(1.1.2) that, reliant on the Holy Spirit, it [each Church of the Anglican Communion] professes the faith which is uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith, and which is set forth in the catholic creeds, and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear significant witness, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation; ...

(1.2.4) to ensure that biblical texts are handled faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, primarily through the teaching and initiative of bishops and synods, and building on habits and disciplines of Bible study across the Church and on rigorous scholarship, believing that scriptural revelation continues to illuminate and transform individuals, cultures and societies;

This sounds quite positive, but it does not address the essential hermeneutical errors of the revisionists. These errors take a number of forms, but there are two features that are virtually universal, reflecting errors that correspond to the Incarnation and Trinity. In one way or another, revisionists deny or discount the divine character of the biblical words. Further, they do not understand Scripture as a single narrative in three acts, corresponding to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather, they view Scripture as the first installment of an unfolding revelation which, in light of new experiences and insights, allows them to transmute the biblical revelation into a false gospel. There are other revisionist errors, but these, in my view, are corollaries of the two essential errors described here. Let me list eight examples of revisionist approaches to Scripture, followed by some theological reflections.(2)

1) A biblical hermeneutic published by the Diocese of New York, "Let the Reader Understand," assumes that God has an eternal plan which begins in Scripture yet continues into the present with new forms that may, and indeed do, contradict the plain sense of Scripture.(3)
2) The former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, quotes John 16:12 to the effect that the biblical revelation must be supplemented by further insights given to the Church by the Holy Spirit and the risen Jesus.(4)
3) Michael Johnston, author of Engaging the Word, isolates biblical texts from the biblical narrative, sees each as the expression of an original biblical community, and from there concludes that "the sacred community assembles its texts as much as the sacred texts assemble the community."(5) This allows him to reassemble the biblical message according to contemporary experience.
4) William Countryman, a professor at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, describes Genesis 2:24 as an "etiological story, telling how the institution of marriage came into being," thereby dismissing the biblical word defining the context of sexuality.(6)
5) Ellen Wondra, a professor at Seabury Episcopal Seminary, claims that "Divine activity and revelation are ongoing, and may be encountered in non-biblical contexts with a force equivalent to that claimed for scriptural times."(7)
6) Charles Price, former professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, states that "The Bible is not another Christ. It did not die for us nor was it raised from the dead." From there he deduces that Scripture has only a relative authority so that the church is no longer under Scripture but dialectically related to it.(8)
7) The 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church amended a resolution which stated that "Scripture is the Church's supreme authority," to a resolution that acknowledged "the authority of the triune God, exercised through Scripture," thereby discarding the supreme authority of Scripture, and further, seeing revelation as given "through" Scripture rather than "as" Scripture.(9)
8) Bishop V. Gene Robinson (New Hampshire) claims that Scripture is the Word of God but not the words of God.(10) This move allows revisionists to discount the specifics of the biblical revelation in favor of general principles such as love, faithfulness, and mutuality, whose content is defined anew in every age.

For those who practice these approaches, Scripture, to quote the St. Andrew's Draft, contains "all things necessary for salvation" and is "the rule and ultimate standard of faith." The revisionists believe they handle Scripture "faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently," taught by their bishops, often using the latest scholarship, and therefore, by St. Andrew's Draft standards, perfectly legitimate. But is there, in fact, anything wrong with these approaches to Scripture? Every hermeneutic for interpreting Scripture reflects a world-view and every world-view defines a range of possible biblical interpretations. The world-view by which Anglicans interpret Scripture is given by the creeds. Here is Reginald Fuller,

The tradition of the first five centuries (which mean in effect the first four ecumenical councils through to Chalcedon) have always enjoyed a special authority in classical Anglicanism, which also appealed to the "three Creeds" as a hermeneutical principle for the interpretation of Scripture.(11)

J. Robert Wright, noting the fact that Anglicans recite the Creed each Sunday, comments as follows,

By such liturgical requirements, then, we are here asserting that Scripture is authoritatively interpreted by us in the way in which we receive the doctrinal formulations of the creeds that we use.(12)

How then, do the creeds address some of the common errors of the revisionist approach to Scripture? Let me begin by discussing the fact that revisionists deny or discount the divine character of the biblical words.

One of the theological doctrines of the Incarnation is the communicatio idiomatum, the belief that divine properties can be assigned to Jesus' human nature, and conversely, human properties can be applied to Jesus' divine nature. This doctrine was advanced against the Nestorians who believed that the humanity and divinity of Christ were two separate persons, cooperatively joined. The church denied Nestorianism by decreeing that Jesus was one person in two natures, and further, by proclaiming the communicatio idiomatum, affirmed in the Theotokos, that Mary was the God-bearer. By creation, it is not true that a woman giving birth gives birth to God. In the Incarnation, however, the divine property of divinity must be attributed to Jesus' human nature, so that Mary gave birth to God. This doctrine was proclaimed in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.

One such divine property is eternal existence and final authority, so that the human words of Jesus are eternal and absolutely binding. In the words of Jesus, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matt. 24:35). Similarly, with Jesus as the center of Scripture, all the words of Scripture have eternal validity so that Scripture is both the Word of God and the words of God.(13) The revisionists gladly affirm Scripture as the Word of God. They also affirm it as human words, but they diminish its significance as the words of God. All eight of the revisionist approaches to Scripture given above diminish the divine character of the biblical words. Exegetically and theologically, these approaches are Nestorian.(14) More needs to be said, but this is the crux of the matter.

What then do the creeds have to say about the second common revisionist misuse of Scripture that it is the first installment of an unfolding revelation which, in light of new experiences and insights, allows the biblical revelation to be radically revised? Let me begin with a quotation from patristic scholar, Francis Young, speaking of how the patristic church interpreted Scripture from a creedal perspective in order to counter false exegesis.

Neither the Rule of Faith nor the creed was in fact a summary of the whole biblical narrative, as demonstrated earlier in The Art of Performance. They provided, rather, the proper reading of the beginning and the ending, the focus of the plot and the relations of the principal characters, so enabling the "middle" to be heard in bits as meaningful. They provided the "closure" which contemporary theory prefers to leave open. They articulated the essential hermeneutical key without which texts and community would disintegrate into incoherence.(15)

The Creed speaks of one God and three great acts, creation by the Father, the work of the Son, Jesus Christ, who is "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God," and the work of the Spirit who creates in the church the revelation given in the Son who restores the good creation of the Father as a foretaste of the "life of the world to come." The creeds are the hermeneutical key to Scripture. Creation by the Father begins with Genesis one and two, Jesus Christ is the middle, focus, and principal character, and the Holy Spirit creates the "life of the world to come" as seen in the book of Revelation. Since God is one, Scripture is a single, meaningful narrative. Since only Jesus Christ is "God from God," he is the center of Scripture, the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Therefore, all texts find their fulfillment and unity in him. In this view, readers of Scripture are within Scripture, after the epistles and before the final age heralded in the book of Revelation.

By contrast, revisionist hermeneutics, normally reflecting an uncritical acceptance of the historical critical method, see Scripture as expressing intuitions of God which began in the remote history of the biblical peoples and continues through Jesus and into the present. This has two consequences. First, this allows present experience to become a norm alongside Scripture. Such a claim is compatible with the statement in the St. Andrew's Draft that Scripture contains "all things necessary for salvation," and that it is "the rule and ultimate standard of faith," because revisionists believe Scripture shows itself as an evolving revelation modified by new circumstances and insights. Therefore, as an ultimate standard, Scripture validates additional sources of revelation. Most of the eight examples of revisionist hermeneutics given above make this hermeneutical move.

Secondly, individual texts are understood as the momentary and often unrelated expressions of the religious experience of biblical peoples, rather than interpreting individual texts Christologically in the context of a single biblical narrative. This atomizes the biblical narrative.

Further, readers of Scripture, are beyond, not within, Scripture, since Scripture is the first installment of a continuing revelation. Let me give one very abbreviated example contrasting these two approaches.

For orthodoxy, Genesis one and two describe God the Father's intent for creation prior to sin and creation's corruption. According to that original intent, sexuality was limited to a man and a woman. This original intent was corrupted by sin (Genesis three), countered by the law and the prophets, and supremely proclaimed and lived by Jesus who made atonement for human sin and placed marriage and sexuality within the context of God's original good creation. (16) The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, makes Christ's atoning work and teaching real in the lives of Christians whose sexual lives fulfill the Father's original intent.

By contrast, revisionist hermeneutics would typically see the biblical understanding of sexuality given in Genesis one and two as etiological stories, further enshrined in Old Testament law in terms of property relations or boundary legislation, revealed as love in Jesus, partially articulated in Paul who knew nothing of faithful, loving, genetically-determined same-sex attraction, and more fully realized at the present moment in light of new insights and experiences. Specifically, revisionist hermeneutics do not see Genesis one and two as normative, and their exegesis has no closure. Rather, they read Scripture as an unfolding revelation which passes through Jesus to be redefined by present circumstances. This erases the relevance of the doctrine of the Trinity as an operative framework for understanding Scripture, and further, denies Jesus Christ as the final, decisive revelation of God, "God from God, Light from Light."

How should the orthodox respond to these hermeneutical errors? The orthodox must not only affirm the supreme authority of Scriptures as expressed in Anglican formularies, but also, set forth and deny the false hermeneutics of the revisionists. Consider these hypothetical articles in regard to Scripture.

Article One: The authority and place of Scripture in the life of the church is rightly defined in the Anglican Formularies, above all, the Articles of Religion which set forth Scripture as the supreme authority in the church.(17) There is no other norm alongside Scripture.

Article Two: Scripture is the Word of God and the words of God, understood as the plain sense of Scripture given by responsible historical and grammatical scholarship. We deny the false teaching that Scripture is the Word but not the words of God. Scripture is rightly interpreted by the creeds as hermeneutical key because the creeds "may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture" (Article VIII). As such, Scripture is a single narrative, centered in Jesus Christ, and christologically interpreted in light of the whole Canon of Scripture so that no one text be interpreted as contrary to another. We deny the false teaching that Scripture can be interpreted by non-creedal evolutionary or mystical perspectives which place readers beyond, behind, or over Scripture.

Article one sets forth the authority of Scripture. Article two deals with interpretation, insisting that interpretation take place in light of the creeds.18)

Finally, it seems clear to me that the orthodox may well read the St. Andrew's Draft and think it adequate in regard to Scripture. It is not. It is simply a moment in an endless conversation. The orthodox should have nothing to do with it. Rather, the orthodox would best be served by coming together, proclaiming Anglican Formularies as norms, and further, lest any be led astray, denying revisionist theological and hermeneutical errors.

Endnotes

1. http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8113. 2. Most of these examples can be found in the Scripture section of my web site where I theologically analyze a number of revisionist hermeneutics.

3. http://www.dioceseny.org/index.cfm?Action=AboutUs.LetTheReaderUnderstand. See especially Principle Eight of the Thirteen Interpretative Principles.

4. "Ecumenism" William Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon, September 30, 1998. http://www.episcopalchurch.org/pb25_1322_ENG_Print.html.

5. Michael Johnston, Engaging the Word (The New Church's Teaching Series, Volume 3. Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1998), p. 25.

6. http://www.integrityusa.org/samesexblessings/sclm2000.pdf.

7. Frederick Houk Borsch (ed.), The Bible's Authority Today's Church, (Valley Forge: Trinity press International, 1993), p. 125.

8. Borsch, The Bible's Authority Today's Church, p. 80.

9. http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi bin/acts/acts_resolution complete.pl?resolution=2006 D069.

10. http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2008/01/civil discourse part 2.html.

11. John Booty and Stephen Sykes, eds., The Study of Anglicanism, (London: SPCK/Fortress Press, 1988), p. 91.

12. Borsch, The Bible's Authority in Today's Church, p. 56.

13. There are hundreds of places where Scripture presents itself as the words of God, and this is true regardless of how those words came to be. For example, the Covenant Code, Exodus 20:18-23:19, may have once been ancient Canaanite law transformed by the impact of the Exodus and Mosaic teaching and inserted into the Exodus narrative, but it is still presented in the biblical text as the words of God. From this point of view, God speaks as Scripture, not merely through Scripture.

14. Modernity considers these theological matters to be mere opinion, or the ideological component of hegemony, but look what massive distortions of the gospel are produced when Christians ignore their creedal inheritance.

15. Francis M. Young, Frances, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 21.

16. Mt. 19:4-6, Mark 10:6-9.

17. Holy Scripture contains "all things all things necessary to salvation" (Article VI). It is supreme, superior to creeds (Article VIII), to the church (Article XX), and to general councils (Article XXI).

18. The strongest statement on interpreting Scripture that I have seen by any Anglican body is that of the Anglican Mission in America. See their Solemn Declaration, Article One, section two. http://theamia.org/assets/SOLEMN_DECLARATION_OF_PRINCIPLES.pdf

I do believe, however, that their statement needs to be strengthened by affirming the relevance of the creeds for biblical interpretation, and further, that Scripture is both the Word and the words of God.

---The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D. is VirtueOnline's resident cyber theologian. His website can be accessed here: www.rsanders.org