A Letter to my Bishops

I have now let the House of Bishops’ proposals for ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ and the legal advice sink in and reflected on them. This has refined but not fundamentally altered my initial response which was one of deep dismay.

Since Cranmer our patrimony includes a beautiful use of the English language and an ability to find words on which people of somewhat different persuasions can agree. This has perhaps on occasion degenerated into a studied ambiguity which made us settle on words which people of different convictions are able to use because they read them differently rather than because they have found a consensus. Now we are at risk of playing with words instead of seeking genuine accord.

I delight in the generous orthodoxy of our Reformed Catholicism but it grieves me that the Church of England also includes clergy who scoff at parts of the Scriptures, even declaring them toxic, or who might laud Paul and the writers of the Gospels as people who made magnificent attempts in their time while urging us to move on from their failures, as we discern a gospel beyond the Gospels.

My comfort has been that clergy who care little for the Thirty-nine Articles or the Book of Common Prayer are usurpers and that the Church of England does not truly belong to them. I feel that this comfort is in the process of being taken away from me.

The ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ may have been carefully crafted not to fall foul of the Church’s doctrine in the eyes of canon lawyers but they were not presented with a sufficiently clear, transparent and honest explanation of how they apply the Church’s teaching to various pastoral situations. No theological rationale was offered for continuing to uphold Church teaching. The morality of extra-marital sex appears to have been moved to the adiaphora. Several bishops, while welcoming the new resources, expressed their desire for a change to our doctrine and ethics. Phrases like ‘at the present time’ in the accompanying document clearly suggest that far from drawing our various listening exercises to a conclusion the debates are set to continue. And given that pronouncements like the booklet published by Steve Croft show little awareness of the discussions and research of the last few decades, we must assume that the debates will continue without making progress. Unlike our Archbishop I find no joy in this kind of diversity.

Doctrinal differences of the kind that relate to our formularies should be a source of grief for us. We must continue to make every effort to re-establish sufficient common doctrinal ground rather than make ourselves believe that we can still walk together, as if these differences did not directly impact on how we exercise Christian discipleship and pastoral care and how we proclaim afresh the good news of Christ in our generation. We cannot walk together if we seek the deeper unity for which Christ prayed in different directions. In words from the Book of Common Prayer we must long for ‘the spirit of truth, unity and concord’ and therefore petition God to ‘grant that all they that do confess thy holy Name, may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity and godly love.’

I want to put it to you that while there are these divisions among you, you can be certain that you are not led by the Holy Spirit. Compromise is not a dirty word. But true Christian unity is not found in the attempt to appease different factions while sidestepping proper theological reasoning. We are at grave risk of becoming an ecclesial community whose participation, as a body, in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is suspect. I urge you to reconsider the wisdom of the current proposals and to strive for greater clarity and integrity.

Yours in Christ,

Thomas

 

"Prayers of Love and Faith"

This is my understanding of the story so far:

In what is presented as a significant move the Bishops of the Church of England will offer its clergy a variety of flexible ways to affirm and celebrate same-sex couples in church. The resource is intended as a loving and celebratory response to same-sex couples and will include prayers of dedication, thanksgiving and for God’s blessing.

The prayers will be entirely discretionary and have been formulated with legal advice to ensure that the formal teaching of the Church of England as set out in the canons and authorised liturgies – that Holy Matrimony is between one man and one woman for life – is not compromised.

In some (*) of our Church of England parish churches you will be able to have your same-sex (**) civil partnership or “marriage” (***) blessed (****). This offer is also open to couples in covenanted, non-registered friendships (*****).

(*) the prayers are offered in the knowledge that not all clergy will be able to use them in good conscience

(**) sexual relations between persons of the same sex cannot be condoned by the Church because the Scriptures declare extra-marital sex to be incompatible with being in God’s kingdom but clergy need not tell you that

(***) the marriage of two persons of the same sex is not capable of constituting a marriage for the purposes of ecclesiastical law, i.e., a civil marriage between members of the same sex is not a marriage in the eyes of the church

(****) your relationship cannot be blessed as such but we can ask God to bless you as a couple

(*****) these prayers are not intended for couples who are not of the same sex

There have been angry responses from those who consider the apology offered by the Bishops to LGBTQI+ people to be meaningless, while same-sex couples are not allowed to get married in Church.  

There have been angry responses also from those who believe that the resources to all intents and purposes change the Church's teaching on marriage and sexual morality.

Some are relieved that the Church has found a way to leave "holy matrimony" (marriage as understood by the Church) unchanged while affirming same-sex covenanted relationships, others are concerned that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in relation to sexual intimacy outside marriage might make a return.

For some it is a time for celebrating our doctrinal diversity, for others it is a time of mourning our loss of integrity.

Jesus Named and Circumcised

A sermon for the eight day of Christmas, 2023

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

We are given an identity long before we shape and refashion it by our own decisions and habits.

We are born at a particular time and space which we did not choose, with a body we did not form.

We are born into families or households which we did not choose, into a particular culture that will shape us more than we will ever shape it.

Identity is something all of us are given.

This is true even in a culture like ours which puts so much emphasis on individual choice.

We may have greater freedom to choose a career and lifestyle than previous generations.

We even have a legal right to choose our gender – whatever it is that we mean by that.

But the fact is that in all the decisions we make, we are still at best sculptors of our identities,

sculptors who work with the material given to them.

What is given to us is like a massive granite block, already shaped by culture and circumstances before we put our chisel to it.

We can work with or against the grain of the material but not without it.

 

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child.

Why?

Because Jesus was born a Jew and Jewish males are circumcised on the eighth day, long before they have any idea of what it might mean to be a boy or a girl, to be Jewish or non-Jewish.

Being born a Jew means, as the apostle Paul put it, being born under the law.

As the boy grows up, there will be decisions to be made whether to live under the law,

whether to receive God’s law joyfully or to accept it grudgingly or to disregard it altogether,

but the man cannot undo the fact that as a boy he was born under the law.

…and he was called Jesus.

Long before we make a conscious decision about the name (and nowadays pronoun) to which we will answer, others will have called us by a name not chosen by us.

For Jesus the name encapsulated the mission entrusted to him: God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Baby Jesus was circumcised and was given the name Jesus without being asked what he thought about it – just like we were all given a name soon after we were born and were incorporated into a culture or subculture which we did not choose.

 

And yet it was all very different for the Son of God.

Before the first human children were born, God the Son had already  volunteered to come to the rescue of humanity.

Before the first human children were born, God the Son had already decided to be born to Mary and to be given the name of Jesus.

For many generations God the Son had shaped the culture into which He was going to be born.

Before Abraham was, I am, he once said.[1]

He was behind the call of Abraham out of Ur in Chaldea.

He determined and promised that in Abraham’s family all the earth should find blessing.

He met Moses in a fiery bush and called him to prefigure God’s great rescue operation.

He accompanied the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt through the wilderness to Mount Sinai.

While God’s promise is for all peoples and nations, God’s law was given to shape a particular nation.

Some of the commandments, e.g. about circumcision but also about what could and could not be eaten, were specifically given to separate between Jews as God’s covenant people, and non-Jews.

Jesus was born under the law, into a culture shaped by God’s law.

 

But he was born also into a culture shaped by alienation from God and disobedience to His will.

In fact, Paul wrote earlier in this letter to the Galatians that the law was added because of transgressions, namely to show us up as law-breakers and to put us under condemnation.

Because the law had been given to Israel, it was in Israel that sin was identified for what it is.

This does not mean that God’s people necessarily behaved worse than others.

But it was worse for bad things to have been committed by those who had God’s law.

What’s more Paul may be suggesting here that the Law, with the accumulation of sin, had itself become a malignant force, from which oppressed people needed rescuing.

But God’s law cannot undo God’s promise.

The law was a temporary measure until the offspring would come through whom the promise would be realised and who would form one people of God, consisting of both Jews and non-Jews.[2]

 

By being circumcised, Jesus received the mark of God’s covenant with Abraham, the seal of God’s promise. – He came into our world to bring the fulfilment of this promise for all nations.

By being circumcised, Jesus was identified with his people, Israel. – But he came into this world to break down the barrier between Jews and non-Jews.

This was done in accordance with the law so that now, when the fullness of time had come, the one born under the law would redeem those who were under the law.

This may sound a bit like someone being born in a collapsed building so that he could rescue those who were trapped in this building.

In what sense had the law become a trap for us from which we needed rescuing?

Probably in more than one way.

God is one and therefore God’s people should be one – from every tribe and language and nation.

God’s promise to Abraham implies as much but it also designates one family, one nation as the special carrier of God’s blessing.

The law given to Israel shaped Israel as a distinct nation. The trap was that the distinctiveness and separation fed an ethnic pride which drove a wedge between Jews and non-Jews.

The law also makes known God’s character and so reveals to us how to live as those who were created in the image of God, as those who bear God’s name.

But in pointing the way the law did not actually give the strength to live in God’s ways and even incited people to sin.

So we have all become trapped.

All of us who were created in the image of God but failed to live in God’s ways.

All of us who were meant to be children of God but lived as slaves to other forces.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Some people use New Year’s Eve as an opportunity to look back and take stock.

• What have I achieved?
• Where have I fallen short?

These can be good questions to ask but above them all stands this:

He was born to rescue those who were under the law.

The redeemed are no longer under the law of reward and punishment,

no longer under any law that measures worth in accomplishments,

no longer under the law that condemns those who fall short of it.

We can be relaxed and therefore address the question of our failure quite honestly.

This is one aspect of our rescue: we can admit to have fallen short

and we can do so without being condemned for it

because he was born to rescue those who were under the law.

 

Some people, as they enter a new year, make new Year’s resolutions

or choose a word of the year as a motto, e.g., ‘persist’.

This can also be a useful practice to help us sculpt our identity further.

But above our plans and schemes let the name of Christ stand: Jesus, God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Jesus has rescued us from the slavery to sin and death, from the bondage to the elements of this world, from being under the authority of the law

so that we might receive adoption as children.

This is the new identity he gives us: children of God.

By His Spirit we can now cry out to God, ‘Abba! Father!’

We do not read God’s law with the anxiety of those who will be punished if they do not obey

but as children who want to learn about their Father’s priorities and agendas.

He was born under the law so that we would no longer be captive under the law.

He shed his blood, for the first time at his circumcision, so that we would not need to pay for our sins with our own blood.

His name is Jesus, God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

---

[1] John 8:58.

[2] Gal 3:19.

Mixing and Matching

President Josiah Bartlet:

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

In another post I point out that there is nothing to suggest that the death penalty was ever applied or expected to be applied in the case of someone planting different crops side by side or wearing garments made from two different threads. The insinuation here that it might is a form of bearing false witness to the biblical text.

But what is the significance of YHWH’s instructions for holy living in Leviticus 19, sandwiched as they are between two chapters which stress that the Israelites must distinguish themselves as holy by following YHWH’s commands and not the nations’ sexual and religious practices? We learn that holiness is not only about abstaining from certain practices but about being discerning in every sphere of life (cf. A Jewish definition of holiness). It means, e.g., engaging in economic practices that are pro-actively helpful to the poor (19:9-10), not just refraining from stealing and defrauding people (19:11). It means not to do harm even when there is little risk of being detected (19:14) and it means judicial impartiality (19:15). It means not only refraining from slander (19:16a) but also being pro-active about helping someone discern the wrong in which they are engaged (19:17). It means not only that one does not jeopardize a neighbour’s life (or allow a neighbour to be victimised, 19:16b, the precise meaning is uncertain) but also not to bear a grudge (19:18, “but love your neighbour as yourself”). And then it also means

“You are to keep my statutes. Do not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material.” (19:19)

According to some Jewish interpreters, “statutes” are “those laws for which no rational justification was obvious. They are to be treated as ‘decrees of the king,’ to be obeyed simply because they come from God. This,” as Ephraim Radner observes, “represents, at best, a pure fellow following of God’s will, at worst a kind of blind obedience. Holiness here is a cleaving to God, but not one imbued with a coherent understanding.” (Leviticus [London: SCM Press, 2008], 213) It may be the equivalent of a football jersey or a school uniform – a marker of identity which is largely arbitrary but not therefore irrelevant. Keeping these statutes may also be a training ground for authentic and faithful performance where it really matters, cf. Hayim Donin’s comments on food laws.

Others, however, do find a rationale. They suggest that the instructions against cross-breeding and mixing different kinds of seeds in one field are about keeping separate what the Creator God had made distinct, “respecting the categories he has established” (Jay Sklar, Leviticus, TOTC [Nottingham: IVP, and Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013], 247, cf. Nahmanides [c.1194-c.1270], going further than the Rabbinic tradition of interpreting the mixing of different kinds of seeds as a prohibition against grafting). Understood in this way, the law could have implications for the ethics of genetic engineering. “But,” as Ephraim Radner notes, “God’s own love, which creates these in their discreet character, also seeks to bring them into the fullness of proximity with him” which leads him to a discussion of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds and Paul’s use of grafting imagery in Rom 11:17-24 (Leviticus, 214)

Sklar notes that the use of different kinds of fabric in making garments is not forbidden but wearing such clothing is. “The rationale may be that some priestly garments were made from mixed fabrics (woollen yarn and linen, Exod. 28:5). Since non-priestly Israelites were forbidden from doing priestly duties (Num. 3:10, 38), this prohibition would have prevented them from heading in that direction (cf. Josephus, Ant. 4.208 [4.8.11]), something the early Israelites were tempted to do (Num. 16:1-40).” (Sklar, Leviticus, 248). The more specific reference to wool and linen in Deut 22:11 supports this. The abrogation of this priesthood and its regulations would mean that this specific command is not directly applicable among the new covenant people although the principle of respecting the calling and ordination of some people to specific ministries remains. Radner suggests, again, that Christ’s passion brings together what had been kept distinct (Leviticus, 215-16). In a more beautiful world a Bishop in the Church of England with a PhD in Old Testament studies would help us explore this further rather than ape President Bartlet’s dismissive attitude to OT law.

Stoning and Burning

President Josiah Bartlet:

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

These questions apparently relate to Leviticus 19:19 (cf. Deut 22:9-11), except that the punishments are gratuitously added from elsewhere. It is presumably a case of combining what appear to us the most ridiculous Old Testament statutes with the most abhorrent ancient punishments.

Pelting with stones is the means of execution in Lev 20:2 for devoting one’s children to Molech, in Lev 20:27 for mediums and spiritists, in Lev 24:10-23 for someone who used the divine name in a curse, and in Num 15:35-36 for violation of the Sabbath by manual labour. It is a punishment for sin that goes right to the heart of Israel’s relationship with YHWH, cf. its use in Deut 13:10 (“You must stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the LORD your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.”) and 17:2-7 as a punishment for false prophecy and idolatry. In Deuteronomy it is also specified as a punishment in cases that were likely seen as jeopardizing the covenant community, namely a son’s persistent rebelliousness in 21:18-21 (threatening the continuation of the household on its land), a daughter’s sexual affair while in the paternal household in 22:21 (explicitly designated “a disgraceful thing in Israel”), and adultery involving a married woman in 22:22-24 (raising paternity issues; the penalty was executed on both if consent could be presumed, on the man only if the woman’s consent could not be assumed, see verse 25).  

Fire features as a means of executing the death penalty in the case of a man marrying both a woman and her mother (Lev 20:14) and in the case of the daughter of a priest engaging in prostitution or promiscuity (Lev 21:9). In Deuteronomy burning is associated with items connected to idolatry (7:25; 12:3; 13:17) but not referenced as a form of execution.

The prevalence of the death penalty in biblical law codes warrants a separate discussion. It would need to take into account not only the different forms of sanctions available to ancient and modern societies but also the difference between ancient law codes and modern legislation. Note, e.g., that even the stark and urgent warnings against adultery in Proverbs 6 do not use the threat of the death penalty, assuming rather than the cuckold might ruin you in other ways instead.

More importantly for the question(s) at hand, there is nothing to suggest that the death penalty was ever applied or expected to be applied in the case of someone planting different crops side by side or wearing garments made from two different threads. The question “Does the whole town really…” is therefore bearing false witness. As, for “Can I burn my mother…?,” this is nowhere permitted in the OT. To insinuate that it might be is again a form of bearing false witness.

So what is the significance of YHWH’s instructions for holy living in Leviticus 19? That’s for another post.

Selling my daughter

President Josiah Bartlet:

I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?

To become president of the United States you have to be one thing first of all: very wealthy. This presumably goes for West Wing’s fictional president as well who feigns an interest in making more money by selling his youngest daughter into slavery. Her virtues, he suggests, will fetch a good price.

This is very far removed from the situation envisaged in Exodus 21:7. Selling your daughter into slavery was not a choice within a free-market economy designed to maximise profit. Many in ancient Israel lived much closer to subsistence levels than modern despisers of the Old Testament. There was no such thing as a single-person household. Everyone was attached to a family – for a woman this meant being a daughter (and/or sister), a wife (and hopefully mother), or a widow (hopefully with children).

Exodus 21:7 concerns the transition from daughter to wife. This would usually involve a reciprocal financial transaction which binds two households together. The father of the bride pays a dowry which is meant to offer financial security for his daughter (if she were to be divorced she would receive back this dowry rather than be left destitute) and the groom’s family pays a bride price (which compensates the woman’s first family for lost labour).

Exodus 21:7 has a situation in view in which a father is unable to pay a dowry for his daughter. His household may struggle to feed everyone, e.g., if the poverty is the result of a series of bad harvests. But even if the extra labour of his daughter would make it possible for her to survive within her father’s household in the short run, her long-term security is under threat. The following verses indicate that she is bought as a wife or concubine either for the master of the household (verse 8) or his son (verse 9). In other words, someone will pay the bride price but no dowry is received.

Given that the dowry is a back-up for the daughter, getting married without one presents a risk. The regulation in Exodus 21 seeks to minimise this risk by forbidding the master to sell her on, as if she were his possession over which he could freely dispose. (The text specifies “sell her to a foreign people” because within the covenant community slavery was essentially only permitted for defaulting debtors.) If he wants to be rid of her, he is not allowed to receive any payment. In this case, the woman would be free to leave without owing the master anything. 

The example is taken from case law and regulates a situation in which an attempt by a poor man to provide a better life for his daughter might put her at risk by specifying an arrangement which preserves her honour as an Israelite woman. Insinuating here a parental permission to maximise profits by selling one of their daughters is bearing false witness to the text.

Dead Pig Football

President Josiah Bartlet:

Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

The question assumes that it is important that people avoid becoming unclean. Why should that be? Uncleanness is not a punishable crime. If a member of the Israelite covenant community touched the skin of a dead pig, they were unclean until the evening (verse 39) which means they could not come to the sanctuary on the same day. If they handled the skin, they should also wash their clothes (verse 40) which, one might assume, football players would do anyway after a match. Given that the use of pig skin is hardly essential to playing American football, ancient Israelites would presumably have used a different leather if they had played American football but they would not have had to call off a match against the Moabites just because the ball was made of dead pig skin.

What’s more the function of these laws was to set apart the Israelites as a holy people of YHWH (cf. verses 44-45; see also Lev 20:24-26). Laws touching all of life were a constant reminder that Israel was to be distinct from other nations. But this does not mean that all the laws were of equal weight and significance. Idolatry and immorality whose seriousness is underlined by the punishment specified for them are the real deal, as it were. Dietary laws were YHWH’s forget-me-not and forget-not-that-you-are-to-be-holy.

The different cultures suggested by the reference to three football clubs [*] highlights how strange it would be to make dietary laws a universal norm, thereby erasing cultural distinctives. It would be like requiring all teams to wear the same jerseys. The church has always made a distinction between, on the one hand, laws which reflect God’s character which God’s people are to imitate at all times and in all places, and on the other hand, laws which were given to Israel specifically to mark them out as distinct and remind them of the call to be holy to YHWH.

See also Hayim Donin's comments on the dietary laws.

[*] The Washington Redskins, founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves and renamed “Redskins” after they moved to Fenway Park, were under pressure from major sponsors to change their name and since July 2020 are the Washington Football Team.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana.

West Point is The United States Military Academy in New York.