Thanks Swithun for the reminder of Roger Pooley and Philip Seddon's valuable reader in Christian spirituality.

And Bowman, thank you for the references to Richard Rohr's work.  I downloaded his paper, 'Contemplation and Compassion: The Second Gaze' and found here some useful prompters.

He quotes Gerald May's words: 'Contemplation happens to everyone.  It happens in moments we are open, undefended, and immediately present' and then, in contrast, Rohr confesses his own immediate response to situations is 'attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis.'  This is what he calls the "first gaze" and, following Merton, he sees this response as a mark of the "false self".

On his better days, Rohr can be 'open, undefended, and immediately present'.  Here there is contemplation rather than calculation, he says.  This "second gaze" is where he is in touch with his "true self".

Once more, I suggest, we can equate these two gazes with left- and right-brain activity: the first gaze being left-brained with its analytical, controlling, defended stance; the second gaze being right-brained with its undefended, empathetic and creative turn.

Rohr contends that we need the second gaze of contemplation to tackle life's problems and find their resolution.  In practice, I suspect we need the attempted analysis of the first gaze and yet also need to test any tentative conclusions drawn with the second gaze of silent, reflective contemplation.

For Rohr, in his later life, 'Contemplation and compassion are finally coming together.'  This 'second gaze', he writes, 'is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully.  It sees itself, the other and even God with God's own eyes, whch are always eyes of compassion.'

In several places in Andrew's summary of the FAOC report, he challenges 'revisionists' 'to offer a theological rationale for their alternative innovative definition.'

Genesis 2 is of course clear in that its final verses reveal the grounds for sexul intimacy and commitment between a man and a woman in a union that we understand as marriage.  However, this is not to be seen as a template for every human being as, for example, the Bible  gives examples of those called to being single and also honours friendship as another prized form of relating.

Gareth Moore raises an alternative understanding of Genesis 2 in his A Question of Truth.  His views necessitate a careful re-reading of the unfolding narrative.  Here we see:

• God observes the loneliness of Adam, the representative human being, and declares, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."
• God then adopts an experimental approach, bringing to Adam 'every animal of the field and every bird of the air' to be named and to see if any of these creatures would meet Adam's need.  We then read, 'but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner'.
• God's commitment to Adam is to find a partner that will delight him and his next project, the creation of Eve, does the trick!

From such observations of the text, Moore emphasizes that it is God's intention, through a series of trial-and-errors, to being the reprersentative human being delight, for it is not good that he should be alone.  It so happens that it is a woman who is the celebrated and much-welcomed partner and Moore concedes that that is typically the case: most men prefer a woman as partner; most women a man.  However, as we know, this is not exclusively so.

This longing of God, to bring happiness to the first man, is reflected on as follows by Moore:

'Because God is at the service of the delight of Adam...we must suppose that he is also at the service of the delight of men whose heart is gladdend by a man and of women who delight in a woman.  Just as God is shown here taking seriously the need of Adam for a fit partner, a partner whom he will receive with joy, so, we must suppose, he takes seriously the need of lesbians and gay men for a partner whom they will receive with joy.  When God notices that it is not good that Adam be alone, he does not simply remark "Too bad; he will just have to put up with it" ... God does not say either of homosexuals that it's just too bad, they will just have to put up with their solitude.  It is here that we see the final bankruptcy of the compulsory heterosexuality interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve' (p.143).

For many this will look like special pleading but, I suggest, Moore's understanding should be taken seriously in the theological debate that Andrew rightly looks for in relation to the report of Men and Women in Marriage.

Bowman, thank you for your most recent and, as ever, erudite contribution.  I greatly appreciate your analysis of 'ours' and theirs'.  I am sure your friend Calvin, with his understanding of 'general revelation', would affirm that what is 'ours' and 'theirs' is, ultimately, God's.  Ellen F Davis, writing on the Book of Ecclesiastes, makes a similar point: 'It is likely that the most acute spiritual vision belongs to the person who loves the world, recognizes that it proceeds from God, and yet can smile at its limits and especially at human limitations in understanding the world.'

Thank you too for your affirmation of a wider circle of feminists such as Julia Kristeva.  'Theirs' has much to teach those of us who  spend too much time on 'ours'.

William Countryman offers a valuable hermeneutic tool, not only relevant to our debate on women bishops but also on 'that topic'.  He sees the 'practice of interpretation' as a 'triangular conversation' between 'the text, the interpreter, and the community with which the interpreter communicates.'  This is how he summarizes his 'three horizons' approach, in which 'ours' and 'theirs' are incorporated:

'While this is a daunting prospect for any student of Scripture, it is also the one most worth pursuing.  It calls for a widening of our horizons, an inclusiveness of vision, a transcending of disciplinary and ideological boundaries.  It looks toward the possibility that the conversation between ancient texts and modern communities may yet be full of surprise and discovery.'

Andrew, thank you for your response of 22nd March to my earlier post, in which you agree, to some extent, on the leadership of Deborah, Priscilla and, possibly, Junia, but add, 'The others I don't accept as being in a position of leadership over men.'  I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply but, nonetheless, I have been following and appreciating further posts on this thread.

With respect to the women of the OT and NT (I see God's dealings with Israel and the Church in connected continuity) I mentioned. following Fern's post, I take your point questioning their leadership roles.  However, it all depends on our understanding of leadership.  Many of these women held roles of great influence and, although they functioned in patriarchal societies, their words and actions often showed greater wisdom than the men in their lives.  Let me take two examples.

Eli the priest demonstrated male prejudice when he wrongly assumed that the fervently praying Hannah was drunk!  Further, she countered her husband Elkanah by declining to accompany him to the yearly sacrifice, giving the priority to her commitment to Yahweh to present Samuel once he was weaned.

Esther showed great pragmatism, outmanoeuvring the anti-Semitic Haman, and courage in the court of King Ahasuerus, risking her own life to save her fellow-Jews, declaring, "If I perish, I perish" (Ester 4:16).

My views on the place of women in the Bible and the trajectory (to use DavidR's word) they offer towards our debate on women biships are as follows:

• Women and men are God's co-image bearers in general and co-partners in marriage (Genesis 1 and 2);
• The subjection and subjugation of women is one of the distortions of God's 'blue-print' for humanity following the Fall.  Genesis 3 is descrptive of that domination, not prescriptive;
• In spite of the pre-dominance of patriarchy through much of the biblical record, certain women's voices emerge influentially and powerfully;
• Christ's new creation begins the restoration of women and men to play their full part in co-operative leadership and ministry.  We see examples of this emerging in the Gospels, in Acts and the Epistles.  Galatians 3:28 is the Credo for this development.
• The seeds of this new flourishing are sown in the NT and its fruit-bearing is with us today, if we will allow it.  Just as St Paul made concessionary statements within the context of the 1st century Church (as discussed on this thread) with regard to masters and slaves, so he did with respect to husbands and wives.  In time we learned to move beyond mastery and slavery.  At last we are learning to move beyond headship and unilateral submission.

Further Andrew, on 25th April, you wrote, 'Feminism in the church only hinders us by undermining the believers' confidence in the bible by pretending that the scriptures do not mean what they obviously do mean.'

I feel that it is too sweeping to talk of feminism this way, since it is a 'movement' that has many voices and insights.  Many Christian feminists take Scripture very seriously indeed and offer refreshing and neglected perspectives.  Take, for example, the writings of Sarah Coakley, Zoe Bennett Moore and Fulcrum's own Elaine Storkey.

Finally, thank you to djr and DavidR for the helpful references to Kenneth Bailey.  As a result, I have ordered his book.   Phil, do take DavidR's advice and do the same...

Thank you Gordon for your measured review of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' legacy.  As with Bowman, your piece stirred memories and associations.  I appreciate too Dave's reference to Jim Packer's gracious words and the validity of User 196's acclamation of MLJ's ministry.

I was a medical student at Bart's hospital, London, in the late 1950s and vividly remember the adulation amongst some of my contemporaries towards 'The Doctor' and his sermons at Westminster Chapel.  In fairness to MLJ I never heard him preach but recall the way his expositions were hailed for their seemingly inordinate length and for the brevity of the single word or brief text that was focussed on.  There is no doubt his style was valued and clearly his listeners were helped.

I recall too MLJ's resolute view that 'conservative Evangelicals' should secede from their denominational commitment and John Stott's wise cautionary note on the matter.  The 1950s and 1960s were yet another period in Church history when secession was in the air.  A medical colleague during that time urged fellow Methodists to step away from the mainstream, with its conversations with Anglicanism, and form a new grouping, becoming the Methodist Revival Fellowship in 1967.

Such excluding drives seem the polar opposite of Christ's desire expressed in John 17:21, 'that they may all be one'.  The utopian view that there is such a thing as a 'pure Church' has pockmarked the story of God's people repeatedly.  Such a goal is seductively idealistic and deeply divisive.

The recall of this aspect of MLJ's views in the 20th century is a timely warning against the splintering of the Church that a number still seek in the pursuit of an uncontaminated orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

Fern, thank you for your excellent response to Andrew.  You write, 'There are about 25 to 30 women mentioned in the Bible  who hold some sort of governing power.  Some were good rulers and some bad, just like the men.  There is no suggestion that any of them were wrongfully in power because of their sex or that the wielding of power by such women is contrary to their nature or the divine order.'

Yes, I quite agree.  The Bible from Genesis Chapter 1 onwards celebrates women, in spite of the inroads of male sexism as a result of the 'Fall'.  In Genesis 1, women and men are co-image bearers of God; in Genesis 2, they are co-partners before God.  Through the figures of, amongst others, Miriam, Rahab, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Ruth, Esther, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Lydia, Dorcas, Priscilla, Phoebe, the voices of women are heard.  The only developed characterization in the Book of Proverbs is that of women.  It seems that, in spite of male dominance since Genesis 3, many of these women were clearly called by God and a number were in positions of authority, commanding or advising men.  It is interesting to observe that, in the Acts of the Apostles, we at first meet 'Aquila and Piscilla' and later 'Priscilla and Aquila' (see, too, Romans 16:3), indicating at least the possibility of Priscilla's increasing dominance in the marriage.

Isn't this whole discussion, and its parallels on other threads, a point of issue between those who give primacy to two or three verses, whose understanding is much debated, and those who seek to pick up the Bible's overall message?  For some, the individual trees are given the priority; for others the shaping of the whole wood is acknowledged, and celebrated.

Alithos anesti Bowman!  Welcome back!  You write, 'Part of the pilgrim Church's faithfulness through time is her rejection of false proposals from a society's blind spots, whether right or left, nostalgic or futuristic, populist or elitist.  Since the totalising narcissism of "the way we live now" is surely not the criterion for such faithfulness, perhaps you could point us toward criteria that you see as more holy and wise?  And what should be said from that better perspective to those many who really do yearn for a progressivist, presentist, narcissistic faith that would be, to them, so much more credible,  but to many of us, so credulous and so dangerous?'

Thank you for these wise words.  Certainly the mindset that completely prioritizes 'the way we live now' as the criterion for faithful Christian living is essentially bankrupt.  Even so, an orthodox approach that is progressive will, at its best, take note of contemporary insight and experience and reflect on these in the light of biblical perspectives.  God, surely, still speaks into our lives as we sift present perceptions and attitudes, whether they be rampant consumerism, the elevation of market forces as life's ultimate paradigm, or the current headlining of the press that distorts understanding of the plight of immigrants, the unemployed, the disabled and all those whose struggles depend on certain benefits.

You state that many today have a yearning for 'a progressivist, presentist, narcissistic faith'.  Certainly, where our contemporaries (sadly including a number of us within the Church) elevate any notion of 'progress' as an idol, hold to an uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes and see self-fulfilment as the be all and end all of life, then we should see such thinking as 'credulous and dangerous', to use your words.  However, I'm sure too that there are many in society whose yearning looks for good and godly progress, recognizes what is worthy in contemporary life and seeks to move beyond selfism to find meaning in a Higher Being.

You ask me whether I could point toward criteria that I see as 'more holy and wise'.  I hesitate here to try for any ultimate answers!  I am at the moment studying the Book of Proverbs with the help of Ellen F Davis's excellent commentary, suggested to me by DavidR.  Here she demonstrates the rigours and subtleties of the sages' wise sayings and the way their wisdom echoes into the struggles and desires of our life today.  From this material I have gleaned something of the following:

• Our need to hear the voices of contemporary women and their wisdom, concerning the beauty and fragility of the Creation, the call to creativity, the need for us to rediscover play and laughter (remembering Jesus' words about becoming like little children), the call to practical compassion for the poor and a deep resistance to violence, especially towwards women and children worldwide (see Proverbs, 4, 8 and 31).
• Our need to rediscover prayerfulness for our leaders and institutions and to sort out fact from fiction about such in the media.
• To be reminded of Proverbs' foundational teaching that 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'.  Davis writes: 'Acting in accordance with our proper fear of the Lord means putting God's preferences before our own.  Such a reversal of our natural priorities is what the Bible calls "humility"...'
• To avoid gossip and to remember that 'a healing tongue is a tree of life' to others.
• To value solitude.

We need, I feel, to continually check our orthodoxy in the light of Scripture and, at the same time, to be progressive in imaginative and God-centred approaches to our life today.

Thank you John, Richard, David and Phil for your recent posts and a special thank you to you, Angela, for your wise contribution.

Phil, I am intrigued by your persistence in putting forward the wrath of God repeatedly as if it was the first thing we should say about his character.  Fortunately for us all, John 3:16 does not declare, 'For God was so wrathful towards the world that he gave his only begotten Son,' the Psalms do not declare that Yahweh is 'quick to anger,' and John's first epistle does not proclaim, "God is wrath'.

This is not to deny the reality of God's wrath but to see that that is superseded and assuaged by his love, so wondrously epressed in the coming, life, death and resurrection of his Son.  Paul summarizes the priority of God's love over wrath most convincingly:

'All of us once lived among [the disobedient] in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.  But (and this is a very big 'But') God, who is rich in mercy, out of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him... (Eph. 2:3-6).

Thanks Phil for your response.  I quite agree with you that God does not change.  As Hebrews 13:8 has it: 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.'

And yet God's immutability is not a frozen state that is changeless, in that he clearly changes in response to human behaviour and need: in response to prayer, obediance and wisdom, as well as to wilfulness, disobedience and folly.  For example, Psalm 18:24-7 says, 'Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the character of my hands in his sight.  With the loyal you show yourself loyal; with the blameless you show yourself blameless; with the pure you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.  For you deliver a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.'

Another example is of Yahweh 'changing his mind' in relation to Abraham's heartfelt pleading for the people of Sodom, in which he bargains with God over the number of 'righteous in the city' that will lead to God withholding his destruction (Genesis 18).

Can we not say that God in his essence does not change, although in his willingness and desire for relationship with human beings he does change in responsive ways.  Further, you write that 'The facts of Christianity do not change...'.  Is it not true, rather, that the 'facts of Christianity' do change in the sense that  God's people are on a journey of discovery concerning the mystery of God and his ways.  Thus, Church history is chequered with fresh insights, awakenings, clarifications, as well as misunderstandings and obfuscation, in relation to God's character and being.

Meanwhile, a happy Easter to you all.

Our discussion on this thread has been silent for over a month so I thought I'd contribute again to see if we can pursue the debate over our orthodoxy and its contemporary expression.  Richard W made a valuable point in response to Carl on 9th February: 'In my opinion this is why that oft-cited need of being relevant is in fact of the utmost importance.  A factually accurate but irrevelevant faith is no better than converse.'

This is where the 'need of being relevant' requires us to revisit the tradition from time to time, as has been clearly seen in the challenging of the slave trade, Apartheid and the place of women in the Church.  I came across a pertinent piece this morning by Ellen F Davis in the context of the Book of Proverbs.  She expresses well our need to be 'progressive' in our orthodoxy.

'Tradition is neither immutable nor closed.  On the contrary, it must grow and change in order to be "tradition, " literally "(a process of) passing on" from mind to mind, and not merely an artefact preserved in a history book.  Tradition is the shared learning of the community over time.  Consequently, an important function of tradition is to make us aware of the extent to which our feelings and understandings are limited by our personal circumstances and location in time.  Inevitably the consensus of the community shifts at various points, when social and historical changes confront us with instances in which the old wisdom does not work, or perhaps when social norms no longer require us to hide painful aspects of our experience.  Then it is the work of new "sages" to investigate, reflect, teach, and write, ad thus to foster the emergence of a new consensus' (Ellen F Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, p.88).

Dare I say it, that there are 'new "sages"' who are pursuing such an enquiry with regard to our brothers and sisters in Christ who are gay and who seek to live in accorance with that self-understanding and its consequences.

In the interview with Huw Edwards yesterday, Justin Welby, before his enthronement, was asked about the 'E' word.  He replied that he had some difficulty with the label 'Evangelical' as it came with so much 'baggage.'  He prefered to declare himself as an orthodox Christian, one who could recite the Creed without needing to cross his fingers!  He conceded that he did see himself as an 'evagelical' (with a small 'e'), although he did not subscribe to all the characteristics that evangelicals are known by, his own spirituality looking to the full range of Christian traditions. 

Being an oblate of the order of St Benedict, it was salutary to hear, at the service in Canterbury Cathedral, the two Collects for the day: one for St Benedict, the other for Thomas Cranmer.  These two figures represent well the scale and sweep of Archbishop Justin's Christian orthodoxy.

Thanks Elaine for your summary of the Emerging Markets Symposium at which you contributed.  You write, 'We...found when countries did become more gender-inclusive in areas of economics, health, education and decision-making they enjoyed faster growth, better health outcomes and less political instability.'

This reality accords well with the 'valorous woman' of Proverbs 31:10-31, whose economic activity is a mark of gender-inclusiveness.  Ellen F. Davis points out that this poem is an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew, whereby the industrious wife is praised "from A to Z."

Davis says that, in v.11, the Hebrew literally reads, 'her husband...does not lack booty', implying that her gain 'is hard-won, through [her] courage and ingenuity.'  Further, 'Through her work in building up the household, she emerges as an important public figure.'

This wise woman also 'speaks with religious authority: "the teaching [torah} of lovingkindness is on her tongue" (v.26)'  In this covenantal language, 'she offers torah, religious instruction of the highest order.' building up not only her household 'but alsos the entire community.'

Here is a woman whose wisdom and diligence would powerfully grace our House of Bishops!