The debate we face now is often represented as a debate over scripture. I do not believe that is true. I see no desire to move away from scriptural authority for the life and witness of the church. What we do have is division as to how to listen to and interpret scripture: Colenso believed that Moses did not write the five books of the Pentateuch. Longley profoundly disagreed with him, but wanted the variety of views to be aired. I do not believe that it is coincidental that sexuality is at the heart of our current debate. It provokes a deep reaction, while we live happily, though in profound disagreement, with a variety of ethical views on issues of peace and war. Try getting a just war doctrine out of scripture without very considerable help from tradition. It interests me that the vegetarian debate sometimes provokes the same use of scripture, in letters to me, to batter with one view rather than to listen to others.
“What we do have is division as to how to listen to and interpret scripture” —Bp. Packer
When we disregard scripture, we should not try to gussy up our conduct by calling it a form of “listening to” scripture.
Nor can we dignify mangling scripture as a form of “interpretation.”
No, the division is more basic: whether we will let scripture restrain us from the secular, self-seeking agendas we find most congenial.
“For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires” —2 Timothy 4:3-4
+Packer seems to be setting up a straw man argument. Nobody here is arguing that the church should be perfect. As long as the church is made up of humans, it will not be perfect. What reasserters are saying is that there are truths that are fundamental to Christianity, and that, without these truths, Christianity ceases to be Christian. The one issue that trumps all others is the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice. Is it, as reasserters believe, necessary for salvation, or is it, as some reappraisers believe, one among many ways to get to God, (and therefore, rather useless, as people can get to God without it)?
I was so relieved to be wrong….because I was on the verge of disappointment that the template wasn’t complete on the other side of the pond. I was wrong. Although he didn’t talk about polity, he did mention Donatism.
When is the scene with the dead horse being beaten?
I also agree that the debate is not about the authority of scripture, but for another reason: because both sides rationalize away clear commandments of scripture that they do not like – even those not repealed by Jesus. My case in point are the usury laws – I have not yet heard a remotely plausible argument for why we do not obey them – and we clearly don’t.
I quite agree about usury, although it’s not the ideal case in that most of the “legislative” propositions are in the Pentateuch (and Prophets), on which Christian thought has typically been confused and rationalizing since the second century. A serious debate about usury might, incidentally, do wonders for a dialogue with Islam.
The question would be whether usury was part of the civil law of ancient Israel, not binding on Christians (or, as far as I can tell, on Jews today), or whether it is part of the moral law, which remains in force. The modern consensus has been that money is a commodity and reasonable interest, the rent charged for its use, in ordinary business transactions. Usury then becomes excessive and exploitative lending — that is, extortionate lending where charity giving is really what is needed.
Strict Muslims simply find ways to work around the usury restrictions so that they get the same results without actually “borrowing” money.
I have more sense than to search for a “perfect church;” as someone once said, “If you find a perfect church, don’t join it — you’ll ruin it!”
Our differences do not lie in mere methods of interpretation of Scripture. They lie in WHAT Scripture is — revealed and inspired by the living God, or incomplete guesses on who God is based on spiritual experiences? How we interpret Scripture is determined by what we believe Scripture to be.
We simply want the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion of “the West” to be faithful to the proper boundaries of Christian faith, accepting the core convictions of Christianity as the core of what one must believe to be a Christian.
If the Episcopal Church, aiming to be “inclusive,” does not wish to be a distinctly Christian church, then I do not wish to be an Episcopalian.
I find the partial use made of the Colenso Case disingenuous. Without going through the whole bitter dispute it’s enough to note that Colenso was not even invited to the first Lambeth Conference and that the Bishops resolved (as had the Convocation of Canterbury), given Colenso’s heresy and the apparent impossibility of removing him from office, that it was acceptable to create a parallel Bishopric with jurisdiction over the same territory that Colenso held.
It is amusing to see the suggestion that the Bishops were divided over Colenso’s teaching. They were not. It was widely agreed his teaching was heretical. The pressing question was what action could be taken against him given that the State had ruled that he could not be removed from office.
I should say it is risible to note that the restatement of the traditional teaching of the church in Lambeth 1.10 is named a ‘new revelation’. I guess it is new for liberal catholics like Bishop Packer.
The question would be whether usury was part of the civil law of ancient Israel, not binding on Christians (or, as far as I can tell, on Jews today), or whether it is part of the moral law, which remains in force.
I’m sure 99.999% of Christians would tell you it is part of the civil law. I can’t imagine why there would be such unanimity…. oh, because the Holy Spirit spoke through them all, of course.