Three Sources of Episcopal/Anglican Theology

I am an Episcopalian. For years, our Church has been the subject of both curiosity and confusion. Are we Protestant? Are we Catholic? An easy answer would be that we are a little of both (with a side of "Reformed" mixed in). With the interest in this Church that has been inspired recently by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry (the African-American preacher at the Royal Wedding), some explanation might be useful.

First of all, The Episcopal Church is a part of "The Anglican Communion". This is an association of 40 national or regional Church bodies that have their roots in The Church of England. All are self-governing but they all share some basics of theology and worship. They all use their own versions of "The Book of Common Prayer" ("Common" in the sense of "communal"). They all have the same basic structure of bishops, priests, and deacons (similar to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches), but they also have strong elements of lay leadership.

The theology of the Anglican bodies is more interesting. The English priest and theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600) originally detailed the three basic sources of theological understanding in the English tradition as it is carried forward by churches in the Anglican Communion. These are:

• Scripture
• Tradition
• Reason

By "Scripture", of course, we mean the Holy Bible. In the Anglican view, we caution strongly against the various forms of literalism that lead to "young earth creationism" and several other misrepresentations of these ancient texts. We also discourage the practice of "proof-texting", where a single verse or short passage of the Bible is taken out of context (or mistranslated) as support for a position that doesn't actually fit the grand overall themes of the complete experience of the people of God.

By "Tradition", we mean the understanding of the "Life in Grace" as people have lived it through all the centuries of our history and through all the cultures that this understanding has affected. This does not mean that we are limited by the thought "We've always done it that way". It means that we carefully sift the experiences of millennia, analyzing and comparing, keeping the ideas that work and discarding the ideas that fail. Tradition is a guiding voice, not an overseer with a whip.

By "Reason", we mean the full range of abilities that people have for analysis and synthesis of information and opinion as we encounter the reality of creation. We prioritize fact over opinion, and opinion over bias. We recognize science as an unequaled tool for encountering the magnificence of God as it is displayed in the intricacies of creation.

Now the question is, "How do we use these sources in deriving the answers to theological questions?" The first principle that I find useful is called "Cromwell's Law". Always consider the possibility that you are mistaken. Then, as we use each of these sources, we will almost certainly come up with different answers to our initial theological question. How do we process the differences? First of all, we do not favor any one source over the others. We also do not see them as co-equal. Is that contradictory? Not necessarily. We see them as a dynamic collection of sources of wisdom. On every question that we present to this theological reflection process, we weigh the results that matter for the question. This is the meaning of "discernment". We do not only look for the intellectual answer, but we also look into our hearts to find the joy (or pain) that comes with the answer.

I hope that this explanation hasn't sounded too academic or theoretical. What we in The Episcopal Church have found from years of experience is that our relationship with God begins with our relationships with each other. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is exactly as important as loving God. We do not leave our understandings of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason up to our private guesswork or to the dictates of the clergy. We gather together in groups small and large,  local, national, and global. We depend on the leading of the Holy Spirit to bring life to all of our neighbors through our relationships.

If The Episcopal Church looks and sounds a bit messy at times, it's obviously because all relationships are messy. Love is messy. Neighbors can be very messy, whether they are seated in the pew next to us on Sunday or are huddled in a shack in Sudan.