From the Rector:

       The Episcopal Church is a Bible Church.  Last week, I said that Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church has four strands of authority: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  We seek to maintain a balance between these four strands.  Some have pictured us as a milking stool with three legs: scripture, tradition, and reason.  This was the original position brought forth by Richard Hooker in his arguments for the Book of Common Prayer.  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, experience was added as a fourth leg.  There has also been some disagreement about the balance among the four strands.  Evangelicals have argued strongly that scripture is the strongest and most important of the four strands of authority in Anglicanism.  That argument is an important part of the debate that continues in the church over sexuality.

       The four stands are not balanced, but are held in creative tension by the church.  Scripture and tradition must be considered as the superior of the four stands.  John Booty says, “Scripture as the Word of God and Tradition as the conveyor of that Word are the vehicles of God’s special revelation to restore us to a saving relationship to him.”  There is discussion of which of these two is superior, but it is like the argument over which is first the chicken or the egg. 

       Each Sunday and feast day in the Episcopal Church, large portions of Holy Scripture are read with great respect and dignity.  In most Episcopal Churches, a special place is set aside for the reading of the Scriptures.  Even here there is an order of priority. 

       The Gospel Lesson is given a place of dignity and respect above that given to the other readings.  We are told to stand, special acclamations and responses are provided in the Prayer Book, and in many places the Gospel is processed and read in the midst of the congregation.  In much the same way that the Jewish people revere the Torah or the first five books of the Bible over the rest, so Christian people give reverence and respect to the gospels over the rest of the Bible.  We hear in the reading of the Gospels, Jesus standing and speaking in our midst.  I have come to believe that in this sense that the Gospel reading is a sacramental moment with the deacon or priest reading the Gospel Lesson as the outward and visible sign and Jesus speaking to us as the inward and spiritual grace of the sacramental.  Since the 1979 Book of Common Prayer does not permit anything to come between Gospel and sermon, the argument can be made that they are part of the same sacramental action. 

       In 1801 the Episcopal Church affirmed that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.”  It also affirmed that nothing is to be required of any person as an article of faith or as necessary for salvation that cannot be proved by Holy Scripture.  All persons ordained in the Episcopal Church affirm these beliefs when he or she swears that “I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”  The Episcopal Church is a Bible Church.  Jim+

August 25, 2004