Living Wittily

Birmingham, Women Ministers and the liberty of Christ

Just been to Birmingham for a meeting with the Fellowship of British Baptists which met at the International Mission College of BMS World Mission. Baptist leaders from BUGB and Welsh and Scottish Unions meet each year to share ideas, stories and discuss together important aspects of strategy and development within our felloship of churches. It isn't an easy time to be a mainline denomination and there are fairly constant and demanding pressures of finance, cultural change, expectations both valid and unrealistic, and throughout it all a sense of urgency about how best to bear witness faithfully in our following after Christ.

Our visit coincided with Women in Ministry Day and I caught up very briefly with several friends including Carol, Ruth, Clare and Catriona - I met them in that order and had far too little time to talk about their ministries and how life was in the churches where they serve. But it did my heart no end of good to be amongst so many gifted and significant people whose ministries are expressed in creative faithfulness. I hope their time together was a time of mutual encouragement, shared expereince, renewed faith, replenished enthusiasm, and anything else that could in the generosity of God be given for their blessing and for the church's edicfication. The experience of women serving within a still male dominated leadership in our churches remains a pressing issue of justice, stewardship and fellowship, requiring biblical, theological and pastoral debate about the nature of the Gospel, the witness of a Gospel people, and the meaning of the liberty we have in Christ, and the liberty of Christ - to call to ministry those whom he calls. I've heard arguments for and against women in ministry - even to the point of stating what Christ can and cannot do as if the call of Christ has to answer to our theological scruples. At that point the issue becomes one of humility and obedience as key inner principles in any such responses, discussions and conclusions.

Then tonight watched the Champion's League Final - which Manchester United won. There are levels of emotional expenditure in football that come as close as anything else I've witnessed to relgious fervour - whether desolation or elation. I'm doing a paper later this summer on sport in general, and football in particular, as forms of secular spirituality. Tonight's game had some of the key elements of religiously generated expereince - prayer and cursing, praise and blame, fellowship and isolation, liturgical chants, and a sense of the absolute significance, even the cosmic implications of, THE RESULT. More on this later - time for bed.

Uncomfortable but comfortingly so?

A couple of years ago I read the commentary on Song of Solomon, in the New Interpreter's Bible. It is written by Renita Weems, an African American Pentecostal turned Methodist now married to a Baptist Pastor, and previously a Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University. The commentary is a wonderful corrective to those who approach the Song with all the inhibitions of Western culture, uncomfortable with the relationship between love, physicality and the human body. Written by a woman, taking seriously the sensuality and romance of these ancient love poems, the commentary is an unembarrassed affirmation of human love as God's good gift, nothing to be ashamed of but to be celebrated, enjoyed and wondered at in all its life-enhancing mystery. But more of this another time.

I've just read another of her books, Listening for God. a Minister's Journey Through Silence and Doubt. This is spirituality that is honest, self-inquisitive, unafraid to own up to the hard journey that is our walk with God - Who if always present, is seldom obviously so. Here and there Weems comes close to self-pity - but even that, if we are half as honest as Renita Weems, is an attitude most of us fall into, and as quickly deny. But most of the time she writes out of a hard won faith, and describes the inner landscape of uncertainty, of missed opportunities, disappointed hopes, hurts and wounds that have very long half-lives; and she does so with an at times desperate determination to hold God to account. How can any human hold God to account - well that depends on the God. A God who is faithful, constant, there but not obviously so, a Sovereign Creator whose mercy can at times seem severe, that Other whose purposes are hidden behind our most feared scenarios, and whose presence makes such scenarios survivable.

Here is just one excerpt, which can stand as a sample for the whole of this fine, brave and in the best sense en-couraging book:

But what if God's silence is not a ruse? What if God's silence is precisely the way God speaks....Silence can also be an invitation, an invitation to communicate without words, without thunder, without burning bushes. In an age addicted to words, when memos, faxes, Post-its, E-mail, announcements, flash bulletins, cell-phones and news make talk cheap and easy it is frustrating to be told we must not rely on words - direct speech that is. The burning bush was an invitation to be weaned off burning bushes, to come closer, to stay awahile, to learn idiosyncracies, to commune.

God speaks through burning bushes to get our attention so as never to have to speak again that way. Perhaps it's when we confuse God's intervention with God's intention that we set ourselves up for years of fist-raising questions...... (pages 198-99).

The whole book is uncomfortable reading, in a strangely comforting way.

Women, spirituality and (un)intentional obscurity

A  while ago I posted a couple of times on the relative absence of women in the biblical commentary industry. However I was able to muster a reasonable number of biblical commentaries written by women from the academically superb (Margaret Thrall on Second Corinthians, 2 volumes, International Critical Commentary), to the theologically and pastorally alert (Beverly Gaventa on Acts, Abingdon Biblical Ccommentary, and Kathleen O'Connor on Lamentations), to the devotionally evocative and spiritually penetrating (Joan Chittister on Ruth).

When it comes to asking which women have featured prominently in the development of the Christian Spiritual tradition I suspected a similar sense of absence, of cultural and traditional marginalisation. Yes - and no. The roll call of women whose lives and writings have influenced the ongoing Christian Spiritual Tradition has some impressive entries but is certainly not represented across all the traditions.

Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa has until recently been on the margins. I still remember the great historian Jaroslav Pelikan in his Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen, quietly dismantling centuries of prejudiced silence about this mother of the church, pointing out that to talk of the Church Fathers was to use vocabulary betraying either ignorance or chauvinism! Quite so - the Cappadocian "Fathers" owed a considerable intellectual debt to this woman - just as Appollos did to Priscilla.

Julian of Norwich - whatever we think of medieval mysticism, the cross centred, passionate theology so richly and profoundly explored in The Revelations of Divine Love, ranks with the finest atonement theology in the entire Christian tradition. Julian's theology is a medieval precursor of Moltmann's Crucified God (to my knowledge Moltmann has never significantly engaged with her work), and at times her writing soars to heights even Moltmann's rhetoric fails to reach.

From previous centuries also include Hildegard of Bingen,(the original 'feisty female' monastic), Teresa of Avila, (where is her reformation protestant equivalent?), Madame Guyon (French Quietist whose longing for God got her into trouble). The nineteenth century I might include Dora Greenwell, (whose theology P T Forsyth admired and learned from), Frances Havergal (poet, hymnwriter, hillwalker and milliner!).In the 20th century there are a few more women who were able to break through the glass ceiling - yes Evelyn Underhill, Amy Carmichael(doing some serious social stuff long before Mother Teresa), Florence Allshorn (community pioneer), Olive Wyon (translator of Emil Brunner!), Simone Weil (eccentric French philosopher, razor sharp mind, patron saint of those who struggle), Dorothy Sayers (translator of Dante, playwright and no mean theologian herself), Dorothy Day,( social activist, spirituality with the sleeeves rolled up), Mother Teresa; and in the past 25 years, Kathleen Norris, (poet and Benedictine oblate), Elaine Storkey ( evangelical feminist - yes it is possible), Joan Chittister (Benedictine, spiritual theologian)...but I'm struggling to make this a long impressive list. And be honest, how many of them have you read - how many have their works still in print - who has even heard of Olive Wyon, Florence Allshorn, Dora Greenwell??

And here's the Christian Blog equivalent of the pub quiz question with a bit of trivial pursuit obscurity thrown in -

name three women who have significantly impacted the development of the Scottish spiritual tradition, which is my current research area?

I will await your suggestions for other inclusions in the wider traditions; and ANY suggestion for women of obvious influence in the Scottish spiritual tradition. It isn't that they are not there - but who ever thought them important enough to write the biography, publish the writing, study the legacy, include them as essential players in the standard histories?

The infection of holiness

One of the sanest and at the same time sternest guides in the spiritual life was Evelyn Underhill, an Anglican lay woman, middle class, polite, leisured and literary, her photo portraying a not easily pleased headmistress - but a woman of deep perception, passionate honesty and gentle determination. Speaking with a friend yesterday we reminded each other how much Underhill's spirituality remains important as a corrective to our hard-nosed consumerist approaches to God that can at times seem like a series of shop till we drop expeditions of spiritual retail therapy. Here's a couple of her still needing to be pondered thoughts:

We talk and write easily about spiritual values and the spiritual life, but we remain fundamentally utilitarian, even pragamatic at heart. We want spiritual things to work, and the standard we apply is our miserable little notion of how they ought to work. We always want to know whether they are helpful. Our philosophy and religion are orientated, not towards the awful vision of that principle before which Isaiah saw the seraphim veil their eyes; but merely towards the visible life of humanity and its needs. We may speak respectfully of Mary and even study her psychology; but we feel that the really important thing is to encourage Martha to go on getting the lunch.

In the story of the rich young man, Underhill comments:

Jesus replies in effect.'Put aside all lesser interests, strip off unrealities, and come, give yourself the chance of catching the infection of holiness from Me'.

I'm going to say more about Evelyn Underhill on this blog - at times her terminology is dated, but her understanding of the spiritual life, her guidance in the search for God and holiness, represent endangered species of pastoral, ecclesial and theological skills.

Women....that which they are in themselves....

In The Prophecy of Jeremiah (New York: Revell, 1931), G. Campbell Morgan demonstrated how a Bible teacher, the foremost Evangelical expositor of his generation, and speaking over sixty years ago, handled a text relating to the role of women in Christian service.

‘The first responsibility of womanhood is that women should discover their personal rights in God, should realize that they bear to God a relationship which man does not affect, nor can; that they have a right of access to God, for the realization of that which they are in themselves, without the interference of man in any way.’

I wish, nearly 80 years on, women and men in our churches could approach the issue with the same bold grasp of the key Gospel principles of freedom and grown-upness in Christ. And that women in our Scottish churches were allowed to 'realise that which they are in themselves before God', and to share fully and frutifully in all the ministry and ministries of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The passage is on pages 273-4. It was brought to my attention by my friend Kate Durie years ago....and it confirmed Campbell Morgan in my personal pantheon of Evangelicalism's most attractive and biblically articulate writers.

Ruth Graham: Thanking God for a life well lived

I was sad to hear of the death of Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, on Thursday 14 June. A gentle and honest tribute can be found here at CNN. Her funeral service was held today following yesterday's thanksgiving service. In reviewing his own life work Billy Graham was convinced that Ruth was an essential source of courage, support and organising skill, in the background mostly. May she rest in the peace of Christ, and may they, in due course, rediscover the joy and love God gave them, in the presence of the God they have served together for over 65 years. Well done, good and  faithful servants.

The ministry of women: a rich, indispensable Spirit endowed gift to the church

I've added a new name to the list of blogs I visit regularly. Scott McKnight is a NT scholar, an evangelical who is also a thoughtful enthusiast for the concerns about the mission of the church as expressed in emergent circles. I've read his blog almost since it started two years ago. He is passionate about a number of things I care a lot about. When he writes he thinks before he blogs! His track record as a scholar, pastor and thoroughly fair minded evangelical make him educational fun.

So, I've decided to link him here because his blog is a good resource for some of the important debates going on in the church, particularly the evangelical wing. His categories sidebar gives easy acsess to major themes in his posts. For example his comments on recent debates on atonement are rooted in deep study - he's recently published a major academic study, Jesus and His Death.

His interactive conversation about Emerging Movement is sympathetic but not uncritical - in fact it's one of the most balanced responses I know - and because it's an ongoing conversation, how emergent is that! There's a whole sidebar on Emerging Movement.

But for me one of the most important areas where McKnight is required reading is Women in Ministry (57 posts so far, some of them substantial contributions to the debate - see his sidebar). McKnight adopts an egalitarian position - which means he affirms the place of women in all forms of ministry, and sees gender rendered irrelevant by a gospel which affirms equality before God. The reason I think Mcknight is an important voice in any debate about women and ministry is because he argues from biblical evidence, and with a care to understand what the Bible means as well as what it says.

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of weary (at times to the point of being rude!) of those who think there are only two positions - those who affirm the ministry of women (egalitarians) and those who adopt the biblical position (complementarians). Excuse me - I'm biblical in my Christian discipleship too! I affirm the ministry of women as a position congruent with Scripture, consistent with the Gospel of Christ and with a life lived following after Him, and as a rich indispensable Spirit endowed gift to the church. The issue isn't one that divides into those who adopt the "biblical" position and those who don't. An argument isn't right because we label it biblical, and label others' position unbiblical because they disagree with our interpretation. The issue for me, as a Baptist Christian, is one of being obedient to the call of Christ to follow Him, as the decisive, living and personal authority in our lives, and to seek the mind of Christ through Scripture prayed, studied, heard and interpeted within the community which gathers in His name.