Northeast SEAD Response To “Let the Reader Understand: Principles of Scriptural Interpretation”

Northeast SEAD Response To “Let the Reader Understand: 
Principles of Scriptural Interpretation”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20040201234305/http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org:80/neresponse-lru.htm

We appreciate the publication of Let the Reader Understand: Principles of Scriptural Interpretation (hereafter LRU) and we find significant common ground with the authors of this document. With them, we believe the Holy Scriptures to be “an instrument of the Church’s shared communion with Jesus Christ, the living Word of God” (¶2). With them, we accept the principle that scripture should be read from an interpretative center which has the mighty saving deeds of God culminating in the life, death and resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ, as its focus. With them, we accept that scripture must be read within an authoritative tradition of interpretation and within the continuing life of the Church. LRU rejects contextless proof-texting as a method of scriptural interpretation for Anglicans, as do we. However, it is our view that the conclusions that LRU reaches regarding the morality of same-sex sexual behavior in the light of the Bible do not proceed from the principles of biblical interpretation which are outlined in the document, but from a method of biblical interpretation which makes contemporary personal and cultural “experience” the ultimate authority and in essence a new source of revelation which surpasses the authority of the scriptures.

Let the Reader Understand can be found on the Episcopal Diocese of New York website (www.dioceseny.org) in the About Us section under Info for priests, deacons, & laity.

Using the principles of biblical interpretation outlined in LRU we find ourselves in agreement with the 1998 Lambeth resolution on sexuality. We find the overwhelming consensus of biblical scholars, whatever their private views on the issues of sexuality, agrees that the scriptures plainly teach fidelity in marriage between a man and woman and chastity in singleness as the scriptural norm.

The problem before us is not the interpretation of scripture but the authority of scripture, that is, when the teaching of scripture should be set aside. LRU appears to us to argue that because of the cultural context in which the scripture arises and the cultural context in which the scripture must be applied, the plain teaching of the scripture in the area of sexual practice does not apply with regard to homosexuality. Rather than a difference of interpretation, this appears to us as a straightforward rejection of the authority of scripture based on the conviction that in light of current American cultural understandings of sexuality the clear teaching of scripture favored by the whole history of the tradition and the overwhelming consensus of the contemporary world-wide Church is wrong.

A more detailed critique of LRU follows. We look forward to continuing dialogue on this important topic.

13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops (1998), Resolution 1.10.

Society for Ecumenical Anglican Doctrine (SEAD) / Northeast Chapter

The Rev. Jason A. Catania SSC, Diocese of Albany
The Rev. Eric Cosentino, Diocese of New York
Richard Gabrielson, Diocese of Central New York
The Rev. Mark H. Hansen, Ph.D., Diocese of Connecticut
The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D., Diocese of Connecticut
The Very Rev. Paul J. Hartt, Diocese of Albany
Richard J. Mammana, Jr., Diocese of New York
The Rev. Elton Smith, Diocese of Newark
Sutton R. C. Smith, Diocese of Newark
The Rev. Douglas Taylor-Weiss, Diocese of Central New York
The Rev. Paul Tracy, Ph.D., Diocese of New York
William G. Witt, Ph.D., Diocese of Connecticut

1.

The Hermeneutics Study Group in the Diocese of New York is to be commended for its publication of Let the Reader Understand because it sets the dispute over the morality of homoerotic activity within the context of the Church’s submission to the authority of scripture. The question before us is not a question as to the value and infinite worth of persons who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, but is rather a question—as has been stated in the final report from the International Anglican Conversations on Human Sexuality (2002)—as to what constitutes the “[h]oliness, that we all understand ourselves bound through Christ to grow into, to encourage, and to teach.”

2.

The Study Group is further to be commended for its desire to explore what the Anglican churches mean when we say that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation. The interpretation of the scriptures is a matter of the highest importance precisely because in them we receive from Jesus Christ the promise and message of our salvation.

 The VI Article of Religion, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 868-69.

3.

Nonetheless LRU violates basic principles of Anglican theology and ecclesiology. The vast majority of Anglican theologians have always understood themselves to be bound to the dogmatic and moral principles endorsed by the entire Christian tradition. Their theological appeal has been, and is, to the clear authority of scripture as interpreted by the universal witness of the first centuries of the undivided Church. The autonomy of national churches endorsed by the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer allows for differences in matters of discipline—worship and canons—but not in matters of faith and morals. The LRU writers suggest, against all precedent, that national churches have the competence to issue judgments on such issues as homosexual activity in a manner that would have authority only within those national churches—and which, moreover, would be contrary to the plain word of scripture, as well as the consensus of the major Christian bodies and the mind of the Anglican Communion as expressed at the last Lambeth Conference.

Preface, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 9.

4.

The fact that the Church has erred cannot release the Church from its responsibility to instruct her members in the truth. Indeed, the recognition of the errors of the Church arises as a result of the Church’s own clearer reception and articulation of truths found in scripture. Anglicans cannot demur from stating the truth as it is found in scripture on the grounds that we might be in error. 

The XIX Article of Religion, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 871.

5.

LRU argues that the scriptures are unclear about the acceptability of same-sex sexual activity for practicing Christian men and women. Its writers do not claim that there is doubt about the views of the biblical writers themselves on this matter; rather, they deny the applicability of those writers’ views to our life in Christ today. (¶7). LRU identifies this breakdown of clarity between the letter of scripture and its application today as a problem of interpretation. It is to be noted that interpretation as it is normally used in theology refers to the matter of what the text actually means (its sense), while exposition or application is normally used to refer to the appropriate response of believers to the interpreted text. 

6.

If the scriptures do not speak authoritatively in regards to homosexual activity (as LRU claims), then Anglicans must re-examine whether scripture does contain “all things necessary to salvation.” As Anglicans, we have affirmed and continue to affirm that whatever cannot be found in scripture, or proven from it, may not be required as an article of faith or morals. 

The VI Article of Religion, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 868-69.

7.

While we do not believe that we are saved by our performance of righteousness, it is the nature of God’s grace in Christ Jesus to save us for a righteousness that includes sexual chastity. We cannot argue that our moral lives are something separate from our salvation. Such a position is at odds with the prophets of Israel and with the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus who tell us to repent at the coming of the kingdom of God. If the scriptures are unable to instruct the faithful as to sexual behavior, then they do not contain all things necessary for salvation. 

8.

If there is a doctrine of salvation implicit in LRU, it consists in “enlarg[ing] the sphere of human liberty.” (¶13) Unfortunately, LRU seems to confuse freedom from moral truth with the freedom of the Gospel. Evangelical freedom is the freedom to desire what God desires, free from the constraints of sinful desires. Although LRU speaks frequently of God’s plan of salvation and uses the terms “redeem,” and “transform” in relation to our salvation, there is no mention of sin, repentance or the kingdom of God. LRU fails to explain from what we are being redeemed and into what we are being transformed. This is especially troublesome since LRU repeatedly encourages the Church to interpret and apply the scriptures in accordance with the whole economy of salvation. 

9.

By asserting that God “seeks one end” through history, LRU empties the present age of its moral seriousness. It invites us to subject all questions of morality to a test of relativity. This would require Christians to evaluate what seems good in the present in light of the possibility that it may be replaced later by a different good, and so on ad infinitum. The orthodox Christian teaching, as expressed by Irenaeus, is that God reveals his will to us in definite, objective ways throughout human history. Our obedience to this revelation is an essential component of our salvation. LRU is right to assert (¶5) that all things must be re-evaluated through the lens of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. If, however, we posit further revelations beyond the saving work of our Lord, we depart from the common teaching of Christianity and begin to invent a new religion. A recent example of this trend is the continuing development of revelation and doctrine within Mormonism; this trend has placed that body well outside the boundaries of creedal Christianity. 

See Appendix II below.

10.

Scripture teaches in a consistent way that it is the world which must be adapted and conformed to Christ, and not vice versa. The Second Person of the Trinity does, for our sake, condescend in love to our weakness by becoming incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. Nonetheless, Jesus’ Lordship continues to require Christians to assent to his teaching about marriage and sexual conduct. 

Romans 12:1-2.

11.

The issue we face is whether certain commandments found in scripture may be classed as ritual, ceremonial or civil, on the one hand, and therefore non-binding, or, on the other hand, moral and therefore immutable inasmuch as they reveal an aspect of God’s perfect kingdom of righteousness and peace. This distinction is raised not only by our Articles of Religion and Richard Hooker but also Irenaeus and by the scriptures themselves. 

The VII Article of Religion, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 869; Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 3.10.4; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.13, 15-16.

12.

The Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, together with the reception of its decrees by St. Paul and his co-workers, is evidence of the resolution in the first-century Church regarding which commandments belong to rite, ceremony and civil law (and are therefore mutable) and which to the moral law (and are therefore immutable). One element of this resolution was that avoidance of porneia, sexual immorality, belonged to the immutable moral law. The united witness of the New Testament is that sexual chastity is one of the constituents of our transformation into the image of Christ. It is therefore an integral component of our salvation. 

Acts 15:19-20.

13.

As Anglicans who affirm “the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God,” we confess that those scriptures clearly describe that glorious liberty of the children of God that consists in dying to sin and rising to the new life of righteousness by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The Ordination of a Bishop, Priest, Deacon, 1979 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 513, 526, 538; Rom. 8:21.

Appendix I: Representative Contemporary Biblical Scholarship on Same-Sex Relations

Note that the scholars cited below do not necessarily agree with the Bible’s teaching. Some reject it, or suggest it be modified. Nor are they universally “conservative” in their theological stances. They represent the contemporary consensus of scholarship (both liberal and conservative, from a variety of confessional traditions) about what the Bible actually teaches about same-sex sexual activity.

Roman Catholic
“I believe the general outlines of biblical teaching on sex are fairly clear . . . . [T]he general parameters of a “biblical” sexual morality are not in great dispute (setting gender aside for the moment). Sex, in both the Hebrew and the early Christian scriptures, is assumed to belong in heterosexual marriage, which is faithful and procreative. . . . [T]here is scarcely any doubt that premarital sex, adultery, divorce, prostitution, and homosexuality are not included in the ideal.” Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Sexual Ethics: A Feminist Biblical Perspective,” Interpretation (Jan 95) 49(1): 6.

Jewish
“The Bible’s extreme aversion to homosexuality is part of [the] concern not to let sexual activity destroy the categories of orderly existence. . . . Homosexual activity, as known in the ancient world, exists outside the pair-bond structure, which is the social locus of permissible sexuality. Furthermore, it blurs the distinction between male and female, and this cannot be tolerated in the biblical system.. Anything that smacks of homosexual blurring is similarly prohibited, such as cross-dressing. . . . Forbidden sexuality, like adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality . . . becomes a national concern. Such sexual behavior is a threat to social order, as is murder, and again, like murder, it is said to pollute the land and thereby endanger the very survival of Israel. Leviticus 18 relates that the pre-Israel inhabitants of the land indulged in the incestuous relations listed there, in bestiality, homosexuality, and molech-worship, and that—as a result—the land became defiled and vomited out its inhabitants. . . . Israel’s right of occupation is contingent upon its care not to do these things, for murder, illicit sex and idolatry will pollute the land, and a polluted land will not sustain them.” Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press, 1992), 195-196.

Presbyterian
“The holiness of God’s people is integrally tied to the sanctity of the institution of marriage, which was assumed by the Old Testament to be both divinely ordained and normative. . . . Homosexuality was universally condemned and dismissed as abhorrent.” Brevard Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 79.

Methodist
“Paul was against homosexuality, both active and inactive, both male and female. This marks him as Jewish. . . . Jews, looking at the Gentile world, saw it as full of porneia, sexual sin of all sorts, and homosexuality was a prime case. They condemned it, lock, stock, and barrel. This is emphasized in the Bible . . . and repeated in subsequent Jewish literature. . . . So when we turn to Paul, we are not surprised that he condemns all homosexual activity, nor that he specifies both the active and the passive partners. . . . Some scholars propose that the words are uncertain as to meaning and thus that perhaps Paul did not really condemn homosexuality. The words, however, are quite clear. . . .. Paul condemns both male and female homosexuality in blanket terms and without making any distinction.” E. P. Sanders, Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 110, 112-113.

“The few biblical texts that do address the topic of homosexual behavior . . . are unambiguously and unremittingly negative in their judgment . . . Paul’s use of the term [arsenokoitai] presupposes and reaffirms the holiness code’s condemnation of homosexual acts. This is not a controversial point in Paul’s argument. . . .. Paul simply assumes that his readers will share his conviction that those who indulge in homosexual activity are ‘wrongdoers’ . . .. Paul’s choice of homosexuality as an illustration of human depravity is not merely random: it serves his rhetorical purposes by providing a vivid image of humanity’s primal rejection of the sovereignty of God the Creator. . . . Though only a few biblical texts speak of homoerotic activity, all that do mention it express unqualified disapproval. Thus, on this issue, there is no synthetic problem for New Testament ethics. In this respect, the issue of homosexuality differs significantly from such matters as slavery or the subordination of women, concerning which the Bible contains internal tensions and counterposed witnesses. The biblical witness against homosexual practices is univocal.” Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarpeSanFrancisco, 1996), 381, 382-383, 385, 389.

Anglican
“For all the issues that divided the church in the past . . . tolerance or blessing of homosexual acts was never one of them. Apparently scripture’s plain sense was simply too plain when it came to homosexual behavior. The history of interpretation, Jewish and Christian, bears witness to the ‘plainness’ of scripture on this matter.” Christopher Seitz, “Sexuality and Scripture’s Plain Sense,” Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 324-325. 

Appendix II: Irenaeus on the Economy of Salvation

Commentary 2 of LRU argues that in Irenaeus’ Against the Heresies “there is a certain relativism” implicit in God’s economy or oikonomia(which is called here God’s “household management” of the cosmos), “and hence different circumstances may call for changed modes of obedience to the Word.” In the case of LRU the different circumstances would appear to be the rejection of biblical sexual norms by current American culture, and the different obedience would entail developing a sexual ethic that departs from the biblical norm of fidelity in marriage between a man and woman or chastity in singleness: i.e. rites to bless same-gender sexual relationships and “committed” but non-married heterosexual relationships.

The argument is that the orthodox apologists against second-century Gnosticism recognized that God the Word, the revealer of the Father to the cosmos, had spoken different things to Abraham, Moses, and then through Jesus in the progressive revelation of God’s “New Thing” in Jesus Christ. LRU takes Irenaeus’ Five Books against the Heresies as the best example of this apologetic, pointing out that the Gnostics rejected the Old Testament and its God by arguing that certain texts in Paul and the Gospels “contrasted the teachings of Jesus and his apostles with those of the Mosaic dispensation . . . .” LRU does not point out that some Gnostics also issued their own versions of a Christian canon of scripture in which what they did not like in the Gospels and Paul was simply excised, a supreme example of “if you don’t like it, simply ignore it.”

Clearly, Irenaeus does show that certain aspects of the covenant between God and Moses, for example, have been transformed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Torah’s dietary codes have been transformed by the teaching of Jesus himself and the vision of Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The Torah’s provisions for the cult of sacrifice in the tabernacle and later the temple are utterly transformed by their fulfilment in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and his resurrection, a recognition already apparent in the epistle to the Hebrews (cf., for example, Against the Heresies 4:17 and 18). The transformation of these cultic commandments in the Torah are explicated as the Word’s fulfilment in his incarnation of the Torah, not as contradicting it. Thus the moral commandments of the Decalogue as expounded by the rest of the Torah not only remain in force for Irenaeus, but in fact he repeatedly stresses that Christians are expected to follow a higher moral law than that in the Torah, i.e. as taught by Jesus and his apostles. Nowhere in Irenaeus have we found any example of that apologist arguing that the sexual ethic of the Torah has been lessened by the new covenant in Jesus Christ, even though some Gnostics departed from that ethic and the Roman world in which Irenaeus wrote was notorious for sexual immorality.

Instead, Irenaeus’ Against the Heresies is a long, complicated appeal to the texts of the Old Testament to show how they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ and are, consequently, not in contradiction to the proclamation that the God of Genesis and the Torah is the Father of Jesus Christ. Irenaus has infinite respect for the authority and value of the Old Testament text. His fundamental argument is that the Gnostics are wrong precisely because they have invented a new religion in their attempt to be relevant to the eclectic religious and philosophical values of their time, which has led them to reject the authority of the Hebrew scriptures (and, indeed, rewrite the Gospels and the Pauline corpus to their liking). The Gnostics are to be corrected by the apostolic tradition as found in the books of what we now call the New Testament and in the apostolic teaching of the bishops of the orthodox Churches in sucession to the apostles.

We do not find in Irenaeus, then, the kind of relativism that reinvents the teaching of the Church to fit the age in which we live. Rather the age is to be judged by the apostolic tradition, particularly as found in Holy Scripture. If we are to claim that God the Word is revealing some utterly new ethic to us in our time which he did not reveal to his apostles, indeed just the opposite of what the apostolic tradition has been heretofore, how does our claim to superior revelation differ from that of the Gnostics, or Montanus (who claimed that the promised Paraclete was giving him a new and higher revelation of the divine will than that possessed heretofore by the Church) or Joseph Smith and the Mormons for that matter?

We do not find in Irenaeus the kind of relativism that reinvents the teaching of the Church to fit the age in which we live. Rather the age is to be judged by the apostolic tradition, particularly as found in Holy Scripture.

Appendix III: A Catena Patrum on Homosexuality

Tertullian
“[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities” (On Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).

Cyprian of Carthage
“Oh, if placed on that lofty watch-tower, you could gaze into the secret places—if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers and recall their dark recesses to the perception of sight—you would behold things done by immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you would see what even to see is a crime; you would see what people embruted with the madness of vice deny that they have done, and yet hasten to do—men with frenzied lusts rushing upon men, doing things which afford no gratification even to those who do them” (Letters 1:9 [A.D. 253]).

Eusebius of Caesarea
“[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, [God] adds: ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24-25]” (Proof of the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).

Basil the Great
“He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers” (Letters 217:62 [A.D. 367]).

John Chrysostom
“All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26-27] . .. . were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases” (Homilies on Romans 4 [A.D. 391]).

“[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men” (ibid.).

Augustine
“[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way” (Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D.. 400]).

The Apostolic Constitutions
“[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced by some contrary to nature, as wicked and impious” (Apostolic Constitutions 6:11 [A.D. 400]).

Appendix IV: The Anglican Reformers on the Sufficiency of Scripture

LRU is supposed to “outline as clearly as possible the means by which [theologians] in the Anglican Tradition, understand, interpret, and apply the Holy Scriptures.” That scripture’s condemnation of homosexual activity is the central concern for biblical interpretation in LRU is made clear in the final paragraph which states that “the morality of homosexual acts, and the . . . issues of the ordination of homosexual Christians or the blessing of their relationships, are not readily ‘settled’ through the simple application of a handful of texts.”

Yet LRU says nothing about how scripture might bear on issues of same-sex attraction or homosexual activity. LRU specifically addresses at length the issues of blood consumption and slavery, but there is no detailed discussion of homosexuality. If the intent of the document is to outline as clearly as possible the means by which Anglican theologians might interpret and apply the Holy Scriptures to the moral status of same-sex sexual activity, LRU fails in its task. Rather the tacit argument of LRU is analogical. The implied message is that, as the Church has departed from the teaching of scripture on the issues of blood consumption and slavery, so it can depart on the question of the endorsement of homosexual practice. As precedent for this analogical argument, LRU makes reference to Richard Hooker, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and theBook of Common Prayer, but LRU’s approach is not consistent with historic Anglican theological method.. It is at most a post-modernist revision of Anglicanism.

The Anglican Reformers understood Anglican Christianity to be a reforming movement within the Western Catholic Church. Theologians like Thomas Cranmer, John Jewel and Richard Hooker appealed, first, to the plain sense of scripture, second, to antiquity—what had been believed and practiced by Catholic Christians in the patristic Church of the first several centuries, and, third, to universality—what had been the consensus of the undivided Eastern and Western Church.

The Anglican Reformers John Jewel and Richard Hooker formulated the Anglican understanding of the sufficiency of scripture in two works that stand as the classic articulations of Anglican self-understanding at the defining period of the English Reformation: Jewel’s Apology of the Church of England and Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

John Jewel
Jewel claimed that the English Reformers “refer all our controversies to the holy Scriptures . . .” (23) The writings of the prophets and apostles are sufficient to prove “all truth and catholic doctrine” and to refute all heresy (20). Jewel appealed to the clarity of scripture: “[W]ill ye impose silence upon God himself, who most clearly speaks to you in the scriptures?” Those who devalue the scriptures “think . . . meanly of God himself, and of his oracles.” (120)

Jewel finds the heart of what scripture teaches in a summary of Anglican doctrine that echoes the patristic “Rule of Faith” and the creeds. Anglicans believe in the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, his redemptive death, resurrection, and ascension, his return in glory, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of salvation, the risen Christ’s presence in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in the Church. This faith that the English Reformers endorsed is the ancient faith of the Catholic Church. Jewel argues that what the Church of England taught is that which they had learned from Christ, the apostles, and the patristic Church. He appeals to the “universal consent of the ancient bishops and doctors” . . . (59) 

John Jewel, An Apology of the Church of England (Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae), trans. Arthur T. Russell (Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1839); Richard Hooker, Of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1907), 2 vols.

According to Jewel, ministers of the gospel—priests and bishops—have the “power of binding and loosing,” the keys to the kingdom of heaven. They have the power to ease human consciences or persuade of sin. But the keys by which they are able to shut or open the kingdom of heaven is not the simple authority of their office, but rather the knowledge of the scriptures: “[T]he key by which an entrance is opened unto us into the kingdom of God, is the Word of the gospel, and the interpretation of the law and of the scriptures; where the Word is not, there we affirm that the key is not.” (36)

It is hardly surprising that Jewel says nothing about either homosexual activity or slavery, since these were not the issues of controversy at the time of the Reformation. However, he does address questions of sexual morality, expressing shock at the notion that “simple fornication is no sin.” In the area of sexual morality, Jewel insists that Anglicans “maintain the primitive and ancient laws . . . and administer the discipline of the Church.” According to Jewel, the gospel applies to both doctrine and practice, faith and conduct: “For we exhort the people, not only with books and sermons, but also with our example and manner of life, to all virtues and good works. We teach that the gospel is not a display of science, but a law of life; and that . . . it is not for the Christian to say great things, but to live them.” (81)

Jewel also endorsed the Reformation notion that the Spirit always speaks in accord with the written Word. Jewel stated that to put aside the plain teaching of scripture and to appeal directly to “God himself, speaking in the Church and in Councils” is to follow one’s own opinions. It is a way of “uncertainty” and “hazard,” the path of “fanaticism.” Jewel endorsed Chrysostom’s view that those who boast that they have the Holy Spirit, but rather speak their own minds, boast falsely (124).

Far from believing then that departure from the plain teaching of scripture is a sign of the Holy Spirit’s leading, Jewel argued that this is the one reason that allows for ecclesial separation. He asked: “[W]hat if [bishops] decree, not disguisedly and obscurely, but openly and directly, against the express Word of God? Shall whatsoever they say forthwith become the gospel? Or shall he be the host of God? Or will Christ be present there? Or shall the Holy Spirit fluctuate on their tongues?” (163) The clear implication is that Christ and the Holy Spirit are not present in appeals to direct illumination, going beyond or against the plain teaching of scripture, even if they are expressed by bishops, even if they are expressed in Church synods or councils.

Richard Hooker
In contemporary Anglican theology, Richard Hooker is known most famously for his “three-legged stool” of scripture, reason, and tradition. However, the classic passage in Hooker is misinterpreted if it is understood to mean that Hooker viewed scripture, reason, and tradition as three equal “legs” of authority. Rather, the passage has to be understood in the context of Hooker’s more central concern—how the Church decides which areas of scripture are permanently binding and which can be modified. The crucial principle of the so-called three-legged stool is actually Hooker’s own affirmation of the principle of the sufficiency of scripture already endorsed by Jewel. The original context of the passage is the distinction Hooker makes between doctrine and morals (which are unchangeable) and matters of church order and polity (which are changeable). Hooker stated: “The Church hath authority to establish that for an order at one time, which at another time it may abolish, and in both it may do well. But that which in doctrine the Church doth now deliver rightly as a truth, no man will say that it may hereafter recall, and as rightly avouch the contrary. Laws touching matter of order are changeable, by the power of the Church; articles concerning doctrine not so.” This appears immediately before the frequently cited passage and is the key to its interpretation: “Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other [i.e., doctrine or order], what scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth.” (Laws 5.8.2) The order of authority is clear. In matters of doctrine and morals, the Church has no authority to make any changes from the plain teaching of scripture. In matters of church order and ceremony, the Church is authorized to change its structures, but, even here, the proper order is that the plain teaching of scripture is primary. It is only when scripture does not speak clearly, that reason and tradition must weigh in.

Reason, for Hooker, follows in the tradition of Anselm’s “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum) or Augustine’s earlier “I believe that I might understand” (credo ut intelligam). It is not the autonomous reason of post-Cartesian modern and post-modern thought. Hooker appeals to the plain sense of scripture in matters necessary for salvation: “Some things are so familiar and plain, that truth from falsehood, and good from evil, is most easily discerned in them, even by men of no deep capacity. And of that nature, for the most part, are things absolutely unto all men’s salvation necessary.” (Preface 3.2) When scripture does not speak clearly, reason must apply itself, but reason’s function is to understand and apply scripture; it is not an autonomous source of authority. Perhaps anticipating the post-modern church’s appeal to “experience,” Hooker speaks disparagingly of those who claim a special spiritual illumination that enables them to find meaning in scripture that is not in the plain text. To the contrary, there are only two ways in which the Holy Spirit leads people into truth, either through direct revelation, or by reason: “If the Spirit by such revelation have discovered unto them the secrets . . . out of scripture, they must profess themselves to be all . . . Prophets.” If we do not claim the special revelation belonging to inspired prophecy (and Hooker presumes that we do not), then we have the moral obligation to justify our interpretation of scripture by sound reasoning in a manner that is open and evident (Preface, 3.11).

Jewel stated that to put aside the plain teaching of scripture and to appeal directly to “God himself, speaking in the Church and in Councils” is to follow one’s own opinions. It is a way of “uncertainty” and “hazard,” the path of “fanaticism.”

The hermeneutical key that Hooker uses to unlock the interpretation and application of scripture is law, thus the title of his book, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker’s discussion of law parallels the Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas’s own discussion fairly closely. Like Aquinas, Hooker distinguishes between eternal law, natural law, and positive law. Eternal law is the being of God himself, “which is a kind of law to his working.” God’s law and will are identified with the Good, and the end of God’s works is the exercise of his own virtue (1.2.3-4). This “eternal law” is the law of God’s wisdom (1.2.5).

Natural law is the law by which creatures follow God’s intentions for their order. All created things seek the Good, but do so in different ways. Non-rational creatures obey this law necessarily by seeking a general perfection in desiring the continuing of their own existence (1.3.4). 

Rational creatures however have the use of reason, which enables them to choose or refuse to follow God’s intentions in the natural law. In all its choices, the human will seeks happiness, and cannot do otherwise (1.8.1). Evil cannot be desired for itself, but is desired for the sake of an apparent good. Sin is the choice of a lesser good preferred to a greater (1.6-7). God has made human hearts to desire him, and only union with God brings true happiness (1.11.3-4). Given the fall into sin, this union is only possible through the redemption of Christ’s death and merit.. The virtues of faith, hope, and charity are oriented toward union with God in the beatific vision, and require supernatural assistance, or grace (1.11.6). All of this parallels fairly closely Thomas Aquinas’s own account of human moral choices.

See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, “Treatise On Law,” 2.2..90-114.

According to Hooker, all human law is founded on the two great commandments to love God and neighbor (1.8..7-8). In discussing human law, Hooker distinguishes between natural law (based on God’s intentions for humanity in creation, and which binds universally) and positive law (intended for the good of human society, but not necessarily universally binding). Positive laws are either laws we have bound ourselves to, or laws of civil institutions, including the judicial law given by God to Israel (1.15.1). Hooker also distinguishes between laws grounded in unfallen human nature—laws that promote the inherent good of humanity, and would obtain even if human beings had never sinned—and laws following from the fall, laws that restrain evil in a fallen world (1.10.7). Hooker also speaks of supernatural law—law oriented toward salvation, and demanding grace for its fulfillment (1.15.2).

Scripture contains natural law, positive law, and supernatural law (1.12.2). It is to scripture that we must turn for knowledge of God’s revealed law: “How miserable had the state of the Church of God been long ere this, if wanting the sacred Scripture we had no record of his laws, but only the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from his predecessors?” (1.13.2)

How does scripture guide the Church in the making of its own law? According to Hooker, scripture gives examples and laws, some natural and some positive. These laws and examples do not cover every case, but they provide precedents. Natural law is always binding: “Natural laws direct in such sort, that in all things we must for ever do according unto them.” The positive law contained in scripture is binding unless God has abrogated it by revelation. Finally, when the Church makes its own positive laws, these cannot be contrary to either the natural law or the principles laid down in the positive laws contained in scripture (3.9.2). Laws made for human beings, or societies or churches, may be changed insofar as the organization itself is not permanent. Thus the ceremonial laws of ancient Israel are not permanently binding on the Church. The gospel is “eternal,” “whereas the whole law of rites and ceremonies, although delivered with so great solemnity, is notwithstanding clean abrogated, inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God’s ordaining it.” (1.15.3) Similarly, the judicial laws of the Old Testament are not binding on modern societies, although the moral principles on which they are founded are still obligatory.

At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that not everything in scripture is a matter of law, whether eternal, natural, or positive. Some matters in scripture are simply historical, and are not intended to be applied legally: “When that which the Word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are?” (3.5.5) How would we apply this principle today? It would seem that slavery would be just such a case of a “historical matter” in scripture. Scripture acknowledges slavery as an historical institution that existed in the ancient world, including Israel and the Greco-Roman world of the New Testament Church. However, scripture nowhere suggests that slavery is a divine institution, or that it was either God’s original intention for humanity in creation, or a necessarily permanent institution after the fall. Even if a matter of law, slavery would be at most a matter of positive judicial (not natural) law, following from the fall, not part of God’s original intention for humanity in creation, and thus, on Hooker’s principles of biblical interpretation and application, capable of being abolished in light of other biblical principles.

How would Hooker’s principles of biblical interpretation apply to the current issue of controversy, the practice of same-sex sexual relations? Hooker does not address the issue of homosexual activity. However, what Hooker says about heterosexual marriage is relevant. For Hooker, while there are positive laws and customs associated with (heterosexual) marriage, marriage is itself a matter not of positive, but of natural law. So on the question of consanguinity in marriage, and whether first cousins should be allowed to marry, Hooker says that the Church must follow the natural law as expressed in scripture. To the extent that scripture does not speak, the Church is allowed to makes its own laws about marriage, so long as they do not conflict with scripture’s plain teaching (3.9.2).

Similarly, over against Puritan objections, Hooker endorsed the exchange of wedding rings (though not mentioned in the Bible) as a symbol of faith and fidelity because marriage itself is founded in the necessity to propagate the human race as intended in God’s original decision to create humanity as male and female: “Man and woman being therefore to join themselves for such a purpose, they were of necessity to be linked with some strait and insoluble knot. The bond of wedlock hath been always more or less esteemed of as a thing religious and sacred.” (5.73.3) It is clear that, for Hooker, life-long exclusive heterosexual marriage is rooted in natural law—God’s intentions for human nature in creation—and cannot be abrogated or altered without violating its essential structure.

Hooker speaks disparagingly of those who claim a special spiritual illumination that enables them to find meaning in scripture that is not in the plain text. If we do not claim the special revelation belonging to inspired prophecy, then we have the moral obligation to justify our interpretation of scripture by sound reasoning in a manner that is open and evident.

Acording to Hooker, it is this connection between marriage and the begetting of children that calls for the permanence and stability of marriage, and distinguishes marriage from a sexual contract that would not necessarily be permanent, for example, concubinage or fornication, or, we would add, same-sex relations. Thus, according to Hooker, the words of the marriage ceremony—“With my body I thee worship”—affirm that the husband and wife honor and worship one another with their bodies and deny any impediments, such as unlawful copulation. Married parties no longer have power over themselves, but each has an “interest” in the other’s person. To “worship” with the body is to convey unto another an interest in one’s body which no one else had before except one’s very self. If the purpose of a sexual relationship were only companionship (as in concubinage), there would be no need for this mutual worship. By declaring exclusive worship, the husband declares his partner to have the exclusive dignity of a wife, and her children as legitimate and free. Accordingly, the wife is given an interest in his person as well. Thus it is only fitting that something so holy should be solemnified with the eucharist (5.73.7).

We must agree with LRU that issues of moral theology “cannot easily be addressed without a deep and serious engagement with the whole of Scripture at many levels . . .” We cannot agree however with LRU’s unstated assumption that the bishops at Lambeth 1998 based their rejection of homosexual practice on the “simple application of a handful of texts.” Lambeth’s appeal to scripture was not based on a “simple application,” but rather echoes the classic Anglican understanding that the Church when making dogmatic decisions is bound ultimately to the plain teaching of scripture as its final authority precisely because (apart from scriptural guidance) councils can err (art. 20), and the Holy Spirit cannot lead contrary to the plain meaning of the biblical text. The Church does have authority to make changes in matters of ceremony, ecclesial order, and canon law, but it has no authority whatsoever to alter the plain teaching of scripture on matters of doctrine or morals. Accordingly, the Church cannot alter the teaching of scripture that sexual relationships must be confined to exclusive life-long heterosexual marriage because heterosexual marriage alone expresses God’s intention in creating humanity as male and female. In the traditional words of the Prayer Book: “Holy Matrimony . . . is an honourable estate, instituted of God, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church.”

It is clear that, for Hooker, life-long exclusive heterosexual marriage is rooted in natural law—God’s intentions for human nature in creation—and cannot be abrogated or altered without violating its essential structure.