Kelvin Holdsworth What’s in Kelvin’s Head The Four Horsemen of Growth – their names and their characteristics
Mark Clavier Well-Tempered Post-Christian Christianity: a Response
Robert Thompson Guarding the Flock Safeguarding in the Church: Why Is It So Difficult to Get Right?
Robert Thompson ViaMedia.News Alternative Ordinations and the Fracturing of the Church
There are many branches, but one vine. Jesus is the only basis of our unity, it is not defined by our relationship with one another. The Father is the gardener, not the church, so church fractures can and do happen, as church history shows and what’s more it is healthy for the whole vine that it does.
I suppose when Jesus prayed that “they be one”, He meant that “they be fractured’. What a strange idea.
Jesus was praying to the Father, the Father makes the call and if Jesus is no longer being glorified fracture becomes inevitable. It has happened and may yet happen.
What a strange interpretation.
Your comment here that ‘it’s the Father’s call’ is deeply problematic. It implies a belief that within the Holy Trinity, the Son is subordinate to the Father. This was debated and firmly rejected by the Council of Nicea,1500 years ago, and through church history has been regarded as heresy. Orthodox Christian belief after the Council of Nicea was unambiguous that the Father and the Son were equally God in their very being. So complementarianism, so popular in the conservative evangelical wing of today’s church, has two theological errors when it comes to the doctrine of God: it is subordinationist, and it… Read more »
Yes, in the parable there’s no subordination of anyone. Jesus is the vine, the father is the gardener: A gardener cuts out dead wood, but it is the plant itself that has shut down those branches. The plant and the gardener work together to strengthen the vine.
The gardener – or viniculturist, in this case – doesn’t only cut out dead wood. S/he also cuts out living growth, in order to concentrate on the shoots most likely to produce fruit. Jesus’ hearers would have been well aware of this, although it’s a mistake to pursue analogies too far.
Agreed. I have a forsythia and prune it each spring. Some of the old branches are gone then; some will be by next year, but I usually leave them; occasionally there are cross-branches that will damage the plant and I cut them out. The forsythia is not subordinate to me: I just help it grow. That said, in the parable it’s maybe more the branches leaving the plant rather than the plant shutting them down. And the gardener is a more expert pruner than we are: I once killed a vine by cutting out a good branch in the spring,… Read more »
I learnt a long time ago not to mention gardens in any sermon because afterwards I would be subjected to a whole host of good advice on how to grow roses.
I don’t because I know I’m no good at it. An early piece of counsel to us as new curates was that if you mention cats in a sermon you will have the rapt attention of at least half of your congregation.
Which one of the twelve at the last supper was a viticulturist? At least four and possibly six of them were fishermen.
This is quite helpful
https://www.academia.edu/91398171/_Vines_and_Wines_in_first_century_Galilee_
But is it plausible though?
Israel was frequently referred to as God’s vineyard. So pruning would have had specific meaning to Jesus’ disciples.
Jesus had crowds of followers, not just the twelve. And some people who didn’t own a vineyard will have had a vine or a fig tree or some other plant at home – or one of their family, or a neighbour, will have done. Jesus used illustrations from agriculture, cooking, housework etc because they were part of people’s everyday lives.
There weren’t crowds at the last supper were there? Our Lord was an urban artisan. It is evident he knew very little about agriculture. He thought mustard seeds grew into trees. Or do you think he was just being a first century Groucho Marx/Phil Silvers/Woody Allen again and exhibiting his Jewish humour?
Because the night before being crucified is obviously when you want to practice your best gags.
Quite a lot of shrubs can grow into small trees, given time. Buddleia do. Mustard bushes also can.
How urban do you suppose Nazareth was? Its population in Jesus’ day was about 300, so one tenth of Bourton on the Water. Discounting the 4-6 disciples who were fishermen, the rest did not work in IT or at SpaceX and might well have grain stuff.
Mustard plants are an annual. They certainly grow into quite impressive plants in hedgerows, sometimes up to 5 or 6 feet, but they are green and die back in the autumn. Birds don’t make their nests in them.
Of the eleven listeners to the vine speech we have probably six fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip and Bartholomew, one white collar worker, Matthew/Levi, two step brothers or cousins of Our Lord, James and Jude/Thaddaeus, who are most likely to have been artisans like him. That leaves Thomas as our possible vinedresser.
I’m not seeing the problem. Birds can nest in the larger, thicker stemmed varieties of mustard. This study of the economy of 1st century Palestine https://www.philipharland.com/publications/Harland%202002%20Economy%20Palestine.pdf notes that the ancient economy of Palestine was an underdeveloped, agrarian economy based primarily on the production of food through subsistence-level farming by the peasantry. The peasantry, through taxation and rents, supported the continuance of a social-economic structure characterized by asymmetrical distribution of wealth in favor of the elite, a small fraction of the population. Peasants made up the vast majority of the population (over 90 percent) So the only people who wouldn’t have… Read more »
Have you seen a mustard plant? They are impressive plants, and like many annuals do grow surprisingly quickly. Birds do not make nests in them though. They tend to grow along roadsides so probably our Lord was seeing birds nesting in the hawthorn hedge behind.
I suspect the ‘mustard seed’ saying is a mistranscription; it is so obviously wrong. I repeat that in a largely rural and agrarian society most people would know some basics about gardening and horticulture. Jesus demonstrated that he had that knowledge, in his parables (Parable of the Sower, the Prodigal Son, the Wheat and the Tares, parables about vineyards and fig trees.)
His teaching and illustrations using examples from agriculture, viticulture, and gardening are sprinkled throughout his ministry, not confined to the Last Supper.
The parables of the Sower and the Wheat and Tares are also often given as examples of his lack of knowledge about farming.
Can you explain why they are thought by some to show Jesus’ ignorance of subsistence farming?
Subsistence farmers don’t scatter precious seed all over the place but in carefully prepared soil. They also remove weeds from caming their crops so they do t inhibit their growth.
I think he should really have framed his parables around the work of artisans instead.
Jesus didn’t say that all farmers sowed in this fashion – he said ‘a sower’ did. And he compared God to this very liberal sower. In his sayings and parables, Jesus often used an unusual or even ridiculous situation to capture people’s attention. The point about the tares is that they are difficult to distinguish and separate from wheat. That’s why Jesus said the farmer is afraid that if the tares are pulled up, the wheat will be pulled up with them. The point Jesus s making is that it isn’t always possible to distinguish true from false believers until… Read more »
But surely Jesus is doing what every story teller does (and this is a story told by a storyteller not literal truth).
He uses deliberate exaggeration and fabrication to make a point and to get people to pay attention.
The wise-cracking Brooklyner transported back to 1st century Palestine again.
Why “wise-cracking Brooklyner”? How about an able teacher and orator aware of his audience and using well-honed rhetorical skills including hyperbole?
We can see other rhetorical devices in his teaching too: irony, antithesis, anaphora, litotes, rhetorical questions, metaphor and simile, parables — and probably others too. The exaggeration and sarcasm is often, though perhaps not always, obvious to the modern reader.
No doubt many of these skills could be learned in synagogue school and an able pupil could make good use of them. Humour and one-liners are hardly a modern invention!
Maybe these things reflect changing times. Jesus was talking to crowds of peasant farmers roaming Galilee, and yet they didn’t tell him he was talking rot. There would be a folk memory that seeds do badly on rocky ground, or in light soils – that’s why the Galilean farmers would look for richer soil. Likewise, are we saying that no bird anywhere has ever nested in a mustard bush? Nature is a very flexible thing. Only is European universities in the 20th century, totally extracted from nature, did these questions seem important and definitively answerable.
It is not a bush. It is a fleshy annual characterised by very long stems supporting small yellow globular flowerheads. It would take a very clever bird to build a nest on any of the stalks. Our Lord was a skilled artisan from, what the most recent archaeological studies tell us was a busy and quite significant town of around 1500 inhabitants, hosting a number of trades. If you remember, he was rejected by his own people, the artisan and mercantile class, and expelled from the town. He moved in ti the prosperous fishing port of Capernaum and possibly was… Read more »
Jesus would have to have been remarkably unaware of his fellow human beings to remain ignorant of details of their life and work in a settlement of only 1500 people. Don’t you think they talked to him while he was finishing their stool, table, roof beam, coffin, or whatever else Jesus was making for them? And the evidence from the Gospels is that he was very much interested in people. In his teaching he used illustrations from the daily lives of ordinary people. These were things people could easily relate to in their own lives, or had observed the people… Read more »
Would any of the evangelists have recorded anyone shouting out in Aramaic or Greek ‘That’s bollocks’ ?
Peter might have got quite close on a few occasions. This is an interesting article about his home village of Capernaum and its economy – quite prosperous, based largely on fishing and agriculture, a little larger than Nazareth. https://rsc.byu.edu/ministry-peter-chief-apostle/simon-peter-capernaum-archaeological-survey-first-century-village There’s always the mustard tree Salvadora Persica, which is an actual tree that grows throughout North Africa and the Middle East. It didn’t grow in Galilee, but that need not count against it – the bible makes numerous references to the cedars of Lebanon, which clearly weren’t in Galilee either. As you say, does it really matter? Two thousand years on… Read more »
The parable of the lost tenon saw.
So… Joachim Jeremias thought that the sower in the parable was historically plausible – you maximise ground use rather than seed use, as this is the constraint that maximises yield.
John Drury thought that the parable was a literary creation, hyperbolic, wasteful, non-realistic, a fantasy figure framed to mirror the lavish, unstinting grace of God.
Debates like these keep scholars in jobs, I guess, and keep us thinking. And give us grist for non-negotiable assertions on TA too.
Isn’t that why Jesus taught in parables, to make us think and go on thinking, and keep the discussion going?
I think that’s one reason, certainly. I’m inclined to think that he also spoke parabolically with the purpose of self-preservation, sharing a subversive message in a clandestine fashion, to avoid provoking fatal opposition until the time was right.
Maurice Casey in his magisterial work, Jesus of Nazareth, argues that there was a crowd at the Last Supper, indicated by the need for a “large” upper room. Two men were already there when Jesus came with the “Twelve” (v17). The definition of the traitor as being one of those (v.20) was not needed if only the Twelve were there. And Casey thinks other disciples were there, women as well as men, possibly children also – and I suggest his mother and some or all of his siblings. The Leonardo Last Supper scene is so misleading, and inaccurate, and unlike… Read more »
I think your logic is wrong. Take a kid who wants a new bicycle who asks her father who can say “yes” but who can also say “ask your mother “ who could say “no”. Father and mother retain equal agency but may choose to let the other decide. Neither is subordinate to the other.
Unlike the Trinity, Father and Mother aren’t the same person. Your logic is wrong.
Haven’t the Palmarians included Our Lady in the Trinity and excluded the Holy Ghost?
What do the opinions of heretics have to do with anything?
Who is a heretic? Whom should i trust the more as a custodian of Christian doctrine, a random C of E vicar or the successor of St Peter?
I think you are referring to Pope Leo. He has nothing to do with heretical Palmarians who invented their own ‘church’.
Bob Prevost is a good man, to be sure, but I meant Pope Peter III.
Aka Joseph Odermatt, who has accused his predecessor ‘Pope Gregory XVIII’ of nicking two million euros and a BMW. Sounds more like the successor to Ronny Biggs than St Peter.
Mock as much as you want. Peter III has been crowned, Leo XIV has not. There have been some rogue occupants of the See of Peter in centuries past but it does not diminish the office.
Miss World has been crowned. It doesn’t mean she’s replaced Pope Leo.
With the Papal Tiara? I must have missed that.
Who owns that? Can you buy one at an ecclesastical outfitters?
I think Paul VI was the last Pope to be crowned with the papal tiara. It’s possible he possessed more than one, I don’t know, but he certainly donated one to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC where it was proudly on display and, as far as I know, still is.
Paul VI was crowned with a very strange tiara that looked like an artillery shell, and yes, it is now in Washington DC. Since then, Gregory XVII, Peter II, Gregory XVIII and Peter III have all been crowned.
Gregory was crowned before he and his wife were sentenced to six years in prison. Happily they were eventually put on probation.
I haven’t managed to find one on eBay yet.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is this all about?
Mr Tomlinson thinks the real Pope is a ‘Palmerian’ – a sect started in 1968. It must be true since their leader wears a tiara.
A random C of E vicar. There is no such thing as a successor of St Peter.
I would guess about 90% of contributors to TA, including me, are random C of E vicars
I wouldn’t trust me, Nigel. I’m a total heretic!
And the Athanasian Creed.
The most ridiculous bit of the BCP.
“And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another; But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.” Ridiculous? I thought it was Chalcedonian orthodoxy.
Drives me a step further towards Islam every time I read it. The Finbarr Saunders bits about ‘touching his manhood’ are quite funny though.
Another good reason to avoid talking about gardens and gardeners. I am sure the Athanasian Creed had a lot to say on the topic.
This comment shows a startling lack of generosity to brothers and sisters in Christ, and misunderstands their doctrinal standpoint too. Those who hold to a complementarian position fully and gladly affirm the credal truths shared by all Christians, including that the Son is consubstantial with the Father. They simply seek to hold to their understanding of what the Bible teaches about the distinctive roles of men and women in the church and home. It is a modern secular understanding that equality has to mean sameness that is the problem here. Given that these brothers and sisters in Christ are credally… Read more »
My apologies for rather shooting from the hip in my final comments. But I refer you to the Bishop of Ebbsfleet’s website where he writes …”relationships between men and women in family life are designed to reflect truths about God, it is noteworthy that within a Trinitarian understanding of God, there is complete equality between the persons of the Trinity, yet the Son is always obedient to his Father (eg Philippians 2:8) and in 1 Corinthians 15:28 ultimately puts himself in subjection to the Father so that ‘God may be all in all.’ https://www.bishopofebbsfleet.org/guidance/. I think this is to signficantly… Read more »
I didn’t make any comment about the Son being subordinate to the Father just as Jesus prayed to the Father on other occasions – for example to send the Holy Spirit so he prayed to the Father so on this occasion. The Father is the Gardener – he is the one doing the cutting not Jesus. A command to be one raises all sorts of safeguarding issues and the sceptre of totalitarianism in which unity is artificially manufactured. But it isn’t a command, it’s a prayer
Here is the command: love one another. If that raises a sceptre of totalitarianism, it’s a sort of totalitarianism I’d like to see a lot more of.
Love one another is a command, but so is love your enemies. Go figure.
That love comes from being connected to Jesus first and foremost -‘ without me you can do nothing’. So unity in the church based on anything else must be imposed externally from another value system and that’s were totalitarianism comes in. In this case unity based on identity politics.
Your analogy requires it surely?
It is Jesus’ analogy not mine and he should know.
That the Son does the will of the Father, creating a form of subordination, is as strongly affirmed in the Gospels as anything could be and is not contrary to the accepted ‘Nicene’ Creed
I don’t see this at all. We all have many voices whispering in our ears, and if we choose to follow one voice rather than another, we are are doing the will of that voice which is within ourselves.
You can call that subordination, but it is self-subordination.
On the other hand, if we have an archaic image of god, then we get into all kinds of difficulties.
But if we frame our actions as doing the will of another ‘your will, not mine’ it is, if the relevant words have ‘any meaning’ this may indeed be a kind of subordination to one’s own moral ideals but that is not all they are. Subordination is only appropriate ‘plain English’ term
Getting into deep waters. But if affirmation is primary, then one can affirm a decision to do the will of another, and through this affirmation it becomes one’s own will. It is not subordination.
If the affirmation contradicts one’s own moral ideals, and those moral ideals are built on sand, that is another issue.
When Jesus is quoted as saying
not My will, but Thine be done
then Jesus’ will and Father’s will become one.
Obedience to command, especially with an element of reluctance, does not mean sameness of will but difference, just in that one commands and the other obeys. The decision is the same but that doesn’t mean that the minds which decide are in the same state
This is to confuse the obedience of the Incarnate Jesus – thus bringing a redeemed humanity not full relationship with the Father – with the relationships within the eternal Trinity.
If the incarnate Jesus is subordinate to the Father – indeed makes much of being so – then if the Son, an element of the Trinity, is the unique being incarnate in Jesus – and incarnate without change in nature – then that being has an aspect of subordination, inherent within its Trinitarian being, which appears in his human nature after incarnation. It is said that the Son, as to his divinity, is begotten before worlds and as to his humanity born in the latter day, but it surely cannot be said that his two natures are different in respect… Read more »
Thanks for this discussion. I think the confusion remains in your language of the ‘two natures’ of the Son, and effectively, two separate divine wills in the Godhead. It was the passages in the Bible where Jesus is spoken of submitting to the Father’s will, or is described as being subject to the Father (eg. Phil 2:8 and 1 Cor 15:28), which led Arius and his followers to the (Arian) heresy that the Council of Nicea rejected. But these passages are not describing a subservience of God the Son to God the Father, but rather the final triumph of God… Read more »
Quite. I think we are saying similar things with different language.
Free choice, affirmation.
Going back to the man/woman thing, I am not subordinate to my wife, but if she (to use a cliched and trivial example) wants me to take out the bins, I in turn affirm my will to take out the bins. Our wills become one.
Same with creating children.
I am very much with Nietzsche on rejecting the humble/gentle/negative/subservient heretical view of human nature. God made us, and we need to reflect that.
Complementarianism is an abomination.
Jesus willing submitted to the Father. A woman can willingly submit to a man and vice versa. Free choice, submission.
Thank you too! Choice which is free – in the sense of not compelled but following one’s sense of right and wrong – to do the will of another in spite of reluctance, reluctance being implied by ‘not my will’, is freely subordinating oneself. That’s exactly what the word means and no other term is fitting. It must be in the eternal nature of the Son to think it right to obey the Father. The unity of the two natures and of the two persons rests surely on the eternal rightness and goodness which they all exemplify. It may indeed… Read more »
Jesus never said he was subordinate to the father. He said he and the father were one, and he put doing the will of the father above doing his own will. It’s depressingly human to see wanting to help someone else achieve their aims as being subordinate.
He did say that the Father is greater than he and it is in that spirit that he does the great work – for this, subordination is the word
The context in Jesus’ incarnate ministry. But to project that into eternity – ‘It must be in the eternal nature of the Son to think it right to obey the Father.’ Well that is where you part company with Nicea and most of the historic church – and me in this discussion. Apart from anything else the language of Son and Father in relationship to the eternal Godhead cannot be read literally like this. There is no eternal ‘Father and Son’ out there. Perhaps we have got as far as we within the limits of this thread – and in… Read more »
Well. I’ll just say that you rather astonish me in thinking that my language is in any way incompatible with the Creed.
OK – but the reasons of thinking that have been laid out on this thread and not just by me.
And the father said ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!’
Subordination is apparently ‘the act of treating something or someone as less important, or placing them under the authority or control of another’
So the father’s words sound totally unlike the subordination of Jesus. They do put you and I under his authority, and so we are subordinate to him, though I notice he never put it like that.
Under authority by being an emissary, who of course carries out a mission which he will say – he was very ready to say it – is on the sender’s authority. The language is borrowed of course from the commissioning of the Judahite King, who was set by God on Zion to do his will
There’s perhaps a difference between being given authority and being under it. In particular,
‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me’
begs the question: where is left for Jesus to be under a higher authority?
He said this after the resurrection, linking with David’s points about the changed conditions between eternity and the incarnation.
‘You and me’. Accusative.
I would like to commend the Robert Thompson article from the Guarding the Flock blog. For me, it is one of the best short pieces I have read about the issues which seem to be inherent within church safeguarding.
I agree totally with Another James. I have only been aware of C/E safeguarding abuses since 2020. This came about when I supported my friend in a false allegation of sexual touching for which the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer refused to conduct an investigation. Since then I have learnt about the numerous injustices of safeguarding and efforts of many people to bring about justice. It worries me considerably that I only found this out by chance as (comparatively) late as 2020. The urgent question I should like to raise is: How can we make the issues raised in this article more… Read more »
yes, it seems to cover all the key issues. I was once, for some unknown reason, asked to phone LBC (Nick Abbott) on safeguarding in the church re. Smyth (I don’t know why, maybe I had called LBC before and said something about Smyth). My short answer was that it was all about power and control. LBC likes short answers. Robert’s answer was spot on regarding safeguarding (or anything else) in secular institutions. I may need to do what my boss asks me to do, but they don’t have any moral authority and refusing does not affect me apart from… Read more »
I understand Nigel’s last paragraph but in large part the difference he highlights may be due to the second article being more biographical in content and style. Both articles are spot on in their analyses and comments, though, as is Nigel’s self-styled short answer about power and control.
I thought him very good too – extremely perceptive about the self-protective mentality of the wider church.
No system has yet been devised which is fool proof, nor will one ever be.
Jesus was made of no repute, for the good of the poor and needy. His church, on the other hand, is terrified of losing a reputation which, really, is tarnished, possibly beyond restoration.
What I do not understand at all is why someone so uncomfortable with the CofE as it is that they go through alternative and secretive routes into ministry wants to be in the CofE at all. Do they believe so strongly in infant baptism that they couldn’t be Baptists or Free Church? Are they convinced that it is obvious to all that in the Apostles’ time there were bishops, priests and deacons? I know a young man who, I now realise, is probably on this path. He’s employed part-time by our formerˋˋ church and is known to be doing courses… Read more »
Because they believe they are the true Church of England.
I remember a potential ordinand coming to me as a DDO and in the course of our conversation asked ” I won’t have to baptise babies will I”.
This reminds me a little bit of when Princess Diana died and the institutional monarchy initially carried on as if nothing of any real significance had happened as she was not an HRH. The Alliance (45% of the C of E) has declared a de-facto 3rd Province, and GAFCON (85% of the Anglican Communion) has declared it is the Real Anglican Communion. The institution of the C of E has either backed down or carried on as if nothing of any real significance has happened, preferring to protect itself as we know institutions tend to do. In the case of… Read more »
I would think the best solution in both cases would be to abolish the monarchy and dis-establish the Church of England. Both are useful fronts to distract attention from the abuses of power behind the scenes, committed by those intent on holding on to real power without scrutiny or accountability. Neither institution has experienced root and branch change, merely window dressing. It’s time to stop enshrining wealth and privilege in a society as socially and economically divided as our is. It’s time to stop living in the past and look to the future.
I think reform is inevitable at this point whether managed from within or imposed externally either way it would be quite messy under a winner takes all scenario. All eyes are now on Synod elections, but I doubt whether disestablishment will be on the ballot as only the establishment can vote.
What specific reform are you advocating? Disestablishment is hardly a realistic option currently.
‘The Alliance (45% of the C of E)’
How do you work that out? The Alliance describes itself as a ‘network of networks within the Church of England’ that has published several letters, addressed to Archbishops and Bishops, signed by the leaders of a number of church organisations. Are you suggesting that 45% of the worshipping congregations of the Church of England, let alone the parishioners, are signed up to the (potentially schismatic) programme of the Alliance? If so I would like to know how this has been determined. Thanks
It’s a working assumption at best, but a big number multiplied by a big percentage is still a big number. That’s the real point – although the establishment would like to dismiss these numbers it has already has to beat a retreat. No doubt the process will continue to be processed a bit like the leadership of the Labour Party based on a manufactured unity that has no real substance to it.
As several have said to me, “The Church of England is a bigger boat to fish from.” There is also something about “having a place at the table” in community terms as the Established Church, though this default way of operating is fading in many communities as the Church is often seen as irrelevant and out of touch, especially considering that a minority of people in these island claim to be Christians and far, far fewer are actually members of any church.
Kelvin Holdsworth writes with his usual clarity and sense. Perhaps intentionally, perhap unintentionally, he is writing in large part about a problem which runs far beyond church demographics. The generation of women born before the second world war had fewer children than their mothers, but the basic structure of “marry, buy house, have children” was there. Their metaphorical younger sisters, born during and after the war, were beneficiaries of the 1944 Education Act, the National Health Service, career opportunities, in some cases university education, and before their traditional child-bearing years were over, NHS access to reliable contraception and, in extremis,… Read more »
I love Kelvin’s piece about the Four Horsemen of Growth.