🎙️ Rethinking Authority: From Control to Community with Dr. Christa L. McKirland

00:00:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian on Doctor James Spencer and I'm joined today by doctor Christa l mcgirkland. She is the author of a Theology of Authority, Rethinking or Leadership in the Church, and she's also the Dina Faculty and Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Carrie Baptist College in New Zealand. And so Christa really happy to have you on the show today. Thanks so much for being here.

00:00:57
Speaker 2: Thank you so much James for the invitation.

00:00:59
Speaker 1: Truly honored, absolutely so. This is a fascinating book. And you know, I've been thinking about authority for some time. I did some work in politics and so authority comes up an awful lot there but I'm wondering what drew you into this topic.

00:01:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for that, James. So for me being raised Southern Baptists as a little girl growing up in the Southern Baptist tradition in Georgia, really loving the church and my dad's a minister in that context, and so found my love for Jesus and my love for Scripture in that context. But I didn't really see women, I mean even passing an offering plate as simple as that, because only deacon's passed offering plates, and women weren't allowed to be deacons, and a lot of it circled around this idea of well, women aren't allowed to have that kind of authority. So I've heard that word since I was really little, and since since that time, right going on and doing I did a philosophy undergraduate degree that I did a master's in Biblical exposition and Greek and Hebrew, and then I did another master's in systematic theology, which all of them combined for me to do my doctorate, bringing all those disciplines together, so doing analytic and exegetical theology. So taking this kind of really fine tooth comb way of thinking toward kind of basic concepts, so words that we use all the time, like authority and then saying, actually, wait a minute, what do we mean by that? And what I found is we often have a lot of assumptions when we use that word, and we use it a lot like teaching authority or spiritual authority or fill in the blank. Deacons have this type of authority. And I just you know, as I was getting into my PhD and then thinking with this analytic lens, but I actually think I have the chops now to kind of tackle that question what do we mean by authority? So that's what got me into that is very much from my experience, but seeing this gap really in how we talk about this concept.

00:03:01
Speaker 1: And I think probably as I read through your work, I think people are probably most familiar with one specific type of authority. But maybe what would be helpful is two things. Number One, you use Richard de George's work. I think I'm getting that right. Richard George George can't talk, but you use his framework for a lot of this. And I was unfamiliar with him, got a little bit more familiar with him through your book, and then read some of his stuff sort of ancillarily. But i'd love to have your take on why do George in his work was so compelling, why you used it?

00:03:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this will come back to that analytic way of thinking. So funny enough, my PhD I had done a similar methodology where I had found this concept of need that was actually really theologically salient, really significant for talking theologically about what it means to be human. So I'd come across an analytic philosopher who wasn't trying to think in a Christian key. His rubric helped me then think a bit more carefully about this concept of need, which then really shaped my whole theological anthropology. So then as I was coming into this authority project, I actually wasn't really meaning to do the same methodology, but I found similarly and funny enough, same year everything but another analytic philosopher from nineteen eighty five to George, who had done something similar with this concept of authority. I thought, well, I really like how this worked for my PhD, which then became my first book on my own theological anthropology. God's provision, humanity's need, the gift of our dependence. And so then now this is actually really turning in a communal key and saying how are we meant to relate to one another in the body of Christ. So it's kind of theological anthropology communally situated. And then I came across this as really as I was trying to just get my bearings on well what do we mean by this word? And I thought, actually, this is so rich. I think this could act actually frame the project itself. So this kind of metaphor that you would have seen through the book right of thinking through kind of what are the materials that make up our bricks, So the minerals and the soils, the clay coming from Georgia that make up the bricks that we then will build our theology of authority based upon. And so to build that, what's in the soil the words that we use. And so analytic philosophy is this gorgeous tool. I know analytic philosophy is not for everyone, but for me, especially for a project like this where we're seeking clarity on things that actually when we're not clear, we do a lot of harm. That's been my experience. And so I thought, well, this is a great tool to bring to this conversation, and so did George. Was just this really low hanging fruit I've read widely on other kind of philosophers who did kind of this precise work on authority, but he was the best. He just had the most clarity, and he gave me a starting point. And so I even say that I think in the book like, hey, there may be other ways to parse this out, but we've got to get the conversation off the ground. And so exactly like what you're saying, when we hear that word authority, we tend to think of a form of authority called imperative authority. I say jump, you say how high? And if you don't, I get to compel a consequence. But that's actually a very narrow band of all the different permutations or expressions of authority that we actually see in society, in our families, and I would say across scripture. And so his framework then gave me kind of a lens to come to the text knowing that the biblical scholars aren't thinking in those analytic categories, but to say, kind of descriptively, what would fit from what we're seeing scripture in scripture descriptively, how might that map on to this rubric, this helpful rubric that de George provides. So it was really in the research process that I found him, but it was having done a similar project beforehand that I thought, oh, I think I could leverage him similarly with a real theological upshot, even though that's not his intention as an analytic philosopher.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: Do you find it just and this is sort of a side question before we jump into the questions about authority, But you know, did George was in the business realm, so he did a lot with business ethics and those kind of things. Do you find that his model matches so well within the church because the church has adopted some of the business structures. I was just sort of one of the passing questions I had as I was reading it.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So that was something that was actually quite sensitive to because I'm very concerned about how we just imported business models onto our churches. I think that is the wrong way around. If a business model can be helpful after the fact, but I think sometimes the tail is wagging the dog there. So that was one of my as I read through him, because I'm also reading did George quite critical, right, so I'm thinking through where is it different with what he's saying? So I would push on some of how he parses out religious authority and even God's authority because he is coming even though it's not giving a Christian framework, he is coming from what seems to me, I think a Roman Catholic perspective. So he's got some pretty high views of how church authority and God's authority would be mediated through that that I don't really take on board entirely, though I love the categories he gives us. And then the other piece, I think to your point, even when he talks about different groups in none of the ways the groups are functioning and how authority might be operative. So it's that word of operative authority where you're using you're allowing folks to act on behalf of the group for an agreed upon end. Well, the George is not bringing up that the agreed upon end is given by God and that the spirit is the one mediating that end, and so coming from a low church, which this book is aimed at low church folks, because we keep saying, oh, we don't do authority, right, priestit of all believers, we don't do hierarchy, And I'm like, I'm sorry, we sure do. And because we don't name it, we can't. Then interrogate it and say which are good and bad uses of authority. So in saying all of that, I was very sensitive, and I'm sure I didn't catch all the areas where there would be inconsistency between did George's framework and an ecclesial framework, but I came with those antenna hurt thinking through. Okay, this is not thinking pneumatologically. Whereas my work and even my first book, that's the whole thread of thinking about humanness is we've actually got to think about the spirit and we also have to think about Christology. So those aren't in the George's frame. So that's that's going to impact, of course how he thinks about operationalizing authority.

00:09:56
Speaker 1: But I think what I found as I was reading through your book. You know you've got the the two major ones executive and non executive, and then the subdivisions within that imperative, performative and then really the non executive. Does it have helped me out with epistemic?

00:10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, epistemic and exemplary.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: An exemplary. Thank you, Epistemic and exemplary. They if I look at the church phenomenologically, apart from scripture, you see all four of these operative and to your point, you know, within low church traditions where we don't really talk about authority, an awful lot epistemic and.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: Exemplary.

00:10:39
Speaker 1: Epistemic and exemplary are there, sort of in spades. You see them all over the place. And then I would even say, the charismatic aspects that you pull into that executive side are really there. So I think you did a like just if I'm looking phenomenologically, I see those. And then what I found compelling about your book was your root those back into scripture and kind of saying not let's put this map on top of the Bible and then read it, but more, can't do these really emerge out of the text? In other words, can we connect from the bottom of the Biblical text up to these concepts and show that they really do emerge out of what we're seeing in scripture? Which I thought was really helpful.

00:11:24
Speaker 2: So thank you.

00:11:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we should go through and help people understand these these broad categories of executive non executive, and then the subcategories underneath them, just to give people a sense of what they are.

00:11:37
Speaker 2: Great. Yeah, So, as we've mentioned, right, imperative executive authority is the species people tend to think of the most But we're going to talk first. As you said, these two broad families of thinking about authorities, so executive and non executive, and I'm using to George's categories here, so he would say that the executive authorities, those aren't positional, so you have that kind of authority. So a classic example, right, would be a police officer has authority to enact the laws that are actually even police officers, right, they're delegated executive authorities because they can't just go they're not supposed to go off and do their own thing, right, so they are authorized by the legislature and the law giving community, which are supposed to be in a democratic society actually authorized by the people. So you actually can see that on executive authority, there's meant to be proper channels by which authority is given. There's real strict limits on where it should and shouldn't go. And so we might even see in a more simple simple way as a parent child relationship. So with my kids, I hope one day they will eat their vegetables without having to have a consequence compelled. But right now, the consequences if you don't eat your vegetables then you're not going to get candy ball after dinner. So I get to compel that consot quins as their parent. But here's the thing, Right, if I'm still parenting them like that when they're eighteen, something actually hasn't worked correctly. Like if that, because that is actually the lowest form and we find this in psychological literature as well. Right, the lowest form of motivation is do this because I said so. But executive imperative authority has that ability, and in certain cases that is needed in societal functions. What I push against pretty hard is I actually think we don't have that form of interpersonal authority in the church. Again, speaking in a low church context. I know other churches with a hierarchical understanding they would push on me on this, and that's just fine. But for low church folks who say we don't do hierarchy, I would say, we don't have this ability for a singular individual to say you cannot do X, Y or Z, and I can compel a consequence if you do what we can say. And this is going to come back to our authority of scripture, which, in getting a little ahead of us there, we can say, I think scripture says that you're not to do X, Y or Z. But in that case, God is the authority. Scripture is mediating that authority, and I am the interpreter of that authority. But I always have to be aware as an interpreter, I can be fallible in my interpretation. So this is why I really exhort communal interpretation. I exhort doing that in our local communities in relationship. And I also do love people being theologically trained and scripturally literate, so all of that comes into play there. But all that to say, I do give one one counterexample to that, which would be church discipline. But even in that case, it's not a singular individual who's making those decisions. So this is pulling from a Matthew eighteen understanding that if something has gone on in the body and it seems to me and I tease us out in the book, it's defaming the gospel, so the witness and or the words of Christ Jesus, and it is defaming that witness of the community. The community has a responsibility to call that out. But even then Matthew eighteen right, the discipline text is in the context of the parable of the Lost Sheet so it's all about restoration even then, So that is a one form of imperative executive authority that I still see as operative in the church. But that is precious little. But how funny it is that most of the time when we think of authority, that's the thing we go to, which I see is quite exceptional across the canon.

00:15:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think you're sorry if I can just that your work in that passage, that discipline passage. I started thinking about higher Church traditions, and I don't represent the High Church tradition in any way, shape or form, but understanding even how their processes work. A lot of that is we could call it representative communal. So it's not like there's one person who makes a decision, even when we have if we looked at Catholics and you said, well, how's the pope chosen? Well, the pope isn't just you know, there's not just one pope chooser. There's just not totally why. It's a council of people who kind of get together and say okay this, and those council of people have been appointed by other councils of people, and so you have this sort of rounding communal but it is intended to be representative communal. Yeah, that's a great certain degree, and so I don't think you can get away from just the communal aspects of this, I guess.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:16:30
Speaker 1: I love that reading your piece.

00:16:32
Speaker 2: I love that, And I think that's actually a really great touch point between thinking through what Low Church and high churches could learn from each other in this because I actually think those who have done hierarchy and it's more of a feature not a bug in the ecclesial tradition, there's actually more checks and balances and measures to then make sure there's not overreach that because we in low Church context have not said we have that. I feel like we're just shooting from the hip all the time and we're seeing that play out on a public sphere. How well that's going. It's not looking great? So so sorry.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: Back to your question, Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. The other executive authority, the other form of executive authority. So we've gotten the.

00:17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the or the imperative. Yep, so imperative right to command, to command and the power to compel a consequence. But then there's this other species of executive authority, which is called performative executive authority. And so thinking about this in a normal role, you might think of a surgeon, Right, you're sick, you need to have a procedure, you need to have that performed on you, and you don't have the expertise to do that thing. But you're the patient. You are commissioning that surgeon. But once you're under anesthesia, you are completely under their authority, right, but you have authorized them to act on your behalf, and it is also for a set end, so the limits of that performative executive authority are also quite bounded. You might think of a lawyer doing the same thing and representing you before a judge, that kind of thing, but you're still the client. So there's this real sense of a proximity relation between the person who's being represented and the person who's doing the performing on that person that if they're not performing it, well, they get called to account on that. So we're going to circle back to that one in a second, but let me just finish out the other two categories. Okay, So that's executive, that is to have an authority and its positional. What's so fascinating those most of our authorities in our everyday interactions fall in the non executive category, and these are a matter of beating an authority. So this falls into two categories. Broadly epistemic, which is just a fancy word for knowledge what you know. So I have more knowledge, well maybe on authority right now, though you probably have comparable with having read my book, but I had a bit more knowledge than you did. But as an epistemic authority, that doesn't give me power over you. You get to choose whether or not to believe what I say, often based upon the argument. You might also look at how how could this be lived? So you're looking at pragmatic concerns. So you're testing that epistemic authority. But all you have to do to undermine the power of an epistemic authority is simply not believe. That's all it takes. So Letty Russell talks about this like, actually, we have great power, and I think about this in our current age of disinformation and misinformation. Actually those things don't have to have authority over us and don't have to have power over our minds if we can do fact checking right and source checking. So not believing is the mode of resistance. So there isn't a power to compel obedience. There's not a power to compel a consequence. I should also have said with performative authority, it's not so much a power to enforce a consequence as it is if you don't have the performance, the consequence happens naturally, gotcha. So if you don't have the surgery, you might die of that sickness. If you don't have representation, you might go to jail. So the consequence, instead of it being I'm compelling one, a consequence just is naturally happening. So the performative there's still a consequence in play, but it's not as direct of a power over, so it's more of a power with and so I play with some of the power categories as well. So then finally in going back to the non executive, so it's quick summary again executive authority having a positional authority. So that's imperative I can command, or it's performative I act on you, but you've consented to my acting on you. Non executive no power over, but it's power to teach or power to equip. So that's where epistemic is one of those authorities where I have more knowledge than you so I am an epistemic authority and then finally is exemplary authority. So this is where especially on apprentice models, right, So to become a plumber, you might follow a plumber around and you watch how they fix that toilet. That tells you how to fix it. They're not going to maintain having exemplary authority if they don't actually fix the thing. So the proof is in the pudding. And then the proof for you is that you imitate their actions and you are then able to do the thing that they're doing. Now, of course we see throughout the philosophical schools, throughout ancient history through to Jesus, right, parapatetic, you're walking with the person, the rabbi that you want to become like. So actually that exemplary authority is incredibly profound. And again it doesn't give the person power over because you're choosing. There's a lot of agency involved in this. I'm choosing to imitate that person because I want to look like them. So the exemplary authority, it doesn't have the power to compel obedience, but it is this power to become like me. And so this is of course, I think so salient in the New Testament, because we see this imitate me as I imitate Christ. Right looking at Paul and so much discipleship I think is based in these non executive authority categories. Now finally to circle back to the performative authority, So I do provide kind of a constructive category that I think is operative in the church that did George is not. Again, that's not his mindset, right. So looking at how I read the New Testament, and I go through a lot of those texts in a bit more detail to just trite to say, hey, I think this is emerging from the text. Not that I'm trying to impose this from the top down, but thinking of what do leaders in our churches, What kind of authority do they have? What seems they begin with having exemplary authority, they are looking like Jesus. And then you do get at a few texts about having this capacity to teach, whether or not that's a skill or a gift. It gets a bit mixed. It might be both of it be one or the other. But and then also there's parts in the New Testament it's like all of you should be teaching by now. So there's also questions on how we're actually meant to teach one another. But regardless, we see that that non executive exemplary authority paired with the non executive epistemic authority then warrants that person being chosen by the community to be performative in their executive authority. But it is not imperative. It is to perform, and I call it equipping performative authority. This is pulling heavily from Ephesians four, but I think we can see it latently in other texts where the task of those who are leading and leading is plural. As best we can tell, in the New Testament, leadership is plural. The task of leaders is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. It's not the task of the leaders to do the work of ministry. Their function is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So, if we're going to actually say what's the task that those who are being performed on, what are they holding those leaders to account on? It's are they being equipped? Now. What my hope is with the book is it actually cuts two ways. One is I think we do need to kind of de celebritize leaders and be really aware of how we have created two tiered hierarchies within our communities of clergy and lady, and I just I don't see that as the New Testament ethos. While at the same time, I think we need leaders and we need good ways to talk about leadership, which is what I'm hoping this book moves us toward. But the second way this book cuts is to say, hey, spirit gifted saints, you've got a responsibility. So if you keep just thinking, oh, well, I pay my tithe, I don't need to do that heavy lifting like they do the hard work. Right, why do pastors where so many pastors burning out? I think we have this very passive body who doesn't realize their spirit gifted dignity and to walk in that. And so this is where the equipping performative authority. I say, if you are enabling your communities, if you're doing for the body what the body should be doing for itself, that's an overreach of that performative executive authority. And if you are sitting in a pew and expecting to just keep being spoon fed, and you just stay on milk and not move on to solid food, you've got a responsibility to step into your discipleship. So it really I hope it cuts both ways. I don't want church was finishing it thinking oh gosh, and I've just got so much more to do. I hope they feel encouraged that they've got a whole community that's meant to be doing that with them, and I hope people in a few think, ah, I've got some real dignity that the God of the universe has given me that I need to be stepping into and that those might work together. So that's the.

00:26:22
Speaker 1: GISTs that was I mean, I think that that last point was something I wanted to bring up. Where As you're reading through this, you get the sense that a lot of the times when you might see authority abused, let's say, part of the problem is that the people who are having the authority exercised over them don't know enough to check the authority that they put in place over them. And so the epistemic side, let's say we should be able to see false teaching, a false teachers per se, right, I would make a little bit of a distinction which isn't quite publical, but a false teaching maybe a mistake in teaching. Somebody gets something wrong, as you'd mentioned, you know, your fallible interpretations, right, but the people in the pew should be able to recognize that and address some of that, right, not in an evil way, but just in a hey are you sure about this one kind of kind of move. But when we're not able to do that, that then creates the space for that epistemic authority to turn into more of a weird exemplary authority and potentially a weird performative authority. And so there is this sort of two way street that needs to happen within the paradigm you've created. I think that it's like, if this is more of a consensus driven or a communally driven sort of approach to authority, I think you almost have to have lay leaders, lay people who are developing these characteristics as well. The other aspect I wanted to ask you about really was I found the it was really interesting and what came out clearly I think throughout the book is that there's the performative is to equip right, you just said it, the performatives to equip that the there isn't a holiness to choosing leadership, that this is a you know, more of a functional designation or organizational designation. And one of the techs I kept thinking around was acts. I think it's six or seven, where the Greek speaking Jews have come and they've said, hey, we're not getting enough food and there's not this distribution, and so what do the apostles do. They get together and they say, well, let's find some spirit filled men, some men of great character, right, Like they're not just picking scrubs out of the out of the group. They're saying, this is an important task. Now we need to be studying the word and praying, but we also need really gifted men to do this. And so then they choose these these two and then we see what happens with Stephen in the next chackter. But I found that to be a really compelling sort of moment to illustrate. I think what you're explaining, like, this is not a peon position that they're appointed to. This is a powerful position that they're pointed to, and they're appointed to it to serve the community.

00:29:24
Speaker 2: Totally. I love that. Yeah, and even just pulling that text up that it's the Hellenistic Jews who are complaining, and it's so interesting to me, right that they choose Stephen as you say, a man full of faith in the spirit, and Philip pro Chris, nick Nor Timm and Parmonis and Nicholas from antioch A convert to Judaism. So actually those names are actually indicating they're likely Greek as well. Right, yeah, so that's really intentional. Right, They're thinking, who can perform this task to this demographic effectively? And it's like, guys, just beautiful, so absolutely. And then of course I love the Book of Acts, so reading through it with our kids right now every night, and just the spirit and how often the Spirit is of course leading things. But then the community will say it seemed good to us and to the Spirit. So I think, and this is something that's a weakness of the George because it's not within his frame of reference. But it's not just because even with Baptists this is something it's a drum I be a lot is. It's not about democracy, it's about christocracy. So it's not about majority rule, it's not even about consensus. It is saying, Lord, God, what do you want us to do in this situation? And to know each other well enough and to be sensitive to what the Spirit is saving, which might even mean that it's the odd voice out. And so these are the questions I raised right at the end of the book, like what do we have spaces for group discussion, for studying the scriptures from hearing the scriptures read together? Where are our spaces to ask questions and to hear that lone voice, because sometimes it's the lone voice that is hearing the spirit and the rest of us need to hear that. But I think what really challenges us, as I've talked more about this book in other spaces, is actually how much time this takes. Like what I'm actually recommending this is not it doesn't say rethinking efficient leadership in the church. It's rethinking leadership in the church. Right, So this is a whole pair. I like that you said paradigm right, it's a paradigm shifter of how much does this actually cost? And so this is where again I think it cuts to the person and the pew also saying hey, brother, hey sister, I'm I'm calling you out for your ninety minute a week Christianity. Yeah, that is not the come and follow me call that I see from Jesus. So it is this is for all of us to walk in our because every person has this, I think because of the spirit, the capacity to grow in our exemplary authority and even our epistemic authority. And I think there's like I learned from my kids, right, they teach me things. There's things that they're knowledgeable on that I'm not knowledgeable on, and I learn from them. And Jesus even says as much, right, like learning from the children. And so I just there's so much here. I don't want to go off on too many tangents, but.

00:32:31
Speaker 1: No, it's fantastic. I think, you know, one thing I wanted to draw out to just to kind of give a little bit of a sense of that executive leadership, because I think the parent child analogy is really helpful there. Even more, I think it's hard to think outside of a business context here, at least it was for me, and so I was struggling against that every once in a while I read the book. But when I'd run across the parent child thing, I kept going back to Ephesian six, and I found that text really compelling because what you get is you obviously get the instructions to the children to obey their parents, and you have this is the only command with the promise, But then you also have the instruction to the parents, do not exasperate your children. And so you see this beautiful like even within that executive functioning, Okay, parent, you have an authority, but it's a constrained authority. And I think we could it while it's not explicit in the text, I would say it's because it's a delegated authority, Like there's a sense in which we're exercising this under the authority of Christ. And we see it more explicitly in the marriage text in chapter five, right, but then it's obviously available in like Ephesians five, what fifteen through twenty one or something like that, right to talk submitting to one obviously in those things, and you see this all sort of enveloped within being filled by the spirit. And so the spirit is guiding these practices, and these are instantiations the husband, wife, the child parent, and then the bond servant. Master texts are all sort of exams of how this mutual submission looks. And you see that sort of mutual curtailment on both sides of these equations to say, you actually don't get to exercise your authority in whatever way you feel like. This is about being led by the spirit into that exercise of authority.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful way of thinking of that, especially in such a patriarchal context, right where those household codes would have immediately triggered this top down, unilateral executive And yes, the way Paul does flip these things on their head, which is quite powerful, and I think too just I like that you bring in that parent child in one example of the executive authority. And that is something else the books trying to help tease out is some of the ways we've brought those metaphors in an unhelpful way that if we start talking about awe, so the pastor is kind of like a father. And again, this is where I would part ways with some of our other hierarchical brothers and sisters who might use father language, because I take a pretty literal stance of when Jesus has called no one on our father, that it's because you have one father in heaven. And so I lean really heavily right into that sibling language, which actually is such an equalizing effect, while at the same time recognizing, going back to the exemplary bit, I'm going to have older siblings who look like Jesus more than I do, and I want to listen to their counsel in my life, but it is not binding on my conscience in this kind of they hold this office of pastor or elder or whatnot. No, they they look like Jesus, and that is winsome to me. And I spirit calls to spirit and I want their their counsel and correction and ultimately, end of the day, I'm going to stand before Jesus at the end of time and that to give an account for my own life and how well I've lived into that. But this is where I would just encourage, even just practically right that so often in our language we can say, well, as your pastor, you should dot dot dot, and I just want to courage people to say no, no, no, not as as your brother or as your sister. I want to encourage you dot dot. And that also is assuming relationship and trust and vulnerability. So there's a lot this is. It is kind of pushing us toward a whole paradigm shift. If we have tended toward CEO models of church where no one knows anyone and it's all about imperative executive authority. So I know I've got a tall order here, but hopefully the book at least edges us in a conversation we can at least start saying, well, what do I mean by those things? And is that the most God honoring way to think about my siblings in the faith? Yeah?

00:36:42
Speaker 1: Because I mean I even think. What came to mind as I was reading is that passage where Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. Yeah, and the way he's sort of not saying follow me right all the time, and in every way he's saying, follow me as I follow Christ, like to the extent that I am following Christ. That's what you should see in me, and that's what you should It's not about me, And I just sort of love that gesturing. I do want to pivot a little bit. I don't want to lose this in the conversation. So on Timothy two eleven through sixteen.

00:37:12
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:37:13
Speaker 1: It's really crucial. So I don't want to lose that. So why don't we turn to that so we don't run out of time on it?

00:37:18
Speaker 2: Yeah? Totally. So I know so much has been written on this text, right, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, And of course that's the one verse out of a much larger context that you can read up on the listeners can. But the biggest point I'd want to have listeners walk away with is the verse says I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. What's fascinating to me is we then implicitly assume, well, men are therefore allowed to have authority over women, like we just we read in It's I don't know a good analogy to think through how that might translate into common everyday experience. But like there's a negative and then all of a sudden we read a positive and then also make it for all time in all places. And of course, like the word itself right is really is a problematic word in Greek. It's the only version of alfon taine that that author uses, and Pauline authorship has been historically thought to be first Smithy's written by Biblical scholarships pushed on that quite a bit in recent years, but all have to say, regardless of who wrote it, it's been received as canon. And so the fact that that scripture says alfin tain when in the rest of the New Testament we never get that word and the extra biblical literature that we look at the use of that word and it has a negative connotation. I think going back to the Georgia's categories, it's really helpful. I think what's happening there is there's a group of women in that context who are exercising an imperative executive authority that they have no to. The thing is no one does, right. So this is where I get really frustrated. And what prompted the project in the first place is again it's circling around this word authority, and then we bring all of our assumptions in with that. And then the further step we go is and then we try to fight for women to have equal authority to men in the church. And so then we're fighting for women to also have impaired to authority. And I'm like, I think that's a fiction. I literally think we are fighting for a fiction. So can we instead fight to be the first to submit to the other? Can we fight to be the first to love the other? Can we fight to be in those one another capacities to be known by our love for one another? Not do I get to have equal authority to you in the church? And so this brings in even that teaching authority category. We often assume a higher level of power with teaching authority, and I want to say, no, teaching authority. It's a thing, but it's non executive. It is questionable, and so the question becomes, do you have spaces to question this? I mean, I read the Brians as very extolled for questioning Paul and not just questioning him, but setting the scriptures in light of what he teaches them. And this brings in again the constructive exhortation by the end of the book is saying the early Church was a learning community. They would sit around over meals and they would talk about what Jesus had taught and they would say, well, what do you think about that? How do we apply that now? Are you sure about that? Like the words in the New Testament, they're very didactic, they're very verbal about what was happening in these gatherings. And so I think we've lost a lot since then. We've gained a lot to write the Church is in a very different age than it is now that it was in the first century, but we've also lost a lot, and so how do we reclaim some of that learning community, the spirit being more center the lordship of Christ, and also the costliness of our faith.

00:41:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:41:05
Speaker 2: So anyway, so that's how I'd come to first symathy too, is that word. We have a lot of assumptions both about what the word actually means in our English translations, but then what's not even there. We then assume a positive prescription from a negative prohibition, negative prohibition for women at all times in all places, which I think overreaches the text, and then we make a positive prescription for men at all times in all places, which really overreaches the text.

00:41:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is where I felt like when you were discussing that. And there's a lot of varying baggage right that I could talk about. I'm not going to, but I'll just give one example. I think what we see sometimes in this text is the growth of inappropriate practices based on an interpretation which you know, as you talk about in the book the Bible, is God's delegated authority. It's this sort of commission of God's authority that's brought down to us. But our interpretation of it is not a delegated authority. It is and I believe you call it an epistemic authority or exemplary one of the two. Like it's this sort of we're we're taking this delegated authority from God and we're trying to understand it, and so it's influential, but it isn't authoritative in the same sense as God's word is authoritative, because we may not be getting it right. And so there has to be this grappling of do I believe it? And how do I accept this interpretation? And part of the challenge and I just be interested to hear you talk about this when you think about the collective sort of understandings that begin to swarm around interpretations like this, the way that these social environments now create an authority of their own that if you don't believe this particular thing, you are now at best a deviant and at worst a heretic. Yeah, there are these real life consequences to some of these things where it's almost like the group claims what might be in your framework, like that sort of performative authority, right, that there's a if you don't do this, there will be consequences sort of vibe to it that I think have curtailed real deep investigations of passages like a first Timothy two over maybe the last two or three decades of scholarship. I don't know whether any of that really makes sense.

00:43:45
Speaker 2: But yeah, totally so I think I love it. I love it. This is such a fun conversation, James. So I think this has come and so I have to give some treatment to this. Right in my what is scripture? What kind of authority does it have? Then? And understanding what is inspiration? How do we think about what the text actually is and what it is doing? And then the interpretation of those texts, and then the interpreting communities of those texts, and so this question around, For instance, inerrancy becomes one of those shibbaleths. Right, So if you don't hold this particular version of inerrancy, then you are on the Alps. You are no longer an insider. You can't have any way in this community. So the consequences are stark. And what I'm hopeful again, and I could just be naive, but my hopes for this book is that it gives people language of resistance yea to feel empowered in their own agency to say, actually, I don't I don't have to believe that, and not only I don't have to believe that, but my Bible study doesn't have to believe that. And we can talk about these things. Now, this is vulnerable, right because and I teach this in my classroom, right like students we're talking about the Trinity, for instance, I we sit under the mystery of this Trinity, and we're gonna use language as best we can. But it's like trying to have a glass to hold an ocean, right, But we have the gift of these resources from scripture and from church tradition that have given us this language and these creeds to talk about the try and God of the universe. But we're gonna misspeak because we are creature and God is creator. And so in all of this, like I want people to know I am a fallible epistemic authority, and I'm actually I'm better for it. I'm better for it in knowing that I am because it allows my siblings to speak into my life and an epistemic humility. If you want to talk about another category that's very important in this, right is we don't know it all. And so yeah, I think you're exactly right. The costs are high, but I hope that this gives people a resource to say, ah, I'm not crazy, and it's okay to disagree. And I do stand before the authority of the living God, not the authority of some artificial office or construct or category. Mistake. Ah, it's okay, because I do raise this in the book, that we can have this kind of existential paralysis if we think, if I question this office, the person that's holding this office, that my kind of existential state is in crisis, or this eschatological judgment. I'm on the chopping block, and I want to help quell some of those fears and say, I just don't think that's scriptural. I don't think that's how Jesus wants us to operate. And the Lord casts out the spirit of fear. And so let's feel more confident in our in what Christ has done. Let's start there, and what Christ has done on the cross and in his resurrection and in his ascension, he has sent us his own spirit of adoption. And that is the ground on which we stand and say Abba, Father, and we get to say to one another brother and sister, and then we get to look to Jesus now and for old time as we grow in our own exemplary understanding of looking more and more like him, And so I just want to push against fear that can so easily be a paralytic in these conversations and say that is not the God we serve.

00:47:43
Speaker 1: Well, let me say, I think from my perspective, I think you accomplish that. And so my encouragement would be for folks to go out and get this. I think that anytime I've taught on one Timothy two, these passages that we're talking about, it always ends up in some sort of like minor argument. And my counsel to everybody that I talked to about that passage is just remember there's a lot that's unclear here, but what is clear is Romans twelve to ten out do one another and showing honor. You're not missing that one up. Roman's twelve ten is very clear. So let's let the clear passages sort of help us as we approach the unclear do one another in showing honor, like pretty straightforward. So but I really we got to close this off. But I love the book. I really appreciate you being on today and just encourage people to go and get it. The book is a theology of authority Rethinking Leadership in the Church. It's published by Baker, but you can also get it on Amazon or wherever books are sold. I'll have the link in the show notes and just encourage everybody out there to go grab this read it. It's really helpful. And one of the things I really loved about it is if you want to I wouldn't suggest this, but you could. She gives you give these handles sort of at the end in your and it like, it's so nice. When I was going back through preparing for the interview after i'd read it, because I read it a month or so ago when we booked the interview, and then I was going back through today and I'm like, okay, let me just refresh. I went back to those italisized little points at the end of each chapter and I was like, this is super helpful. So thank you, very readable, very approachable, extremely helpful. Encourage you get the book. And again, Christa, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

00:49:34
Speaker 2: James, thank you so much.

00:49:37
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, everybody, Well, we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.