Women In Church Leadership - A Novel Idea

In the UK, most Christians I know (myself included) support women in leadership, and by extension, women preaching. However, I do have quite a few Christian friends who don’t support women in leadership, and they attend churches that do not permit women to deliver sermons. They tend to base this on their interpretation of St. Paul’s teaching on the subject (notably, 1 Timothy 2:12 - “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man” and 1 Corinthians 14:34 - “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”). But most Christians take those verses to be contextual admonitions directed at particular church cultures of the time, not blanket prohibitions of women’s roles in leadership to be religiously adhered to in perpetuity.

Certainly, the spirit of the Bible, and other verses, seem to indicate the acknowledgment and encouragement of the role of women in leadership. St. Paul, in Romans 16, speaks of Phoebe as a “deacon of the church”; Luke, in Acts 18:26, acknowledges Priscilla as a teacher; and in Acts 21, we learn that “Philip the evangelist had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.”. Moreover, great Old Testament women - like Rebecca, Leah, Deborah, Rahab, Esther, to name but a few - were given great authority and responsibility in furthering the Biblical story and enhancing God’s Kingdom.

Consequently, I think the correct Biblical interpretation is that it’s not just fine, but beneficial, to have women in leadership. But that said, those who disagree with me on this are probably just as confident that their interpretation is correct. And it has to be said, given debates like this one are long-standing, and given that the Biblical texts are too low-resolution for any of us to be certain what God wants for His church regarding women in leadership, there is no external metric to which we can assent to find out which group of Christians have got this one right.

My possibly novel idea
With this in mind, I have an idea that’s a bit off the wall, but is probably worth a moment’s consideration. Maybe we can’t know which option is right, but maybe God wants us to make a choice, and maybe God doesn’t mind all that much what we choose about women in leadership (as long as we are kind and conduct ourselves with goodness) because our subjective preference in this matter is a dignity He has bestowed upon us. In other words, as long as churches stick to the fundamental Christian tenets, maybe it’s fine to celebrate the diversity of church styles and denominations consistent with individual consumer preferences.

The church is broad and diverse; some people like to be monks, some like to be nuns, some people are Christian missionaries, some are business pioneers, some people prefer dancing in Pentecostal churches, some prefer quiet contemplative church services, and so on. Maybe it’s possible that that’s how God feels about our preference for leadership; for those men and women who prefer to be led by men, God is fine with a church that sets itself up with only male leaders; and for the rest, who value women in leadership, there are many churches for them too. 

Don’t get me wrong, if we had access to God’s perfect knowledge, and knew all the facts ourselves, there may be a definitive set of right answers about women in leadership that would make everything clear with that degree of hindsight. But given that we are imperfect humans, trying to do our best with limited information and our best efforts at scriptural interpretations, it may well be that God is perfectly fine with our a la carte model of individual preferences, where male leadership churches are fine for people who prefer that, and mixed leadership churches are fine for everyone else.

 

On The Economics Of High Oil Prices (And Why They Can Be Good)

As we’ve all seen in the UK recently, it costs a lot to fill up at the fuel pumps these days. And as most people are talking about it so much, it’s probably worth sharing a few thoughts.

Why so high?
First let’s examine why oil (and therefore fuel) prices are so high. It’s always largely down to supply and demand, but broken down, the Russia/Ukraine conflict is clearly a big factor, as is the transition from stringent global Covid restrictions to the new ‘living with Covid' phase, where demand shot up and supply couldn’t keep up with that demand. Also, the Covid years saw a reduction in fuel consumption, which hit income for fuel providers, whose increased prices are, in part, to compensate for the pandemic shortfall. Production volatility and capacity at the refineries are a factor, as are increased costs of distribution. The pound’s performance against the dollar is a factor for UK prices. And, also hugely significantly, the government imposes high taxes on fuel, which obviously makes it far more expensive at the pumps. Another significant factor is the ‘climate emergency’ brigade’s war on fossil fuels, which makes oil suppliers nervous about future investment for fear of more stringent green regulations/taxes, which would hit their capital assets.

Price dynamics
Given the foregoing, there are two further things that need saying here about the price increase. The first is that, except for taking off the tax, there is no real way to lower the price of fuel and make the situation better than doing nothing. The second is that, given the truth of the first point, higher prices increase efficiency of consumption. Beginning with the first point; rudimentary economics suggests we can't easily lower the price, because oil is a high-demand but an exhaustible resource. This means that every barrel must be sold at the optimum time for the supplier - if you sell a barrel tomorrow you can't sell it next week, and so on. Deciding when to sell barrels of oil is one of the key catalysts for determining current prices and future prices. And the key inputs to that decision are the current price and the expected future price.

Government activities will generally (but not always) either bid down current prices and bid up future prices, or they will bid up current prices and subject future markets to unwelcome volatility. If the government starts to bid down current prices and bid up expected future prices, they create an incentive for oil suppliers to sell less now and sell more in the future. But this, of course, reduces current supply and goes on to bid up current prices. As a rule of thumb, in a supply and demand free-ish market, the price of oil ought to rise at the rate of interest. This is because leaving oil in the ground is a kind of investment, and investments are generally actuarial analyses tailored to rates of interest. If governments artificially change the price path by reducing current output and increasing the current price, which is what is happening now, then the expected growth rate is diminished relative to projected future interest rates, inducing suppliers to sell more now and not leave it in the ground. Consequently, the very best thing the government can do as a temporary measure to help its citizens deal with the increase cost of fuel is to greatly reduce the fuel tax and offset the loss with temporary reduced public spending in another sector.

Efficient consumption
In the meantime, I said that higher prices increase efficiency of consumption, and here’s why. When the price of a good increases, the people who value it most tend to be the ones who buy it, where the people who don’t need or want it enough to pay the higher prices will either go without or look for a substitute. Suppose there’s a shortage of fuel, and the prices go up because the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied. These price rises discourage casual consumption, and they encourage more production until fuel is readily available again at a more affordable price for more people. If Jeff fills up his car with 60 litres of fuel and sits idly for 2 weeks, and Bob has no fuel and can’t drive his taxi, then the 60 litres have been sold inefficiently. While market volatility isn't a good thing for consumers, if it does happen, like it has in the oil industry, then price increases that reflect the reality of the supply and demand curves are a blessing not a curse, because they cut inefficient consumption (like Jeff’s), safeguard efficient consumption (like Bob’s), and spur on increased production.

Five Reasons Not To Commit Suicide: Why Life Is Worth Living

I just felt a strong nudge from the Holy Spirit to articulate these thoughts, to share the reasons why you shouldn’t commit suicide, and put them on video, for some future good out there. I don’t know whether its impact is for this week, next month, or for years later – just that someone might need to hear these words at a crucial time in their life, so better that it’s out there for anyone in need.