12.10.11

The bible in the life of the Church (The authority of Scripture)

As you will know many of the difficulties and debates in the Anglican Communion occur around the the degree of authority that we give to scripture. It is not ours to give, so the phrasing of that sentence feels wrong from the start. At Indaba I approached the subject of God from a Barthian perspective.

Revelation begins with God's self-revelation through Scripture, the life of Jesus Christ and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Faith, for me, is rather simple and to be Anglican is to follow this understanding of God - to preach our way through the lectionary, to be united in prayer to the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit and his word. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Our expression of this faith is reformed. The five marks of mission help us to join in with the missionary God revealed in the Scriptures.

To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
To teach, baptise and nurture new believers 
To respond to human need by loving service 
To seek to transform unjust structures of society 
To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
(Bonds of Affection-1984 ACC-6 p49, Mission in a Broken World-1990 ACC-8 p101)




The Anglican Communion is having us ask big questions - What is Church? What is Mission? What is worship? It is not having us ask - who is God? This has been revealed, not fully ... yet ... we are in the 'inbetween times' but nevertheless God communicates through his word, the life of his Son and the Holy Spirit.

A survey has been produced so that the attention to and regard people have for scripture might be assessed... to some extent (ach! Surveys!)

Why not give it a go?

HERE

3 comments:

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

Starts to sound like you believe in the Quarternity: God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Word. "God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit and his Word."

I thought trinitarians believed that Jesus Christ was the Word.

Rev R Marszalek said...

Indeed - should have been a small w.

Suem said...

I did the questionnaire, but for some questions I wanted to write an essay and none of the options quite worked!

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A little background reading so we might mutually flourish when there are different opinions