Squeezing Harder Than That Print
N.T. Wrights and Wrongs
Written by Douglas Wilson   
Friday, 23 November 2012 09:46

The Church of England just recently said no to women bishops. There were howls of outrage from all the predictable quarters, for whom such a troglodyte move is just smack-the-forehead baffling.

Now I can understand a vote against women bishops as a preliminary move to try to undo the ordination of women priests. And I can understand a vote for women bishops as the next logical step after having established the practice of ordaining women priests. What I don't get is the affirming the ordination of women priests and opposing them as bishops. The pig, once swallowed by the python, has to move on down the line.

Also what I don't get is the attempt by men like N.T. Wright to pretend that women's ordination is a matter of biblical obedience, as opposed to floating down the Whig view of history on an inner tube, right over the falls of progress. He attempts to do that here -- read the whole thing.

Wright tries to be the crusty conservative, saying, "bah, humbug" to all this progressivity n' stuff, and then says that if we just reject the myth of inevitable modern progress, the arguments for women's ordination will shine forth in all their pristine biblical glory. In the course of all this, he says . . .

"The other lie to nail is that people who 'believe in the Bible' or who 'take it literally' will oppose women’s ordination. Rubbish. Yes, I Timothy ii is usually taken as refusing to allow women to teach men. But serious scholars disagree on the actual meaning, as the key Greek words occur nowhere else."

Having banished the Whig view of history out the front door, here we find it banging in an agitated manner at the back door, demanding entrance. What is the password that Wright demands before he lets the progressives skulk back in? You guessed it! Serious scholars disagree.

Well, then, I guess that it is time for us unserious types to pack up our "lies" and go back to our house on the wrong side of history. Wright likes to pretend that he is not surfing the mavericks of the zeitgeist, but he is one of the best at shooting that curl. You see, serious scholars are the ones who graduate from Whig-accredited seminaries.

As for the biblical passages he did refer to in more than a dismissive manner, a couple of quick thoughts. He cites Mary Magdalene, Junia, and Phoebe.

He says that God entrusted Mary Magdalene with telling the other disciples about the resurrection. He fails to distinguish possessing news, on the one hand, from ordination and commissioning to declare that news authoritatively on the other. Mary was undoubtedly a witness of the resurrection, which is not the same thing as being a preacher of the resurrection. Merely possessing firsthand information that Jesus rose does not constitute an automatic ordination -- otherwise all the bribed guards who were witnesses of the resurrection were the first apostles (Matt. 28:4). If simply being a witness was sufficient, then what did the disciples think they were doing when they filled the slot left by Judas? And why did they have to choose between Justus and Matthias when God had already picked Mary Magdalene (Acts 1:23-25)?

Wright also says that Junia is listed among the apostles (Rom. 16:7). He earlier was dismissive of the unusual words in 1 Tim. 2, but here is apparently unaware of the common uses of the noun and verb forms of apostello. An apostle is a "sent one," and the verb means "to send." Jesus was an apostle of God (Heb. 3:1), the twelve were apostles of Christ (Luke 6:13), and Paul and Barnabas were apostles of the church at Antioch (Acts 13:2-4). How much authority is involved is a pure function of the sending agency, and what the sent one is commissioned to do. Of course Junia was a sent one. But whose? To what purpose? The mere use of the word gives us no basis for promoting someone who was sent for coffee to the ranks of the Twelve.

And then he says that Phoebe was an "ordained travelling businesswoman" (Rom. 16:1) and that, having delivered the letter to the Romans, she was the one who read and explained the letter. Let us simply hope that, when she explained it, she did not make up things as she went along that were nowhere included in the text -- like Wright just did. I have had plenty of folks deliver messages to me that did not then exposit the message for me. But Wright says that "normally" the letter carrier would "explain its contents." He has also discovered, by some psychic means, that Phoebe was a businesswoman. Now she could have been, because the Bible doesn't say she wasn't, but we should want more of an exegetical guard rail than that, shouldn't we? I mean, it doesn't say that she wasn't a seller of Rolex watches either. The Bible doesn't say that the tongues of fire at Pentecost weren't green, right? Does that give me leave to teach that they were?

We know that Phoebe was a servant of the church at Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1), and I think it is likely that she delivered the letter of Romans to the Romans. What was her job description as "servant" (diakonos)? We don't know. The word servant is like the word apostle -- a church secretary is a servant of the church, and so is a church planting missionary.

If Wright wants more out of Rom. 16:1, and these other passages, he is going to have to squeeze harder than that.


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Will S  Friday, November 23, 2012 10:21 am
I am a big fan of Wright's works on Jesus. They are rich, well written, packed with helpful information, and great for polemical arguments against those who think the Bible is 2nd century mythology.

But Wright's liberal politics and poor arguments on this issue really bug me. I don't understand how someone who can be so insightful in one area can be so ignorant and lacking of introspection in others.
DHammer  - Not Unusual  Friday, November 23, 2012 11:50 am
Will, I've had the very same thought about our host. How can he have such penetrating thought regarding theology and culture and then lose touch with common sense and logic when it comes to "global swarming". I'm sure we all have areas of thought where we are more committed to a particular political, theological or cultural position than to clear thinking. When I'm teaching at our church I urge our people to let their theology lead their politics and not vica versa. That's easy to do when you are swimming downstream in whatever environment you live in, but much more challenging when you are swimming against the current. Poor Mr.Wright decided not fight the rapids on this one.
DHammer  Friday, November 23, 2012 11:56 am
Great post, by the way, Doug
Steve Perry  - The Art of Christian Compromise  Friday, November 23, 2012 12:14 pm
Anglicanism "today" is the art of compromise through things adiaphora. Look where they were, and where they are now. We can learn so much from the great men of Anglicanism's past, such as Cranmer, Hooper, Parker and the list goes on and on. But by the time you get to Chesterton, he opt's for Rome. Why? 20 years ago, the most conservative Anglican church in the U.S., the Reformed Episcopal Church held the position that no woman could become a minister/priest. Now they have come under the umbrella of the ACNA, which has women priests. "Well we're going to do another study." In the movie Raiders of the Lost Arc, the high priest opened the Arc of the Covenant and exclaimed "its so beautiful." Be careful when looking into the beauty of Anglicanism, the gospel, as in the time of Christ, can be swallowed up in tradition.
John Simmons  Friday, November 23, 2012 5:24 pm
Steve, our Bishops in the REC have not caved on ordaining women. They have taken steps to keep the REC true to its constitution and canons while at the same time exercising patience with that part of ACNA that are pro-WO, not for the purpose of compromise but in order to gently exhort and teach. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't, but if it doesn't there is no way women will become priestesses in the REC.
Christopher Miller  Friday, November 23, 2012 1:34 pm
Be careful, Pastor Wilson. Serious scholars disagree on whether or not N.T. Wright supports the ordination of female bishops.
Eric the Red  Friday, November 23, 2012 4:56 pm
Theology aside, I don't understand the politics of this one. The Church of England has mostly become a women's organization at this point; if you look at the statistics, broken down by gender, of who regularly attends Church of England services, it isn't even close. Why would church leadership antagonize their base in this fashion?
Ben Thorp  Monday, November 26, 2012 3:26 am
I think you'll find that the vast majority of churches, regardless of their position on the ordination of women, are looking at a 60/40 gender gap.

FWIW, there are a number of reasons why they would approve the ordination of women, but not women bishops. The Church of England is notably broad in it's theological spectrum, and does its best to accommodate different positions. That becomes increasingly difficult the higher you place a women in authority, because it increases the number of people under her care that may theologically object to her appointment.

It's also worth saying that a number of people who support women bishops voted against the current proposal because they don't think it has sufficient protection for those who disagree.
Jane Dunsworth  Monday, November 26, 2012 7:09 am
I don't see how you can put "theology aside" and ask that question, anymore than you can say "gravity aside, why does it always hurt when I jump out a two-story window?" Theology IS the point; it's the only reason the argument is even an argument. We are, after all, talking about a church.

Maybe the theology is Wright, maybe it is rong, but it is not incidental to the question such that the question makes any sense without considering it, in this particular context.
Jonathan  Friday, November 23, 2012 10:23 pm
In my experience, most people's logic processes and competencies perform fairly similarly across many different subjects. Someone who is insightful in one area is usually equally insightful (or equally blind/biased) in other areas as well, as long as they have the data they need. Rather than their thinking processes being dichotomous, usually they appear uneven to us because we have accepted their faulty reasoning when it agrees with what we want to believe, or we decry their logical reasoning when it challenges the assumptions we want to hold on to.

In other words, perhaps, what I find more often dichotomous is not our logic processes, but our willingness to apply them.
Will S  Saturday, November 24, 2012 8:20 am
Hi Jonathan, I disagree. I think that Augustine, for example, was very good in most areas but wrong about justification. I think Wesley was incredibly insightful when it came to godly discipline and piety but incredibly ignorant on the question of grace. I think that Martin Luther was spot on with his 95 Thesis but way off on the question of the Jews.

As a matter of fact, I cannot think of one historical figure that you or I would agree with completely. I think everyone has blind spots if you read enough of what they have to say.
Jay  Saturday, November 24, 2012 4:17 am
We named our daughters Phoebe and Junia because of the greatest letter ever written. We decided to honor these women and not let the liberals enjoy all the fruits of their awesome names.
Joel J. Miller  - Honoring women does not mean ordaining them  Saturday, November 24, 2012 8:32 am
In the Eastern Orthodox Church women are highly honored. Mary Magdalene and others are sometimes called Equal to the Apostles. The synaxarion is full of women, and female martyrs are celebrated in hymns and litanies. The supplicatory litany, for instance, recalls “the holy, glorious, great women martyrs: Thekla, Barbara, Anastasia, Katherine, Kyriaki, Photeini, Marina, Paraskeva, and Irene.”

But there's a difference between honoring and ordaining people. The Orthodox church has never ordained women priests or bishops despite its celebration and veneration of many women. To identify women in the life of Jesus or the early church who are held in honor is not to find rationale for ordination. Unless you're looking for a rationale.

But the living tradition and ongoing practice of the church testifies against putting such facts to that end. Otherwise, the Orthodox church would have been ordaining women not decades ago, but centuries ago -- over a millennium ago.

The Anglicans are on the losing side of a long battle with modernity; this dustup and the subsequent commentary only underscore the point.
Andrew Chapman  - the key Greek words  Sunday, November 25, 2012 1:20 pm
Wright says that 'I Timothy ii is usually taken as refusing to allow women to teach men. But serious scholars disagree on the actual meaning, as the key Greek words occur nowhere else.' Presumably the key Greek words are 'διδασκειν δε γυναικι ουκ επιτρεπω' - I do not permit a woman to be teaching. All these words occur frequently in the New Testament. αυθεντειν later in the verse only occurs here in the NT, but occurs more than 100 times in ancient Greek texts, or so I have read. So Wright's claim about the 'key Greek words' is not true.
Miguel  Sunday, November 25, 2012 6:57 pm
From what I've heard, there may not be strict exegetical proof that Phoebe was a traveling businesswoman, but there is reasonable historic evidence to infer this. First she was literate. Not very common for first century women. Second, she was traveling great distance. Hard to think of anything besides business that would take a first century woman that far. Ordained? Hardly. But I have no trouble believing she had corporate interests in Rome, and it doesn't affect theology either way.