Tag: Christianity

White painted brick wall with a black barred gate on the right hand side, with light streaming through. Text over the top: About doctrinal statements that I just can’t event with (and those that I can) Light in Grey Places

About doctrinal statements that I just can’t even with (and those that I can)

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

Sometimes it seems a statement of faith
Is a state of unfaith,
A badly built gate
To shut down debate.

Christine Woolgar

Maybe you’ve had that sinking feeling too. Someone you respected and wanted to work with signs up to a ‘statement of faith’ that feels like anything but.

For me, it happened most recently when a pastor I knew put his name, along with thousands of other signatories, in an open letter to the UK government. Amongst a great many other things, that letter said marriage protects from abuse. I came away wanting never to work with any of its signatories.

Oh, and it made me want to weep too.

Continue reading About doctrinal statements that I just can’t even with (and those that I can) →
Close up of a pair of purple crocuses in bloom. Text over the top: Some thoughts on being an asexual Christian married woman. Light in Grey Places

Some thoughts on being an asexual Christian married woman

By ChristineThis post is Sunlight content.

This is a long-overdue post in response to those who’ve asked me to write something about asexuality and theology. I wasn’t sure where to begin, so I figured I’d share some observations from my own experience.

Obviously, my experiences won’t be shared by everyone on the ace spectrum, but I’m hoping they’ll provide some conversation starters. 

Continue reading Some thoughts on being an asexual Christian married woman →
Picture of someone's hands holding a copy of Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. Text over the top: Why Love & Respect's CHAIRS acronym isn't about genuine respect

Why Love & Respect’s CHAIRS acronym isn’t about genuine respect

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

So, I have a theory about this whole idea that women want love, but men want respect. 

In short: the people who promote this notion use the word ‘respect’ to mean something different to what I think it means. 

If you’re new to this whole ‘love vs respect’ controversy, it’s easy to find in Christian circles, thanks to a popular marriage book by Emerson Eggerichs. The title? Love and Respect. 

Continue reading Why Love & Respect’s CHAIRS acronym isn’t about genuine respect →
Silhouette of a woman from behind, sitting on grass overlooking the sea in the evening light. Text over the top: Paul's letter to his prodigal daughter. The paradigm shift hidden within 2 Corinthians 10-13. Light in grey places.

Paul’s letter to his prodigal daughter (and the paradigm shift hidden within 2 Corinthians 10–13)

By ChristineThis post is Moonlight content.

This post was first published in tandem with the 2021 spring issue of CBE’s Mutuality magazine, “Making Peace With Paul.”

Did you know Paul had a prodigal daughter? I don’t mean ‘prodigal’ in its literal sense of ‘wasteful.’ Rather, her actions broached a level of hurt and family disgrace similar to the prodigal son in Jesus’s parable.

And, like the loving father who welcomed his son home, Paul longed for restoration and responded to his daughter with immense compassion.

You might wonder how I can say this, given that Paul never married or had his own children. But this daughter I’m referring to was not an individual person. She was the church in Corinth.

A few months ago, I realized Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians was essentially one of loving concern. Not only that, but its later chapters are like that of a father seeking to restore relationship with his prodigal daughter.

Again, how can I say this? Because in 2 Corinthians, I see allusions to one of the harshest laws in Deuteronomy concerning women, sex, and virginity.

Before I go on, I should warn that the laws I’m about to discuss are extremely violent. However, I believe reading Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians through this lens, thinking about what he says and—more to the point—what he doesn’t say, gives insight into his character as a man of compassion, humility and grace.

Because, despite the violence in Deuteronomy, there’s no violence in Paul’s letter.

Continue reading Paul’s letter to his prodigal daughter (and the paradigm shift hidden within 2 Corinthians 10–13) →
Picture of the feet of a man and a woman standing, facing each other in the middle of the road; the woman wears high heels. Text over the top: The prodigal and prostitutes -- and the surprise gender-flip in Jesus's parable

The prodigal and prostitutes – and the surprise gender-flip in Jesus’s parable

By ChristineThis post is Moonlight content.

For a little while, now I’ve been furrowing my eyebrows at one particular line in Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son. It was niggling at me and puzzling me in equal measures of concern and confusion. 

Until I realised that the line in question was a very deliberate gender-flip. 

It even challenges that ancient double-standard where women are stigmatised for certain kinds of sexual activity, but men aren’t.

Allow me to explain. Grab a cuppa, this post is 2,000 words.

Continue reading The prodigal and prostitutes – and the surprise gender-flip in Jesus’s parable →
Piano sheet music from a Cadiz by Isaac Albeniz

To stay or to go? On church, LGBT+ affirmation, and uncomfortable places

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

(Sheet music from a Cadiz by Isaac Albeniz – complete with notes from my piano teacher)

Imagine being in the following situations:

  • Having a job where the boss of the adjacent department is someone who discriminated against you (and you’ve never received an apology).
  • Being amongst extended family members who habitually crack jokes that demean an aspect of your identity (and you’re never sure how serious the jokes are).
  • Attending a church where the pastor has systematically tried to silence your voice.
  • Being in an online forum where its leader states repeatedly and categorically that an experience of yours did not, and does not, happen.

They’re pretty uncomfortable scenarios. The question is: what do you do with them?

At work, my boss is someone who is streets ahead of me in terms of professional experience, organisational nous and interpersonal savvy. I can barely begin to go into how much I’ve learned from him. When it comes to music though, it’s the other way round. Aged in his fifties, he’s struggling through his grade 3 guitar exam, whereas I had grade 8 piano when I was fourteen. It makes for some interesting conversations.

Recently he described how his teacher had been telling him that part of the art of being a performer is learning how to handle an uncomfortable environment. What do you achieve if you go into the room and the lighting is a bit off and someone’s looking at you awkwardly and you say you just can’t play?

Of course you want the environment that welcomes you. Continue reading To stay or to go? On church, LGBT+ affirmation, and uncomfortable places →

Aisle at Beverley Minster

O Precious Sight (by Vicky Beeching) – a contemplative video for Good Friday

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

Good Friday is a day that almost doesn’t need anyone to preach on it – the story speaks for itself. As I was flicking through passion hymns in the book my church uses, I found one I hadn’t heard before by Vicky Beeching called “O Precious Sight”. The last verse is about resurrection, but if you leave it out and just contemplate the first three verses, there is so much there.

So I recorded a cover version and made a video set to photos I’d taken on various travels. It’s not perfect – the photos aren’t all in perfect focus, my singing has room for improvement and I’ve discovered glitches iMovie that means the video flickers in a couple of places. (Sigh.) Nonetheless, I offer this short video for those contemplating Jesus’ cross and the salvation it means for us. Continue reading O Precious Sight (by Vicky Beeching) – a contemplative video for Good Friday →

Priestesses In the Church essay title by CS Lewis

Priestesses in the church? Why CS Lewis’ argument was right, but his conclusion wrong

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

Originally published in 1948, CS Lewis’ essay “Priestesses in the church?” makes the argument that if women represent God to humanity then the church will be rather less like what it is meant to be. His case is based essentially on the idea that:

One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolise to us the hidden things of God.

And I agree with this… but I think he misunderstood what the sexes were created to symbolise and that skewed his conclusions on gender roles and heirarchy.

Continue reading Priestesses in the church? Why CS Lewis’ argument was right, but his conclusion wrong →
Silver heart bracelet worn by bride. Text: Purity pledges and the Bible, what exactly is a pledge or vow or covenant?

What exactly is a pledge? Exploring the types of commitment seen in the Bible

By ChristineThis post is Sunlight content.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about purity pledges.

For the uninitiated, these are when Christian teenagers (both male and female, though it seems to be more common for girls) promise to be sexually abstinent until marriage. The promise is made usually around the time they hit puberty and girls sometimes buy or receive a ‘purity ring’, possibly given to them by their parents. In the more extreme forms, you have ‘purity balls’, where young girls go on ‘dates’ with their fathers during which they promise that they will not to have sex or marry against his wishes. Sometimes, they even sign a covenant to that effect.

I’ve read a number of articles and stories about the damaging effects of these pledges and the culture which endorses them (witness the links above).

What I haven’t seen is a theological, Bible-focussed discussion of the concept of pledges, or how they compare to the various kinds of commitments we see in the Bible.

I’m guessing one of the reasons for this is because, at a glance, the Bible seems to paint a confusing picture. Solemn promises are meant to be kept, yet there are many examples where keeping a promise led to death and destruction. We also have Jesus’ teaching that we shouldn’t swear anything at all – which is somewhat puzzling for couples who (like myself) have made wedding vows. So, are promises good or not? And what kind of commitment is a purity pledge?

To answer these questions, I’ll first look at the different types of commitment in the Bible (this post), then I’ll look at what characterises good and bad commitments, and lastly I’ll apply the findings of those two posts to the specific example of purity pledges.

Here we go. (Grab a cuppa, this post has 3,500 words.)

Continue reading What exactly is a pledge? Exploring the types of commitment seen in the Bible →

Good Gifts for Growing People: A sermon on Romans 12:1-8

By ChristineThis post is Sunlight content.

So, there is this idea that women have the ability and commission to preach just as much as men. This sermon is offered alongside the work of other like-minded groups of people who are each doing their bit for bringing about the fullness of women’s ministry.

You can watch the YouTube video (~25 minutes, ~480MB) or you can read the text which is (for the most part!) reproduced below.

(The video is also embedded above, but it doesn’t display in all readers.)

Continue reading Good Gifts for Growing People: A sermon on Romans 12:1-8 →

Always reforming: 95 statements on hope, sexuality and consent

By ChristineThis post is Sunlight content.

It is 500 years to the day (well, sort of, if we don’t worry about the shift to the Gregorian calendar) since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses onto the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenburg, on 31 October 1517. His actions kicked off the reformation – a movement during which the protestant denominations split away from the Roman Catholic church.

Coming from a protestant background, this seems a fitting time for me to write 95 short statements on the themes of this blog. Of course, they don’t cover everything! But you’ll find in them thoughts and theologies that either have been, or will be, very much an integral part of my writing. (And when I’m cribbing someone else’s work, I’ve put their name in brackets.) I’ve split them into ten categories:

  • personhood
  • abuse
  • God
  • sex
  • consent
  • Christian witness
  • the Bible
  • hope
  • purity
  • and me.

Continue reading Always reforming: 95 statements on hope, sexuality and consent →

Worn used NIV Study Bible

I always loved the Torah – and now I feel lied to (a complaint about translation)

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

I’ve always loved the first five books of the Bible (aka the Torah).

I don’t feel lied to because suddenly I’ve opened up and noticed the gory bits. I had already noticed the bits prejudiced against women, disabled people, homosexuals and people with different ethnicities. Oh, and the slavery and the retributive violence. And the honour-shame culture.

I’m not opening up my Old Testament every day thinking “This is the text that’s unadulterated goodness and will show me show to live my life with absolute clarity.” I always knew it was more complicated than that.

Yes, I have approached the text from my earliest youth with a presumption that it is inherently good, but I’ve not been so naïve as to think that everything it describes is good. Including the bits that the authors and compilers don’t seem to be flinching at.

Now I know that this makes me an outlier and I’m prepared to own that. I’m not about to inflict the genealogies of Numbers or the sacrifices of Leviticus on people who simply don’t have the stomach for it. Struggling with the Pentateuch does not make someone less of a Christian or less of a human being. If anything, struggling with it shows you’re actually exercising your God-given faculties of thought. Good. Do that.

So why do I feel lied to? Well, loving the Torah is something I felt as a child and as a teenager and as a student.

And you wanna know what else I was doing all that time? I was reading my New International Version translation of the Bible.

And the NIV translators don’t like the Torah. Continue reading I always loved the Torah – and now I feel lied to (a complaint about translation) →

Wedding shoes of different colours but similar ribbons and style

Why purity-as-separation undermines the church’s covenant calling

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

Last Christmas I realised something that made me so angry I wanted to pick up my laptop and smash it to pieces.

No, this was not an urge that I had felt before.

I was contemplating the second chapter of Hebrews which talks about Jesus being made like the people whom he helped. The book is one of my favourites in the New Testament because it has a wholesale take on Jesus as the Great High Priest. I’m a sucker for the Old Testament books of law (don’t judge me!) so I lap up the words of this letter with delight every time I read them. Assuming I understand them, of course. And there’s no guarantee of that because, good grief, this book is complex!

Anyway: I was contemplating how Jesus was both like and unlike the people that he acted on behalf of as a priest. The thought-process was in aid of a blog post I published in the new year about how “priest” was to be my word for 2017. You see, a priest identifies with someone who is both like and unlike them. That is an integral part of how a priest ministers reconciliation. It was that like-and-unlike idea I had in mind when picked the image for that post – which I’m reusing for this one. (It comes from a winter wedding, in case you hadn’t guessed.)

The thought I had as I was contemplating was this: when a group of people, called by God to be ministers of his covenant to the world, separate themselves from others on the grounds of “purity”, they subvert and frustrate God’s reconciling plan for everyone else.

And this is bad. Very bad.  Continue reading Why purity-as-separation undermines the church’s covenant calling →

Green grapes on a vine in the sunlight. Text over the top: A brain-dump about purity (this time I think I really might change the world)

A brain-dump about purity: this time, I think I really might change the world

By ChristineThis post is Firelight content.

When I was a plucky secondary school pupil, I had an idea for a perpetual motion machine. I was beyond excited. I was going to solve the world’s energy problems. I was prepared to accept that maybe there was a glitch in my design that I hadn’t realised, so I prayed earnestly that if I was wrong then God will tell me that very same day.

That afternoon my older brother told me it wouldn’t work.

I didn’t believe him to begin with, but gradually reality sank in as he explained. As Scotty would say, “Ya canna change the laws of physics!” Unknowingly, I had been trying to break the first rule of thermodynamics – that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Thing is, right now, I feel like a child again. I feel like I can change the world. Or maybe it’s not that I can but that I will – by the grace of God, in the wisdom of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the fellowship of the church – change the world.

Is that me or is that not me? I don’t care! The world is going to change – and that’s what really excites me.

So, what’s this big world-changing idea?

I’ve tried to blog about it before and I’m hoping I’ll blog about it in various forms over the coming months (years?): it’s all about purity.

Continue reading A brain-dump about purity: this time, I think I really might change the world →

Rethinking virginity: yes, it is about purity, but it’s not like a silk scarf

By ChristineThis post is Moonlight content.

OK, first up: caveats.

That tweet was in April. It’s now July. What I’m about to write is a mixture of theological thoughts I’ve been mulling on in the interim and talking over my husband – because he’s a fabulous deep-thinker who sometimes sees things I don’t.

When I’ve been talking to him about my ideas about virginity he’s said to me,

“OK but… this idea is like the fur of a cat. You can stroke it one way and it’s fine, but if you stroke it the wrong way, you get the cat’s back up. It’s still the same fur, but it doesn’t work. You’ve got to be careful with this.”

So, I could be on the wrong track, but even if I’m on the right track, you’ve got to look at my direction of travel here. Also, even if I’m on the right track and going in the right direction, this is a curiously complex issue. Again, it’s like cat’s fur: you can stroke a cat anywhere, but you can’t stroke a cat everywhere on its surface at the same time. (This is also called the ‘hairy ball theorem’.) In a similar way, what I’m about to say may not the have logical consistency the way we might expect at first.

But I think there’s something big here.
Continue reading Rethinking virginity: yes, it is about purity, but it’s not like a silk scarf →