Jeremy Halcrow - 11 June 2008 12:11 AM

Interestingly Andrew Cameron has written a bit on this topic pointing out that the Bible is far more sanguine about family life than middle-class Christians are.

Sanguine...now there’s an under-utilised word looking for a boost.

Jeff Atack - 10 June 2008 11:23 PM

Firstly as congregants we are supposed to imitate the life and faith of our leaders (Heb 13:7), and without doubt the single guy can model many aspects, being a husband and father is not one of them and for better or worse this is a massive part of many blokes lives.

Hi Jeff, hope you’re doing well out there at Stanhope.

I think this argument is limited for the following reasons…

1. When Paul asks people to imitate him, it’s because he is imitating Christ (1 Cor 11.1).  It would then seem that both single and married leaders can fulfil the role of role-model, as it’s not our marital status which is essential to our modelling, but rather our Christlikeness. Furthermore, that Jesus was single means that the base model of our life and behaviour is a single man. Does it really make sense to then say that we can only see this model lived out in a married man?

2. No minister is adequately going to be able to model Christlikeness in every situation. How am I going to be an accurate model for a bricklayer or a doctor or a handicapped person?

3.  In Phil 3.17 Paul instructs the church to keep in mind a group of people as role-models. The expectation is that we ought to look to a range of people who live in a Christlike way. In this way we can have the varied input we need for all the different and unique ways in which we live our lives. Following this model the limitations of every minister are met.

This is off topic for the thread, I think we should start a new one.

New thread on single ministers

Martin, a great many of us at some stage have been discouraged by insensitive and inaccurate remarks by some denominational official such as that you cite concering a single man.  However, the fact is that the diocese has no policy to discourage single men from pastoring churches; in fact as someone who has been an ordination chaplain I can say the reverse is true.

Reading what is said of John Woodhouse within its context, I think his meaning is clear; he is using the term pejoratively.  Further, as an excercise I asked a few unbelieving friends I saw this morning what they thought was meant, and they all thought it was meant perjoratively. 

However, the bigger issue is surely the failure of David to deal with the actual issue at hand.  Where is the reasoned interaction with the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality?  Where is a fair analysis of what GAFCON is all about?  Why make untrue remarks concerning 2 bishops based on hearsay?  I’ve spoken with my bishop, who informs me the remarks David has made are simply untrue. 

Whilst David’s piece could have been far worse, I think it contains unnecessary and unfair personal criticisms, untrue comments based on hearsay, and very little analysis of what is actually going on.

Philip,
Reading through this thread I cannot find anyone actually suggesting that the diocese has such a policy. Certainly this is not my own understanding of where the diocese is at on the issue. My own comments were an attempt to describe how such a rumour may have come about, and I do think it’s because there is a ‘mood’ (to use my original term) among some of our tribe which sits uncomfortably with the idea of single incumbents. I also think this is an issue which is best explored further at the new thread linked in my last comment.

As for the ‘hard’ description of JWW, I certainly didn’t read it as a slight against a supposed personality flaw. Perhaps my more positive reading of Marr’s comment is fed by my knowing John and his family, and thinking of John as being ‘hard’ in the sense of his personality just didn’t enter my thought process. My thought immediately went to his theological ‘hardness’. I guess this just shows us that no one reads anything from a neutral position…

On a further note, I think it’s important to extend grace to David Marr and his writing. It’s fair enough to call him on inaccurate reporting, but on expressions which could be open to interpretation why not assume the best? We complain when we are misunderstood so it’s only fair to ask whether we are misunderstanding Marr.

Martin, I think you have raised an important issue, and I am glad you have started a new thread to explore it further.

I agree that one should extend grace and not unfairly impute motives to others.  Where we seem to disagree is on how clear David’s meaning is in commenting on John as being hard.  I think his meaning is very clear.

Hi All,

One of the issues raised by David Marr in his article is:

Neither Woodhouse nor Jensen would accept any link between their preaching and the high levels of violence and extremely high levels of self-harm and suicide that young homosexuals experience in a society even as relaxed as ours. “If the churches were to fall silent, the same things would apply,” suggests Jensen. “I believe it is likely there is a natural feeling that there is something wrong here - it may be a natural feeling that may need to be challenged and all sorts of other things - that leads young men and sometimes young women to have tremendous self-doubt, etcetera. This will occur, I think, in any case. And I think you think that, too.”

This line, that the conservative Christian position on homosexual practice is a factor behind violence to gays, is one that I’ve heard before. But is there any evidence to back this line up? Has anybody done a study of those charged &/or convicted of gay bashings to see what were (apart from human sinfulness) the environmental factors that led them to think that it was ok to bash up gays?

Good question. I’ll have a hunt around.

Secondly, imagine any of the single girls in the church getting the hots for the pastor...this has ugly written all over it…

I didn’t pay much attention to this comment earlier - until a friend urged me to take another look at it… and she’s right. I think it is a little offensive really. I know this is off topic and it might be better in the new thread Marty has created- but I wanted to reply to it here so hopefully the author would see it (I’ll post it in the new thread as well).

I understand the concern you are trying to express in that such a relationship might have the potential to get pastorally messy BUT

1) It does not necessarily follow that such a situation has ugly written all over it. Depending on how it is handled, depending on whether feelings are reciprocated and depending on the people involved it might indeed be tricky but not necessarily ugly. It may in fact wind up being something quite beautiful.

2) (and this is the offensive bit) Why did you single out the woman as the one who could/would have the problem with lusting after the pastor? I’m not someone who normally jumps on the defensive when a comment is made that I think is a little (dare I say it) patriarchal. But this one did get my back up a little. You may not have intended this, but the glibness of your comment makes it sound as if it is going to be the woman who is creating the problem when in fact it is just as likely that the single male pastor might be the one to ‘get the hots’ for one of the single girls in his congregation (and frankly, if we are talking about sexual purity here then it is MORE likely to be the male pastor than the single woman).

In any case I think the argument is flawed and that the possibility of a relationship forming between a single male pastor and a single woman at his church is not, on the face of it, a good reason to rule out single men pastoring a parish.

deleted for another thread

Rob & Dani

How about putting these both on the Single Ministers thread (as Dani already has) and taking them off this one so that we don’t prolong a tangential discussion here.  Interestingly Michael Jensen’s post on the other thread kinda belongs here!

Bob

Roger Gallagher - 11 June 2008 03:29 PM

This line, that the conservative Christian position on homosexual practice is a factor behind violence to gays, is one that I’ve heard before. But is there any evidence to back this line up? Has anybody done a study of those charged &/or convicted of gay bashings to see what were (apart from human sinfulness) the environmental factors that led them to think that it was ok to bash up gays?

The guy who is across this kind of detail is Bill Muehlenberg who runs his own website.

A new version of the SIE briefing, previously mentioned, has now been posted.

I have interviewed Andrew Cameron further about his way forward on the gay debate plus posted some pastoral guidelines from Liberty Ministries on how to care for homosexuals in our churches better.