A Follow-up on Women in Church Leadership: N.T. Wright and the Church of England

A few weeks ago we explored questions on what the Bible actually says about the role of women in the church (see Why do women seem to be treated poorly in the Bible? and What exactly is Paul saying about women?). These questions and debates are not just theoretical. Most recently the Church of England failed to approve a change that would have allowed women to serve as bishops (Church of England Rejects Women Bishops In Vote). While the majority of the church apparently supports women as bishops, the vote fell short of a two-thirds majority it needed to approve the measure. 

N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop and writer, had an interesting response to arguments that it’s time for the Church of England to join the 21st century: “It’s about the Bible, not fake ideas of progress.” 

I’ll let you read the full article for yourself. Here are a couple of excerpts I found interesting: 

“The Church that forgets to say “we must obey God rather than human authorities” has forgotten what it means to be the Church. The spirit of the age is in any case notoriously fickle….“What is more, the Church’s foundation documents (to say nothing of its Founder himself) were notoriously on the wrong side of history. The Gospel was foolishness to the Greeks, said St Paul, and a scandal to Jews. The early Christians got a reputation for believing in all sorts of ridiculous things such as humility, chastity and resurrection, standing up for the poor and giving slaves equal status with the free. And for valuing women more highly than anyone else had ever done. People thought them crazy, but they stuck to their counter-cultural Gospel.”

The real argument for accepting women as leaders (in this case, as bishops) is not in the current thinking of society but in the promise of the gospel itself:

“All Christian ministry begins with the announcement that Jesus has been raised from the dead. And Jesus entrusted that task, first of all, not to Peter, James, or John, but to Mary Magdalene. Part of the point of the new creation launched at Easter was the transformation of roles and vocations: from Jews-only to worldwide, from monoglot to multilingual (think of Pentecost), and from male-only leadership to male and female together.”

Reactions? What do you think of N.T. Wright’s contention that the gospel itself, rather than advances in society, provide all the justification the church needs to accept women and men as equals in leadership?

Why Do We Have So Many Different Interpretations of the Same Passages in the Bible?

These questions from Banned Questions about the Bible are mentioned in the discussion:

• Why are there so many completely different interpretations of the same scripture passage? [p. 178-181]
• How can we begin to take the Bible literally when it seems to contradict itself so often? [p. 97-100]

Have you ever heard two people get into a debate over what a certain passage in the Bible means? They can be very passionate about what they believe that passage means and, sometimes, just as passionate in how they believe the other person is wrong. Add more people and some will take sides while others will argue for still another perspective. While you hope that a few aha moments (or, as some call it, the work of the Spirit) will lead to a consensus, more often than not, sharp divisions occur. We end up with dueling camps (or denominations, if you will), each convinced they’re right. People left on the outside either scratch their heads wondering what the big deal is or walk away altogether.

Here’s the secret: You can’t read the Bible without interpreting it. Even if you claim to take the Bible literally, you still have to interpret it. And it’s hard to interpret anything without bringing your particular world view into the mix. It’s not a new issue. For instance, the Bible has more than 600 laws for God’s people to follow. Some are very specific. Most require interpretation. How do you keep the Sabbath holy? What is an idol? Is it only a graven image or is it anything you pursue ahead of God? And how exactly do you put God first? In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus took on some of those interpretations, turning many world views upside down in the process. And he replaced the competing interpretations with two guiding lights: love God and love others. Everything comes from those commands.

Yet, we still argue. Kathy Escobar writes “interpretation of the Bible is varied” and “we need to be more honest about ‘literal interpretation’” of the Bible. In actuality, many churches that adhere to literal interpretation “are good at ‘selective literal interpretation,’ choosing to align with some passages and completely dismiss others.” [p. 99]

A good debate over the meaning of passages in the Bible can help us grow in our faith and become better followers of Jesus. As Craig Detweiler says in Banned Questions…, “engagement is preferable to indifference” [p. 179]. I love it when kids in our youth group question something we’ve said. It often leads to stronger insights for both them and me. The lack of questions doesn’t necessarily mean agreement. They may have disconnected with the topic (you can see it in their glassy eyes). It’s not that they agree but they’re not engaged enough to care. 

The problem, Detweiler notes, is “when the ethics of scripture are lost amid the argument about their meaning, we have all lost perspective. And, suddenly, we need a fresh interpreter to remind us who we are and whose we are” [p. 179]. Jim L. Robinson offered some suggestions for “reconciling the differences and moving from opinion to truth:” [p. 178]

• Put God first in the discussion [“Seek first the kingdom…”]
• Let the Bible speak for itself rather than use it merely to support what you want it to support.
• Build your faith on discipline and knowledge.
• Approach the issue in a sense of community, learning “to trust the collective wisdom of a community of disciplined brothers and sisters.”

Nadia Bolz-Weber says we should expect to see so many different interpretations because different communities are interpreting the Bible in different times and cultural contexts. She writes:

“The Bible is a living word that breathes meaning into every community that does the work of digging into it. To calcify the biblical text into one single meaning for all time and place is to suck the life out of it.” [p. 180]

Because the Bible is a LIVING word, Bolz-Weber writes, “the biblical text speaks truth into the community and context into which it is being interpreted” [p. 180]. There’s a part of me that says “Amen!” to that and a part of me that thinks about how the Bible, in the past, has been used to justify slavery and, now, is being used by some to justify a limited role for women in churches and hate towards gays. While I side with the idea that the Bible is a living word (“inspired by God” applies to the reader as well as the author), I also believe we need to be seeking that word in a faith community, open to the movement of God’s Spirit within that community. I’m not sure the tendency of some faith communities to huddle together in like-minded enclaves that block out dissenting opinions is doing that. We need to be open not only to a more diverse dialogue, but to the likelihood that none of us has the full picture. 

What do you think of Nadia Bolz-Weber’s comments? Can the Bible be a living word that offers different meanings in different contexts and still convey a universal truth? How do you deal with different interpretations of a passage? How do you know what to believe? I look forward to the discussion in the comments below!

In the coming weeks, we’ll see how this plays out with specific passages and topics in the Bible that have markedly different interpretations. We’ll start with the creation account in Genesis 1. If you have any passages you’d like to see us discuss, let me know in the comments. 

Before wrapping up, here are some things I noticed about those reading this blog: First, far fewer folks check out the blog on the weekends. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually the highest traffic days, even when I add a mid-week post. Second, this past week, with the Thanksgiving holiday, was the slowest viewing week yet, with even fewer hits than the week of hurricane Sandy (which took out the usual Monday-Tuesday volume). So, if you didn’t get a chance to check out last week’s post – If the Bible Has Mistakes and Contradictions, How Do I Know What to Believe? – I hope you’ll also take a look at it sometime this week. 

If the Bible Has Mistakes and Contradictions, How Do I Know What to Believe?

Here are the questions from Banned Questions about the Bible that are mentioned in the discussion:

• Can I be a Christian if I don’t believe the Bible is perfect, handed down directly from God to humanity without error? [p. 2-8]
• If I don’t believe every word of the Bible is literally true, how do I know what to consider in context and what to set aside? [p. 101-105]

There are several ways to jump into this question. Before we go to the responses in Banned Questions…, let’s consider the argument that it could be our interpretation or perspective that has mistakes or contradictions rather than the Bible. Dave Retherford mentioned a couple of folks who might argue for this in his comments to our previous question: Lee Strobel, who has written a number of books on the case for Christ/God/faith, and Timothy Keller, an author and pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City (see the comments in How Do Inerrancies, Mistakes, and Contradictions Co-exist in the Bible?). 

In a sermon Dave referenced, Timothy Keller suggests three things to consider when you come across a passage in the Bible that troubles you:

1. The passage doesn’t teach what you think it teaches.
2. You are misunderstanding what the Bible is teaching because of your own cultural blinders.
3. You are viewing the Biblical text with an unexamined superiority of your culture. If the Bible is the word from God and not from the culture in which it was written, then won’t it, at some time or another, offend every culture?

Keller contends that not only is it necessary to see the Bible as the all-authoritative word of God, but that the only way to read the Bible is to submit to it in order to have a personal relationship with God. There are some – and I’m not saying Keller falls into this camp – who take this a step further and insist that their particular interpretation of the Bible is authoritative and any questioning of that interpretation is denying God. I think they’re trying to shift the veil of “authoritative” from God to themselves and their particular interpretation of the Bible, but that’s a whole other discussion we’ll jump into next week. 

Can you wrestle with passages in the Bible without undermining its authority or threatening your relationship with God? If you have trouble with a particular passage, does faith come in brushing aside your questions and accepting the text as is or in laying out your questions and trusting that God will respond? Is every word or passage in the Bible literally true or are there passages that were never meant to be taken literally? 

Can you take the Bible – not to mention your faith and calling as a disciple of Christ – seriously if you don’t believe every word of the Bible is literally true? While some argue, “No, you can’t”, others would agree with Rebecca Bowman Woods’ comment:

“Reading the Bible critically – acknowledging your questions about the text – doesn’t mean you’re criticizing God. After all, God gave us the gift of intellect and the capacity to learn. Would God expect us to put these aside when approaching the Bible?” [p. 103]

In bringing our questions out into the open, we may find that we are indeed wrestling with dueling interpretations rather than with God. We may find that we need to refocus our interpretation more in line with God. Or we may find that we’re joining in a debate that has spanned time and cultures and we are drawn into the larger community of interpreters of the Bible. 

The danger in not accepting every passage in the Bible as true and authoritative is that we can fall into the trap of picking and choosing what we feel comfortable with or what we want to use to justify what we already believe or are doing. Of course, the same argument also applies to those who interpret the Bible literally because I haven’t encountered anyone who is successfully following every passage in the Bible literally.

How do we know what passages in the Bible need to be considered literally or in context and what passages have lesser weight? Gary Peluso-Verdend recommends having a “circle of interpreters” to help us wrestle with the Bible [p. 101]. I’ve certainly benefited from having a group of people at Grace willing to share thoughts and questions. 

Nadia Bolz-Weber sees Christ as the central message of the Bible and the lens through which we should read the Bible. Jose Morales adds the Exodus to the Bible's core message. Bolz-Weber writes that “the parts of the Bible that do not hold up against the gospel simply do not have the same authority.” [p. 102]

Whether “inspired by God” means that God dictated scripture without error or that God allowed humanity to enter into the scripture, we shouldn’t discount the inspiration of God in our encounters those passages today. God was active in the lives of those who related or wrote down the accounts of the Bible. That experience of God was very real in their lives. It can be just as real when we’re reading those accounts today. Joshua Toulouse writes:

“God is also inspiring those of us who hear or read scripture today. With this understanding, God is kept alive in scripture, in that scripture can speak to us in new ways and on different levels now as opposed to when it was written.” [p. 6]

That's a lot of questions to chew on. Do you think it’s possible to take the Bible seriously without accepting every passage as the literal truth? What passages do you wrestle with most? How do you go about interpreting the Bible? Who or what is in your circle of interpreters?

I look forward to the conversation in the comments below!

How Do Inerrancies, Mistakes, and Contradictions Co-exist in the Bible?

Reflections come from these questions in Banned Questions about the Bible:

• Are there any mistakes in the Bible? [p. 128-131]
• Did God write the Bible? If so, why didn’t God simply create it miraculously? [p. 48-51]
• How can we begin to take the Bible literally when it seems to contradict itself so often? [p. 97-100]

Some Christians argue that the Bible is infallible, with no contradictions or mistakes, because God wrote it, or at least dictated it to those who put it to parchment. They tend to emphasize a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible. Many skeptics use that same strictly literal approach to highlight what they see as inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the Bible (search for “mistakes [or inconsistencies] in the Bible” for examples). 

These arguments apply a modern view of truth-as-factual-accuracy to a text that was written by societies that had a different view of what constitutes truth and had a different understanding of the world around them. From a purely scientific perspective, there are things in the Bible that don’t hold up to scientific accuracy today. Some books in the Bible provide accounts that don’t line up with accounts in other books. These would be critical issues if the Bible was intended to be a science or history text or the Biblical accounts are being advanced as such. 

But the Bible itself doesn't claim to be a science or history text, even though some people today treat it that way. It is an account of the relationship between God and humanity, written from the perspective of those who encountered God. I liked Jim L. Robinson’s response:

“The Bible is not a ‘fact sheet’ about God. It is a witness to human experiences of the presence and action of God. God interacts with people, those people recognize and understand (being inspired) the meaning or purpose of that presence and action, and then they record the experience…. Those kinds of experiences… continue today.” [p. 130]

While the Bible is divinely-inspired (the inspiration occurs not only in the writing but also in the reading), I don’t think that means it was dictated word-for-word by God, with every passage meant to be interpreted literally. Why not? Wouldn’t it be easier if God had just laid everything out in clear, unequivocal terms? But what kind of world would God have to create so that every text would be understood the same by everyone? Even though it opens up room for error, Kathy Escobar notes that “using a diverse mix of people from a wide variety of backgrounds over a long period of time seems to be more God’s style” [p. 50]. On top of that, “God can use the flawed to reveal the perfect.” [p. 49]

Jim Robinson summed up the challenge the Biblical writers had (and that we continue to have today):

“It is impossible to communicate the fullness of God in human language. God surpasses all attempts at human description. It often becomes necessary to use metaphor and hyperbole in communicating the understandings that God inspires.” [p. 51]

Can the Bible be a revelation if it has inaccuracies and contradictions? Do we run the risk of undermining Christianity if we believe that? Doesn’t this just make the Bible harder to follow because of the contradictions? Perhaps that depends on whether you see the Bible as a static record of God’s encounters with humanity or as a continuing conversation that spans communities and time. Here are some responses from Banned Questions… that struck me:

“Even though the biblical stories differ, what the tellers and authors had in common was the experience of God – through personal encounters and the sacred teachings, writings, and traditions of faith communities.” – Rebecca Bowman Woods [p. 97] 

“What we have in the Bible is a community of interpreters of the word of God. It is exciting and challenging, in our day as in any day, to join that community and to dare our interpretations.” – Gary Peluso-Verdend [p. 48]

 “It would be a mistake to stifle, repress, or resolve all of the debates and contradictions of contemporary Christianity…. God speaks with one voice but humankind listens with many ears!” – Gary Peluso-Verdend [p. 98]

Perhaps the mistake is in insisting on a single “correct” interpretation or doctrine when we have before us many perspectives of a God that surpasses any attempt we have of describing that God. 

In subsequent posts, we’ll look at deciding on what to believe when you encounter contradictions in the Bible and on how to interpret the Bible in light of this. For now, what do you think? Does it bother you when you hear someone say the Bible contains factual errors and inconsistencies? How do you wrestle with contradictions? What passages in the Bible do you find particularly hard to grasp because they appear to contradict other passages or go against what we understand about the world today?

I look forward to the discussion on the comments below!

Coming Attractions: Wrestling with Mistakes, Contradictions, and What it Means to Read the Bible

One of my favorite movies is Meet the Robinsons (yes, it’s animated, and you can take away from that what you will). There’s a great message in the movie about not only persisting and pushing forward in the face of mistakes and misfortunes, but celebrating them for moving you closer to your dreams. Edison said: “If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

Here’s a clip from Meet the Robinsons:

I’m not claiming to be on par with Edison or with a Disney cartoon character. Instead, this is my roundabout way of offering a reason why the draft post I kept wrestling with last night never seemed to resolve itself into something coherent (and an excuse to see if I could embed a video into a post). Every time I thought the draft was getting close, some thought would pop up and scatter things about (imagine 52 card pick up with ideas). After several attempts, I saved the mess, shut off the computer, and fell into bed.

This morning the “aha!” moment came. That draft wasn't going to work because it had too many ideas competing for space. In breaking them into parts, several other jumbled ideas started falling into place. Another “aha!” moment came when I realized it might be helpful for you to follow the blog (especially as we enter the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons) if I lay out a preview of coming attractions. Here are the topics I’m going to make a sincere effort to focus on in the coming weeks:

First, we’ll look at what the Bible is and how we approach it:

• Inerrancies, Mistakes, and Contradictions in the Bible: Can they Co-exist?
• If the Bible Has Mistakes/Contradictions, How Do I Know what to Believe?
• What Does it Mean to Read the Bible? Who Interprets It?

Then we’ll take that and wrestle with some often controversial issues, such as what the Bible says about science and creation, sex, homosexuality, and hell. I expect some of those topics will span several posts worth of discussion.

Around Christmas time, I’m going to take a little turn to explore a couple of questions that are not in Banned Questions about the Bible:

• Was Mary really a virgin when Jesus was born?
• Where’s the stable and the animals in the birth narrative? How much of what we now accept as the account of Jesus’ birth comes from the Bible and how much have we filled in?

The post on inerrancies, mistakes, and contradictions should pop up on Friday or Saturday. Look forward to the conversation!

Was Hurricane Sandy part of God’s wrath? Why didn’t God intervene and redirect the hurricane away from the East Coast?

The damage from hurricane Sandy’s rampage up the Atlantic seaboard is still fresh and already some claim it’s part of God’s plan… or wrath… or vengeance against America [or insert a target group here] for its sins [or insert specific sin here]. Seriously. This post talks about those who claim that the storm (or other disaster) is a sign from God that we have strayed: Fake Picture, Real Prayer and God’s Wrath. 

From my perspective, claims that God is using such-and-such a disaster to punish us for such-and-such a sin say more about the persons making the claims than about God. The reasons are often more political or ideological than theological. But people looking in on Christianity from the outside may get a distorted view of God when they hear these pronouncements.

When someone says that a natural disaster is a sign or message from God, my usual reaction is: What kind of sign do you think we need? Wasn’t the cross enough? What message do we need that goes beyond “For God so loved the world that he gave his son… not to condemn the world but to save it”? Seems to me the world needs God’s message of love more than it needs our words of condemnation.

There are people who genuinely wrestle with these questions because it gets at the heart of how much God controls events in the world. If we pray for God to spare someone from harm or to heal someone who is sick or dying, will God respond? That’s a question I ask every time I pray for someone. Then, if God seemingly answers one prayer, why wouldn’t God answer others? Is there a reason why God seems to heal or spare some but not others? Why are some people subjected to senseless tragedy? Those are harder questions to answer (at least for me).

Many ask “Did God cause this?” because we’re trying to make sense of something that seems senseless to us. There are whole books written about how much control and intervention God exerts on the world and it’s likely that, if you look long enough and hard enough, you’ll find one that provides an explanation you’ll feel comfortable embracing. That doesn’t mean God is like that. The best I’ve been able to wrap my mind around is that, no matter what I believe about how much God is active or intervenes in the world, from the personal to the global, God is more complex than that. 

I opened Christian Piatt’s Banned Questions about the Bible, thinking surely there’s something on questions like this. Sure enough, there it is on p. 137: Is God in control? If so, does that mean God made (insert horrible thing here) happen to pull off a greater plan? Why doesn’t God intervene in a disaster? There are a number of thoughtful responses to that question in the book. I was particularly struck by Jim L. Robinson’s response:

“We can’t conceive of the totality of God’s universe. What we see and perceive is very limited, but we tend to universalize our own perceptions.
“…I believe God created the universe as a reality with which God could relate, not as a reality that God could control and toy around with like a child pulling the strings of a marionette.”

Robinson goes on to say that the thought of a universe in which God is not in control can be terrifying, but to say that God is in control can also be an excuse for us to deny our responsibility as free beings in God’s creation. What, then, is our responsibility? That’s probably a question all in itself. Robinson suggests that it is to seek God’s vision for creation:

“When we humans align ourselves with that vision we experience the consequences of living in synch with God. When we try to do it our own way, we experience the consequences of living out of our grossly limited perceptions.”

What do you think? How much do you think God exerts control over the events of the universe, the world, or our own lives? Do you agree with those who responded to the question in Banned Questions… who say God doesn’t create the catastrophic events but suffers along with us? 

Do you agree with Jim Robinson’s comments? In what ways have you experienced the consequences of living in synch with God? How about of living out of synch with God?

Click on the comments below, offer your views, and join in the conversation!