Rosie Harper Surviving Church The Thing under the Thing………
Women and the Church Inquiry by Independent Reviewer into the appointment of the Rt Revd Philip North as Bishop of Blackburn
Charlie Bell ViaMedia.News Killing Fear and Freeing Conscience: Charting the Way Forward for our Life Together
Questions of Conscience (2)
Alice Goodman Prospect Clerical life: Last days of the curates
“I hear more and more about gifted young clergy leaving the church–and it fills me with dread”
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Speaking of ologies and economic theory
Canon Lightbown’s comments about ‘resource churches’ and their basis in ‘trickle down’ economics rather remind me of Ken Galbraith’s celebrated remark in response to arguments advanced by Reagan’s OMB director, David Stockman: that is was a variant of the much older ‘horse-and-sparrow’ doctrine: “Trickle-down theory – the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”
Trickle down economics is a phrase used by people who have never studied economics.
Bryan, Galbraith, etc? It wasn’t used widely for sure before the 1980s but has since then been used widely as both a term of affirmation and critique.
I was very lucky in my two training incumbents at Liverpool Parish Church. They were very different characters with their own strengths and weaknesses so I had a really rounded training (including an interregnum) that serves me well to this day. I loved them both. In contrast one of my best friends had a disastrous curacy in the Diocese of Lichfield and still talks of how unhappy he was…the man should never have been trusted with such a huge responsibility….it was a nightmare and the situation has left its scars. The vicar of the first parish I was asked to… Read more »
Rosie Harper has to be challenged and corrected in her attempt to conflate abusive human conduct and the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
The fact Christ died in our place for our sins, so we could be saved from judgement is orthodox Christian belief.
We are not saved from judgment – we all face judgment. It is orthodox (Nicene Creed) that the one Lord, Jesus Christ in whom we believe will “come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”
It is perfectly conventional semantics to use the term “Judgement” as a category term which include the consequences of judicial determination as well as the judicial event itself.
Sorry, that won’t do. We are saved by God’s judgment for us – without that we are lost. If we are saved from the consequences of God’s judgment we have no hope.
Am I right in interpretting your comment as meaning God’s judgement is positive, and on our side, otherwise we’re lost? Certainly, if Christ didn’t die, be raised from the dead or ascend into heaven then we are certainly lost, without hope. I’m not being critical; I just want to make sure I’ve understood you correctly. Like you, as I understand it, all of us, Christians and otherwise will be judged by God at some point – “and on that last day, you’ll need my Jesus, to stand by you” as we used to sing in the CU. We are hidden… Read more »
Acknowledging the atonement doesn’t require signing up to the whole PSA shebang, which is what Rosie Harper is critiquing. There are plenty of (thoroughly orthodox) ways of understanding Christ’s death and resurrection that don’t rely on God being a violent being who can’t forgive without being able to take out his anger on someone.
Amen and thank you!
If PSA is about God taking his anger out on someone (which it isn’t by the way…), then God takes his anger out on himself. Incarnation anyone?
“the wrath of God was satisfied” is a currently popular expression of PSA, and sounds an awful lot like God taking out his anger on Jesus. And, yes, PSA makes no sense in Trinitarian Christianity, which is why conservative evangelicalism is prone to various ancient Christological heresies.
‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ needs a lot of theological upacking, which is why it makes a lousy line in a hymn! Wrath in the Bible does mean the same as anger (in the way we normally speak of anger today.) PSA in its true and uncorrupted form (!) speaks of human beings being guilty (here guilt is an image / picture of what sin does to us, as other atonement images and models use imprisonment) and God in Christ taking upon godself the result and penalty of that guilt, thereby dealing with it so we are guiltless. I… Read more »
It is your belief therefore it is ‘orthodox’. Is that what you are saying?
Nowhere in Rosie Harper’s piece did I see any reference to substitutionary atonement. And substitutionary atonement is circles within circles, as far as I’m concerned. As I understand it, Christian theology states that the Trinity is eternal, and has existed from before the beginning of, and will exist after the end of, Creation. Furthermore, God (in the form of the Trinity) occupies all time as well as space. Lastly, God is all-knowing. Therefore, God in the form of both the Father and the Son knew from before humanity’s creation that humans would sin, and then, after a period of time… Read more »
I’m not sure I do (accept PSA), in the ‘pure’ form in which it is usually presented. A minister friend of mine said the PSA (Pleasant Sunday Afternoons, Property Services Agency?) made a lot of sense to those living under Roman law. That’s true, but we live under an almost totally different social system. Do we need an understanding which reflects a more contemporary world view? I don’t know. The ‘scapegoat’ idea has some appeal, as did ‘satisfaction’ until I discovered it was largely derived from Norman social structure. Whatever model we employ will never really be adequate anyway, as… Read more »
I really wish every Church of England diocesan bishop would read Alice Goodman’s article. I am not a priest but I know two talented young people who have very clear and strong vocations but are unlikely to be ordained. Of course I understand that the selection process should be rigorous and not everyone can or should be selected but having said that I feel strongly that the Church of England could do much more. If someone is not selected surely the Church could do much more to support the unsuccessful candidate by strengthening the skills necessary to go forward to… Read more »
There isn’t an appeal mechanism as such, but you can usually try again in a few years’ time. I’m guessing that allowance is supposed to make up for the lack of appeals, although I don’t know if it does.
I was most struck in that article by the writer’s sentence: “My bishop did something bishops do very rarely: he changed his mind.” How (sadly) true. Do bishops, like politicians, think that changing their minds indicates weakness? Surely it indicates a capacity to listen, reflect and learn.
The Watch statement makes me wonder what is happening about Bishop North’s appointment. I understood he was to be installed this month or next??
Bishop North’s election was confirmed on 23 April. He is due to be installed at the cathedral on 24 June.
Am I the only one to be concerned that the Watch statement invites anyone who has anything to contribute to the Swinson inquiry to send his/her contribution to the Chair of Watch rather than direct to Maggie Swinson as the Independent Reviewer, and giving Mrs Swinson’s e-mail address for the purpose?
Presumably given the concerns about the risks of speaking out Watch are offering to mediate communications for the sake of preserving anonymity.
There are some really mangled ideas being kicked around on the subject of substitutionary atonement.
There is nothing actually wrong with the language of anger but it is so completely distorted by commentators there is no point in using it.
The issue is judgement. Sin must be judged.
The theologies that are being presented as a rebuttal of substitutionary atonement are based on a deficient doctrine of judgement.
Let’s at least debate that rather than the straw man of a petulant God.
Is God not able to judge sin AND be merciful? The Koran says that does both.
Excellent article by Charlie Bell. Hopefully readers will follow the embedded link (paragraph 7) to, Not Static, the piece by The Rev. Dr. Miranda Threlfall-Holmes. The observations of both Bell and Threlfall-Holmes about ecclesiastical power politics are applicable to Anglicanism internationally.