A Tale of Two Bishops (Part 1)

I want to tell a tale of two bishops.  As this is Dagenham Anglican the bishops will be Bishops of Dagenham.  "Wait!" I hear you cry "there is no Bishop of Dagenham in the Church of England"  Quite right, my perceptive friend, there is not; there is only an Area Bishop named for the smaller town slightly west of Dagenham.  No, I am talking about bishops having the distinction of being made in Dagenham or at least born here.

Bishop number one in my story is Tim Stevens. According to Debretts the Right Reverend Tim Stevens, the Lord Bishop of Leicester, was born in Dagenham on 31 December 1946.  He is 63 when our story starts on 11^th January 2009.  On that day Tim Stevens was invited to participate in the BBC debate programme “The Big Question" to discuss the issue of whether women should be appointed as bishops in the Church of England.  Now, I have neither a recording of the programme nor a transcript of the words spoken.  All I do have are, possibly jaundiced, reports of it.  It seems that Sarah Finch, opposing the idea that women should be bishops, quoted 1 Timothy 2 verse 12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man".  It is possible that she believed this verse to be conclusive proof for her position because she sees it as "the Word of God" applicable for all time.  

Now Bishop Tim along with a number of well respected Evangelical scholars (e.g. R T France and Gordon Fee) does not believe that this verse settles it.  It seems that in the debate he suggested that it is not as simple as all that; that “For Christians ‘the word of God’ is the life of Jesus.  The Bible is the product of those who sought to understand the life of Jesus” Although this can probably do with further unpacking it does seem to suggest a rightly Christ-centred approach to the Bible.  It seems though that some associated with Sarah Finch felt they could smell heresy.  They rushed into print, or at least onto the web, to denounce the Bishop declaring "Bishop denies Scripture is the word of God".   

Questions were asked in parliament, or at least in the General Synod, the Church of England's parliament.  Dr Graham Campbell's question criticising Bishop Tim gives us a little more of what he is alleged to have said; "The Bible is not seen as the Word of God in the same way that a Muslim would see the Koran." You can imagine poor Rowan Williams in his patient way, letting out a quiet sigh of exasperation as he sought to respond gently to this heresy hunt:  

• "It is perhaps worth gently reminding Synod that the proposition that the Bible is the Word of God in the same way that a Muslim would understand the Koran to be the word of God is not to be found in the Articles of Religion and I would be rather surprised to find its compatibility with the Articles defended."

The Archbishop in this brief comment suggested that the protesters are getting it wrong if they think that our approach to the Bible should be the same as that of Muslims to the Qur'an.  I am sure that Sarah Finch and Graham Campbell would, on reflection, agree with Bishop Tim's helpful comment. We rightly do not see Bible "as the Word of God in the same way that a Muslim would see the Koran"

I remember a discussion I once had with a Christian brother veering a long way towards fundamentalism.  We considered the claim that the Bible is the "Word of God" without qualification and he came to agree, as I think all Christians do, that at the very most we would have to say that the Bible "as a whole" is the word of God.  Approaching the Bible as a whole enables us to see overarching themes in the believers’ growing understanding of the God they were seeking to draw near to. Some of us believe that it is helpful to speak about the developing theologies in the Bible helping to set a trajectory that informs our meditations on our glorious God.

Recently Dr Keith Small has written a helpful book "Holy Books have a History". In this book he explores the textual histories of the New Testament and the Qu'ran.  He contrasts the way Muslims approach the Qu'ran with the way Christians view the Bible.  He states that "even the most fundamental Christian views are qualitatively different from Muslim views, and that equating them is quite wrong”.  Keith Small from his strongly Evangelical position seems to agree with Bishop Tim and Archbishop Rowan that, for the Christian, "The Bible is not seen as the Word of God in the same way that a Muslim would see the Koran".

Thank you, Bishop Tim for helping us with this key point.  In my next post I will enlist the help of Dagenham Bishop number two to further consider Christian approaches to the Holy Scriptures.