By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In the Gospel of St. Luke 17.11-19, we read of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers. Of the ten lepers, only one took the time to thank Jesus for his healing. In fact, the text says that this man expressed his gratitude vocally and bodily. “[O]ne of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan” (Luke 17.15-16). Notice that we are told that the man was a Samaritan. During Jesus’ day, the Samaritans were more or less considered Gentiles, which of course means that they were despised by Jews. Samaritans claimed that the focal place of worship was Gerizim rather than Jerusalem (cf. John 4.20) and that the holy books consisted of the Pentateuch alone. In light of these significant religious differences, one can readily see that relations between Jews and Samaritans, whom the Jews considered “half-breeds,” were strained and at times hostile and violent. St. Luke takes particular interest in the Samaritans—the others, the foreigners, the social outcasts. His Gospel account, as well as the theological history he crafts in Acts, highlights several stories in which Samaritan others are central figures or topics of discussion (Luke 9:51–56; 10:30–37; 17:11–19; Ac. 1:8; 8:1–25; 9:31; 15:3). Though Jesus commanded his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of heaven and engage in works of healing among the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” forbidding them to enter the “way of the Gentiles” and “any city of the Samaritans” (Matt 10.5), when He Himself encountered Gentiles and Samaritans, He neither turned them away nor refused to heal them. Rather, he treated them with respect (see John 4 and the exchange with the Samaritan woman), which often involved transgressing established social and religious norms and customs. In Luke 17.18-19, Jesus praises the Samaritan leper’s response—a faith response marked by gratitude and thanksgiving. “‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner [ἀλλογενής]?’ Then he said to him, ‘Get up [ἀναστὰς] and go on your way; your faith has made you well [σέσωκεν].’” As N.T. Wright observes, the Greek word, ἀναστὰς (translated here as, “get up”) is the same word which is translated as “resurrection” in other contexts. Early Christians would not have missed this connection with resurrection, nor should we.
The famous parable of the Good Samaritan is also worth considering. Here Jesus, in response to a lawyer’s question, “who is my neighbor,” replies with a parable which presents a Samaritan as the moral hero (in contrast to the villains—a priest and a Levite).
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’” (NRSV, Lk 10:30-37).
It is highly likely that the man who fell into the hands of robbers was a Jew. He was after all, “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” So the Samaritan is not only helping some stranger in need, he is showing mercy to an “enemy.” The priest and the Levite in order to avoid becoming unclean choose to ignore the man in need. As N.T. Wright puts it, “it was better that they remain aloof, preserving their purity at the cost of obedience to God’s law of love”—a law which was, by the way, an OT law and not simply something that emerged with the NT (Luke for Everyone, p. 127).
The lawyer in the story is disingenuous and poses his question in order to test Jesus. The lawyer wants to know whom he should consider as his neighbor. Again, Wright offers helpful commentary on the exchange. Pointing out that the lawyer’s question and Jesus’ answer don’t exactly correspond, Wright goes on to say,
For him [the lawyer], God is the God of Israel, and neighbours are Jewish neighbours. For Jesus (and for Luke, who highlights this theme), Israel’s God is the God of grace for the whole world, and a neighbour is anybody in need. Jesus’ telling question at the end isn’t asking who the Samaritan regarded as his neighbour. He asked, instead, who turned out to be the neighbour of the half-dead Jew lying in the road. Underneath the apparently straightforward moral lesson […], we find a much sterner challenge, exactly fitting in with the emphasis of Luke’s story so far. Can you recognize the hated Samaritan as your neighbour? (Ibid., pp. 127-28).
I suppose the question to ask is, can you, can I, can we recognize ____________ as our neighbor/s?
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In Romans 2:14-15, St. Paul speaks of, “Gentiles, who do not possess the law,” yet, who do “what the law requires.” Even though they, unlike Israel, do not possess the Torah,[1] they “are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” (NRSV). So who are these Gentiles? Are they the so-called “righteous” pagans in the line of Vergil or Socrates, or Aristotle? According to Wright (and I find his argument compelling exegetically), the people in view in Rom 2:14-15 are Christian Gentiles. As Wright explains,
Paul’s view, to anticipate the later argument, is that those who are in Christ, who are indwelt by the Spirit, do in fact ‘do the law,’ even though, in the case of Gentiles, they have never heard it. The law, in Paul’s view, pointed to that fullness of life and obedience to God which comes about in the Messiah; those who attain that fullness of life and obedience are therefore ‘doing the Torah’ in the senses that, to Paul, really matter (p. 441).[2]
Though on the surface it has a paradoxical ring, Paul’s view carefully avoids, on the one hand, implying that the Torah was something bad and thus to be discarded-rather he upholds the holiness of the Torah-and, on the other, suggesting that “Gentile Christians are second-class citizens in the kingdom of the Messiah.” In effect, Paul has his cake and eats it too: Gentiles Christians “are not under the Torah, but at the same time they are essentially doing what the Torah really wanted” (p. 441).
Wright’s exegesis takes into account the important cultural-historical (not to mention theological) issue of the early Church: what is the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and are uncircumcised, non Torah-trained Gentiles to be received as full members of the Church? Paul’s emphatic answer is, “yes, because in Christ circumcision is no longer the badge marking out God’s people; rather, faith in the faithful obedience of God’s Messiah is the indicator of God’s people.”
Wright also spends some time dealing with objections to his position. The primary objection centers on the word, φύσει, physei, both in terms of its meaning and grammatical function. Some scholars see physei functioning adverbially and modifying the verb “do.” However, as Wright points out, physei is found in the middle of the clause, ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν; consequently, physei, could modify either “do” or “having the law” (pp. 441-42). Wright opts for the latter, as it makes sense of the present passage, harmonizes well with the larger section through 5:21, and is in agreement with Paul’s usage of physei in 2:27. In other words, physei in Rom 2:14 refers to “origin” or “parentage.” “Gentiles do not, by nature-that is, by origin or parentage-possess the Torah.” Likewise, in Rom 2:27, ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία τὸν νόμον τελοῦσα, φύσεως (”the by-nature uncircumcision that fulfills the Torah”) “cannot here refer to something that is common, innate, to all humans. Jews, too, are born uncircumcised; that is, in that sense, the ‘natural’ state. It must refer to Gentile humanity as opposed to Jewish (cf. Gal 2:15)” (p. 442).
Additional support for Wright’s interpretation is found in 2:15a, where we read, “[t]hey show that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (NRSV). This language of the law “written on the heart” is New Covenant language, of which Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) and Ezekiel (Ezek 36:26, cf. the “new heart”) speak. “Paul clearly believed, and elaborated this at various points, that the covenant had been renewed, according to this promise, through Jesus, and that this renewal was being implemented by the Spirit in those who were ‘in Christ’” (p. 442).
Notes
[1] “Though not having the law, they are a law to themselves” (
Rom 2:14b,
NRSV).
[2] N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in Vol. X of The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002): 395-770.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In chapter one of his book, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, written for a lay audience, N.T. Wright enumerates four reasons for the need to continue to wrestle with the historical question of Jesus. His second reason for engaging in historical study of Jesus is, as he says, “out of loyalty to Scripture” (p. 17). Wright then notes that ironically to some (theological) liberals as well as conservatives, such a reason seems out of place. For some, whom I would call “extreme” liberal scholars, Scripture has no authoritative role, and in no way presents us with a Jesus who performed miracles and called individuals to die to self and live for God. Thus, for these scholars, Wright’s desire to be loyal to Scripture seems archaic and even absurd. However, Wright also points out that the conservative response to the extreme liberal position on these issues is equally misguided, and I would add arrogant and short-sighted. As Wright explains,
The proper answer to that [extreme liberal] approach is not simply to reassert that because we believe in the Bible we do not need to ask fresh questions about Jesus. As with God so with the Bible; just because our tradition tells us that the Bible says and means one thing or another, that does not excuse us from the challenging task of studying it afresh in the light of the best knowledge we have about its world and context, to see whether these things are indeed so. For me the dynamic of a commitment to Scripture is not “we believe the Bible, so there is nothing more to be learned” [hence, the arrogance mentioned above], but rather “we believe the Bible, so we had better discover all the things in it to which our traditions … , which have supposed themselves to be “biblical” but are sometimes demonstrably not, have made us blind (p. 17).
Personally, I find Wright’s balanced approach quite refreshing. He is one of the few cutting-edge biblical scholars who is able to stand firmly for and articulate well an orthodox Christian position all the while genuinely appreciating the scholarly contributions of those with whom he disagrees (whether extreme liberal or ultra conservative scholars). Moreover, Wright is willing and able to criticize those within his own camp for their complacency, arrogance and reactionary posture. Though it was of course necessary for orthodox Christians to speak out against the modernist, reductionist portrayal of Jesus as just one of many “failed Jewish revolutionaries” and a man really no different from other radical religious types, we must also be aware of tendencies in the opposite direction, tendencies which in effect negate Jesus’s genuine humanity and which portray Him as a kind of “demigod, not really human at all, striding through the world as a divine, heroic figure, untroubled by human questions … aware of himself as someone outside the whole system, telling people how they might escape the wicked world and live forever in a different realm altogether” (p. 24). Wright continues by pointing out that large segments falling within the orthodox camp (evangelicals and conservatives across denominational boundaries) have embraced this demigod, superhero version of Jesus, have undervalued and given little attention to the created order (which is seen as a kind of a sinking ship that must be abandoned anyway so why care for it now), and have paid little attention to the humanity of the Scriptures (a clear reactionary stance to the errors of extreme liberalism). Paradoxically, both liberal and conservative extremes continue to instantiate Enlightenment-inspired dualisms, refusing to allow the tensions of human-and-divine (not human or divine) to coexist. At the risk of employing a somewhat hackneyed and over-applied phrase, I find Wright’s closing words “prophetic” and hope that God will give us ears to hear. “Woe betide us if, in our commitment to winning yesterday’s battles against reductionist versions of Christianity, we fail to engage in tomorrow’s, which might be quite different” (p. 25). If Christianity hopes to make an impact, for example, on the universities to which we are sending our children, we’d better follow Wright’s example and support those within the Church who are called to the hard, rigorous, spiritually challenging work of academic study. Otherwise, we have no right to complain about those “liberal” ideas being taught to our young people. Likewise, perhaps we ought to expect to learn a thing or two from those with whom we vehemently disagree and be prepared to modify and expand our own position given that the “subject matter,” viz., Jesus, cannot be exhausted.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In chapter 4 of N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, he presents a wonderful illustration of the incomplete beauty that we encounter in our world in its present state. He describes a collector who was rummaging through an attic in a small Austrian town and happened to come across what seemed to be an unknown score of Mozart. Elated, the collector informed his friends and soon someone was sitting at a piano and attempting to play the piece. As it turns out, the work was indeed Mozart, however, there were numerous places that were left blank and some that were impossible to make out. What they had found was simply one part (the piano part) to a larger work. “What they are looking at is indeed by Mozart. It is indeed beautiful. But it’s the piano part of a piece that involves another instrument, or perhaps other instruments. By itself it is frustratingly incomplete. A further search of the attic reveals nothing else that would provide a clue. The piano music is all there is, a signpost to something that was there once and might still turn up one day. [...] This is the position we are in when confronted by beauty. The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice-a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call ‘beautiful.’” (p. 40).
I find it interesting that in I.vi.1 of the Institutes, Calvin, after having spent several paragraphs discussing the ways in which the creation proclaims the knowledge of God, then states that something further is needed so that we might read the “text” of creation aright.
For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly. God therefore bestows a gift of singular value, when, for the instruction of the Church, he [...] opens his own sacred mouth; when he not only proclaims that some God must be worshipped, but at the same time declares that He is the God to whom worship is due; when he not only teaches his elect to have respect to God, but manifests himself as the God to whom this respect should be paid.
The course which God followed towards his Church from the very first, was to supplement these common proofs [which Calvin discussed in a previous section] by the addition of his Word, as a surer and more direct means of discovering himself. And there can be no doubt that it was by this help, Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, attained to that familiar knowledge which, in a manner, distinguished them from unbelievers. I am not now speaking of the peculiar doctrines of faith by which they were elevated to the hope of eternal blessedness. It was necessary, in passing from death unto life, that they should know God, not only as a Creator, but as a Redeemer also; and both kinds of knowledge they certainly did obtain from the Word. In point of order, however, the knowledge first given was that which made them acquainted with the God by whom the world was made and is governed. To this first knowledge was afterwards added the more intimate knowledge which alone quickens dead souls, and by which God is known not only as the Creator of the worlds and the sole author and disposer of all events, but also as a Redeemer, in the person of the Mediator.”
It seems to me that Wright’s idea of beauty encountered in the created order as an echo of another voice might be brought into fruitful conversation with what Calvin says in the passage above. What do you think?
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 1:20-28, ESV).
Below are selected moments from Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage.
“The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A human being had got it into this mess; a human being would get it out again. The story of Genesis 1-3-the strange, haunting tale of a wonderful world spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures-is in Paul’s mind throughout this long chapter” (Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, p. 212). After rehearsing a kind of mini redemptive-historical narrative, St. Paul begins to discuss the coming of God’s kingdom. Many Jews of St. Paul’s longed for the coming of God’s kingdom-for the day when “God would become king over the whole world, restoring Israel to glory, defeating the nations that had oppressed God’s people for so long, and raising all the righteous dead to share in the new world” (p. 212). For St. Paul, with the resurrection of Christ, this day had in a very real sense been inaugurated, yet, in a way that took him totally by surprise. “Instead of all God’s people being raised at the end of history, one person had been raised in the middle of history. That was the shocking, totally unexpected thing. But this meant that the coming of God’s kingdom was happening in two phases” (p. 213). When St. Paul speaks of each occurring “in his own order,” he has in mind both the order of events and God’s final ordering (p. 213). The former, viz., the order of events, speaks of Jesus’ present reign as the risen Lord and King. Yet, the “purpose of this reign-to defeat all the enemies that have defaced, oppressed and spoiled God’s magnificent world, and his human creatures in particular-has not yet been accomplished. One day this task will be complete: the final enemy, death itself, will be defeated (verse 26), and God will be ‘all in all’ (verse 28)” (p. 213).
Then we move to the final ordering where we have a picture of a world “put back to rights.” Here St. Paul appeals to two psalms, and weaves together a Messianic mosaic manifesting to us what we as <i>imago Dei</i> were created to be and do. “Psalm 110, quoted in verse 25, is about the king whom God will place at his right hand until all his enemies are brought into subjection. This, Paul declares, is now being fulfilled in Jesus. Psalm 8, quoted in verse 27, belongs closely with this, speaking of God ‘putting all things into order under his feet’ [Wright's translation]. But instead of talking about the Messiah, as Psalm 110 does, Psalm 8 talks about the human being. This role, of being under God and over the world, is not just the task of the Messiah; it’s what God had in mind from the very start when he created human beings in his own image. This is how Paul ties the passage tightly together: the achievement of the Messiah, and his present reign in which he is bringing the world back to order, is the fulfillment of what God intended humans to do (see verse 21). The story told in Genesis is completed by the story told in the Psalms” (p. 214). Our enemy, death, of course plays a crucial role in this story; however, death does not have the final word. Rather, the Final Word has the final word and death is silenced. He is Risen!
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
The second half of the document under discussion (Women Bishops: A Response to Cardinal Kasper) falls under the broad heading, “Women Bishops: Biblical Exegesis and Theological Anthropology,” and attempts to sketch the biblical basis for the Anglican position on the ordination of women. For a more detailed, yet (popular-level rather than academic) presentation of some of the exegetical positions noted below, see N.T. Wright, “The Biblical Basis for Women’s Service in the Church,” Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 5-10.
In this post, in addition to hearing thoughts from Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics (as well as other thoughtful contributors), I am particularly interested in hearing Roman Catholic counter arguments and alternative exegetical readings of the following passages presented below (as well as those commented on in N.T. Wright’s article above). I am not suggesting that I agree with all the conclusions or am convinced in toto by Wright’s intepretations. However, in my opinion, Wright offers a number of plausible exegetical alternatives to the commonly appealed to texts that are typically interpreted as prohibiting the ordination of women (e.g., I Corinthians 11 and 14, Ephesians 5, and I Timothy 2).
***
Everything that follows is taken directly from the official document (see bibliography below).
1. Cardinal Kasper’s reference to Junia in Romans 16:7 itself seemed to allow that there might after all be a possibility of re-opening the question; if, he seemed to imply, it could be demonstrated that Junia really was a woman (not ‘Junias’, a supposedly masculine name, as most translations have had it), then even Roman tradition might be forced to recognise the possibility that women could be apostles, and therefore presumably could hold ordained ministry in the apostolic succession. In fact, despite what the Cardinal suggested at that point in his paper, recent scholarship, drawing on excellent philology and study of ancient names, strongly suggests that the person in question was female. Junia is a well-known female name of the period, but the suggested male name Junias is not otherwise known; and, when Greek scribes began to introduce accents into their texts, they accented the name in such a way as to make it clear that it was female. That, despite what the Cardinal said, is how it appears in the most recent edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament; and the newest edition of Metzger’s commentary on textual variants indicates that those who still preferred the masculine accentuation did so simply on the grounds that they doubted whether a woman would be referred to as an ‘apostle’ – which precisely begs the methodological question.
2. This small but significant point opens the way for a consideration of the larger exegetical and theological issues which will come before Synod in July. First, and most important, we must give great weight to the fact that all four evangelists, but especially John, place the testimony of the women, and especially Mary Magdalene, in prime position in their accounts of Easter. It is to these women, and particularly to Mary, that the risen Lord entrusts the good news, not to the male apostles themselves. It cannot be overemphasized that this was hugely counterintuitive in the ancient world. Had the narratives been invented later, this would never have commended the account; had the evangelists had any doubt that women were to be regarded as primary witnesses of the resurrection, they would never have allowed such a story to remain in their texts. Yet there it is, in each gospel. If, with Paul, we regard ‘apostleship’ as primarily constituted by witness to the resurrection, Mary Magdalene is the ‘apostle to the apostles’, as indeed some Roman theologians have styled her.
3. This addresses the highly significant question of anthropology, rightly raised by various parties in the debate. The evangelists, again particularly but not exclusively John, present the resurrection of Jesus not as an isolated ‘miracle’ but as the beginning of God’s new creation, God’s renewal of the whole world. Within that, the roles of men and women are re-evaluated, not (to be sure) to make them identical or interchangeable in any and all respects, but to celebrate their complementarity, not least their complementary apostolic witness to Jesus’ resurrection. The same point is visible in Acts, where it is remarkable how women are singled out both as co-equal recipients of the outpoured Spirit and also as co-equal sufferers of persecution (Acts 9:2 etc.), a tell-tale sign that they were community leaders in their own right.
4. Witness to the resurrection on one hand, and participation in the Spirit on the other, is the gospel foundation of all sacramental life. The question of what has been called ’sacramental assurance’ is answered in the New Testament not by a theory about ministry – the NT is innocent of any explicit or developed linkage of ordained ministry and the sacraments – but by the fact that, with the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, the new creation has begun in which heaven and earth, and also present and future, now overlap. That is the ontological basis for sacramental assurance.
5. The biblical argument against the ordination (and, a fortiori, consecration) of women has tended to rest on a portfolio of texts often supposed to speak of ‘headship’ in a way which rules out women’s ordination. In fact these texts – in I Corinthians 11 and 14, Ephesians 5, and I Timothy 2 – are by no means as clearly opposed to female ordination as their proponents usually make out. ‘Headship’ is in fact only mentioned in I Corinthians 11 (where it has to do with headgear worn while leading in worship – hardly an argument against women’s public ministry) and Ephesians 5 (where it concerns the manner of mutual submission between husband and wife). The passage in I Corinthians 14, thought by some conservative textual critics on good manuscript evidence to be an interpolation, relates, even if original, not to ministry but to the good order of worship services in which, as in some Middle-Eastern churches today, local women might not always understand the language of public worship and might be inclined to chat amongst themselves. The famous passage in I Timothy 2 does not mention ‘headship’, and can properly be read, within a context (Ephesus) where the mainstream religion was female-only, as a warning against allowing women to usurp the proper ministry of men. In fact, the primary exhortation of I Timothy 2:11 is ‘let the women learn’ (the Greek manthano means ‘learn, especially by study’), and is qualified with a phrase which can mean ‘in silence’ but equally ‘at leisure’: in other words, women must be given the space to study for themselves, an obviously revolutionary proposal in that age as in many subsequent ones, not least because, in Paul’s world as in Jesus’, to ’study’ would not be for one’s own benefit alone, but in order to become a teacher of others. These arguments, so briefly sketched, are of course too brief to be conclusive, but should indicate that those who support the ordination of women to priestly and Episcopal ministry cannot be dismissed as treating scripture in a cavalier fashion, or as indulging in a fancy, exercising fancy hermeneutical footwork to imply that the text is now unimportant.
6. A second strand relates to the foundation of the theology of orders in Christology, rather than in the examination of the practice of the early church. The ordained ministry of the Church does not simply fulfil useful functions of oversight, leadership and service, such as are variously described in the Epistles: rather the ordained ministry focuses in those ministers the diaconal and priestly call of all God’s people, a call that is founded in their baptism. They become what Austin Farrer called ‘walking sacraments.’ In speaking of our baptism, Paul is clear (Galatians 3:27,28) there can be no division between male and female: both have put on Christ. Which of the baptised then can represent Christ in the ministerial orders of the church, can stand in the imago Christi? Can it be only men, or would that be to confuse the universal Christ with the Jesus of history? There is a strong argument to say that only a ministry open to both men and women can properly represent Christ, who became, in the words of the Nicene Creed, anthropos (human), not aner (male).
7. A third strand develops the theology of creation and the new creation. The old dispensation has God creating human kind, male and female in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). Men and women have an equal dignity, and male and female are seen as complementary. Thus far we travel together. But if complementarity means differentiation of the two sexes by function, as is clearly expressed in Cardinal Kasper’s paper, what does this have to say about how men and women are together made in the image and likeness of God? The true complementarity of the new creation surely envisages men and women working together, representing the unity of the divine image together, in a way that makes the kind of complementarity that Cardinal Kasper speaks of look more like a kind of Modalism. Certainly the place of the Virgin Mary in the theology of the Victorines is more robust than the traditionally passive one. When Hugh of St Victor describes Mary’s part in the birth of the Saviour in De Sacramentis, he says
‘Nor is the Holy Spirit himself to be called the father of Christ because his love operated the conception of the virgin, since He did not contribute the seed to the foetus of His own essence to the virgin but provided substance to the Virgin herself from her own flesh through his love and virtue.’
8. A further strand acknowledges the ‘dynamic nature of tradition’, and develops the notion of apostolicity in an eschatological direction, where it becomes more important to consider the church’s apostolic witness not just in terms of historical perspective but as a sign of a redeemed creation. If there is ‘an apostolic procession to the end of time’, then women and men have an equally significant contribution to make to the apostolic mission of the church now, in the apostolic order.
The Faith as the Church of England has Received it
The faith that the Church of England has received is, as already indicated, the apostolic faith uniquely revealed in holy scripture, set forth in the catholic creeds, and witnessed by our historic formularies, including the Ordinal. It focuses on Jesus himself, and his unveiling of the Father through his kingdom-announcement and his death and resurrection, and on the sending of the Spirit through whom his followers are enabled to bear witness to him throughout the world. Announcing the Son in the power of the Spirit is the foundation of all Christian, new-covenant ministry. There is ample evidence in the earliest Christianity known to us that this ministry was shared by women. Nothing in holy scripture, the catholic creeds, or our historic formularies makes it necessary to go against this primal witness.
How we move forward in these matters is a question of appropriate and careful strategy, granted our calling to guard the unity of the church. That we may, and indeed must, move forward is a conviction that can be reached, not on the basis of a casual or sloppy attitude to scripture and theology, nor in disregard for our ecumenical partners, but out of a deep conviction rooted in the gospel itself. It may be that the prophetic witness in this matter to which the Church of England is, we believe, called is a greater contribution to the unity of the whole people of God for which our Lord prayed so deeply.
*Women Bishops: A Response to Cardinal Kasper by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham and David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury. A background article written for the discussions at General Synod, York, July 2006.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
The following passages are excerpts from a document called Women Bishops: A Response to Cardinal Kasper (a background article written for the discussions at General Synod, York, July 2006) by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham and David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury. I bring this to your attention as the result of the very fruitful discussion centered on the question “What is Anglicanism.” I do not offer any commentary on the text below, and have decided to highlight the following paragraphs for discussion because they relate to our previous discussion on Anglicanism and present the following: (1) an Anglican understanding of unity, (2) a discussion of women’s ordination in a non-polemical tone and free of the common rhetoric, and (3) the Anglican view of the relation between Scripture and tradition.
I am particularly interested in hearing from Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics (as well as other thoughtful contributors) on anything that directly relates to (1)-(3) as set out in paragraphs 7-10 below. Critical, explanatory, or other constructive comments are welcomed; however, I do plan to moderate the comments (as usual) and will despotically delete any that are in my opinion lacking substance and are simply rhetorically charged (from either side).
In part II, I will post excerpts from the second half of the document, which attempts to sketch some of the exegetical reasons for the Anglican position on the ordination of women.
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Excerpts from “Women Bishops: A Response to Cardinal Kasper”
[7] The question of Cardinal Kasper bringing a distinctively Roman perspective to Anglican affairs is also revealed in his remarks about unity, and about the role of the ordained ministry, and particularly of bishops, in engendering communion within that. The Anglican tradition takes its role as a ‘bridge’ seriously, and we too believe that we must work for, discern and enhance that unity for which Jesus prayed. But we do not believe that eucharistic unity (’communion’ in that sense) is only attainable when there is full recognition of ministries, and all are in communion with the see of Rome. In Anglican theology, unity is achieved by our saying yes to God’s gracious invitation to his table. It is because we are one with God through being caught up in Christ’s one perfect self-offering to the Father that we have unity with one another, rather than communion with God being a consequence of our union with one another. We, in other words, are inclined to see eucharistic sharing not as the goal at the end of the ecumenical pilgrimage where God is waiting for us, but as the path of that pilgrimage itself, along which he accompanies us on the way. We would base our theology of union within the Godhead on a dynamic incorporation into the divine life of the Holy Trinity, rather more than on a sacramental theology based on the validity of the sacrament confected by one who has the authority to do so; and we would prefer to see debates about orders within the frame of mutual eucharistic hospitality, rather than the other way around. In this regard, we would look to Galatians 2, with its clear teaching that all who believe in Jesus Christ belong at the same table, no matter what their cultural background.
[8] There also needs to be further discussion on the nature of Catholicity. What was distinctive of the Church of the New Testament and the early centuries was that, unlike many other religious movements of the time, it was not based on race or profession. It broke through social but also natural divisions such as age and gender. It did this above all in its foundational, Eucharistic life, as we learn from I Corinthians 11, and from that basis its total life was formed. The Church today in its local existence must continue to embrace people of a wide variety of different types and kinds, including people with diverse opinions. This is, indeed, what is constitutive of the Church’s Catholicity, as has amply been demonstrated by the Greek Orthodox theologian, John Zizioulas,[1] who writes “the eucharistic community was in its composition a catholic community in the sense that it transcended not only social but also natural divisions, just as it will happen in the Kingdom of God of which this community was a revelation and a real sign”. The Augustinian understanding of Catholicity as universal overtook the more ancient Pauline and Ignatian understanding of Catholicity as inclusive. Wholeness is of the very essence of Church and without it the Church is not what she is called to be.
[9] In discussing the source of the Church’s authority, the Cardinal comes close at times to saying that it is only through the lens of the Church’s tradition that scripture can be read. That has never been the Anglican position on the balance between scripture and tradition. Our formulation, carefully balanced, is that the faith we profess is a faith ‘uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures, set forth in the Catholic creeds, and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness.’ Our formularies continue with this historically based mission imperative: ‘the Church…led by the Holy Spirit…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, …and is called upon to proclaim [this faith] afresh in each generation.’ This commitment to proclaim the faith afresh is a challenge to pursue those developments in the Church’s life which are consonant with scripture and are found to be life-giving. In the end, the arbiter is the sensus fidei, the entire body of the faithful, as was pointed out to Pius IX in 1848 by the Eastern Patriarchs in their Encyclical: “the protector of religion is the very body of the Church, even the people themselves”. The faithful are the ultimate guardians of Tradition and the faith.
[10] Thus, while the Cardinal declares that the Roman Catholic Church is convinced that she has no authority for ordaining women, the Anglican church would characteristically say that if this undoubted innovation can be shown to follow from, or be contained in, scripture, then that is sufficient authority whether or not the subsequent tradition of the church has allowed it. This is not to be cavalier with tradition, to which we give a very high regard; merely to insist that (since, as Aquinas himself insisted, ‘tradition’ is the deposit of what the church has said as it has read scripture) it must always take second place to scripture – the whole of the scriptural revelation and not just a selection of ‘proof texts’ – itself. This is the method which Anglicans have classically embraced, and which we attempt to follow as a fundamental theological method.
Notes
[1] John Zizioulas:
Being as Communion, SVSP, NY, 1985,p. 152 and more generally pp.149-154. See also
John Zizioulas: The ecclesiological presuppositions of the Holy Eucharist (Nicolaus 10, 1982). ‘This Pauline ecclesiology which identifies Church and Eucharist so closely is developed further by St Ignatius of Antioch. What characterises Ignatius in particular is that the Eucharist does not simply make the local catholic community into the Church, but that it makes it the catholic Church (katholike ecclesia), that is, the full and integral body of Christ. It would not be an exaggeration to say that for Ignatius the catholicity of the Church derives from the celebration of the Eucharist. And this allows Ignatius to apply the term ‘catholic Church’ to the local community. Each local eucharistic community presided over by the bishop surrounded by the college of presbyters and assisted by the deacons, in the presence of the multitude (
plethos), the people, constitutes the ‘catholic Church’ precisely because in it the total Christ is found in the form of the Eucharist.After Ignatius the preoccupation of the Church with the danger of Gnosticism and other heresies forced her to emphasise orthodoxy as the fundamental and decisive ingredient of ecclesiology. Thus, the relation between Church and Eucharist seems to be weakened to some extent in the writers of the second century, though it is not absent from their thought. The situation is exemplified by St Irenaeus who regards orthodoxy as fundamental to ecclesiology while making the Eucharist the criterion of catholicity: ‘Our faith (belief: gnome) is in accordance with the Eucharist and the Eucharist confirms our faith’ (Adv Haereses 4.8,5). It is mainly for this reason that in all ancient writers before St Augustine each local Church is called catholic, the full and integral body of Christ.With St Augustine something seems to change in this respect. Striving with the provincialism of the Donatists, for the first time the term ‘catholic Church’ acquires the meaning, not of the local Church, but of the Church universal. This gives catholicity the meaning of universality, and with it a quantitative and geographical content instead of the original qualitative one.’
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been preparing for an upcoming conference on Christian friendship and have been contemplating the possible ways in which Christian friendship and claims specific to Christianity are superior to claims found in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Below is a new possibility that I am considering addressing in my paper.
As John 15 declares, Christ informs his disciples of a radical change in their relationship with Him, viz., they are no longer called servants, but are now called friends because they have been brought into the circle of intertrinitarian love. With this claim, we encounter a concept of vertical and horizontal friendship that is not possible on Aristotle’s view. Not only has a way been opened up for the most intimate communion between God and human beings-a relationship in which Aristotle’s god (noesis noeseos) has no interest-but also on the horizontal level, those who accept the Trinitarian God’s invitation of friendship are proclaimed both as equals with reference to one another ontologically speaking and with regard to their status before God. If we compare St. Paul’s claim in Galatians 3:28[1] with Aristotle’s view of the moral superiority of men over women in book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, the contrast is striking. According to St. Paul, “[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28, ESV).”[2] Whereas Aristotle, although placing the husband/wife relationship under a type of virtuous friendship, he nonetheless further qualifies this relationship as unequal because the male is taken to be the superior partner, who confers a greater benefit on the female, and therefore, ought to be loved more than he loves (1158b13-29).[3] As John M. Cooper explains,
Aristotle’s idea seems to be that men as such are morally superior to women, so that a friendship between the absolutely best man and the absolutely best woman, each recognized as such, would be an unequal friendship. In such a friendship the disparity in goodness does not imply any deficiency on the side of the lesser person with respect to her own appropriate excellences; she will be perfect of her kind, but the kind in question is inherently lower (emphasis added).[4]
In other words, for Aristotle, female qua female is in some way inherently deficient and the assumed human standard of perfection is the male. On St. Paul’s view to assert that either a male or a female believer is somehow intrinsically lacking or that one is superior in nature to the other would involve serious soteriological, anthropological, and Christological problems. After all, the Christian claim is that fellowship with the Father comes only through union with the Son by way of the Spirit. To suggest, for example, that female Christians are deficient because they are of an intrinsically lower kind would be in some significant way to downgrade their status as human beings, and consequently, to deny that both male and female are created in God’s image. Such a position seems to entail at least the following rather unpleasant theological consequences. For example, being less than human, how could women fully partake in the redemption effected by Christ who became everything that human beings are excepting sin? In addition, such a degraded view of women would no doubt have serious ramifications in connection with a proper understanding of the importance of Mary’s role in the history of redemption.
Up to this point, I have only addressed the equality between genders with relation to friendships among Christians. As one would expect, this exclusivity naturally raises the question of how or whether this equality translates to non-Christian females. Although an honest Christian would have to admit that the Church has been inconsistent and has often failed to recognize that by virtue of their creation imago Dei, which is essential to human beings qua human beings, all men and women (whether Christian or not) are created equal in nature and possess an intrinsic value. From a Christian perspective, one would also have to affirm that male/female friendships between Christians and non-Christians, though genuine and often long-lasting are in a significant sense incomplete because the two do not share faith in Christ. However, that which is found wanting in such friendships has nothing to do with a putative gender deficiency, but everything to do with whether or not one has by grace through Christ entered into intimate fellowship with the Triune God. And as St. Paul makes emphatically clear, entrance into such a relationship with God is not the result of any intellectual, moral, or other alleged superiority on the part of the Christian (Eph 2:8-9; 1 Cor 1:20-31).[5]
Notes
[1] N.T. Wright argues that it is significant that Paul in
Gal 3:28 says, “no male and female,” rather than the common mistranslation, “neither male nor female,” because he is actually quoting
Gen 1:27. With this Wright is emphatically not suggesting that Paul is advocating an undoing of the creation order, or that we adopt of a kind of gnostic perspective so as to deal with gender differences, or that we have moved into a kind of enlightened, sexless, genderless view of humanity. Rather, Wright’s argument “is that Paul’s main point in this passage is that God has one family, not two, and that this family consists of all those who believe in Jesus, that this is the family God promised to Abraham, and that nothing in the Torah can stand in the way of this unity which is now revealed through the faithfulness of the Messiah” (p. 5). Wright goes on to say that Paul “is controverting in particular those who wanted to enforce Jewish regulations, and indeed Jewish ethnicity, upon Gentile converts. Remember the synagogue prayer in which the man who prays thanks God that he has not made him a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. I think Paul is deliberately marking out the family of Abraham reformed in the Messiah as a people who cannot pray that prayer, since within this family these distinctions are now irrelevant.The presenting issue in Galatians is male circumcision. We sometimes think of circumcision as a painful obstacle for converts, as indeed in some ways it was; but for those who embraced circumcision, it was a matter of pride and privilege. It not only distinguished Jews from Gentiles; it also distinguished them in a way that automatically privileged males. By contrast, imagine the thrill of equality brought about by baptism, the identical rite for Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. And that’s not all. Though this is somewhat more speculative, the story of Abraham’s family did of course privilege the male line of descent: Isaac, Jacob, and so on. What we find in Paul, both in
Galatians 4 and in
Romans 9, is careful attention-rather like
Matthew 1, in fact, though from a different angle-to the women in the story. If those in Christ are the true family of Abraham, which is the point of the whole story, then the manner of this identity and unity takes a quantum leap beyond the way in which first-century Judaism construed them, bringing male and female together as surely and as equally as Jew and Gentile. What Paul seems to do in this passage, then, is rule out any attempt to perpetuate male privilege in Abraham’s family by an appeal to Genesis 1, as though someone were to say, ‘But of course the male line is what matters, and of course male circumcision is what counts, because God made male and female.’ No, says Paul, none of that counts when it comes to membership in the renewed people of Abraham” (p. 6). N.T. Wright, “The Biblical Basis for Women’s Service in the Church,”
Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 5-10. (This article is available online at:
http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/pdf_files/wright_biblical_basis.pdf).
[2] This is not to suggest that maleness and femaleness are eradicated and that what remains is a kind of genderless individual. One possible way that a Christian might begin to successfully navigate the commonness and difference between males and females is to proffer a Trinitarian analogy. That is, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal in nature, they exhibit different functions.[3] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (VIII.7), p. 152.
[4] Cooper, “Aristotle on Friendship,” p. 307, as found in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics.
[5] “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9, ESV). “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:20-31, ESV).
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:20-28, ESV).
Below are selected moments from Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage.
“The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A human being had got it into this mess; a human being would get it out again. The story of Genesis 1-3—the strange, haunting tale of a wonderful world spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures—is in Paul’s mind throughout this long chapter” (Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, p. 212). After rehearsing a kind of mini redemptive-historical narrative, St. Paul begins to discuss the coming of God’s kingdom. Many Jews of St. Paul’s longed for the coming of God’s kingdom—for the day when “God would become king over the whole world, restoring Israel to glory, defeating the nations that had oppressed God’s people for so long, and raising all the righteous dead to share in the new world” (p. 212). For St. Paul, with the resurrection of Christ, this day had in a very real sense been inaugurated, yet, in a way that took him totally by surprise. “Instead of all God’s people being raised at the end of history, one person had been raised in the middle of history. That was the shocking, totally unexpected thing. But this meant that the coming of God’s kingdom was happening in two phases” (p. 213). When St. Paul speaks of each occurring “in his own order,” he has in mind both the order of events and God’s final ordering (p. 213). The former, viz., the order of events, speaks of Jesus’ present reign as the risen Lord and King. Yet, the “purpose of this reign—to defeat all the enemies that have defaced, oppressed and spoiled God’s magnificent world, and his human creatures in particular—has not yet been accomplished. One day this task will be complete: the final enemy, death itself, will be defeated (verse 26), and God will be ‘all in all’ (verse 28)” (p. 213).
Then we move to the final ordering where we have a picture of a world “put back to rights.” Here St. Paul appeals to two psalms, and weaves together a Messianic mosaic manifesting to us what we as imago Dei were created to be and do. “Psalm 110, quoted in verse 25, is about the king whom God will place at his right hand until all his enemies are brought into subjection. This, Paul declares, is now being fulfilled in Jesus. Psalm 8, quoted in verse 27, belongs closely with this, speaking of God ‘putting all things into order under his feet’ [Wright’s translation]. But instead of talking about the Messiah, as Psalm 110 does, Psalm 8 talks about the human being. This role, of being under God and over the world, is not just the task of the Messiah; it’s what God had in mind from the very start when he created human beings in his own image. This is how Paul ties the passage tightly together: the achievement of the Messiah, and his present reign in which he is bringing the world back to order, is the fulfillment of what God intended humans to do (see verse 21). The story told in Genesis is completed by the story told in the Psalms” (p. 214). Our enemy, death, of course plays a crucial role in this story; however, death does not have the final word. Rather, the Final Word has the final word and death is silenced. He is Risen!
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
“Over the last generation in Western culture, truth has been like the rope in a tug-of-war contest. On the one hand, some want to reduce all truth to ‘facts,’ things which can be proved in the way you can prove that oil is lighter than water, or even that two and two make four. On the other hand, some believe that all truth is relative, and that all claims to truth are merely coded claims to power. Ordinary mortals, dimly aware of this tug-of-war, and its social, cultural, and political spin-offs, may well feel some uncertainty about what truth is, while still knowing that it matters.
The sort of thing we could and should mean by ‘truth’ will vary according to what we’re talking about. If I want to go into town, it matters whether the person who has told me to take the number 53 bus is speaking the truth or not. But by no means all truth is of that kind, or testable in the same way. If there’s any truth lying behind the quest for justice, it is that the world isn’t meant to be morally chaotic; but what do we mean by ‘meant,’ and how would we know? If there’s any truth in the thirst for spirituality, it could be simply that humans find satisfaction in exploring a ‘spiritual’ dimension to their lives, or it could be that we are made for relationship with another Being who can only be known that way. And, talking of relationships, the ‘truth’ of a relationship is in the relationship itself, in being ‘true to’ one another, which is considerably more than (though presumably it includes) telling each other the truth about the number 53 bus. As for beauty, we cannot collapse ‘truth’ into ‘beauty’ without running the risk of deconstructing truth by pointing out, as we did earlier, the fragility and ambiguity of the beauty we know here and now.
What we mean by ‘know’ is likewise in need of further investigation. To ‘know’ the deeper kinds of truth we have been hinting at is much more like ‘knowing’ a person—something which takes a long time, a lot of trust, and a good deal of trial and error—and less like ‘knowing’ about the right bus to take into town. It’s a kind of knowing in which the subject and the object are intertwined, so that you could never say that is was either purely subjective or purely objective.
One good word for this deeper and richer kind of knowing, the kind that goes with the deeper and richer kind of truth, is ‘love’” (Simply Christian, pp. 50-51).
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In chapter 4 of N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, he presents a nice illustration of the incomplete beauty that we encounter in our world in its present state. He describes a collector who was rummaging through an attic in a small Austrian town and happened to come across what seemed to be an unknown score of Mozart. Elated, the collector informed his friends and soon someone was sitting at a piano and attempting to play the piece. As it turns out, the work was indeed Mozart, however, there were numerous places that were left blank and some that were impossible to make out. What they had found was simply one part (the piano part) to a larger work. “What they are looking at is indeed by Mozart. It is indeed beautiful. But it’s the piano part of a piece that involves another instrument, or perhaps other instruments. By itself it is frustratingly incomplete. A further search of the attic reveals nothing else that would provide a clue. The piano music is all there is, a signpost to something that was there once and might still turn up one day. […] This is the position we are in when confronted by beauty. The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice—a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call ‘beautiful.’” (p. 40).
