Configuring Scripture, Criterion #8

8. The Criterion of Community
The God revealed in the scriptures calls people into community and it is to the community that they are addressed with the intention of forming and sustaining a people of witness. Scripture is addressed to the Church. It has its fullest meaning in the context of the Church and its worship. It describes the God who has called us and made us a people who were not a people and describes what kind of people we are to be in response.

It is within the context of being part of that people that our personal relationship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit is formed and nurtured. The Good News revealed in the scriptures is not first and foremost addressed to individuals and their spirituality. Nor are they primarily about abstractions such as "love" or "justice" or "peace" or whatever. To the extent that it is about such things it is about embodying them as a community that is a sign and foretaste of the kingdom in which the wound of the original schism of sin and brokenness is fully healed. Schism – between humans and God, and humans and humans – is the orginal sin played out in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It is that Schism that Jesus comes to heal. Or as Ephesians has it, it is the barriers and enmity of that schism that he breaks down.

The mission of the church is reflected in one of the prayers in the Marriage Rite in the Book of Common Prayer:

Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair. (BCP p. 429)

Faithful configurations of scripture will call the church to actually be the community envisioned in such passages as Romans 12, Phippians 2, and Ephesians 4.

It is the Church, not indivdiuals or sub-groups, that discerns whether or not a given configuration of scripture is faithful. The larger the consensus in the Church (currently and historically) that a configuration of scripture is faithful the more likely it is to be so.

Criterion 9. Character

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #7

7. The Criterion of Dissimilarity
It is certainly legitimate, and perhaps inevitable, to take insights from other areas to inform our reading of the Bible. Liberation theology does this, sometimes more fruitfully, sometimes less, with its re-appropriation of biblical themes in persuit of social and economic justice. Similarly, feminist theology does this. Reading the Bible in light of other religions and in light of our best scientific knowledge are other examples. Gregory of Nyssa (335 - 394), commenting on Exodus 12:35-36, asserts that scripture itself,

commands those participating in the free life also to equip themselves with the wealth of pagan learning by which foreigners to the faith beautify themselves. Our guide in virtue [Moses] commands someone who "borrows" from wealthy Egyptians to receive such things as moral and natural philosophy, geometry, astronomy, dialectic, and whatever else is sought by those outside the Church, since these things will be useful when in time the divine sanctuary of mystery must be beautified with the riches of wisdom.
Life of Moses, Paulist Press, 1978

But when the other insights become the criteria such that they are not fundamentally challenged and shaped by scripture and Christian tradition they tend to lead to less than faithful interpretations. While it is incumbent upon Christians of every time and place to interpret scripture afresh in light of their context, any faithful reading of scripture must be dissimilar enough from the surrounding culture and the interpreter's social/intellectual milieu to maintain the edge of repentance and conversion.

This means that a configuration of scripture that fits too neatly into any contemporary agenda or set of cultural/sub-cultural sensibilities is suspect. Configurations of scripture that simply parrot the culture or a segment of the culture are unlikely to be faithful to the voice of the Dove who enchants those scriptures. We need to recognize our own particular cultural, social, and political prejudices and then be alert to where scripture may call those prejudices into question lest we configure a cracked mirror that merely reflects an image ourselves rather than a mosaic of the King. Augustine warns against this,

But since the human race is prone to judge sins . . . by the standard of its own practices, people generally regard as culpable only such actions as men of their own time and place tend to blame and condemn, and regard as commendable and praiseworthy only such actions as are commendable and praiseworthy within the conventions of their own society.
On Christian Teaching [De Doctrina Christiana], English trans. R. P. H. Green (New York, Oxford University Press, 1997), 76

Criterion 8. Community

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #6

6. The Criterion of Comprehensiveness
The scriptures contain multiple concerns, themes and images, many of which are in apparent tension with others. They are not given to neat systematization. Any comprehensive approach to the Bible ends up with some anomalies. A five-point Calvinist, for example, will have difficulty fitting those passages of scripture that suggest human freedom into her or his configuration. If one gives priority to passages declaring God's sovereignty and providence, those other passages must somehow be made to "fit." Similarly, Luther’s approach making salvation by grace through faith the key struggles with passages that suggest that we will be judged according to our deeds.

No one, in practice, gives equal authority to every verse, passage, or theme in the Bible. How we interpret the Bible largely depends on how we shuffle the deck and what we declare is trump.

The fewer passages of scripture (or harking back to Irenaeus' metaphor, the fewer gems) that are anomalous to a configuration the better. Even then, the remainder remains and must be acknowledged and reckoned with.

Criterion 7. Dissimilarity

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #5

5. The Criterion of the Church's Tradition
We always read the Bible with the saints. The wisdom of the Communion of the Saints is a gift that shapes our ongoing configuration of scripture. For Anglicans, this has classically meant especially the catholic consensus that developed in the first five centuries. This was stated by the great Anglican preacher and bishop, Lancelot Andrewes (1555 – 1626) in the formula:

One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.

Christians’ engagements with scripture are (and should be) shaped by the successes, failures, debates, discussions, and prayers of previous generations of Christians. The tradition of the church is not a problem to be overcome, but a community in time to which we belong and with which it is possible to dialogue. We are not bound to simple repetition of the past in all things, but the burden of proof is on novel configurations of scripture which must be demonstrated to be in harmony with what past generations of the faithful have taught and lived.

Criterion 6. Comprehensiveness

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #4

4. The Criterion of the Church’s Prayer
The rule of prayer is the rule of belief (Lex orandi, lex credendi). We believe what we pray. As with the Rule of Faith, there is a symbiotic relationship between the Church’s worship and its reading of scripture. Faithful configurations will be compatible with the Church’s worship. For Episcopalians, that means the prayers of the Book of Common Prayer guide interpretation. Traditionally, this has especially been true of the Rite of Baptism, the Eucharistic Prayers and the Ordinals. Of course, common worship is more than simply the prayers written in the Prayer Book. It includes the simple fact of gathering for worship and doing so on Sunday. It includes words, bodily gestures, use of materials, etc. Faithful configurations will be congruent with, and make sense of, the language and practice of our common worship.

Criterion 5. Tradition

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #3

3. The Criterion of the Rule of Faith
One of the important criteria the early Church used in discerning which writings to recognize as canonical was whether they conformed to the Rule of Faith – the teaching passed down from the Apostles. Irenaeus appealed to the Rule as the guide to right interpretation in his arguments against the interpretations of the heretics in the 2nd century.

That Rule of Faith finds its expression for us in the Creeds. Scripture and the creeds have a symbiotic relationship and cannot be read separately. Interpretations that are contrary to the Creeds are unfaithful. Charles Gore (1853 – 1932), Anglican (liberal catholic) theologian and Bishop of Oxford, insisted that more was implied by the Creed:

There are, indeed, features in the common faith, such as the belief in Atonement, in sacramental grace, in the inspiration of Scripture, which are only slightly or by implication touched on in these formulas of faith; but at least in what they contain they represent what has been universal Christianity.
The Permanent Creed and the Christian Idea of Sin

That means, as Gore also insisted, that faithful configurations will wrestle with the “whole set of ideas about sin and redemption and the Incarnation and the Trinity which belong to the Catholic Creeds and are the commonplaces of historical Christianity.”

Criterion 4. The Church's Prayer

Configuring Scripture, Criterion #2

2. The Criterion of Love
There is a bias for interpreting scripture in ways that are merciful and cultivate charity.

Jesus asserts this in Matthew 22:40, “On these two commandments [love of God and neighbor] hang all the law and the prophets [all of scripture]. It is also implied in Jesus’ teaching in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath [symbolic of the law] was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.” Paul reinforces it in Galatians 5:6 (the only thing that counts is faith working through love), 5:14 (the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”), and 6:2 (Bear one another’s burden, and in this way you will fulfill the law.). The criterion of love was encouraged by Augustine (354 – 430),

Anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up the double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them. Anyone who derives from them an idea which is useful for supporting this love but fails to say what the writer demonstrably meant in the passage has not made a fatal error, and is certainly not a liar.
On Christian Teaching [De Doctrina Christiana], English trans. R. P. H. Green (New York, Oxford University Press, 1997), 27

But, we should beware of assuming we know fully what love is or what love requires aside from our engagement with Jesus Christ (Criterion 1). It is good to keep in mind Charles Williams' observation,

The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.
He Came Down From Heaven, Charles Williams (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2nd edition,1984, p. 11)

The love of God has something of terror in it because it summons us to love others with the self-sacrificial, dying-to-self love with which Jesus loves us. There is nothing cheap, easy, or sentimental about it.

With that caveat, the basic principle remains that configurations that encourage the double love of God and neighbor and cultivate habits of mercy and charity are to be preferred.

Criterion 3. Rule of Faith