wfn.org | Anglican theologians speak on Bible

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

For more information contact:
Episcopal News Service
Kathryn McCormick
kmccormick@dfms.org
212/922-5383
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

2000-045

Bible interpretation must come from local experience, say 
Anglican theologians

by Dennis Delman

     (ENS) Nearly 200 people attending Epiphany West 2000 in late 
January heard wide-ranging approaches to the Bible, from the 
biblical perspective on work to the view of scripture from "the 
underside of marginal reality," from four Anglican theologians.

     Presented by the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the 
three-day conference, "Healing Leaves, the Authority of the Bible 
for Anglicans Today," featured three seminary professors and the 
Archbishop of Cape Town, who is primate of the Church of Southern 
Africa.

     Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndunguane, in his keynote speech, 
acknowledged the primacy of scripture, a point made in his 
province's constitution, but stated that the Bible "is a guide to 
life, not a law book." Asking "who determines whether scripture 
is authoritative or not in relationship to contemporary terms 
such as gender and sexual orientation?" the archbishop  
differentiated among three groups of people: those who see 
scripture as the authority; those who see it as one source among 
others, and those who do not see scripture as an authoritative 
source at all.

     Ndungane argued that authority is "not synonymous with 
power." He referred to a 1948 Lambeth Conference resolution that 
said, "Authority is grounded in the life of the Trinity and all 
other authority is secondary," and that authority is "distributed 
interactively between scripture, reason, tradition, the creeds, 
ministry, (and) the witness of the saints." No one body or organ 
is charged with maintaining sacred doctrine. "Indeed," he added, 
it is a moot point whether there is any such thing called 
'doctrine' in Anglicanism."

Inculturation to indiginization

     In Africa, scripture has been used as a tool of domination 
Ndungane said. Every attempt toward the Africanization of 
Christianity used scripture as a primary text. "Biblical 
categories had to be translated into the social milieu and 
thought forms of the African continent," said the archbishop, who 
described this use of scripture as "an attempt to impose European 
domination and control upon Africa." 

     These Christian models from outside Africa were intent on 
maintaining the status quo. As a result, "oppression through 
colonial domination has been internalized," said the archbishop. 
"Models of the church remain hierarchical and colonial." 
Furthermore, "the feminist critique reminds us constantly how 
patriarchal are our models of the interpretation of scripture." 
But, he added, there is a shift, opening "the canon of scripture 
to include the stories and myths of African people." 

     Declining to "rehearse" the whole debate at Lambeth in 1998, 
Ndungane emphasized the reliance on scripture for those who 
condemned homosexuality. Those who "considered homosexuality 
sinful or at best a lamentable condition," said the archbishop, 
"pointed to scripture as self-evidently clear." He noted that 
biblical texts were seldom examined in their context.

     Referring to the three positions of viewing scripture he 
previously identified, Ndungane observed that either of the first 
two was at work: "Namely, that scripture needs no interpretation: 
or secondly, that it needs interpretation, and those condemning 
homosexuality have the authority to interpret the scripture in 
the way they have done so." 

     The archbishop criticized the failure to look to sources 
other than scripture, such as "reason, tradition, culture and, 
most significantly, experience," and what appeared to be the 
assumption of Lambeth's right or even obligation to make a 
pronouncement on the issue, without "consultation of the wider 
church (or) debate with local congregations on their experience."

Power and the marginalized

     Kelly Brown-Douglas, associate professor of theology at 
Howard University, urged people to see the Bible from the 
"preferred perspective" of those outside the systems of power, 
saying that in the Bible, "one soon recognizes that power is 
predicated on unjust privilege" contained in white, patriarchal, 
heterosexual systems and "interlocking and interactive structures 
of domination."

     Those who are marginalized by such systems--the "outsiders 
within"--have "a certain liberating moral agency" to "critique 
the corruption of endemic power." These people, in turn, are 
accountable to those "on the underside of marginal reality" who 
Brown-Douglas called "the least of these in society."  

     Citing the vision in Mark 10:31, that the last shall be 
first, Brown-Douglas cautioned that the words "don't portend a 
reversal of fortune," but a time when there are no 
privileged...no unjust hierarchical orders of privilege and 
domination." She added that "such a divine vision necessitates an 
absolutely new arrangement of human relationships," the nature of 
which "are suggested by the Christian witness to a Trinitarian 
God," a God who is "internally and eternally relational."

     Brown-Douglas pointed out that "within the Bible, enslaved 
Africans found their own story of depression and a struggle for 
freedom.

     "The events of the Exodus," she said, were central to the 
slave religion, and "the enslaved seemed to understand the power 
and significance of the Jesus born in a manger." This entry into 
the world was "one radical disclosure," she suggested. 

Sabbath and human work

     Saying that life would be harder and more precious for 
future generations, Virginia Theological Seminary Professor of 
Old Testament Ellen Davis asserted, "It is time to reopen human 
work as part of Anglican theology." She drew heavily from Exodus 
because the theme of Sabbath is woven throughout the book and 
because "the most extensive picture of human work in the Bible is 
the construction of the tabernacle," described in the book's 
final six chapters.

     "Sabbath serves to remind us why they are doing this work at 
all," explained Davis, and building a sanctuary aims at the same 
thing as the Sabbath: "Namely worship and intimacy with God." 
Noting that the Sabbath was the only act of creation that 
received God's blessing, Davis said that "Sabbath observed at the 
beginning of this labor extends its blessing over the work 
itself."

     Concluding with an exposition of the Gospel passage in which 
Mary "chose that better portion" while Martha was in the kitchen, 
Davis said that Mary had simply chosen "a work which offers a 
channel to move into deeper intimacy with her Lord, while Martha 
is letting service to her Lord feel too much like work."

Anglican theological eccentricity

     The Rev. Dr. L. William Countryman, CDSP professor of New 
Testament, described Anglicanism as "theologically, the eccentric 
cousin in the family of western Christianity."

     While the rest of the family "produced systematic, 
comprehensive, totalizing forms of theology" over the centuries, 
"Anglican theology tended to the occasional nature." Our goal, 
said Countryman, "has never been a fixed view in the form of 
words for all time, but to live faithfully..., taking the ancient 
core of Christian faith as anchor and as inspiration.

     "What we call Anglicanism has changed from being the project 
of a sincere, loyal, national church to being a sometimes tenuous 
identity that ties together a global community made up of the 
most diverse people, cultures and circumstances."

     Echoing Ndungane's inquiry as to the authority of scripture 
in Anglican tradition, Countryman responded with an 
unconventional source: the 17th century English poet, Henry 
Vaughan.

     Admitting that "for most of us, poets are not at the heart 
of Anglican spirituality," Countryman suggested poetry may be 
"the place to see the tradition most clearly alive and at work." 
He added that people could learn more from poets about what the 
Bible is and isn't than from the drier dispositions of 
theologians and ecclesiastical documents.

     Reminding his audience that the conference title, "Healing 
Leaves," comes from Henry Vaughan's poem, "The  Agreement," 
Countryman explained that for Vaughan, the Bible was life-giving, 
as opposed to the views of the extreme Calvinists of Vaughan's 
day, for whom the Bible existed "to prove that everyone on earth 
was deserving of destruction; and that, if God chose to save any, 
it was by an act of sovereign choice," to a small elect, who led 
"a godly life, according to Puritan principles."  

     "The Bible read truly," said Countryman, "is known by the 
hope it gives; the light it sheds." That was not theory to Henry 
Vaughan, who found that the Bible "gave him the strength of 
purpose and a sense of direction to live through the hard times 
in which he found himself." Vaughan, stressed Countryman, "is 
important to the discussion of biblical authority,  because he 
reminds us as Anglicans, that "the heart of our tradition will 
not be found in systematic, polarizing, theological discourse but 
in the life of faith: the effort to deal faithfully with the 
world in which we actually live."

--Dennis Delman is editor of Pacific Church News, the newspaper 
of the Diocese of California.