Tag Archive for 'sola scriptura'

Anglican Covenant – strength of weak ties

Published on February 7, 2010 in liturgy. 17 Comments Tags: Anglican, anglican communion, anglicanism, anglicans, bible, divorce, hope, marriage, ordination, reformation, sola scriptura.

Bible Alone

It continues to intrigue me that those who hold to a Bible-Alone, sola scriptura position regularly continue to clamour in favour of the proposed Anglican Covenant. This more protestant, “reformed” end of the Anglican spectrum on the one hand claims the Bible Alone is totally sufficient for all our Christian needs, that the Bible is totally self-explanatory, and that the Bible does not need to be supplemented by any other documents. Yet on the other hand: these same people feel that Anglicanism cannot survive without the Anglican Covenant. Ie. the Bible alone is not sufficient. Make up your mind people: is the Bible alone sufficient or isn’t it?!

Completing the Reformation

Some pro-Anglican-Covenant people speak about the need to “complete the Reformation”. Certainly, many at the Reformation created confessional denominations increasingly dividing over disagreements over interpretations of their lists of beliefs. The Anglican Covenant will either include everyone currently Anglican (and so will alter nothing, have only delayed discussion about the real issue, and wasted jet-engine fuel). Or it will complete the Reformation’s tendency towards ever-increasing fragmentation by splintering the frail bonds that bind Anglicans together.

The Anglican Communion and the strength of weak ties

Without using theological-babble (or “Rowanspeak”) it is very hard to ascertain what those who are pro-the Covenant concretely want and expect from a “Communion”. Certainly we would hope a communicant anywhere is a communicant everywhere in the Communion. Even that principle has been stretched to breaking with some provinces communicating all the baptised, some needing a rite of “admission to communion” at an age of “understanding”, and some needing episcopal confirmation before receiving communion. I am sure that toddlers from the first option may have difficulty receiving communion in provinces with the last option. Another principle is the mutual recognition of ordination, so that clergy in one province can function as clergy in another province. That principle has long been broken with women clergy, and male clergy ordained by women bishops, from one province unable to function as clergy in other provinces. Attitudes to divorce and remarriage vary from province to province, affecting communicant status and acceptability of remarried clergy. All this will not change one iota should the Anglican Covenant be accepted.

Sociologist Mark Granovetter, in the highly influential 1973 paper on social networking “The Strength of Weak Ties”, argues our close friends will be quite similar to us. Acquaintances differ more from us and will have their own networks of close friends. We have strong ties to our friends, and weak ties to acquaintances. Granovetter argues persuasively for the value of having both strong and weak ties – they have different functions, enhancing both our flourishing and theirs.

Strong ties (friends) are like an Anglican province. Weak ties (acquaintances) are like our inter-provincial ties across the Anglican Communion. Many who are pro-Covenant appear unable to articulate a difference between a diocese, a province, and a communion – these appear to be seeking that the communion function essentially in the way that most of us understand a diocese to function (or possibly a province).

A previous post: the Anglican Covenant will not do what it is meant to do

A helpful site for deeper reflection is the World Anglicanism Forum run by Bruce Kaye, an Anglican theologian, Foundation editor of the Journal of Anglican Studies. Currently a Visiting Research Fellow in History at the University of New South Wales and a Professorial Associate in Theology at Charles Sturt University.

Bible alone – sola scriptura

Published on November 3, 2009 in liturgy. 24 Comments Tags: bible, richard hooker, sola scriptura.

Today is the feast of Richard Hooker – a good day to reflect on the concept that the Bible alone is sufficient to determine what ought to be believed – sola scriptura. As far as I can ascertain the term goes back to Martin Luther, a sixteenth century human construct, philosophically in the early modern period of human history. Luther’s own high degree of confidence in the sole sufficiency of individualised Biblical reading was soon shattered even in his own lifetime when others started reading the Bible quite differently and found teachings there significantly different to what Luther himself read there.

The concept of “scripture only” is nowhere found in the scriptures. The scriptures regularly point readers beyond the list of scrolls. The scriptures do not present the concept of a coherent whole or closed canon. Furthermore, parts of the Bible quote from documents as if they are to be regarded as scripture – whereas these documents do not form part of our current canon!

2 Timothy 2:2 “what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well.”

2 Thessalonians 2:15 “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.”

1 Timothy 3:15 “if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

and so on…

The Early Church had no concept of sola scriptura, in fact could not have such a concept as there was no fixed canon. Hence, as sola scriptura is not part of “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3) how can it form part of orthodox Christianity?

It is the early, undivided church which recognises the work of God’s Spirit in certain scrolls and holds them as providing God’s word within the ongoing life of the church. Richard Hooker argues against the puritan position of sola scriptura bringing reason and the tradition of the church into the dialogue. The councils of the undivided church clearly hold a special place in the life of the church. (As an aside, the FOCA’s Jerusalem Declaration “uphold the four Ecumenical Councils”. They give no indication which four they refer to, nor why they stop at four?! Normal church historians recognise seven ecumenical councils of the undivided church.)

Even the most casual examination of Christianity will underscore the failure of the puritan experiment and the inherently illogical nature of the Bible-alone position. People who actually claim sola scriptura disagree with other people who also claim sola scriptura about what we should believe – to the most fundamental issues. There are hundreds, no thousands of different Christian groups all claiming they have the correct beliefs, and all claiming that their beliefs are based on the Bible alone. This demonstrates, in the five centuries of its existence, sola scriptura cannot be made to work in practice. You can just about think of any crazy belief, and you can probably find a Bible verse to support it – and if you cannot find a group that supports your crazy belief, you can easily start one up and I’m sure you will soon find other people joining your new Bible-only believing group.

One of the scandals, certainly of English-speaking Christianity, is the dissatisfaction by some Christians with excellent biblical translations, and their financing of new “translations” which are not honest in following their declared purpose and method, but rather produce “translations” of the Bible to support a certain personal opinion. Rather than having the scriptures determine their beliefs, these people have their beliefs determine their “translation” of the scriptures.

With the advent of post-modern philosophical understanding there has been the growing realisation and acknowledgement that where one stands determines what one sees. There is no such thing as one objective reading on scriptural material. This is not a bad thing nor need it be the source of any scandal. It is merely a fact. One that would have been plain in the early church and one that poses no problem when it is understood, acknowledged and we respond together accordingly – hopefully a little more knowingly, and certainly a little more humbly.

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Richard Hooker

Published on November 3, 2008 in liturgy. Closed Tags: Anglican, anglicanism, ecclesiastical polity, episcopalians, queen elizabeth, richard hooker, sola scriptura, three legged stool, via media.

Richard Hooker (March 1554 – 3 November 1600) clearly articulated a via media (middle way) eschewing Roman additions and puritan, protestant subtractions. His strongly eirenic position and methodology is as relevant today as four centuries ago. In response to the catch-cry sola scriptura (the Bible alone – the absolute sufficiency of scripture), Hooker highlighted the importance of tradition and reason – forming the classic “three legged stool” (scripture, tradition, reason). One need only look around to see the ever-increasing fracturing that sola scriptura leads to. Sola scriptura is unsupported in the Early Church, clearly unworkable, and surprisingly (or not!) unknown in scripture!

Hooker’s reflections equally apply currently to church leadership and unity. The English puritans maintained that no church could claim to be Christian unless it followed Calvin’s construct of each congregation being governed by a group composed of two thirds laymen elected annually by the congregation and one third clergy serving for life.

Hooker responds using scripture, reason, tradition, and experience founded on a philosophical base which is Aristotelian with natural law eternally placed by God in creation. He has little sympathy with oversimplifications that pass for scholarship, commencing his The Laws Of Ecclesiastical Polity with “Those unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injuried by us, seeing that it lies in their own hands to spare themselves the labor they are unwilling to endure.” Even Pope Clement VIII (his contemporary with whom he so strongly disagreed), said of The Laws Of Ecclesiastical Polity: “It has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning.”

Hooker, furthermore, does not need all to agree mentally with everything on a list of assertions, as his understanding of God is not of a “captious sophister, eager to trip us up whenever we say amiss, but a courteous tutor, ready to amend what, in our weakness or our ignorance, we say ill, and to make the most of what we say aright.” In this Hooker expresses a similar thought to Queen Elizabeth I, who sought unity through shared spiritual practice and said, “I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls.”

Collects:

God of peace, the bond of all love,
who in your Son Jesus Christ have made the human race
your inseparable dwelling place:
after the example of your servant Richard Hooker,
give grace to us your servants ever to rejoice
in the true inheritance of your adopted children
and to show forth your praises now and ever;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Common Worship (CofE)

O God of truth and peace,
who raised up your servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy
to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion:
Grant that we may maintain that middle way,
not as a compromise for the sake of peace,
but as a comprehension for the sake of truth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

TEC (USA)

The Complete Works of Richard Hooker (2-Volume Set)

Online version of Richard Hooker’s works and another site