The Anglican Church of North America was founded in 2009 in response to the Episcopal Church's consecration of an priest in a "committed same sex marriage." That was for many Episcopalians the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. But Gene Robinson's consecration was a symptom of a deeper malignancy. A malignancy that went back decades.
The deeper problem was that the Episcopal Church, along with other mainline denominations, had rejected the authority of scripture. No longer was scripture the word of God, but it had become the writings of men that "contained the word of God." Slowly but surely scripture was dismissed as the fanciful writings of premodern men drowning in the misogyny of patriarchy.
Then came women's ordination and it went down hill from there. Yes... that was a watershed moment. A clear break from not only the scripture but tradition and what we call "catholic order." All because the Scriptures weren't authoritative anymore and if they aren't authoritative than anything goes.
But St. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, says,
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All Scripture is God-breathed? What does that mean? It means that it is the words of God and NOT the words of man drowning in the misogyny of the patriarchy.
The doctrinal statement of the Anglican Church of North America, in response to the Episcopal Church's apostasy, says, "we confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life." That last sentence is crucial! It can not be understated. The word of God, the Holy Scriptures, are for us the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.
Of course this goes against everything the world teaches us about authority. The world tells us that we know better than those backwards Jewish hillbillies. "We've got science now, we understand how the world works and we are much more enlightened about the relationship between the sexes." But is that true? No. Not in the least.
Science for example will tell you that men don't get up after being beaten and crucified to death. But scripture tells us a different story. I've got no time for a science that can't differentiate between male and female. But I'll listen to the book that tells me that God made woman from a man's rib.
When we talk about the authority of scripture we mean it. The world might see that as backwards an medival, but that's where we stand. Not on what the world sells. But on what God has revealed to us in the pages of His Bible.
Now of course we must be careful not to become biblicists. Looking at the text of scripture with a wooden interpretation and no room for nuance. Anglicans also look to tradition as a source of authority. It is the interpretive lense through which we read the text. But to dismiss scripture wholesale because we need to "get with the times" is a heresy of the first order.
The word is our final authority and unchangeable standard. It is, like our God, unwavering. And that's absolutely crucial because we are not like that. We are a fickle people yelling in one moment "hosanna! hosanna! blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" and "crucify him! Crucify him" all in the matter of moments. If we are our own authorities, or we look to some other human authority, we will at all times come up short.
But the word, and the God who revealed that word to us via prophets and apostles, will never disappoint. What he reveals to us therein is the good news of the gospel and our trust in its authority is crucial for our spiritual wellbeing. To question it is the nothing more than that age old question, "did God really say?"
St. Augustine of Hippo said, "the Scriptures are holy, they are truthful, they are blameless... so we have no grounds at all for blaming Scripture if we happen to deviate in any way, because we haven’t understood it. When we do understand it, we are right. But when we are wrong because we haven’t understood it, we leave it in the right. When we have gone wrong, we don’t make out Scripture to be wrong, but it continues to stand up straight and right, so that we might return to it for correction." That's really all there is. The question then before all of us is if we are going to submit ourselves to the word of God. Or are we going to go at it our own way?
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