MetaCatholic

This is a kind of follow-up to my recent posts on the gender debate, seen as one specific element of the US Church’s export of the American culture wars. I have noted previously that I simply don’t think the divisions “egalitarian” and “complementarian” actually correspond to any view in the first century world. And although I acknowledge the comments that criticise the use of the word “directly,” I do think there’s a tendency for people to assume that texts they like were originally saying the same things that they’re now being interpreted as saying, whether that modern reading is appropriate or inappropriate. That is, people are prone to think (or give others to think) of a direct line from the text to its use today.

This is particularly the case in the dropping of text-bombs, that is, the use of specific texts as grenades to blast your opponent’s arguments to smithereens. Text bombs tend to be selected because people believe their application is so obvious and so immediate, that a direct connection ought to be obvious to all those who are not blinded by their own prejudices. I’m going to look at a couple of these text bombs to explore the point. The conservative text bomb first:

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. 1 Corinthians 11:3 NET

It would be tedious to repeat the many discussions here. I simply observe that this occurs in a context where a great many things are obscure (as is the meaning of the word “head” in this verse), not least whether “man” and “woman” in the second clause are actually “husband” and “wife”. These obscurities (or debates over meaning) include the words “unveiled” in verse 5, and “sign of authority” (literally just “authority”) in verse 10. But much else is also obscure, including not only the precise cultural significance of long hair, loose hair, and veils, but also exactly what practices in the Corinthian church are in view, and how they do or don’t relate to the other questions about worship dealt with in subsequent chapters.

It is surprising, therefore, to say the least, that this text can be deployed against women-men relationships generically, as though this is a straightforward statement that automatically means the same in every culture. There are so many obscurities, most of them relating to obvious cultural understandings, that the text demands to be translated not only linguistically but culturally. But whether linguistic or cultural, our translation is hampered by our not having enough knowledge to be sure of the meaning of either words or customs.

Lest that look like yet another naive plea to cultural conditioning by a hopeless liberal, let me move on to my second text-bomb, a veritable (to mix metaphors) Swiss army knife of text-bombs, much beloved by those at war with the conservatives.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 NRSV

Now there are some obvious culture-specific alerts in this passage. “Jew and Greek” and “slave and free” remind us that we are dealing with a particular time and place. But they are very easy to transpose into racial differences and economic or status differences respectively, and because, as a matter of application, we do so almost instinctively, it is equally easy to assume that the last pairing of “male and female” is even more straightforward. In reality it is probably even more complicated.

The use of “male and female” rather than “male or female” is generally recognised now as an echo of the Genesis narrative. The distinctions necessary for living in this age, in which people marry and are given in marriage (cf Mark 12:25 par), will not obtain in the age to come. In this Paul and Jesus seem to have a shared view, but Paul applies it to the church’s anticipation of the coming age here. Some of his rather mixed views on sex and gender are no doubt due to working out what on earth this overlap may look like in practice. There seems to have been a common assumption in the ancient world that a male was a normative human being, and evidence can be found for its corollary that women were in some way deficient. It seems to be instanced in the interesting Thomas logion (114)

Simon Peter said to him, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.”
Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven. (Lambdin’s translation)

Now it is impossible to be sure exactly how much of this (if any) Paul assumed, but the presumption must be, that without evidence to the contrary, Paul held in some version the view that was widespread in the Graeco-Roman world. His belief that sexual differentiation would be eschatologically overcome is not exactly the same as a belief in sexual equality. Hence he probably didn’t see the same gulf between this and some of his other statements about women that we see today.

This text-bomb is as culturally conditioned as the conservative one. (Well, so is the whole Bible, along with everything we say and write about it.) But there are some differences. First, there is much less obscurity about the Galatians passage than the Corinthians passage. It is a sound principle that the more obscure should be interpreted in the light of the clearer. (And how strange it is to find some who call themselves evangelical doing the opposite!) Second, where the Corinthians passage appears to be an ad hoc response to a particular situation, the Galatians statement acts as a partial conclusion to a lengthy theological argument on seminal themes. Again, Galatians should be privileged for theological work on those grounds.

There remains much theological work to be done in moving from the conclusions Paul draws to the ones we might choose to draw, and treating isolated verses as text bombs simply gets in the way. My view is that, although it might not look exactly like what we mean by equality, Paul moves substantially in this direction by his argument, and our readings should be guided by his own trajectory to a new way for men and women to relate, as equally heirs of the kingdom, and fellow-workers for the government of God.

In an email one reader of my series on the Church of England’s 39 Articles of Religion asked some general questions about their status. At about the same time Peter Kirk asked me in a comment how I could be as critical as I had been and still remain and Anglican priest. (I’m glad – given his subsequent note on my reply – I took this as a genuinely curious question rather than an expression of moral outrage, but its a reminder that blog posts and comments don’t necessarily convey tone very well.) This post is an attempt to try to deal with some of Scott’s emailed questions, and also fill out what I said to Peter.

The best evidence of the current status of the 39 articles in the contemporary Church of England is the declaration of assent that every ordained minister has to make, both at ordination, and subsequently on every new licensed appointment. This part of the declaration is also made by licensed Readers (lay preachers).

[The Church of England] professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

Two things are worth noting here. The articles are described both as being historic formularies, and as having borne witness. This is a step or two down from the catholic creeds which set forth the faith, which are themselves a step down from the Holy Scriptures where the faith is uniquely revealed. (That hierarchical description is not particularly accurate, but conveys the general sense.) This picture strongly suggests the need for reading the articles in historical context, rather than as a straightforward set of boundary markers for today. They do not exercise any kind of immediate authority.

The second point is the characteristic way in which they are listed together with the BCP and the Ordinal, and the three together have been traditionally encountered by Anglicans as bound together between the same covers as “The Prayer Book”. Doctrine and worship are bound up together. Anglicans have traditionally stressed the maxim Lex orandi, lex credendi (”The rule of praying is the rule of believing”, or, more colloquially, “If you want to know what we believe, look at how we pray”.) In fact the relationship between the two halves of the Latin tag is much more mutual in their interactions than it is commonly taken to be. Doctrine has shaped (and does shape) liturgy as well as liturgy doctrine.

Historically, the 39 articles, as a light revision of Cranmer’s original 42, and coming at the beginning of the Elizabethan period, seem to me to represent in some ways the high-water mark of Calvinism in the Church of England. One could construe the theological politics of the Elizabethan era as a conflict between those who wished to advance that position (those who came to be called Puritans) and those who, led by Richard Hooker, were rowing back to a very moderate Calvinist position, that was also open to strands of mediaeval thinking on revelation and reason, and especially to the spirituality and theology of the Fathers. They were effectively aided and abetted by the ritual of set liturgies, and the persistence of the liturgical drama and choral tradition of the cathedrals, that in practice gave a more traditionally catholic feel to things than the bare text of either the liturgy or the articles would suggest. Whether one calls this the via media or schizophrenia is a nicely balanced question. The subsequent history of the Church of England has often seen the see-saw tipping one way and then the other.

The mutual relationship of articles and liturgy meant that in practice the articles never achieved anything like confessional status. In form they are not unlike the Augsburg Confession, and indeed they borrow substantially from it. They could, in principle easily have developed in the direction of the Westminster Confession, as the Puritans wanted. But, bound up as they were with the liturgical material of BCP and Ordinal, they effectively took on a different character, almost as an addendum to the larger work of liturgy, both affirming the church’s anchor in the great creedal tradition of the early catholic and apostolic Church, and setting out what were a number of boundary markers in relation to Reformation controversies. Unlike other Reformation confessions, some of which they resembled in form, they never stood in isolation as a confession themselves. Most Anglicans’ doctrine would be far more affected by the weekly (and daily) affirmations of the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds held in common with the Great Church, than by the controversy-engaging statements of the articles.

When it comes to the present day, we unfortunately enter la-la land. The officially stated position (especially beloved by conservative evangelical groups) is that the doctrine of the Church of England is to be found in the aforementioned articles, BCP and ordinal. Yet the major rounds of liturgical revision that have been going on for the last half-century have in part happened because these traditional sources no longer seemed adequate to meet either the theological demands or spiritual needs of the contemporary church. Officially, all modern services are “alternative” to the BCP. In practice they are a replacement. (And some churches, especially evangelical ones, sit quite lightly to them, finding even this updating not up-to-date enough) Although the articles are in principle revisable, since they themselves point to scripture as their underlying authority, and also confess that even Church Councils (how much more then Cranmer) may err, the Church has never summoned the courage, wisdom or means to consider how this might be done.

The articles are therefore increasingly stranded as an historical curiousity, divorced by language and ethos from the liturgical material which continues to shape theology, worship and mission. Unfortunately, historical accident, poor theology, and hopelessly sprawling diversity means that the Church of England has no real means of working out how to set about revising its formularies, not any real clarity about its doctrinal development. Because the new liturgies are texts agreed by representatives of all traditions (even down to debating the minutiae of how to translate the Greek preposition ek in the Nicene Creed – from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary – if you really want to know) they are probably the nearest thing the Church of England has to a repository of doctrine as it is currently understood, prayed and believed. The articles look more and more resident in some kind of limbo, in my view well worth engaging and updating (hence my series), but in practice a shibboleth to be called on in time of need by those who feel they are losing the argument.