Repetition, Chaos, Reset, and New Creation. Before leaving the threads on sexuality for the time being (apart from Phil's word studies), four simple points are worth making, about the whole collection of threads related, directly or indirectly, to the differentiation of the sexes.

(1)  After the gospel itself, taken at its widest scope, the way the Church collectively understands and lives the differentiation of the sexes is probably its most consequential witness. In fact, there are settings in which evangelism and discipleship that does not get this right will not get much of anything right. This is true quite apart from the controversies about it that bubble up here and there, and notwithstanding the fact that we are often quite passionately and irreformably stuck in our private understandings of it.

(2) Thankfully, much of the Church's actual witness is supporting lives well-lived, and gratitude is the frame of mind in which we should approach all of this. What churches do well, they do by Repetition of what has worked well in the past. However, Repetition without contemporary confession is increasingly a confusing witness, which makes it is harder for ordinary people to relate their given sexuality to the gospel. How the individual believer is to understand what connects "Jesus is Lord!" to the myriad details of life that are governed by sex is not clear, and at least in a general way it should be. This fuzziness in the mind is at both ends of the association. For example, the  theological incoherence that we saw in the threads on That Topic goes deeper than the narrow topic engaged and is something other than a simple dispute about scriptural authority or hermeneutics.

(3) Whilst one could see (1) and (2) from many points of view, this problem of the differentiation of the sexes is urgent in a theology that lays more stress on the Church as a people who anticipate in their lives now a New Creation wrought by God. The Old Perspective on Paul, as we might call it, has often been understood as making the individual conscience the arena within which the most important consequences of moral choice were played out in a psychomachy that was the dialectic of law and gospel. By implication, the wider and material consequences of our actions, though never denied, easily drifted to a distant background. That oversimplifies a lot, of course, but it does explain how Protestant churches were able to treat the orders of creation as a lesser concern for so long, why their values were so individualised that they inevitably secularised into libertarian deformations, and why academics have struggled through the last hundred years to clarify the principles of Protestant moral theology. However, if we agree with the New Perspective on Paul, especially as developed by Tom Wright, we cannot abuse the individual conscience as a dodge to ignore the wider concerns neglected in the past, and must instead explore a rather large territory known only in some very old maps and travellers' tales. Wright himself has been the first to scout it out, and others must move in to explore, survey, and cultivate it. The differentiation of the sexes is in that domain.

(4) To the fog of (2), there have been two main social responses-- acquiescence in Chaos, and determination to Reset-- and neither will work for us. Acquiescence in Chaos is practically the rejection of Christian hope as most of us in the village understand it. It is not true that the choices we make in our lives have no importance to Christ apart from what our consciences do with them. But Reset, the urge to just enforce harder an ideal order from the past, fails to give adequate weight to the scriptural evidence that a new status for women was integral to the reign of God as the apostles understood and lived it. Some of the change that has happened is God's revealed will. And Reset begs the question why God created time, if all that we are to do with our lives is sit in a cinema and watch the one golden movie over and over and over. God appears to like change better than many of us do. So whilst aspects of the witness that God means for the Church to have and to be should be informed by what we admire in past centuries, the task of discerning a better witness to New Creation has been entrusted to us.

Graham King's essays and links brought back many memories of "writing" icons. Most memorable was a huge concave icon of Christ the Pantokrator that we fitted into a dome a bit more than 20 metres over the centre of a church. In the typika of the East, this is where the gospel is read, baptisms are done, monks are tonsured, crowned newlyweds make the dance of Isaiah,¹ communion is given, etc. Some in Orthodoxy question, rhetorically, whether a church building is fully a church if it has no central space marked from above where the sacred actions can be performed in the midst of the crowd.² No pews; free movement.

The Pantokrator is not the usual pattern for the dome, but it is an alternative known to tradition. For me, it was a happy choice because we modelled its precise proportions and colour harmonies more particularly on those of a Pantokrator that I had admired in the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora in Istanbul ( < eis ton polu). There it anchors the glorious theological puns in the church's name, which would require another post to explain fully. You may have guessed them if you know that the Greek "chora" then meant not only "place" but also "dwelling place" and "village in the countryside near a city." Cf. "St Martin's in the Fields").

First we prayed and then we worked. I have never seen more gesso than we mixed to cover a surface four metres in diameter. And because we had to cover this surface with at least 14 layers of translucent egg tempera paint, we were constantly mixing fresh batches of paint as the colours were brushed in from the dark foundation through the layers for flesh, hair, and eyes to the highlights that modelled the face. Icons are painted "from darkness to light."

The last of the paint was applied in the natural light in the centre of the church itself, so the priest of the parish offered a Paraclesis (cf. Matins) each morning which always attracted an interesting congregation. Among them-- girls who had been told that they would be married under the Pantokrator someday. We invited each of them to paint a strand of the Lord's hair.

On the day the icon was blessed and placed in the dome, the church's walls were like veil drawn between a vigil-like concentration inside the church, and the festival of parishioners, visiting clergy, the news media, and the simply curious outside. A lamb was roasted on a spit for the occasion and served outdoors under the evening sky. The icon was secure and the high scaffolding removed by nightfall. The bishop led all inside ad began the vigil for the consecration of the church the next morning, so that most eyes saw icon for the first time in the light of hanging oil lamps.

A few months later, I was invited to see the same Pantokrator from Chora in a still better form-- glass mosaic tile coloured with precision in Murano and applied to the fresh plaster in a dome even larger than our own. What I knew as brushstrokes were known to the mosaicists as fine rows of luminous glass, who by constant checking avoided putting them in the wrong places. It is hard to explain the satisfaction that such fidelity to the traditional pattern provides. To those who recognise them, these patterns, with all their scriptural and liturgical associations, become something like the melodies of chants or hymns. Whenever you see them, all this comes to mind.

"Writing" an icon of the Lord over several weeks or months shows you exactly where your heart stands in his sight. His face has, after all, both sternness and transforming love and you spend most of your waking hours and many of your dreams watching them emerge from the layers of paint, as photographs used to emerge from a developer bath. Later in Macedonia, I discovered a tiny chapel from the same age that also had a Pantokrator. By then, I knew the brushstrokes as a pianist might know the keystrokes of a sonata, and I could see that the hands of this iconographer had been relaxed and sure.

¹ In the dance of Isaiah, the cross or the gospel book in the priest's right hand leads the priest, the husband, and the wife in three circles as the choir sings three verses about joy and martyrdom that are also sung at ordinations.

    Dance, O Isaiah, for the Virgin hath in womb and bore a Son,
    Emmanuel, God and Man, Whose name signifies the coming of the Light,
    and Whom we bless, even as we praise the Virgin.

        Holy Martyrs, who fought well and were crowned,
        intercede to the Lord
        To have mercy on our souls.

            Glory be to Thee, Christ the God,
            Boast of the Apostles, Joy of the Martyrs,
            whose preaching is the consubstantial Trinity.
 

² Some typika describe these actions as taking place in a raised area, similar in concept to a "thrust stage," that was in the centre of the church in the earliest centuries. As this has receded toward the altar in later centuries, one often sees these actions near the icon-screen in modern churches. Liturgical reformers are reviving the centre where it has been forgotten.

He deserves to be called a theologian who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God through suffering and the cross. --Martin Luther, Heidelberg Theses

Stephen's stance toward "unorthodox theology" could also be applied to theology that is inspired by one of the orthodoxies, but that attempt to better integrate received faith with scripture, devotion and practise. In acknowledging that there are inadequacies in received teaching, open evangelicals may be more faithful to its ultimate ground in the Word.

Amen, Sister Angela, this thread's title is cringeworthy indeed. I hate seeing it on my screen everyday :-( A good place for a fence to protect reasoned positions from the slippery slopes and those who would have no argument without them.)  But I respect the commentators on this thread, and I wanted to see how open evangelicalism got to the pass where we are, with a few exceptions (e.g. DavidR on That Topic), reluctant to discuss masculinity and femininity, even as we want to make a difference in a world well aware of, and often torn down the middle by, la différence.

To me, this is a strange outcome for an open evangelicalism that is more grounded in ideas of its own than an echo of liberal views. Don't most readers come away from Tom Wright's oeuvre with the sense that the distinctly Christian position on human sexuality is not reducible to equality talk alone? Yet DavidW, Iconoclast, etc. have had no sense that they were meeting anything new here, and praise the village as good place to meet liberals. We shall see.

Angela-- My brief description has failed to show you what I found so fascinating.

In the discussion that I read, it was clear that complementarians and egalitarians were on common ground since they both expect mutuality from both partners, and in a very fraught situation they came to a meeting of minds on that basis. Of course, the larger disagreement remains. They still differ in whether they expect that sex is or is not a useful guide to the dynamics of a couple's mutuality, and in whether a unisex construct is harmful to the personal development of at least some people or not. Complementarians affirm both; egalitarians deny the first and have not yet thought about the second. I was impressed by the maturity of the posts from both of those positions.

Interestingly, the two other positions (patriarchalist, *feminist¹) were so stuck in their respective nightmares of relations between the sexes that they could not finally tolerate the amity of the complementarians and egalitarians at all. Persons of both extremes tried to break up the agreement of the two centrist positions, and their arguments were basically hardline appeals to suspicion and resentment. I have to say, I found the posts from both of those positions rather stuckist, wanting in ordinary conversational receptivity and emotional intelligence.

Taken as a whole, I read the dynamics of the four positions as closely analogous to the polarization by fear that leads, for example, to ethnic cleansing where extremists stoke so many fears in those at the center that it cannot hold and people who formerly got along as neighbours kill each other as enemies. In this case, any polarisation was stopped cold by centrist voices, both masculine and feminine, who basically quashed each successive attempt to reframe the intentions behind statements as something sinister. Rather than succumb to fears of slippery slopes, they just put up fences for safety, and got on with their business.

In the Christian context that concerns us here,² I think those in Christ know that reconciliation of the sexes is part of what Christ does, and that opposition to that reconciliation opposes his will. If there is doubt about that in the village, then we really need to have a discussion about this.

That said, Christian discussion about what lived paths to reconciliation there may be is reasonable and faithful. And here, all of the surprising knowledge that we have is relevant, so long as it promotes the unity of women and men in marriage.  Maybe something in the developmental pathways of men and women explains the dynamics of mutuality. Maybe the bare idea of "equality" has developmental powers that have been underestimated. Or maybe it is great for some important things but not adequate for other important things. Maybe there are more good dynamics among couples than we imagine, some of them a bit shocking. Perhaps there is a difference between the issues most common in a marriage of teenagers and in one between those somewhat older. Have we any reason to be afraid to know about these things? Have we any objection to looking at the sort of evidence that Adrian so often asks for?

Some of the most useful knowledge is simply about the difference between good faith and bad faith negotiations. Bad-- and bad faith-- negotiators try to frame everything as a sucker's choice for the other side. As far as possible, they hope to win a test of hardened wills. Can we not rise above this? Good-- and good faith-- negotiators try to make sense of the needs behind the expressed positions on both sides, since there is otherwise no way to get a mutual agreement. Where Christ is the basis, mutuality is the objective.

Of course, even quite Christian women and men will struggle with stubborn suspicion of the other sex for reasons that I trust our readings in attachment theory partially explain. But this is a human frailty that tempts us to sin, not healthy personal autonomy in relation to the opposite sex, and in Christ we should expose fearful fantasy as the counterfeit that it is. Sadly, there is also-- in persons of both sexes--  fear that is grounded in experience. This happens far more often than was once suspected, and we should not underestimate the struggle that many have with it. But healing and strengthening for them is not promoted by taking this as the normal situation of all.

Views that burn bridges between the sexes or block their traffic in either direction are gravely sinful. So I suspect that the better path for us is, not to help extremists to inflame our discussions, but on the contrary to oppose fear and prejudice, and just reopen the bridge we have in Christ. Something I'd like to see discussed is a response to John Piper's point³ that instructions for body parts and the bare idea of equality are not sufficient guidance for development into either the good men women need or the good women men need.

¹ *feminists = Christian feminists. It's less repetitious, and it draws a useful distinction between this subset and the wider worlds of Christianity and feminism. Meanwhile, as far as they go, I continue to find non-Christian feminist authors insightful. Julia Kristeva on women and work is especially useful.

² I have been favoured with the opportunity to discuss these issues with candid persons of both sexes and a spectrum of educated Muslim opinion from quite modernist to profoundly Islamist. It's rarely helpful to refer to Muslim opinion anywhere in the world as a sort of bloc. This topic does not seem to me to be an exception.

³ John Piper says all sort of other things too, and it is not my intention here to debate What John Piper Really Means. But his claim that the '"equality" is enough' position fails an important human interest demands an answer, even if we reject every version of complementarianism we know. There is no reason why both views could not be misleading about different important things.

I like personal achievement; I hate getting it at the expense of another.

Angela--  For what it may be worth, experimental psychology frames competition differently. All the real achievement happens before the comparisons of competition, and all who are ready to compete can learn from these comparisons to do better that which they truly love to do. However, although the social practise of competition can be inspiring for those who are able, it does little to enable others to become able in the first place. Enjoy your achievements, but do not expect competition in itself to help you to achieve the really hard ones.

The desire to win is an extrinsic-- and hence relatively weak-- motivator for sustained increases in capability and skill, and the more difficult the performance the less adequate mere competitiveness is as a motivation for the gruelling hard work. However, once one has built up one's capability and skill, an extrinsic motivation (e.g.. applause)  can indeed help one to push one's performance in a given hour to the utmost. Most concert performers experience all of this without actually having to show up someplace for medals in a competition.

However, competition does do one thing very well-- where competitors are similar, it shows them all new potential forms and levels of excellence. Seeing that one team won in this way both obliges and enables competing teams to rethink their strategies in order to beat it. (Yale for example has been trying to catch up to Harvard in the Game for  ;-) Likewise, seeing a runner break a record in the marathon shatters a ceiling on the performance of all other runners in the same class. Without the close comparison of methods that competition enables, this would be impossible.

Which is why artists face critics rather than opponents, and why a bad review is often more ratting than losing a game. With some interesting exceptions (chiefly children, pianists, violinists), artists are so often trying to optimise gifts that are not really malleable for singular artistic challenges (e.g.. singing the lyric tenor in Lucia di Lammermoor), that their best work is hard to compare as straightforwardly as one compares running times. Critics test an artist's performance as competitors test an athlete's performance, but a credible bad review is a more personal thing than a bad round of golf because of what it calls into question about the artist's judgement. Only occasionally is an athletic defeat so singularly meaningful.

As I'm sure you've noticed, this implies that there are inherent limits to the use of competition as a principle of social order.

It's interesting to ponder this creative essay four years further into the recession, which now appears to be a textbook case of private sector demand too weak to fully employ the labour of the nation without state expenditure. Indeed, many argue that the great challenge to economists and those they advise is to read and apply the textbook wisdom that has been so richly confirmed by the experience of these years. Elaine Storkey's counsel against waste seems to swim against this stream, but I don't think it does at all.

After all, it is not waste to build wisely and well when funds are cheap. In fact, considering the greater cost of financing projects in a fast-growing economy, it would be very frugal to invest now. Is the Lord concerned about public finance? Yes, if it makes the difference between virtuous work and idle unemployment for millions of people, He is. Historians will be puzzled some day that churches so concerned about largely symbolic issues, and not altogether silent about the crash itself, did not object more to the waste of lives in a recovery indefinitely postponed. A messianic banquest for 5 million or more might be the most truthful protest.

Angela, Dave-- The contentious thread (not one of ours) that I mentioned in another post was superficially an argument between complementarians and egalitarians. In fact, both women and men of those two positions agreed on the awkward matter at hand. The wrangling came from men of patriarchal views who lumped everyone else with the feminists, and feminists who lumped the complementarians with the patriarchalists, over the objections of the egalitarian women who thought that absurd. That is, the complementarians and the egalitarians had a common ground that was invisible to people on the two extremes. Have you seen this fourway division of opinion elsewhere?