F.F. Bruce
There is not a Biblical scholar who has a more solid Evangelical reputation than F.F. Bruce. Even the Evangelical hierarchicalists wonder how someone who had so much right could go so wrong when it came to gender equality.
Now that Andy has recommended some resources and mentioned an F.F. Bruce article, I would like to emphasize it now. I just added a link to it under “Resources,” an article called “Women in the Church: A Biblical Survey.”
Much of the disagreements over what the Bible says concerning gender equality ultimately comes down to hermeneutics (the study and theory of Biblical interpretation). What I like about the article is that Bruce emphasizes what’s important by warning about making rules for all times and places when the writers, especially Paul, were simply giving local guidance. In fact, Bruce says the way to tell the difference between “temporary application and those which are of universal and permanent validity” is to pay attention to Paul’s “passionate emphasis on freedom,” steering a true course between “spiritual bondage on the one hand and moral licence on the other.” So here’s Bruce’s formalized criteria: “Whatever in Paul’s teaching promotes true freedom is of universal and permanent validity; whatever seems to impose restrictions on true freedom has regard to local and temporary conditions.”
“Our application of the [Biblical] text,” Bruce says, “should avoid treating the New Testament as a book of rules…. We should not turn what were meant as guiding lines for worshippers in one situation into laws binding for all time…. It is an ironical paradox when Paul, who was so concerned to free his converts from bondage of law, is treated as a law-giver for later generations. The freedom of the Spirit, which can be safeguarded by one set of guiding lines in a particular situation, may call for a different procedure in a new situation.”
I was raised Plymouth Brethren, the “nondenominational” denomination that Bruce somehow was able to stick with throughout his life, as far as I know. I left it because of their scribalism and legalism of scripture application that Bruce talks about in this article, their discomfort with and non-understanding of higher education, and their strong stands against gender equality. How both he and Ward Gasque managed public egalitarian positions while still remaining within the PB ranks is beyond my comprehension. Certainly they would have had to adopt the attitude that equality was not an issue for which they would fall upon their swords.
It is wise, however, to stay humble about one’s understanding of scripture. As Bruce says, “We too are culturally conditioned; only we do not notice it.”
F. F. Bruce was perhaps the free-est person I have ever met. If he had a hobbyhorse to ride, it would have been the principle of liberty, which he regarded, as has been noted, the heart of Paul’s theology.
Incidentally, he loved the secular university and found it hard to understand how anyone would ever want to teach in a Christian college or seminary where they limited your freedom concerning what you could believe and demanded that you sign a statement of faith! In the university, he felt he was free to follow the truth wherever it led. He also felt the same thing about the Brethren, who had no statement of faith nor even closed membership.
My sense is that not many people have experienced the (Plymouth) Brethren as champions of liberty, but this was the way that FFB felt. He once commented (in an article in an issue of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal on “Why I Left the Brethren”) that he had stayed with the Brethren because he didn’t think that he’d be able to find another such fellowship that would allow him the same degree of freedom as he had found in his life-long fellowship among the Brethren.
To some degree that has also been my experience (and, so I gather, that of my wife and daughter; the latter did not realize that the women in our assemblies did not, until recently, have the freedom to lead the congregation in prayer or preach; when she realized this as a late teenager, she didn’t think it was fair but also didn’t think it was all that big a deal). Today, however, the assembly I attend (and, at the moment, serve as interim senior pastor) encourages women, as well as men, to exercize whatever gifts the Lord has given them in the church as well as in society, including leadership and preaching. It has had a policy for about 20 years of empowering women to speak, prayer, lead worship, give thanks for the bread and wine at the Breaking of Bread. It has only within the past couple of months made the decision to recognize appropriatedly gifted women as elders and preachers.
There are at least 4 other Brethren assemblies in Vancouver, Canada, who take this position, and I have heard of others in Canada and in various other countries; so I detect a worldwide trend.
FFB, however, if he were still with us, would not feel able to join our fellowship on a permanent basis, since we now have a statement of faith which people must sign in order to become members. This was introduced, without fanfare or significant objection, some 17 or 18 years ago, as a result of legal advice relating to the provincial regulations concerning churches and non-profit organizations.
WWG
I would just add to Ward’s comments that Regent College which was principally founded by Plymouth Brethren folk is moving more egalitarian though a healthy mix of complementarians still continue. Rod Wilson, the president of Regent College, and an egalitarian, is also from a Brethren background. The great thing about the Brethren is their reverence for Scripture and their roots in church structure flexibility. In other words, they were not convinced early on of the strong distinction between clergy and laity and therefore eliminated the strong distinctions about who could serve communion. Hence, Brethren-rooted folks like FFB and others are easy converts to an evangelical egalitarian position because tradition and church structure are not holy barriers.
Thanks for posting, Ward. It’s been 35-40 years since I saw you last when you came preaching during your Fuller days. Guess I didn’t realize you and Andy were preaching buddies in the same place quite recently.
If my experience of the Brethren had been that of the kind of freedom F.F. Bruce expounded, I no doubt would not have left. And not for lack of trying. For years after marrying, my wife and I would try the nearest assembly after each move, only to be severely turned off or shut down. But then the American Midwest sure isn’t the West Coast.
All of my academic degrees have been obtained at secular institutions, and I’m not convinced of the academic freedom in such places what with all their political correctness and outright hatred of Christianity. I have felt considerable freedom where I teach, in fact, which is an Arminian/Wesleyan institution which hired me who attends a Calvinistic church and holds a free will position somewhere in between the two extremes (probably similar to Brethren positions).
Andy certainly has put his finger on Brethren strengths and is exactly why I’ve come to an Evangelical egalitarian position. I just wish the PBs would pay more attention to the implications of their own doctrines.
I was a student under FF Bruce at the U of Manchester, 1975-77. FF Bruce was no Evangelical, at least in the American definition. One of the first things he told me was that “Paul overargues himself.” Neo-orthodox would be a better term for his theology. He gave no sign that he believed in Biblical inerrancy. I once asked him if he felt obligated to believe the Bible; he replied “if Paul said it.” In his book on Paul, published around 1978, he seems to say on 2 Cor 5 that Paul has now come around to the position that there is no resurrection, only eternal life for the spirit. In the weekly Faculty of Theology seminar, a paper was read in which the author had the 4 resurrection account in the 4 gospels disagreeing with each other. I had the gall to ask the presenter if that meant that one or another of the gospels had got it wrong. FF Bruce put in: “We all see through a glass darkkly.” I attended Plymouth/Christian Brethren gospel halls while in Manchester — not Bruce’s, as his was out of town. It is no wonder that he could stay with them, having the status of a son of a Brethren preacher. For the Brethren, as I experienced them, had no doctrinal statement and no official policies of any kind — just tradition. Even elders were not formally designated; one was supposed to “know” who they are. An idiot from out of town could stand up and spout forth at a Brethren meeting. No one knew who would bring the sermon after the Lord’s Supper — whoever got up there first did it. In short, while the Brethren have been conservative, they also have had a strong element of anarchy in their system. Knowing FF Bruce as I did, I would not expect him to say anything in a meeting, however, that would arouse a hostile reaction — as the gentleman was irenic.
Enoch, thanks for your comment about your experience with F.F. Bruce. I think your experience with the Brethren rings true to the experience of the 1970’s Plymouth Brethren in England. I think it also coheres with what Ward, Craighton and I said above.
Interesting to read that you don’t think Bruce was an evangelical. I will weigh that opinion as I read more about Bruce in the future. There is not a biography in existence about FF Bruce that I know of but I guess there should be! I didn’t know Bruce personally as Ward did - having done his dissertation under him and dined regularly in his home with him - but I am happy to tell you why I have always assumed Bruce was a British “evangelical.”
I will have to check out his references to the resurrection (2 Cor 5) to see if his views are orthodox. I would be highly surprised if they were not. He has written many many books - perhaps more than any other writer about the reliability of the gospels - so I would be very surprised if he was somehow disturbed in his faith by the “discrepancies” in the gospel accounts of the resurrection. I think his comment about “seeing through a glass darkly” is a “trusting-in-God” statement that says we cannot figure out every Scriptural question definitively this side of heaven, though Bruce helped us in understanding so many of them. (Cf. Hard Sayings of Jesus).
I tend to think of people like Reinhold Niebuhr and Emil Bruner as neo-orthodox - not Bruce. Alister McGrath doesn’t even want to use the term to describe Karl Barth: “I sometimes wonder if there is some confusion among some North American evangelicals between Barth and Brunner, both of whom are very often lumped together in a rather unhelpful way as ‘neo-orthodox.’” George Hunsinger agrees: “The term neo-orthodox is one of the most useless terms in the theological lexicon. It lumps together all sorts of disparate views.” See “Alister McGrath, author of A Passion for Truth“.
Here are my reasons for thinking Bruce is an evangelical:
1. His apologetic works The New Testament Works: Are They Reliable? and The Hard Sayings of Jesus are regularly referred to by Nicky Gumbel and the Alpha Course, the leading evangelism program in the UK, and possibly the world, at the moment.
2. His commentaries are standard works upon which all evangelical commentators draw. No evangelical commentary is written without looking at what Bruce had to say.
3. He edited the New International Commentary on the New Testament commentary series for many years before passing that responsibility to Gordon Fee - another evangelical.
4. Attending a Brethren church indicates you are probably an evangelical.
5. Bruce was offered to become the editor of Christianity Today (the flagship evangelical publication) but turned it down. But he was a regular contributor.
6. Bruce was offered to become the first principal of Regent College but turned it down and recommended James Houston who accepted the position.
7. From my understanding, inerrancy is not a word that is commonly used among evangelicals in Britain or anywhere else outside the U.S. It is my understanding that British evangelicals do not emphasize the word “inerrant” but rather use the words authoritative or infallible. Alister McGrath calls F. F. Bruce, John Stott, I. H. Marshall, and N. T. Wright “European evangelical scholars.” He writes, “One of the things that we notice about North American evangelicalism from our European perspective is that it’s been very heavily influenced by a series of extrabiblical presuppositions.” See the link above.
8. The back of Bruce’s book New Testament History has this endorsement: “The best available treatment by an evangelical.–Christianity Today.”
9. In the 1959 work, Revelation and the Bible: Contemporary Evangelical Thought, Bruce contributed to the volume that disagreed with both liberal and neo-orthodox views of inspiration.
Thanks again to anyone reading this. It is delightful to discuss with you the important topic of Biblical understandings of women in the context of such an interesting scholar as F.F. Bruce. Grace and peace.
On further reflection, I’m not sure if F.F. Bruce was ever offered the editor position at Christianity Today. (See #5 above). I thought I read that one time but I can’t find any documentation for the statement. But he was a regular contributor to CT.
Also, a correction to #6 above: Bruce met with the founders of Regent College but was not offered the principalship. Rather Ward Gasque (see above) suggested James Houston’s name who ended up being the first principal.
Thanks.
While some folks would consider the Brethren church polity anarchic, as Enoch above apparently does, others, including myself, would see that as a welcome freedom. As Andy pointed out, church tradition and structures have proved to be [not-so]-holy barriers to Christians adopting egalitarian positions and lifestyles.