by L. William Countryman

Some time ago I was asked to present the "liberal position" on authority in Anglicanism to a diocesan conference. I found myself a bit perplexed. The word "liberal" means different things to different people; but, to tell the truth, I seldom use it of myself. In matters of theological reasoning, I'm a rather traditional Anglican, and about all I could offer was the tradition that I learned from parish clergy, from bishops, from my teachers at The General Seminary and, of course, from the writings of such venerable Anglican divines as William Temple, Brooke Foss Westcott, F. D. Maurice and Richard Hooker. Over the years, I have discovered that I am not alone; in fact, most Anglicans of whatever stripe seem to think themselves rather traditional in theological terms.

What, then, is this common tradition that occasions (or at least allows) so much disagreement? The tradition is complex, because Anglicans have always had mixed feelings about authority, as we still have today. We insist on conducting the life of the community with decency and order, with a certain degree of predictability and conformity. We're not individualists. But we've also been suspicious of the tendency in some other Christian traditions to make too much of authority. We rejected the authority of the pope in Rome in the 16th century. And we also rejected the authority of the "paper pope," the Bible in the way that the Puritans used it, in the 17th century.

In both cases, what we rejected was a certain way of using (or, from our perspective, abusing) authority. We were happy to retain the traditional ministry of the church. We claimed the Bible as our own. But we were suspicious of those who claimed absolute authority to define the will of God, whether they did so through the office of the papacy or in the name of the Bible. E. J. Bicknell, who wrote a venerable (and certainly not radical) book on the 39 Articles of Religion, says: "Since God is perfect Wisdom and perfect Truth, to refuse belief in any truth that He has revealed would be not only presumptuous but unreasonable. The real difficulty is to prove the genuineness and accuracy of what is claimed to be a revelation from God."

Do we believe what God says? Certainly! Are we certain what God says? That is another matter. We have no direct access to God of a kind that could resolve our uncertainties and disagreements once for all. God has become incarnate in Jesus; but Jesus, too, is unavailable to answer our specific questions. At a kind of third level of authority, we speak of the Bible as God's word; but if you read it carefully, you quickly discover that it was written with an eye to the issues of distant places and times--related, no doubt, to our questions, but not identical with them.

The Anglican risk: dispensing with absolute authority
Anglicanism did a daring thing in the Reformation when it took the risk of dispensing with absolute authority in this world. We all hanker after certainty. But if we insist on having it, we run the danger of idolatry--the danger that having a pope, whether human or on paper, will lead us to trust in an accessible, this-worldly authority rather than in the true God, the hidden Holy One, the One who alone fills all in all. "The real difficulty is to prove the genuineness and accuracy of what is claimed to be a revelation from God." We chose the difficult--but spiritually safer--course of seeking the will of God not from a single this-worldly authority but in the confluence or congruence of several witnesses.

Anglicans acknowledge not a single authority, but a group of witnesses to God's will. We have traditionally summed them up as the three legs of a tripod: Scripture, tradition, and reason. Why a tripod or, as it's commonly called, a "three-legged stool"? Perhaps it's because it is an inherently stable object. It will stand on its own, even on rough ground, and unlike a chair with four legs, it will be solid--not rocking back and forth. The image of the tripod is, in other words, an image of our hope and longing for theological stability!

In one respect, however, it's a misleading image. It suggests that the three elements--Scripture, tradition, and reason--are all quite distinct and separable from each other, as if each one had a pure and unique existence, unrelated to that of the others (except, of course, that they're all holding up the stool we sit on). If we look at the three more carefully, however, we shall find that this isn't the case. Each of the three is dependent on the other two; indeed, at times, they tend to merge into one another.

The Bible: always entangled with tradition ...
Of course, someone might be thinking, "He's off his rocker. I can hold a Bible in my hand. I know what it is. It's not the same as tradition. It's not the same as reason. It's a book." Well, yes, the Bible is distinct from tradition and reason. But it's always entangled with them. Consider how the New Testament came into existence. It is very much a story about tradition. The church, of course, is older than the New Testament books; from the start, it preserved the traditions about Jesus and created new traditions of church life. And the church is much older than the collecting up of the New Testament books as a canon. In fact, the church did the collecting and canonizing.

How did it go about that? To begin with, it looked at tradition. What books were actually being read in the churches as legacies from the earlier days of Christianity? That's how we came up with the somewhat odd business of four gospels. It isn't very convenient. Some early Christians tried various ways to reduce the number. But it was hard to get rid of any of them because they were all traditional.

Forming the New Testament canon required the use of reason, too. The early Christians employed historical reasoning in an effort to determine which books were really from the first generations of Christianity. The Epistle to the Hebrews, for example, almost didn't make it in because nobody was sure who had written it. Only when the scholar Clement of Alexandria suggested that the ideas were Paul's and the writing was Luke's did it begin to gain real acceptance. Other works were kept out of the canon on the basis of theological reasoning. If they taught doctrines that sounded Gnostic or Marcionite or Montanist, they were rejected. In other words, the scriptures themselves have always been deeply entangled with both tradition and reason.

Of course, one might think, "That was then; this is now." But even now our reading of Scripture is dependent on both tradition and reason. Think about our Anglican tradition of standing up for the reading of the Gospel at the Eucharist. It seems a small thing; but it has a big influence. Anglican preachers tend to choose the Gospel reading for their text in part because we honor it in this way as central. All reading of Scripture in the church typically begins with the presupposition that we know, at least roughly, what to expect there. We assume the Bible will be more or less consistent with what we've already experienced and learned of the faith. Tradition surrounds and permeates all our reading of the Bible, even if we don't want it to. It's a fact of reading.

... and reason
What is true of tradition is true of reason, too. Let me quote from our most distinguished theologian, Richard Hooker: "For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ, although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief; yet the authority of man is, if we mark it, the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture. The Scripture could not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signify those things."

Someone may object, "Wait a minute. I've got a copy of the Bible right here. I can read it for myself." Yes and no. When you read a page of the Bible, you are always reading from the accumulation of centuries of study, thought, and reflection. What did this Hebrew word really mean in the 8th century B.C.? What did that Greek word mean in the 1st century A.D.? Why do New Testament writers sometimes quote the Hebrew scriptures in a form different from the one we know? What is the idea behind this odd expression in the original language? What is the correct text of this passage where the manuscripts do not all agree? What was going on at Corinth that disturbed Paul? Why was it such a problem that a woman with a hemorrhage touched Jesus? Where did the Revelation of John get all those strange images? What do they mean? Even if you are reading the scriptures in their original languages, you are reading them through the lens of reason--all our cumulative human learning about language, literature, history, and culture and all our long history of thought about philosophy, theology and ethics. Without reason, in fact, we not only couldn't read the Bible. We couldn't read at all. All reading is an exercise of reason.

Tradition and reason: always tempered by Scripture
Tradition and reason, in turn, are also dependent on the Bible and on each other. As Anglicans, we look to the Bible to serve as a kind of brake on the free and unconstrained growth of tradition. Our official statements about the Bible are very clear on that. Its primary value, they say, is that of a limiting factor: "... Whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man [or woman, one presumes], that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation" (Article VI). Scripture is our pruning hook--and our compass as well. For tradition can not only grow too luxuriant; it can out and out lose its way at times. Then we come back to Scripture to rediscover our center and direction.

Scripture also shapes our reasoning because it helps form our perspective on the world. We would not bother to be Christians if we did not think there was a profound revelation about God and the world to be found in the teaching of Jesus. We expect a lot from Scripture, and it demands much from us. If we find ourselves struggling with Scripture, often it's because Scripture itself requires it. The 20th Article tells us that the church is not allowed "so [to] expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another." Good. The church is not allowed to muddle the scriptures unnecessarily. But we'll still have to deal with the reality that this extraordinary collection of works written over more than a thousand years contains some real tensions within itself. There is, for example, a real tension between Paul's insistence in Galatians on the baptismal equality of men and women in Christ (3:23-29) and the insistence elsewhere in New Testament writings on the subordination of women (e.g., 1 Tim. 2:12-15). We do not create that tension. We find it in the scriptures. And because we expect that in Scripture we will hear the word of God, we have to work with the tension, to reason with it, to try to find in each era what it means for our life together.

Late in the last century, Brooke Foss Westcott wrote: "As the circumstances of men and nations change materially, intellectually, morally, the life [of faith] will find a fresh and corresponding expression. We cannot believe what was believed in another age by repeating the formulas which were then current. The greatest words change in meaning. The formulas remain to us a precious heritage, but they require to be interpreted. Each age has to apprehend vitally the Incarnation and the Ascension of Christ."

Now Westcott has been thought of down the years, by all sorts of Anglicans, not as a radical but as a model bishop, scholar and theologian. Yet, he was recognizing here something that is inevitable. Every age has its own questions, its own problems, its own language and, one hopes, its own God-given vision of our common human and Christian hope. And therefore every age has to grasp anew the vitality of the Incarnation and Ascension of Christ--and indeed of the Trinity, of the creation, of all the great and ancient Christian teachings. It takes Scripture, tradition, and reason, all three in intimate interaction, to help us rediscover the gospel life.

Three-legged stool, three-ply yarn
I'd like to suggest that we stop thinking of Scripture, tradition and reason solely with the image of a three-legged stool and start using, as well, the image of a three-ply yarn--the kind that needle pointers use. Yes, there are three distinct strands. But they all partake of the same dye. And the very process of spinning them has made them entangle themselves with one another in such a way that they do not like to come apart. You cannot, simply as a practical reality, read Scripture without the help of tradition and reason. You cannot safely follow tradition without reflecting on it with the help of Scripture and reason. You cannot reason as a Christian without being part of the ongoing tradition of the community and seeking the word of God in Scripture. The results of our theological reflection will always reveal the interaction of all three strands, even if we are not fully conscious of using them. And the way in which the three interact will never be predictable in a simple way.

Let me point to a few examples. One might be the matter of taking Sunday as the central day for Christian worship. The Bible repeatedly and solemnly commands the observance of the Sabbath, which is the period from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Nowhere, even in the New Testament, does it explicitly replace Sabbath observance with Sunday observance. A few denominations like the Seventh-Day Baptists and the Seventh-Day Adventists have gone back to the keeping of the Sabbath in obedience to scripture, but I doubt that most Anglicans feel much anxiety on the point. Here, tradition settles the question for us, even against Scripture.

Another example: Most of us probably have savings accounts or other accounts where we receive interest on money. The paying and receiving of interest is specifically forbidden in the Bible. It was forbidden in church tradition, too, until some time in the Middle Ages, when the economic system had undergone changes that made the biblical prohibition seem difficult to defend. Our own Anglican Reformers disapproved of it. Yet, today, while we may well differ among ourselves as to whether the modern institutions of banking are entirely a good thing or not, very few people in today's world try to get along entirely without them. Even the mullahs of Iran have been finding it difficult. Christians have allowed reason to take the lead on this one--though, by now, the acceptability of interest is virtually a tradition for us.

Another example: the American Revolution. The New Testament contains explicit admonitions to "honor the king" (1 Pet. 2:13-17; cf. Rom. 13:1-7, Titus 3:1). In 1776, we Americans decided not to do that any more--at least not in any literal way. Anglicans split down the middle on the issue and even killed one another over it. Many of us were Tories, including Samuel Seabury, who later became our first bishop. Others were Patriots, including William White, who later became our second bishop--not to mention a prominent layman named Washington. Part of the argument between them was about the scriptures: Which was more important, the specific command to honor the king or all that proclamation of liberty to be found in the Law and the Prophets? But another big part of the argument came from the changing political philosophy of the 18th century. Here again reason was a critical factor.

Another example: In the mid-19th century, American Christians of all sorts argued about the Bible and slavery. Some held that the Bible ordained slavery, others that the Bible made it unthinkable. One of the pro-slavery writers was Bishop Hopkins of Vermont, who published a book in the middle of the Civil War maintaining that the Bible commanded the institution of slavery. Today, we're appalled that one of our forebears could make such an argument. But, for them, it was the same kind of difficult, distressing struggle that we are encountering on other issues in our own day. In this case, reason and one way of reading the Bible eventually prevailed over tradition and other ways of reading the Bible.

Currently, we Anglicans are still struggling over issues of racism and of the roles of women and men in the church. But our disagreements of the moment focus particularly on the matter of sexuality. Scripture by itself won't settle this issue for us. As often, there are tensions with the Bible. Is there a specific prohibition on at least some sexual acts between two men? Yes. Is there anything on the other side? Yes, again, for the prohibition is framed in the language of physical, ritual purity; and there are teachings in the gospels and in Paul that say the physical, ritual requirements of purity no longer apply to Christians. Even within the Old Testament, we encounter one male-male liaison that certainly sounds sexual (that of David and Jonathan) and nonetheless plays a critical role in salvation history.

Anglicans have traditionally read the scriptures in a way that prohibits honorable gay-lesbian partnerships. But Anglicans also have a tradition of asking, "Is the tradition always right? Or has it gone off on its own tangent in this matter?" In any case, we ask these questions in a new way that had not been raised before. Just as the questions about democracy had not really been asked until the 18th century and the questions about slavery until the 19th century, significant questions about racism, about the status of women, and about sexual orientation simply were not asked until our own time. Now that they are being asked, we have to seek appropriate answers that are continuous with Scripture and the faith of the church--and, as Westcott forewarned us, with the legitimate concerns of our own day. To find these answers, we will employ Scripture, tradition and reason in combinations that we will fully understand only as we work our way through the process.

A unique kind of authority?
When all is said and done, what is really central to Anglican faith? The central thing in our faith is a message known to us from Scripture: the proclamation of God's love for every one of us, of God's forgiveness which doesn't wait on us to be perfect, of God's open arms welcoming us home, of the opportunity this good news gives us to welcome one another as well. The truly distinct thing about Anglicanism, I think, is its strong grip on this last thing--the opportunity for Gospel community. Our church doesn't stand on a clear, eternally guaranteed system of doctrine. We recite the old creeds. But we long ago rejected the idea that any one this-worldly voice, whether papal or biblical, could settle our quandaries. Our traditional center is not doctrine; it's a community seeking the will of God. We know ourselves as a people called together by God, even through the most painful of dissentions. (And we've been through some real troubles: In the Revolution and the Civil War, remember, we actually killed one another over these issues.) Even in times when our disputes occasion distress, we strive to stay together because we believe that God has called us and loved us. We even hope that, somehow, that makes it possible for us to love one another. Our tradition, we expect, will ultimately prove to offer a unique kind of authority: a sturdy, stable three-legged stool to sit on and also a strong three-ply yarn to bind us together in unity.