Anglican Validity

A post below re the Church of England and women bishops has led to a long sequence of comments. One aspect emerging in those comments particularly intrigues me, the notion of "validity."

What does God think of the way we conduct our sacramental ministry? Does God approve of the ordaining of women? Answer: we do not know what God thinks about the way we do things in respect of the sacraments and of ordination.

What we do reflects our human attempts to best understand the meaning and implications of Scripture, including the few remarks and reports we have about the eucharist and about ministry. Even when we build that understanding on what we have received through tradition, we are building on human developments of Christ and the apostles' ministries.

To say that this eucharistic occasion or that ordination is "valid" is to make a judgement concerning our understanding of these things, believing earnestly that God is also pleased with what has been done. As is being pointed out in the sequence of comments in the earlier post, some judge "validity" in different ways. We Anglicans think our eucharists and ordinations are valid, not only as an "Anglican" judgment, but also viewed against the back story of undivided, and then Western and Eastern Christianity. Romans and Eastern Orthodox differ. And we differ amongst ourselves as to whether (say) a woman ordained is validly ordained, or whether a eucharist is valid when conducted in a particularly Protestant way (including, let us say, employing words at the "epiclesis" which suit Protestant sensibilities so no actual invocation of the Spirit upon the elements occurs).

But what God thinks about these questions of "validity", we do not know.

Oh dear, is this really helpful?

I thought that our church in its 'official' mode of being has no need to revisit the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopacy. So I do wonder if the following statement by our archbishops is, in the end, as helpful as they intend.

"The ordination of women is in the news again, thanks to developments in the Church of England, and comments from the Vatican.

It is timely, therefore, for us to reflect again on our own position in this church on this matter.

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia long ago affirmed and provided for the ordination of women to all levels of ordained ministry, as deacons, priests and bishops.

This has resulted in widespread, in-depth and effective ministry, with a unique and special character, across all three Tikanga.

As the Church of England comes close to providing for the ordination of women bishops, we pray that all three orders in that church will benefit as richly as we have done from taking this step.

This church also takes part in Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue, both here in New Zealand and abroad.

For some decades now, our affirmation and celebration of the ordination of women has been a feature of our contribution to these conversations.

We draw our authority for these ordinations from scripture, tradition and reason, as well as from the decisions of many General Synods of the Anglican Communion.

At a time when the Vatican-based Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has restated its commitment not to proceed in this way, we affirm again the fundamental value of all ordained women within our church.

For us, such ordinations are a profound enrichment of the sacraments – and when ordained women and men work together in ministry and mission, we have found this both invigorating and life-giving.

++David Moxon, Senior Bishop of the New Zealand dioceses

++Brown Turei, Pihopa o Aotearoa"

Sourced from Taonga.

I am personally less than enthusiastic about this phrase: "with a unique and special character". It suggests women in their priestliness and episcopalness are different to men in their priestliness and episcopalness. I thought we were one in our priestliness and episcopalness. Our church in various ways is troubled by 'class' concepts in respect of ministry: lay v ordained, stipendiary priests v local shared ministry priests.* This phrase veers awfully close to another distinction: male priests v female priests.

But then I could be wrong!

*Highlighted in some instances by dioceses having separate annual conferences for the two classes of clergy.

Fig-leaf Expressions

Giles Fraser, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and columnist for the Church Times, writes confidently about age-old Anglican divisions not separating even in their current 'fresh expressions'. But in the course of an otherwise agreeable [later: 'controversial'] column, he throws this remark away:

"Fresh Expressions is the latest fig-leaf for liturgical anything goes."

I think that remark is a pity because at best it is a quarter-truth. +Graham Cray, on his recent visit to Christchurch, gave plenty of evidence that Fresh Expressions includes liturgically sound Anglican services (the 'fresh' bit being in new contexts, with new congregations), and services led by Methodists, Baptists and the like (who are not bound by Anglican liturgical requirements). Further, it is not at all clear that a new congregation of new converts beginning with a flexible form of meeting together is not on the way towards something liturgically responsible. The least we can do in a brave new world of mission is to allow liturgy to emerge over time rather than impose it from the beginning.

Nevertheless I imagine that in the wilds of England somewhere some have worked out that their songs & sermon services now have the perfect riposte when the bishop's liturgical inquisitor comes investigating. "But it's a Fresh Expression." With tail between her legs, worrying about impending redundancy, the inquisitor heads back to the bishop muttering, "Oh, nothing to worry about then." A fig-leaf indeed, from Eden itself!

Naturally, if Giles were to visit New Zealand his sentence would never have entered his head! At least not until my tongue unplanted itself from my cheek.

Nor, for that matter, would his delightful previous sentence apply here:

"Some flap their hands towards an overhead projector; others throw incense at statues to the rhythms of the Roman missal."

We use Powerpoint. :)

Fresh Expressions and Youth

There is no doubt in my mind that Fresh Expressions of church can take hold in any group in our society. But there is also certainty in my mind that the primary Fresh Expression goal for churches such as the Anglican church in New Zealand should be Fresh Expressions of church among young people. There is a simple imbalance between young and old in our church which needs righting. Any presumption that time will take care of the imbalance without any further action on our part could be disastrous.

The good news is that Fresh Expressions among young people are already taking place. I visited one such FE last night!

The challenging news is that we need more such FEs ... and we need to continually think about the form these FEs will take as time goes by (and the young people become middle-aged, then simply aged ...).

Back to last night: a particular feature of that Fresh Expression is its 'total youth' approach: young people lead, preach, plan the FE.

That is not the only way but it is something to think about. For example, do "oldies" (such as me at 50) get in the way of youth Fresh Expressions being Fresh?

Footnote to Cray Visit

This site here has links to Bishop Graham Cray's presentations in NZ. Download warning: some files are quite large. (H/T Anglican Taonga).

Hear What the Spirit Is Saying To The Church

I promised some further reflection on Fresh Expressions. In part that can be found here and here.

Careful reading of both will show that I commit to nothing about future action more concrete than listening to the Spirit and discerning the signs of the (cultural) times. My mind tends to work in practical ways, so much of my thinking in the last week about Fresh Expressions has been 'what if we did this ... or this?' Of course the Spirit may be speaking to me, and through me, via such thoughts. But likely (on the basis of assessment of my life story) I am running ahead of the Spirit!

So, a week on from +Cray's two Christchurch conferences, the primary reflection I offer is to be serious about listening to the Spirit. Should not be hard, after all in modern liturgies we commit ourselves to doing that reading by reading.

One picture in my mind lends some urgency to this task. It matters not where or when the picture formed, and many readers will easily recognise the picture ... whether in NZ or other Western countries. It is a picture of a congregation at worship. Everything is done well. True devotion to God is expressed. Warm hospitality is shown to one another and to any strangers in their midst. The gospel is proclaimed and the sacrament administered. But apart from one family with children, the congregation is aged 60 years and above.

What is the Spirit saying to such congregations, and (speaking as an Anglican) to the dioceses in which such congregations live their inter-dependent lives?

Keep going ... eventually things will change (e.g. secularism will fade away) ...

Change the way things are being done. Doing what has always been done will always succeed in the same result. Thus ...

Keep going with what you have and start a new thing ...

Take the wider view. Celebrate what the Pentecostals/Catholics/New21stCenturyChurch are doing in the next street over ...

Install a webcam and feed services live on your new Facebook page (having first Tweeted news of this new development) ...

Ignore the above. That is me trying to second guess (again!) what the Spirit is saying to the church. But do not ignore the Spirit.

Bombshell demolishes evangelical theology?

I have started reading a blockbuster theology tome, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Eerdmans, 2009) by Douglas A. Campbell, Associate Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, and Down Under scholar who began his academic studies at Otago University, Dunedin.

I am about a fifth of the way through its 1000 or so pages, so it is early days to draw conclusions. But the gist of Douglas' case is that 'Justification theory' (i.e. 'Justification by faith' asserted as the great Pauline doctrine, especially as construed in Reformation and post-Reformation scholarship, and driving forward modern and post-modern evangelicalism) both misreads Paul and is responsible for many reprehensible developments in the life of Christendom (and its vestigial cultures, including Nazi Germany), the Protestant church, and Protestant theology. To say nothing of leading (Protestant) theology up the garden path of Old or New Pauline Perspective.

Campbell reckons (so far on my reading) to get 'beyond' the Old and New Pauline Perspectives, to rid theology of Justification theory (root and branch), and to establish an apocalyptic rereading of Paul, largely based on Romans 5-8 (rather than Romans 1-4, and Galatians), in which the great doctrine of salvation is God's deliverance of us from evil, drawing us through the Spirit into participatory union with Christ.

What I have not yet read is a proposal to reread Romans 1-4 and Galatians in the light of this new reading, thus (as I understand where this is going) rescuing Paul from charges of contradiction.

So far, then, this blockbuster is a bombshell, at least in the field of my own evangelical thinking (though not completely new, as for sometime my understanding of the heart of Christian experience is that we are 'in Christ').

Is it a bombshell in the field of all evangelical theology? Will it be the seminal work of the 21st century reconfiguring evangelical theology away from Lutheran and Calvinist influence to the 'real' Paul?

Will post again.