resurrection accounts, likely written later than Mark's account, offer elaborations which we do not need to view as "legendary accretions" to Mark's bare narrative. Rather, we can look at them as offering for various reasons accounts of resurrection appearances [sharing an interest in these appearances with Paul] and analyse their longer accounts for what their interests are - in this way:

- Matthew: 

1. deals to rumours the tomb was empty because the body of Jesus was stolen. 

2. Notes and corrects a shortcoming in Mark's account [which implies resurrection appearances would only occur in Galilee] by offering a description of one appearance in Jerusalem. 

3. Offers, like Luke, a "final word" of Jesus - his "Great Commission" to spread the Good News throughout the world, thus wrapping up his whole narrative of the very Jewish Jesus whose mission is, nevertheless, for the Gentiles also (cf. the Gentile women in the genealogy, the wise men, the Roman centurion in Matthew 8, etc).

- Luke: 

1. for reasons I do not entirely understand, focuses his resurrection narrative on Jerusalem and close environs to the point where he changes Mark's angel's words about a forthcoming resurrection appearance in Galilee [compare 24:6 with Mark 16:7]. 

2. Adds a unique testimony to an appearance of Jesus ("The Road to Emmaus") which highlights, among other things, the continuing presence of the risen Jesus in the gatherings of believers as they break bread together. 

3. Like Matthew, Luke offers a "final word" from Jesus - a commissioning for mission, linked to waiting for the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower that mission.

- John: 

1. manages between John 20 [Jerusalem focused] and 21 [Galilee focused] to affirm the appearances of Jesus occurred both in Jerusalem and in Galilee [cf. Matthew but not Luke or Mark]. 

2. Highlights individual encounters with Jesus [Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter] as well as group encounters [the disciples, in the Upper Room and beside the Sea of Tiberias]. 

3. Offers reports of commissioning [20:19-23] and re-commissioning [21:15-19]. 

4. Possibly also refutes rumours about the body of Jesus being taken from the tomb as an explanation for its emptiness [see 20:1-10]. 

5. Affirms for all readers who were not among the 500+ direct witnesses to the risen Jesus, that believing is more important than seeing, 20:24-29). 6. Also concludes his gospel, twice!, 20:30-31; 21:24-25.

6. In John 21 offers a very specific, detailed report of an appearance of Jesus in Galilee to say something about the respective Petrine and Johannine churches. This point is a little ambiguous but may be well understood as declaring that each church is important for the risen Jesus.

Nevertheless, some challenges about the history of the resurrection appearances remain.

Paul categorically states, 1 Corinthians 15:5, "that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles." None of the gospels supports this unequivocally. Gospel appearances are: to the women who went to the tomb [Matthew 28:9-10]; to Mary Magdalene alone [John 20:11-18]; to the two on the way to Emmaus [Luke 24:13-32]; to all the disciples [save for Thomas, John 20:19-23]. 

True, nevertheless, when the Lukan-Emmaus two report back in Jerusalem to the eleven disciples gathered with others, they say "The Lord has risen indeed! He has appeared to Simon" [24:33-34] and then Jesus appears in the midst of the eleven and others gathered [24:36] - this is fairly close to Paul's account.

Cue longer discussion etc - no time today for that. Suffice to say that between the five accounts, we have a sense of multiple appearances of the risen Lord Jesus, occurring here [near the tomb], there [on the way to Emmaus], elsewhere in Jerusalem [John's two accounts in chapter 20 a week apart; Luke's accounts in Luke 24 and Acts 1], and in Galilee [so Mark, Matthew, John 21]. There is a degree of messiness but then the risen Jesus was not confined to time and space like an ordinary, physical human body.

The four gospels unite on the presence of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and unite on the fact that the tomb is empty-because-Jesus-has-risen-from-the-dead-bodily. Three of the four gospels unite with Paul on the fact of resurrection appearances. Only one, Luke, aligns closely, though not exactly, with Paul's reporting in 1 Corinthians 15. Those three gospels have no need to invent appearances but they each use appearance reports to make various points relevant to concerns of the day in which they are composing their gospels.

God at Work in our World

Thanks to the work of others, I bring you two videos which remind us that God is at work in our world. Jesus died and rose again some 2000 years ago but the God of resurrection continues to bring new life to people!

Courtesy of The Other Cheek, this testimony:

Then courtesy of a clergy colleague:

Have a great Holy Week!

Filling the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ

Yesterday's gospel reading, John 12:1-8, is amazing/interesting on a number of levels.

Level 1: John 12:1-8 is arguably the strongest evidence from an individual passage in John's Gospel that John knew at least two of the other gospels.

Level 2: (whether or not John knew the other three gospels, or at least Mark and Luke) this story has amazing resonances with three other synoptic gospel stories, while being "John's own" story.

Level 3: This story speak to us as disciples of Jesus: what is our devotion to him? What is our response to the poor?

Level 4: You can race to the bottom of this post if you wish ...

Level 1: John 12:1-8 offers evidence that John knew at least two of the other gospels

Each gospel has a story of a woman anointing Jesus at a dinner party: Mark's and Matthew's are quite similar, and placed chronologically near the end of Jesus' life, and geographically, close to Jerusalem, at Bethany; Luke's occurs during Jesus' ministry in Galilee and is placed before Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem where he will die (Mark 14:3-9; Matthew 26:6-13; Luke 7:36-50).

Now, John could have composed his story on the basis of some such story (or stories, if Luke's is a distinct, second such story) being orally communicated around the Christian communities, and needing no reference to any of the texts. It is an easily remembered kind of story, "There was a dinner party ... a woman turned up ... she used her hair ...". And such a composition theory could easily account for John agreeing with Mark and Matthew, that the dinner party took place at Bethany: no need for a text lying open before John to have noted that details in the story: "There was a dinner party at Bethany and ...".

But there are some common phrases and words, which of themselves do not prove John knew the texts of Mark (and possibly Matthew) and Luke, but point in that direction.

Consider:

A. John/Mark parallels

John 12:3: murou nardou pistikes polutimou (ointment of nard pure costly)

Mark 14:3: murou nardou pistikes polutelous (ointment of nard pure costly)

(Note that Matthew does not follow Mark closely here. Matthew 26:7 has: alabastron murou barutimou (alabaster phial of ointment very expensive)

John 12:4-6 is paralleled in both Matthew and Mark. The latter offer an argument among the disciples about the waste of money the perfumed ointment represents. John focuses attention on one of the disciples, Judas. John and Mark mention the same sum of money the ointment might have been sold for, three hundred denarii (Matthew mentions a large sum of money rather than a specific amount); all three talk about the money being given to the poor.

John 12:5: dia ti touto to muron ouk eprathe triakosion denarion kai edothe ptoxois?

Mark 14:5: edunato gar touto to muron prathenai epano denarion triakosion kai dothenai tois ptoxois

Matthew 26:9: edunato gar touto prathenai pollou kai dothenai ptoxois.

In response to this avalanche of unimpressed criticism from the disciples, John and Mark record Jesus offering his sympathy to the woman, "Let her alone, ...":

John 12:7: eipen ouv o Iesous afes auten, hina eis ten ...

Mark 14:6: O de Iesous eipen afete auten ti aute ...

Finally, John has the same words as Mark (and Matthew, see below) in respect of the famous saying "You will always have the poor with you but you will not always have me":

John 12:8: tous ptoxous gar pantote exete meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete.

Mark 14:7: pantote gar tous ptoxous exete meth eauton, ..., eme de ou pantote exete.

B: John/Luke parallels

Whereas Mark/Matthew have the woman anointing the head of Jesus, John and Luke are in parallel over the feet (tous podas autou, John 12:3/Luke 7:38) being anointed and the woman (Luke) / Mary (John) wiping his feet with her hair. If John is drawing on Luke then he simplifies Luke whose account includes tears and a kiss as well as ointment. In the excerpts below I have italicised the words common in Greek to both accounts.

Luke 7:38: and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment [the same word for ointment is used here as John uses in 12:2.

John 12:3: and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

C: John/Matthew parallel

This one is arguably weak, since John and Matthew could have independently come to the same decision about something they choose to omit from Mark, but it is worth noting. Mark, in 14:6-7, records Jesus as responding to the disciples criticism of the woman (see above re his first words, "Let her alone ...") with a short speech about how she has done a beautiful thing; the poor will always be with them, when they have opportunity to do good to the poor, and that the disciples will not always have him. Matthew shortens the last part of this speech by omitting talk of doing good to the poor. Thus, in respect of the last part of the speech, John appears to follow Matthew rather than Mark, but offering a similar omission to Matthew (who undoubtedly was following Mark):

John 12:8: tous ptoxous gar pantote exete meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete.

Mark 14:7: pantote gar tous ptoxous exete meth eauton, ..., eme de ou pantote exete.

Matthew 26:11: pantote gar tous ptoxous extee meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete

That is, in sum, there is evidence, as cited above, for John knowing and choosing, here and there, to follow the texts of Mark and Luke and, possibly, also Matthew. The evidence does not constitute proof.

Attribution: nothing above is original to me nor new to the world of Johannine scholarship. Many commentaries on this passage pay attention to these parallels. They are readily observable in "synopses" which set out the four gospels side by side - in this case I used both Greek and English synopses.

Level 2: (whether or not John knew the other three gospels, or at least Mark and Luke) this story has amazing resonances with three other synoptic gospel stories, while being "John's own" story.

Irrespective of theories about how John came to compose the story in John 12:1-8, the story has resonances with the synoptic accounts: Jesus is anointed in a poignant scene, set at a dinner party, with expensive perfumed ointment, which occasions sharp criticism from one or more of his disciples, and leads Jesus to support the woman and her action while offering an observation about the permanency of the poor in human history. The poignancy of the scene is that in John's and Mark/Matthew's stories, the anointing of Jesus is an anticipation of his burial, that is, of his death which will occur not many days hence.

If Luke's story is distinct from Mark/Matthew's story (e.g. the former having occurred in Galilee and the latter in Bethany near Jerusalem), nevertheless the manner of John's telling, even though the setting is Bethany, recalls the Lukan story for us as well as the Mark/Matthew story.

Yet John makes this story his own: only he names three people present who are not named in the other stories: Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Lazarus figures in the story not only to underline the anticipation of Jesus' death inherent in the anointing with ointment but also to offer the hint of hope, that death will not be the end of Jesus: he like Lazarus will be raised to life after (and beyond) death. 

Martha and Mary, who have figured in John's overall narrative, one chapter earlier, as the earnestly entreating sisters of Lazarus, believing that Jesus can do something about the death of their brother, appear here: one, Martha, undertaking necessary service for the meal to happen; the other, Mary, being the named anointing woman. But their figuring in the story is itself resonant with another story, told only by Luke, in 10:38-42, in which Jesus is at their house, with Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord (and doing precisely no housework) and Martha doing all the housework and complaining to Jesus about Mary's lack of involvement. Mary, perhaps annoyingly for Martha, is commended by Jesus for her attention to him and his teaching!

In John 12:1-8 there is no specific approbation for Mary in comparison to Martha, and Martha has no complaints. But Mary serves (12:2) and Mary anoints the feet of Jesus.

If John knew not the synoptic texts, he seems to have imbibed their spirit from the ethos-sphere!

Level 3: This story speak to us as disciples of Jesus: what is our devotion to him? What is our response to the poor?

The story John/Mark/Matthew tell is sophisticated and nuanced (so is Luke's story). On the one hand the story sets in motion 2000 years of expensive, extravagant devotion to Jesus: churches, cathedrals, stained glass windows, works of art in paint and in marble, lives devoted in sacrificial ways to being with Jesus (e.g. through the prayer work of religious orders).

On the other hand, the story sharply remind us that the poor are (as has been the case and still is) always with us, and the implication, even if we read Matthew and John and not Mark is, nevertheless, the point Jesus makes in Mark's story: "any time you want to [help the poor], you can help them" (14:7). Indeed, a bunch of other texts in the gospels and in the epistles challenge us to make "can help them" into "will help them."

If, focusing on John's story, Mary is a model disciples in respect of extravagant devotion to Jesus, then Judas is a model anti-disciple: we should not be like him, harping on about the waste of money, nor like him being a thief, nor like him being a mouther of words and a non-doer of relevant action.

This story offers, subtlely, the both/and of extravagant devotion to Jesus and of generous provision for the poor.

Level 4: Filling the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ

The Good News Bible renders John 12:3 in a lovely and inspiring way: 

The sweet smell of the perfume filled the whole house.

Is John offering a little descriptive flourish here, or teasing the reader to think outside of the story, to the ongoing story of each of our lives as followers of Christ?

We are the salt of the earth (Matthew) and meant to season and flavour all of life and all lives around us.

Here, John is implying we are the perfume of the world and meant to spread the sweet fragrance of that perfume into every corner and nook and cranny.

If so, John is not alone in such conception. Paul writing in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 says:

God uses us to make the knowledge about Christ spread everywhere like a swet fragrance. For we are like a sweet-smelling incense offered by Christ to God, which spreads among those who are being saved and those who are being lost. For those who are being lost, it is a deadly stench that kills; but for those who are being saved, it is a fragrance that brings life.

Beyond the obvious challenges in the story: to be devoted to Christ, to help the poor, there is another challenge.

How might we fill the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ?

New Blog on the Block, and a couple of other thoughts for the week

Mark Murphy, commenter here, has developed his own blog, Tumbling Ages.

Welcome, Mark!

His "About" page is here and his initial, vision-casting page is here.

I like what Mark says at the last link:

"I’m calling this blog Tumbling ages because it seems appropriate for the polarities, disorientation, intersections, and complexity we are living through. My particular focus will be Christianity, the religious tradition I was born into and have practised all my life, and which I’ve been rediscovering with special urgency as a middle adult. I hope this blog might be read by others on their own tumbling journeys of curiosity, disintegration, and wonder."

In the "disintegration" of the world around us this week, I note (in no particular order of merit or demerit):

- a news report this morning that Trump is "very angry" with Putin. As best I can see, his anger is that Putin is just the person many of us in the West had already marked him down as. In the language of a former time, he was, is and always will be "a cad and a bounder."

- lovely, joyful to be in Dunedin on Saturday for the ordination of the Reverend Dr Anne van Gend as bishop and installation as new Bishop of Dunedin. (No news report yet on Anglican Taonga.)

- Archbishop Justin Welby has given a first interview since concluding his term as Archbishop of Canterbury: sorrowful, regretful, explanatory. I feel for him. There is much that is "overwhelming" for bishops.

- it was good to participate in an Evensong last night to celebrate the life and achievements of one of Christchurch's most renowned architects, Benjamin Mountfort (1825-1898). This month of March being the 200th anniversary of his birth. His imprint is on our city (albeit with some removals from the scene due to the earthquakes in 2010-2011), and on our nation.

I have tried telling you so

Something I am often saying is that we (Western Christians in respect of living Christianly in the Western world) are in a very difficult place because there is a tide of secularization sweeping our world and it makes our gospel work of witnessing to the Good News of Jesus Christ very difficult.

Secularization is the notion that one doesn't need God to live a blessed life, that society can operate more or less effectively without organised religion, and it has an ever increasing grip on the way we Westerners live. 

So we see these days: few people want to hear our message; many people who have heard the message no longer identify as Christians, or if they do still identify as Christians are no longer active in the church; even if there is not outright hostility to the gospel, there is steadfast indifference to it; and generally, in a wonderful world of material plenty, longlife through good health and effective health systems, there seems, for many, no need of God in any sense, let alone the God of Jesus Christ. (Please remember that no matter how long the waiting lists for operations, or how many people need food from foodbanks, across the whole of Western societies we are way better off than our forbears ever were.)

Incidentally, secularization doesn't have much trouble coping with "spirituality" compared to "organised religion"; and it seems, in NZ, to be coping with karakia in public events (whether or not those karakia are thoroughly Trinitarianly Christian or not). What secularization doesn't cope with is that there might be another authority - indeed, the Authority of authorities - than "the state", "public opinion", "me."

Let's be honest: the secularization sweep across societies and cultures has absolutely enjoyed a boost from the many, now well reported failings of churches, especially in respect of sexual and spiritual abuse. failure to lift women into leadership and slowness to keep up with scientific discoveries.

Back to my key point which is this, we underestimate the tide of secularization at our ecclesial peril. We are in a situation where we must pray, be faithful to Jesus, bear testimony to Jesus, and hope hugely that God's power through the pervasive Holy Spirit in our world will find a way out of this current "dark age" into a new age of (true, gospel) enlightenment. Yes, let's do all we can with our courses and programmes, with improving our welcomes at the church door and what happens inside the church worship and teaching spaces: through such things people come to faith, people remain in the faith, and God is honoured. Yes, let's celebrate every church which is growing in numbers, especially because people are becoming Christians.

But let's do all we can with eyes wide open to the scale of what we face as census declarations of Christian identity wane, as church attendance (across all churches) declines (either in sheer numbers or in proportion to a growing population or both), and as we face closures of churches, parish mergers and so forth.

What prompts me to write thus and so this week?

A recent post by John Sandeman at The Other Cheek alerts us to this:

"... Nexus, a conference attended by evangelical ministers mostly of the Sydney Anglican variety. ...

From all accounts, they were examining responses to the attendance drop in Sydney Anglicanism, frankly facing up to their problems. For a overview of the stats a good place to start is the passionate speech by Dominic Steele complete with graphs that slope down, down that he gave at the Sydney Synod (church parliament) – he happens to host the Nexus conference at the Annadale Village church he leads."

(As an aside, the post linked to above is actually about some interesting observations made by a Presbyterian at the conference.)

What did Dominic Steele have to say?

"Steele began with this graph, which shows a steady attendance until 2017, then a decline which is projected through the Covid years of 2020 and 2021 and a bounce back in 2023. Steele noted: “Sydney Anglican adult attendance declined 6.7% between 2013 and 2023, or 14 percent against population.”"

Now, in the Anglican world of the West, Sydney is "the" diocese which stands staunch on certain fundamentals of the "orthodox" Anglican faith, stands true as "conservative" on the spectrum of theological positions held by Anglicans, and stands out in its contribution to leadership of and within GAFCON. When the jibe is made (often by certain pundits of my acquaintance) that the only growing churches in the Anglican Communion are the conservative, orthodox ones, I can only presume that such generalisation includes the Diocese of Sydney ... even as it is meant to exclude, oh, I don't know, my own diocese [smile].

But the evidence is not supportive of this generalisation that the staunchly orthodox grow. Church growth through conversions is hard in our secular world. If any diocese in the Western world should grow on the basis that one particular approach to gospel ministry is destined to succeed, then it should be Sydney. But like all of us, it too is finding it difficult to counter the tide of secularization.

To be very clear: this post is not having a go at Sydney re its particular character. That might or might not be a post for another day. It could be that the statistics of church attendance are such that Sydney is doing, so to speak, "least worst" of all dioceses in the Western world, that is, it is the best of all of us.

The question remains, I suggest, that there are no easy answers to the matter of "what then should we do?" as gospel Anglicans eager to see people come to faith, for the church to grow in numbers as well as in depth.

There are, however, some straightforward things we should do simply because we love the Lord Jesus Christ: pray, bear witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ, through word and deed, give praise to God, and break bread together. The Holy Spirit is in charge!

New Sights to See in John's Gospel

This past weekend I have been at a retreat for bishops and spouses - something we managed two years ago and then again this year. Hopefully we can do this again next year. What follows are some insights I gained, catalysed by things said during the weekend, but for these thoughts, especially if deemed heretical, I am solely responsible!

So: something said about Jesus being fascinated with us; about how we respond to the word "heart" (e.g. Jesus looking into our hearts and being fascinated by us) got me thinking ...

- When God or Jesus looks into human hearts, with the notable exception of the young David's heart, it is (interestingly enough) often less than good things that are found there.

- My thinking, for instance, was drawn to John 2:23-25 where Jesus does not trust himself to people "because he himself knew what was in their hearts."

- Yet, thinking about where in the gospels Jesus might be "fascinated" with someone, my mind went to John 1:43-51, the story of the call of Philip and Nathanael. When Nathanael and Jesus meet, Jesus says something about Nathanael - that he is an Israelite without guile - and Nathanael asks Jesus how he knows him.

"Jesus answered, 'I saw you when you were under the fig tree before Philip called you'."

Jesus "sees" Nathanael. Although there is no mention of Nathanael's heart, it is pretty clear that Nathanael's heart is looked into by Jesus, and he likes what he sees.

- But, further, that got me looking again at this chapter and the verb "see". Jesus invites two disciples to "Come and see" where he lives (39). So, "they went with him and saw where he lived" (39). Andrew introduces Simon to Jesus. Jesus "looked at him" and tells him his name will now be Cephas/Peter (42). Jesus then finds Philip and Philip finds Nathanael. When Nathanael questions whether anything good can come from Nazareth, Philip says - of course!! - "Come and see" (46). Then, per above, Jesus says he "saw" Nathanael (48).

Are we done yet on the verb "see" in John 1?

Not at all!

"Then Jesus said, 'Do you believe just because I told you I saw you when you were under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than this!' And he said to them, 'I am telling you the truth: you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man'." (50-51)

I realised, pondering these occurrences, that I had never really seen (!!) this verb "see" so often in this chapter.

What is going on?

With some background learning about John as a gospel of revelation, of disclosure of inner secrets of the divine life (e.g. John 3), I make the not particularly original suggestion that John is not merely reporting an interesting dialogue to us which points to his gospel being a gospel of revelation - enabling us to see things about God's purposes in Jesus Christ - but is, in fact, issuing an invitation to us as readers ... to see. 

To see for ourselves what the disciples here in John 1 have been invited to see: who Jesus is, what his relationship to God the Father is, what the significance of his life, death and resurrection is, what life in the Spirit of God holds in store for those who not only "see" but also "believe."

And there is more: just as the disciples-and-also-us-who-read-the-gospel are invited to come and see for ourselves about Jesus; we are also being invited to understand that Jesus sees us: he knows who we are, he knows what we are like, nothing is hidden from his sight, and yet, wonderfully, marvellously, he loves us and he invites us to "Follow me".

A final insight - though I think this one came to me a little while ago rather than at this retreat - but I thought some more about it while on retreat: it concerns why the great theme of the Prologue (1:1-18), that Jesus is the Logos/Word is hardly touched on again in the remainder of John's Gospel.

In John 1:14, we read - the very familiar words - "the Word became flesh" - the Word took on the full form and substance of a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Is the remainder of the Gospel concerned with the history of "the flesh" the Word has become, and that is why we see little further reference to Jesus being "the Word" (and such reference as there is, is somewhat oblique rather than explicit)? The Word becomes a human being and John is now focused on the meaning of the human being (with particular and recurring reference to this fleshly Jesus being the Son of the Father).

In particular, in John 1, we see "the Word" being, in the fleshly man, Jesus, addressed with all the familiar christological titles from the other gospels: Son, Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah/Christ, King of Israel,  Son of Man, plus the novel-to-John title, Lamb of God. Through the remainder of the Gospel, John will stick to familiar titles, but all, it could be argued, as stretching out and focusing within the meaning of Logos/Word; and all such titles being used of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, whose history is retold because when Jesus is, according to the awesome, profound insight of John, "the Word became flesh" there is more to see than has been brought into the light by Matthew, Mark and Luke.

The critical importance of theology in the world today (according to Jesus himself)

Yesterday's gospel reading, Luke 4:1-14, The Temptation of Jesus, is pertinent for the world today in which Christians in some places are taking positions (supporting Trump, supporting Putin, calling for women to be removed from public life because Supreme Courth Justice Barrett voted with other, 5-4, to ... wait for it ... insist that the Trump government pay for work the US government had said it would pay for, writing about "the sin of empathy" and for forth) which come with a Scriptural backing but which seem very, very, very at odds with the main run of Christian thinking through 2000 years, or, more simply, are theologically unsound. 

Famously, in this narrative, the devil attempts in the third temptation to draw Jesus away from God's will, by quoting Scripture at him and Jesus responds by quoting Scripture back to the devil. Dare we use the word? Jesus trumps the devil's knowledge of Scripture! In this case, Psalm 91:11-12 v Deuteronomy 6:16.

But the obvious question to then ask, not only of this narrative, but any such exchange between people quoting Scripture to (or, at) each other, is, on what basis is one Scripture "better" than another Scripture? It turns out that Why is Jesus right and the devil wrong?, has the same answer as Why am I right and the Jehovah's Witness knocking at my door wrong?

That is because what Jesus is doing in Luke 4:1-13 is not a kind of "Scripture chess" (To your Knight to D6, I counter with my Queen to B8) but an exercise in theology - in the right understanding of God's will for the world. That is, what God wants and what the devil wants are at odds with each other, and the resolution of the dispute does not come from mere knowledge of Scripture (noting Jesus quotes Scripture to the devil in the first two temptations (4:2-3 [Deuteronomy 8:3] and 4:5-8 [Deuteronomy 6:13]). Resolution comes through Jesus' knowledge of the will of God - the mainline, if you like, of theology: in this theology, Jesus is to be God's agent (God's Son, God's Servant, God's Anointed) in the redemption of the world; not the agent of the devil. Moreover, Jesus will be the suffering servant of God (see the passage following, when Jesus is rejected at Nazareth, 4:14-30) rather than the triumphant, magically powered, populist servant of Satan. Jesus knows and understands this, not only because he has read Scripture and studied it well, but also because of his experience of God at work within him and around him (so, Luke 1-3): his theological understanding is informed by Scripture but it does not solely consist of a treasury of memorised verses. Jesus' theological understanding flows out of a reckoning with the main message of Scripture: that God is God, God has created the world, and even when the world has rebelled against God, God's love for the world sets out to redeem the world back to God. Jesus is committed to that plan and not to the devil's alternative.

So, Jesus himself affirms, through this passage, the importance of theology: of rightly understanding God and God's will for the world.

In our crazy, upside-down world - and, also, in this weekend's horrible, terrifying news, that Christians and others are being massacred in Syria - we need theology as much as ever in the history of the Christian faith. We need a right understanding of God and God's will for the world.

Otherwise the charlatans calling for women to be removed from public office, finding no fault in the supine surrender to Putin or, conversely, willing to remove Russian Orthodox priests from office for proposing a [Russian] end to the war will win. And the massacres will spread unabated.

Two of my favourite prayers (with NZPB postscript)

Two of my favourite prayers were prayed in yesterday morning's 8.30 am Holy Communion service at St. John's, Highfield, where I presided and preached. I would like to share them with you as oases of spiritual calm in a week of terrifying developments which our children and grandchildren may look back on as turning points in a world of (relative) peace heading towards World War III (Chinese navy firing exercises in the Tasman Sea; the White House vicious Trump-Vance ambush of Zelensky).

The Prayer of Humble Access [pp. 425-26]

We do not presume
to come to your holy table,
merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in your great mercy.

We are not worthy
even to gather the crumbs from under your table.
But you are the same Lord
whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the body of your dear Son, Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that we may evermore dwell in him
and he in us.
Amen.

The Gate of Glory [pp.428-29]

Father of all,
we give you thanks and praise,
that when we were still far off
you met us in your Son and brought us home.
Dying and living,
he declared your love,
gave us grace
and opened the gate of glory.
May we who share Christ’s body
live his risen life;
we who drink his cup
bring life to others;
we whom the Spirit lights
give light to the world.

Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us,
so we and all your children shall be free,
and the whole earth live to praise your name.

POSTSCRIPT

In comments to last week's post, questions were raised about "stories behind" and "authorship" of specific prayers in A New Zealand Prayer Book [NZPB].

OTOH: some stories are known, circulated and authors identified. So Bosco Peters' contributed these notes:

"There's quite a bit of history & several stories about NZPB in my thesis - free online: liturgy.co.nz/you-can-read-my-thesis and there's also quite a few stories buried on my site (18 years worth!) - with an excellent search box."

"... One other point: the litany mentioned in the comments, "Let us be at peace within ourselves..." is The Rev. Jim Cotter's adaptation of the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Litany for peace: https://liturgy.co.nz/interbeing"

and Liz notes:

""Lord, it is night", I found the story of that (quite by chance) after a quick search to remind myself of the words - up came a link to Bosco's site so I went there - and also got the back story! Funny how things happen: https://liturgy.co.nz/lord-it-is-night"

The last is a brilliant story about the late Canon John WIlliamson, a priest of our Diocese of Christchurch.

To the links above we could add Brian Carrell's [my father's] memoir of his work on the then NZ Prayer Book Commission, Creating A New Zealand Prayer Book, which is available for sale as a hard copy from Theology House, or as a Kindle copy via Amazon.

OTOH: we could note that with the exception of some specific acknowledgments of external contributors to NZPB, the Commission sought to anonymise its internal contributors so that the book as a whole would be seen, received and used as a resource of the whole church, agreed to by the whole church, via General Synod, with no favoured prayers because individual authors were identified.

When in doubt or difficulty, Pray! If possible, Pray Common Prayers :)

I am a great believer in maximising common ground between otherwise disparate people. We may not reach unity but we can give it a very good try at getting as close as possible. 

For Anglicans, a significant common ground we share (or could or should share) is our prayers: our founding document for the Post Reformation period of our life is the Book of Common Prayer - the prayers which the English Anglicans prayed across England in common, from parish to parish, from Holy Communion to Holy Communion, Mattins to Mattins, and Evensong to Evensong, and later across the world until language push came to local shove and we diversified (another story for another time, including the story of how "common" prayer continues to permeate more recent liturgies). And, even the diversification in services in the 20th and 21st centuries, involve general synods and general conventions determining that we (in Province A or Province Z of the Anglican Communion) we would pray the prayers we have agreed to pray together.

But, wait, there is more to explore by way of common ground among praying Christians: what if we found the written prayers we have in common across our different denominations. Potentially a very big exercise - true. But one narrower slice of work could be to find the prayers which Anglicans and Catholics pray in common - for instance, their collects.

Bosco Peters - a priest in the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch, owner of the globally popular Liturgy website (a compendium of wide ranging resources and host of Bosco's regular Liturgy blog) - has been working on common collects for some time and this month has published Book of Prayers in Common (2025 February Edition). This book, in PDF format, is freely available to download from his website.

I commend it to you.

On my "other" blog, Resourcing Preaching and Worship Down Under, I have begun using these collects for my posts about Sunday readings.

Both on the webpage linked above and in the introduction to the book, Bosco clearly sets out the role collects play in our worship and the benefits of praying them in common. 

It is worth exploring the authorised collects of Anglican churches in the Communion which also happen to be prayed by the Roman Catholic church (at least somewhere in their globally wide communion): this post is not intended to make any claim that the collects Bosco has published in one handy volume are "better" than the collects provided for in our 2020 NZPB (themselves something of a work in progress through this decade); but they may be "useful" to us as we plan our services; and they have the particular charism of being "common".

We live in convulsing times. Chinese warships are practising warfare in ... the Tasman Sea. Lies are being told by USA leaders - dangerous lies which could lead to untold damage to other nations. Hamas is finally being more clearly than ever revealed for the evil organisation is it. Christians have been beheaded in Congo. What are we to do?

At the least, pray!

Let's, if possible, also pray together our common prayers.

What an interesting week

Looking back through the past 9 days, I can only say, What an interesting week!

Melbourne

Last weekend Archbishop Philip Freier, Archbishop of Melbourne and former Primate of Australia, retired from his role as Bishop of Melbourne, after 18 years in the role, six of which included being Primate of Australia. It was a privilege and a pleasure to be in Melbourne for a farewell dinner for bsihops and spouses on the Saturday evening and a participant in the Farewell Evensong on the Sunday afternoon. A bonus was that our plane from Christchurch to Melbourne arrived early enough on the Saturday morning for us to be present at ++Philip's last ordination service - perhaps uniquely, an ordination of eight deacons and one bishop! Read more about the final service for ++Philip and Joy Freier here, here and here.

Is nothing secure and permanent?

In an English-speaking world of many translations of the Bible, the ESV has a certain claim to fame, both for what it claims (to be a particularly faithful translation of the original languages of the Bible, in the KJV/RSV tradition, conservatively staunch against the alleged deficiencies of the NRSV/NRSVUE stream and the wobbliness of another claimant to be "the" translation for conservative evangelicals, the NIV) and for its popularity (increasingly among Catholics as well as conservative evangelicals, even being adopted as the text of Catholic liturgical reading, by some bishops' conferences.

Now I was once a fan of the ESV and used it a lot. I liked its rigour as a close, word for word translation, and its being in the KJV/RSV tradition but with some updates to the RSV's sometimes old-fashioned English. My increasing concerns over time were (a) its exclusive language (something the NRSV gets right, on the presumption that the people of God are addressed, male and female, even though original languages use male pronouns) and (b) it didn't sound right when read aloud (obviously so in respect of inclusive language; but also a certain clunkiness in phrasing). (My current preferences are NRSV and GNB (1994 or later editions/printings).)

But, my preferences and concerns with the ESV do not detract from respecting ESV as a solid translation of the Bible, with known slants and the possibility of using it when a Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek text are not handy, knowing it will give one of the best word for word translations in the English language.

Except.

This week past Crossway, publisher of ESV, have announced changes to the text in forthcoming printings.

Whatever you or I think about these changes, have we reached a point of genuine stability to this text claiming to be "best" (most faithful ever)? The last changes were 10 years or so ago. Are we good now for the next century?

Now, to attempt to be clear: it is a good thing to update translations in the interest of revised estimation of the most accurate rendering in today's language; but perhaps there could be an accompanying sprinkling of humility about the wonderfulness of any given translation (and/or deprecation of allegedly lesser value translations). If any translation, even the ESV, can do some self-correcting over time, then no one translation is yet perfect!

Finally, a point made during an X exchange with my colleague Bosco Peters is worth reflecting: should the ESV re-describe its own name? If I say "the ESV says this" and you respond "which ESV version?" then might ESV help us by offering a new name such as "ESVUE [ESV Update Edition]"? Bosco notes that in the "other" KJV/RSV tradition, we have the NRSV and now the NRSVUE to distinguish updates on the RSV.

Independence of safeguarding?

The continuing discombobulation in the Church of England over safeguarding, well, continues. At its recent session of General Synod a decision was made about the "next step" in (better) safeguarding of ministry (in respect of overall structure for the whole church - it can be overlooked that many people, including many volunteers, "on the ground", are doing a great job, properly). A casual glance at some comments on X could lead to a conclusion such as "the bishops have got it wrong AGAIN" or "Synod has failed survivors of abuse." Now, it is not for me, from far off, to make a determination on what the Synod (including bishops) got right or wrong, but I can point you to a(n arguably) helpful post by Ian Paul on the nuances within the decision made and the process/debate towards that decision, here. I suggest the comments are worth reading as readers chime in with thier assessment of Ian's assessment of the situation. Other responses to the decisions are listed here.

175 years old

It was a joy this weekend to participate in events and a service to celebrate 175 years of existence for Christ's College, one of our Anglican  schools in the Diocese of Christchurch. The Anglican settlement of Christchurch began in 1850 and Christ's College began that same year, with classes held in Lyttelton (Christchurch's port town). 175 years later it is going strong and its Warden [me] can remember one and only one thing from its 125th anniversary in 1975 (when I was a student there): Charles Upham (VC and Bar - WW2 hero, perhaps most famous of our Old Boys) planted a tree in the quad within the school known as the Upham Quad. There must have been an anniversary service but, to be honest, I do not remember attending it. Yesterday's service was wonderful and moving - a tribute to the quality of the choristers - and a reminder of the wonders of worship when music lifts our hearts to God.

Wider world

No comment required from me as the whole world is commenting but this past week has also been interesting (meaning, very alarming) in respect of the further machinations of a certain global leader.