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Hermeneutics, Tradition, Holiness and the Windsor Report
Introduction
The Windsor Report (TWR hereafter) is an important document on church governance issued after certain events "have uncovered major divisions throughout the Anglican Communion." TWR is crafted to address an issue seen as a "crisis," and has much to be commended. Our main interest is its suitability as a case study on hermeneutics as it includes a section on the authority of Scripture and the interpretation of Scripture. " In paragraph 60 (60, etc. hereafter) it states that the Anglican Communion is experiencing a conflict between two different schools of interpretation: "Enlightenment" and "pre- or anti-critical conservatism." As other Anglicans have noted, this hermeneutical impasse has created "two religions in one church."
How these leaders have applied their understanding of Scripture and how TWR is received will be of interest to others who find themselves dealing with similar issues. Let it be clear that this paper's primary concern is not the Anglican Communion, nor the issue of homosexuality. Our focus is the critical, underlying question: what is necessary to interpret Scripture faithfully. TWR asks "What do we believe is the will of God for the Anglican Communion." This paper proposes the "How" to that "What," and does so urging them to go with their strengths, their conserving, preserving tradition, but with what may be a new twist.
We do not wish to advocate a turning back, rather what is needed is boldness in the development of a pneumatological process in interpreting Scripture to renew the church. Addressing safeguards is the logical first step of a journey to develop greater clarity in how the Holy Spirit helps us read and understand the Word.
Hermeneutics
TWR refers to the "entrenched views of the Enlightenment" and its "unwarranted negative judgements" on Scripture. Yet we should ask if the Enlightenment is more entrenched than the authors realize. Does not TWR's language of "Pre and anti-critical conservatism," (60) cause a conservative to wonder just how moderate are the moderates? Many of these negative judgments would be modified by an appreciation that the Enlightenment created an unwarranted mistrust of tradition. Early in the Enlightenment skeptics gave themselves permission to choose texts to favor and texts to ignore because Scripture was seen to have been written "long ago and far away." Proponents of Liberal Theology similarly choose which texts to honor and which to dismiss. As John Macquarrie wrote, "We have in fact anonymous accounts of these matters, written so long after they happened that their historical accuracy is open to grave question."
But the time and distance between us and the ancients is not a liability. Let us consider a move toward an appreciation of the continuity of tradition. What would truly be a liability is if we were to jettison tradition and somehow obtain new answers to all human dilemmas. We shall see that if Hans George Gadamer did not satisfactorily debunk Enlightenment skepticism in his critique of historicism in the classic work, Truth and Method, he built such a strong case for an appreciation for tradition as a living continuity as to permanently delegitimize the Enlightenment.
How do we mean by the word "tradition"? TWR uses the word several ways, including what is meant by the word "denomination", or what is long-standing, customary or habitual in beliefs and practices. It gives an actual definition in the section on interpretation: "'tradition' consists primarily of what the scripture-reading Church has said." (60) Gadamer's emphasis would be on that as memory, and that as something alive. Gadamer wrote that there is always an element of freedom and history itself in tradition. It does not persist because of "inertia" but because there is something there to affirm, embrace, and cultivate. "It is essentially preservation, and it is active in all historical change."
If this understanding of tradition as the living memory of the believing community would be brought to bear on biblical interpretation, the modernist phenomena of "picking and choosing" which texts to honor could certainly be minimized, and if the safeguards to be suggested later were put into place, safe ground would be found for a renewed theology for the 21st century.
From Schleiermacher to Gadamer
To understand the Gadamerian turn in philosophical hermeneutics one needs to track the development in the tradition from Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey to Martin Heidegger and Hans George Gadamer. Before Schleiermacher hermeneutics had been principally a philological exercise, an approach primarily focused on the interpretation of ancient texts. Schleiermacher saw understanding as a dialogue between the reader and the writer where the reader transforms herself into the other person in order to grasp the meaning.
Dilthey, his biographer and successor, desired to develop a methodology other than Empiricism to distinguish the human sciences from natural sciences, and he did this by emphasizing the historicality of understanding. Dilthey wanted objectively valid interpretations of "expressions of inner life."
Heideggerdefined hermeneutics as understanding the process of understanding. He asked when does meaning come to light. Heidegger posited understanding as a moment of understanding. Rather than seeing hermeneutics as the study of texts, Heidegger emphasized understanding as how we use language as a way to know our way of being; understanding is a mode of being. Heidegger taught that when the interpreter engages in a dialogue with a text there is the possibility that the essence of the text will emerge. Under the influence of Heidegger and Gadamer, hermeneutics became focused on the process of being, that is, ontology of understanding. Heidegger said Dasein (being) is understanding.
Gadamer said Being is in language, and that nothing exists except through language. Since understanding is only understood verbally, his philosophical hermeneutics have universality as the basis of all disciplines, but their suitability for doctrine about the One who is Spirit and Word should be excitingly evident.
Gadamer's Critique of Enlightenment Historicism
Schleiermacher believed that the job of hermeneutics is to recover the original intent of the author. This remains the modernist rut. Gadamer taught that the point is not to understand the author; rather one understands the text because one can be grasped by the being of the text. Understanding happens when the horizon of the object and the horizon of subject come together. We have a consciousness affected by history, the text also has a history, and when our history is informed by the text's history, we have the possibility of a new moment of participatory understanding. For Gadamer, this historical consciousness is always at work as a mediation of past and present.
Gadamer wrote that hermeneutics such as Schleiermacher' s which attempt to gain the real meaning of a text as if it was a reproduction of the original production is nonsensical. What is brought back is not the original meaning. Instead, the locus of hermeneutics is the ground between the familiarity and strangeness of a text; how was the text intended and what is its place within tradition. It is proper to see a past work within a tradition which is leading up to the present, a tradition we participate in, of which we already have knowledge. To understand our present correctly, we need to see the present as rooted in the past.
We are never an unrelated, advanced race looking at primitive cultures when we read. Temporal distance is productive in understanding and not something that must be overcome. Gadamer defines historicism as the false belief that in order to understand a past work we must first determine the spirit of that age and attempt to think and feel as they did. Historicism is naïve because it does not take into account its own historicity. Temporal distance can help us to discern false prejudices which lead to misunderstanding and true prejudices which lead to understanding.
Instead of historicism, we need to realize that "we are always already affected by history," which plays a part in determining what we study, and how we approach the matter at hand. "Historically affected consciousness" is part of the hermeneutical process, suggesting the questions we will ask, limiting the possibilities of understanding the place of a work within its tradition, and how we will attempt to understand it.
It is necessary to see that understanding is essentially a process; hence we need to understand what affects this process of which we are a part. It is as though we are in a conversation, but what kind of conversation is it? Gadamer tells us that we cannot hear a text if we do not allow it to speak. The job of an interpreter is not as one who would attempt to translate an utterance word-for-word into another language but to express what they heard in a way that seems most appropriate. One learns to express the meaning.
Gadamer proved that what we are listening to is tradition. We can think of viewing a tradition as scanning a horizon. One achieves historical horizon through effort. Tradition is something we live and move in; therefore, we view it as we move through it. Some people see only what is near them, but others achieve the ability to scan the horizon. This fusion of horizons constitutes the process of understanding.
If Anglicanism does not define "tradition" primarily as the memory of the scripture-reading church, this is that to which they must appeal. But perhaps many have lost touch with its authority and hermeneutical centrality? The true meaning of tradition needs to be clearly differentiated from a meaning which is more akin to their Canon law, which has no power to create faith or inspire the church to holiness.
Analysis
What TWR calls "crisis" is not political maneuvering over the rules governing sexual behavior, or broken communion, or even the impending losses over an emotionally charged issue. This pan-denominational crisis was precipitated by how communities of faith interprets, understands and applies Scripture in doctrine and church policy.
Scholarship has led to a "bewildering range of available interpretative strategies and results" (62), not only of the various critical methods, but also serious attempts to revise classical Christian theology and even to prove it as wrong. One would only need to think of the theology of the most influential liberal Anglican theologian, John Macquarrie, whose Principles of Christian Theology has been the most widely used text for Episcopal and Anglican seminaries in recent decades. Macquarrie's theology has such a far reaching effect that one critic wrote, "his approach radically changes the meanings of all Christian beliefs." The Enlightenment led to a Liberal Theology which continues today, manifested in synods endorsing proposals which oppose tradition.
Liberal theologians like Paul Tillich passionately urged students to challenge classical theology. Consider the possible unintended consequences of Tillich's words:
Schleiermacher ? is the father of modern Protestant theology. This is his official title during the 19th and 20th centuries, until neo-orthodox theology tried to ?make out of him a distorter of theology? during my student years, theology was faced with making a basic decision [a synthesis of everything or a return to orthodoxy with some modernizations]. If the latter is followed than of course Schleiermacher has to be abolished ?. My decision is thoroughly on the side of Schleiermacher, but with one qualification. Neither he or Hegel, who was even greater and who tried the same thing, really succeeded ? I draw the conclusion that it must be tried again, and if it cannot be tried again, than we had better abandon theology as a systematic enterprise and stick to the repetition of Bible passages? But if systematic theology is to have any meaning we must try again ?even if we have a continuous history of failures ? besides, out of these failures more insight has come than through the unfailing repetition of orthodox phraseologies.
Perhaps the only thing to say is that these words may make sense if one considers moralism the great enemy and not Satan. Such a quest for theology while the church lies in wrack and ruin can only be taken serious by those who deny the existence of hell.
TWR rightly recognizes that there is a far different hermeneutic in Anglicanism than that of Liberal Theology, though it casts traditional interpretation negatively as the "assumptions and entrenched views of a pre- or anti-critical conservatism." Of that conservative side more is said below. For now, the point should be well-taken that all must make sure that it is not one's own voice that is being heard (59).
The Immediate Need to Discern the Role of Tradition in Hermeneutics
The enormity of the need for clarity is shown in the fact that so many theologians and bishops do not seem to know if Christians can know how to live based on Scripture. It seems that they are unaware of how far from tradition they have wandered. For example, the ironically entitled, "Journeying Together Faithfully," is an official study on homosexuality in which all members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were encouraged to participate. Ironic because the two sides are hardly together, and neither thinks the other side is being faithful. It has a companion piece written by an Old Testament and a New Testament ELCA seminary professor meant to explain what the Bible can teach us about human sexuality. It closes with the following statement, "But finally, our contributions are only one part of a larger discussion among those who seek the mind of Christ in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit."
Taking a page from the Enlightenment, they said that the church must also hear from science (doctors, psychiatrist, and sociologists) if we want to know the truth. Why is it that we cannot read Scripture and find answers to questions on human sexuality?unless the Bible is understood to be a totally human document? This approach only serves to undermine the authority of Scripture so that the approval of revisionist agendas is nearly certain.
Theologians really cannot fault church structures too much for this situation if they have been so negligent in providing aids to clarity rather than contributing to bewilderment. If Clark Pinnock diagnosed the situation correctly, theologians have not explicated how Scripture is illuminated for the reader in any explicit way since John Owens and Jonathan Edwards. If the church is to be faithful to the charge Jesus Christ gave to teach his commandments, a good beginning would be to understand that interpretation of Scripture is process which must guard against of any component of orthodox theology being removed, otherwise doctrine becomes unhinged, and any number of outcomes is possible. Truly, the interpreter can arrive at the place he or she was already standing, breaking the first rule taught seminarians, to always do exegesis, and never do eisegesis. Tradition properly understood as a living, preserving interpretive force minimizes willful interpretation.
The True Nature of the Crisis
TWR is careful to say what it is not, and that it should be understood as asking, "In short, how does the Anglican Communion address relationships between its component parts in a true spirit of communion?" However, the report describes its current situation as a crisis, and the question to consider is whether the central point of their crisis is the relationship of its component parts, or whether their relationship problems are symptomatic of something deeper. Though the first definition of crisis that comes to mind might be "an emergency," the first definition given in most dictionaries is a crucial or decisive moment. Look in a theological dictionary and one finds the entry "crisis theology," which can be defined as a Protestant theology emphasizing the judgment of God upon all merely human social and religious endeavours. The New Testament says, "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment," (2 Peter 2:9 NRSV). Are the whole kit-and-caboodle of us old-line Protestants already in the dock and they, the Anglicans, are merely the first plaintiffs? Did we really think we could put God on trial and not be counter-sued? C.S. Lewis saw the coming crisis:
The greatest barrier I have met is the almost total absence from the minds of my audience of any sense of sin? The early Christian preachers could assume in their hearers, whether Jews...or Pagans, a sense of guilt. ? Thus the Christian message was in those days unmistakably the Evangelium, the Good News. It promised healing to those who knew they were sick?"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approached the judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock.
Therefore, should we not be asking, "Can we know with certainty what is the will of God for the Church through a reliable method of interpreting Scripture?" How can we avoid this central question any longer? But perhaps the question we should be asking to answer this question is HOW do we reliably interpret Scripture? Bear in mind that a crisis has the potential for punishment, but also reward. Anglicans have an opportunity for renewal and a share in the future mission beyond what is immediately apparent.
Absence of Shared Interpretation Causes Illness (and Death)
In the section entitled "Illness, surface and deeper symptoms," (31-42) TWR gives six "underlying features" for their common life: theological development, ecclesiastical procedures, adiaphora, subsidiarity, trust, and authority. This section is followed by "Fundamental principals" (43-96), which contains the section on biblical interpretation. They call their system-wide disruption an ?illness' which is due to the lack of an agreed upon understanding of their ?bonds of unity,' (rules for church governance), but the real question to be addressed is, "Is this illness not caused by the absence of a shared theory of biblical interpretation, and will the rules not continue to be broken without some agreement on interpretation?"
The section on the episcopate (63-66) flows from the one on scripture and interpretation (57-62) which highlights Anglicanism's inherent strengths and weakness. Paragraph 58 suggests bishops should primarily be teachers of scripture rather than a legal structure. This should be seen as an opportunity for a consistently applied hermeneutic.
The next subsection on discernment (67-70) is a continuation of their analysis of their own hermeneutics. It discusses the different provinces as a "rich variety of cultures" in which "each is called to read scripture within, and apply it to," none can confine their readings of scripture to their own setting, but must "discern the limits of appropriate inculturation" by "rendering account to one another."(60) While dialogue is essential in any church, and indeed Anglicanism would benefit greatly in their current crisis if the voices of the South were listened to at the same level as the West, i.e., "One of the hallmarks of healthy worldwide communion will be our readiness to learn from one another."(67) The voice that is heard from the South that of a vital tradition, one that is adding provinces at the same rate the West is boarding up buildings. The South receives Scripture rather than put it under a looking glass and passes on the apostolic tradition as a living tradition, not as a framework for management. However, the South must wonder if all voices are being heard equally.
The phrase "scripture has always been recognized as the Church's supreme authority" (53) goes to the central issue. Is Scripture somehow ordering Anglicans to go in two different directions? The answer, of course, is that there are two different methods of interpreting Scripture at work. An insightful response by the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Saskatchewan critiques the ambiguity in TWR's section on authority and interpretation, stating, "But there is a certain naiveté or even disingenuousness, it seems to us, in presenting the issues of the interpretation of Scripture as if everyone were equally attached to its authority, and we only disagree about what it means." The Enlightenment hermeneutic and the Conservative hermeneutic cannot be said to agree on authority; Enlightenment makes itself the authority.
Contemporary View of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics
Clark Pinnock wrote two edifying articles on how this works in 1993 which still stand unanswered as an appeal to academics to engage in how the Holy Spirit uses the Word. One is "The Role of the Holy Spirit in Interpretation" and the other is "The Work of the Holy Spirit in Interpretation." Pinnock asks, "Why the Deafening Silence?"
If our need of the illuminating work of the Spirit when we read the Bible is obvious, why is it impossible to locate detailed discussions of it? Why do so few theologians help us understand it. I challenge you to open the standard books on biblical interpretation and see whether you can find a serious discussion ?I find I have to go back to Jonathan Edwards and John Owen to find one.
Let us now turn to Pinnock's proposal for biblical and theological foundations for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in hermeneutics, and compare them with what we see in the Windsor report. Good move. We shall see a contrast between TWR's concept of theological development (32-33) and Pinnock's proposition that the Spirit continues to unfold what has already been given. Theological development is a rather Darwinian or Enlightenment concept, and one would think that Barth's bombshell on the seminary playground would have ended that progressivist theological worldview, but it seems the Enlightenment is entrenched indeed.
Pinnock gives eight theologically sound proposals which may satisfy liberals and conservatives alike on how the Holy Spirit aids interpretation. As a whole they lead to a hermeneutic less susceptible to willful interpretation. First, the focus is on corporate experience. God leads people forth primarily as a people, not as individuals. Individuals, as Luther said, are "curved in on their own understanding,"[53] guided by the insidious controlling assumption, "What's in this for me." Individual Christians are called out of the world, gathered together and fragmentary explanations of life and conceptions of truth grow into fullness. The testimonies of the redeemed have the familiar ring of the Bible. New Christians learn to discern the story within a tradition of worship, prayer, and study (Acts 6:4). That familiar ring of truth aids the church when an individual or interest group says, "God is doing a new thing." The tradition of the community is another safeguard as we judge an interpretation by our record of previous generations' interpretation of the law and gospel.
Second, hermeneutics is eschatological; the LORD is coming, and the Spirit is here now moving God's people toward that future. "The Spirit stimulates the church to penetrate the word of God and integrate it with its historical pilgrimage." Realizing that while we are not able to know everything perfectly now, that is no reason to say that Scripture has not made an abundance of things clear enough to move forward. Priority has to be given to what we know. Scripture is especially clear on what is necessary for faith, salvation, and obedience.
Third, God's goal in using the Scriptures is to conform us to His Son. God want to assure us that we are His children, to help us understand the passion of Christ, to understand we need to die and be reborn, that it is His desire to be reconciled to us, to transform us, to equip us into His ministry, to make us his righteous ones for His justice and mercy, to make us missionaries for His kingdom, to get a people ready for his Son's return, that He has the power to expel evil, cleanse what is unclean, heal what is sick, as well as warm what is cold in us." Rather than unconditional acceptance just as we are, the Holy Spirit empowers transformation into Christ-likeness.
Pinnock's fourth point is that Scripture must be viewed in the context of world mission. When TWR speaks of mission and transformation it is understandably brief, but it still seems vague in comparison to Scripture itself. Perhaps all that reading and chanting of Scripture snippets is not a safeguard but dangerous familiarity, because Scripture actually is concrete in its diagnosis, focused on specific outcomes on its way to a specific end. Scripture's focus is on commitment and growth in grace though the power of God. We must remember that while worship may be the primary activity of the church, the goal of the Spirit's use of Scripture is world mission. Abraham's descendants are to be as many as the sands of the beach and the stars of the sky. An entire book, Jonah, was delivered for not only Israel to know they were not God's pet, but also that Anglicans and Lutherans and others would realize that the stasis our particular denomination is not God's objective. TWR acknowledges that, but goes on to talk about Anglicanism as if it is the church, as though Anglican unity is what is at stake with no acknowledgement of the impact of Gene Robinson on other faith communities.
Fifth, Pinnock writes that the Spirit helps us to "actualize" the word of God by helping the church discern where it is headed, to recognize the signs of the times. I find this to be an interesting point but rather than a safeguard, this proposal actually could mistake a sociological trend for a move of God. This aspect could even be used by activists to say that God did a new thing by making Robinson bishop. Pinnock makes clear elsewhere that he does not think this, rather he points out the incredible growth of the church in Africa and Asia, the phenomenal rise of Pentecostal Christianity, progress in the ecumenical movement, the rise of Trinitarian theology and a convergence of
theologians seeing Christ as a transformer of culture (Niebuhr). The sixth point is the
recognition that the church can make mistakes. Progress is not inevitable. The Reformation itself is proof that corruption can be confronted and corrected. His seventh proposal squarely addresses the denominationalism hinted at above, and it deserves some space:
Our denominations hold proudly to paradigms they ought to be criticizing and correcting, but cannot under the circumstances ? our opinions come under the judgment of our sectarian slice ?Everyone knows that the Nicean Creed has a stature that the Thirty-Nine articles do not have because of our disunity. And cannot much of the loss of our hermeneutical certitude be traced to this factor? We cannot convene church-wide councils. A magisterium does not exist with a fully catholic sweep, because of our denominationalism.
The above shows us that unity is something to yearn for in this world rather than something that we recently lost. There has never been unity in the Anglican Communion, as there has never been a sinless person but Jesus, but greater holiness can be strived for.
Pinnock's eighth and last proposal is on the individual's cultivation of a reverent, prayerful reading of Scripture in the gifts of the Spirit, like humility, patience and obedience. Note that only after seven corporate steps is the individual interpretation introduced, and even there safeguards are needed. Cultivation is a long-term process, planting, nourishing, weeding, pruning, protection from predators and then the harvest. In that process comes the all important aspect of wonderful discoveries of new meaning, where the text seems to transform us as we connect our own experience with it, and the Spirit helps us to see the beauty and wisdom of God's Word, as happened with Luther and Romans 1.17.
Pinnock writes that we should not expect to encounter something different from what Scripture has already said. The original meaning is what is given and that does not change, but the Spirit can use the original witness to create significance for readers. The Spirit helps us to restate the message in new language, rather than give an entirely new message. The result is that readers are enabled to participate in salvation history as they participate in their own salvation.
God has given a narrative of salvation that empowers His church for mission (as TWR), God continues to lead us forward in mission (as TWR), "oriented to the biblical testimony." This reasoning and language is similar to TWR, but in Pinnock's thought the Spirit is not using the Word to send us out and do entirely new things. The Spirit sends us out to do the old thing; to witness to a God who saves the world from sin.
Pinnock's proposals compare favorably with TWR. We see agreement on the collective nature of the church's interpretation of Scripture. TWR's main interpretative thrust seems to be the transformative nature of a Spirit empowered Word for which Pinnock is in full agreement All in all, Pinnock's pneumatological interpretative tools are compatible and would be prescriptive for Anglican illness if taken. The problem is that while Pinnock's proposals are profitable for those who have good intentions, they do not protect from eisegesis. As with Gadamer's understanding of hermeneutics, a great deal of help is still needed in order to prevent real heresy. For that one needs to reactivate biblical holiness in tradition. The tradition understanding of biblical holiness is the asbestos of the church.
The most reliable safeguard for sound hermeneutics would be to teach what Scripture, tradition and reason mean by repentance from sin and place it into practice. The last, ongoing component of the Order of Salvation was called "holiness" by the Reformers, Scholastic Orthodoxy, the Pietists and all sides of the English Reformation, as well as all their descendents until the ascent of Liberal Theology. With such safeguards in place, and cultivating a practice of biblical humility, the church could be freed to practice a hermeneutic not of the past but one for getting ready for the future mission of God.
Holiness in Hermeneutics
If we were to be limited to one solution for today's "crisis," or even to be limited to one question of TWR, that question would be, "What do you mean by holiness?" I propose that understanding biblical holiness is integral to doing hermeneutics. Holiness begins with an understanding of repentance from sin which means coming to God on God's terms. To be convicted in the court of conscience for one's sin is the work of the Spirit. Biblical teaching on repentance warns of the danger which awaits those who have hardened themselves toward God and willfully sin. This is consistent with all ages of the Church until the Enlightenment, is consistently a principal point of the prophets, Jesus, the early church Fathers, the medieval church, and the Reformers. Only then does the Spirit use the Word to create faith. These are all undisputed points in any biblical orthodoxy, and should again become an explicit part of hermeneutics.
Remembering that, "unity and communion are meaningless unless they issue in that holiness of life," (3) let us focus on the concept of holiness. Perhaps it is best to begin with that which one is most familiar. The meaning of holiness most common in the Lutheran tradition today is "set apart by God." However, one must not rely on contemporary theologians, as good as they might be, to get a good sense of any subject, but must examine different eras of history. Furthermore, it is essential to research the founders of various movements, realizing that as soon as they are gone from the scene their followers engage in conflict over exactly what their work meant.
Holiness and Martin Luther
Holiness can mean "set apart," or a moral and ethical religious way of being achieved only through personal encounter with Christ and sustained by His indwelling Spirit. It is not solely a theological concept concerning a declaration of justification. Luther seems to support the set apart definition when he wrote
We see with utter clarity that Christ and the apostles designate as saints [those who] believe that they have been sanctified and cleansed by the blood and death of Christ? And they are saints, on the basis, not of their own works but of the works of God, which they accept by faith, such as the Word, the sacraments, the suffering, death, resurrection, and victory of Christ, the sending of the Holy Spirit, etc. In other words, they are saints, not by active holiness but by passive holiness.[66]
Understanding "holiness" as "set apart" resonates with some Scripture, but this meaning is best yoked to the other principal usage, which is a lived, pilgrimage straining to live holy as seen in passages like Hebrews 13, "Do you not know that without holiness, no one will see the Lord?" Does faith makes us holy? Yes, but never are we free to live in opposition to God's will as shown clearly in Scripture. Luther made such statements as above in a specific theological context, the law and gospel dialectic, in which it was understood that what the Law demanded but was never able to fulfill, the gospel provoked and was made possible through the gifts of the Spirit. Vitally important to understanding Luther's view of holiness as shown in the life of the believer, he wrote,
It is difficult and dangerous to teach that we are justified by faith without works and yet to require works at the same time. Unless the ministers of Christ are faithful and prudent here and are "stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1), who rightly divide the Word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), they will immediately confuse faith and love at this point. Both topics, faith and works, must be carefully taught and emphasized, but in such a way that they both remain within their limits. Otherwise, if works alone are taught, as happened under the papacy, faith is lost. If faith alone is taught, unspiritual men will immediately suppose that works are not necessary.[68]
Luther thus warned his readers to watch out for those who said that because of God's love, His moral law would be abolished. He urged alertness to confusion over teaching on the relation of sin and repentance to holiness.
But we teach that the church ? is holy, though only through faith in Jesus Christ; in addition, it is holy in its life, in the sense that it refrains from the desires of the flesh and practices its spiritual gifts? For they do not want to deny Christ, to lose the Gospel, to cancel their Baptism, etc. This is why they have the forgiveness of sins; and if through ignorance they err in doctrine, this is forgiven, because at the end they acknowledge their error and depend solely on the truth and grace of God in Christ.[69]
Luther emphasized the need for continual confession of sin as well as confession of faith. It needs to be also noted, and very frightening it is indeed for those who hear only of their baptism being as good as a ticket to heaven, to hear Luther speak of the possibility of God cancelling their Baptism. As far as the likelihood of a church being able to have the authority or ability to have authority over Scripture, Luther wrote, "But [the church] is not yet holy in the sense of being delivered and rescued from all evil desires or of having purged out all wicked opinions and errors. Because of the presence of sin, the church must be judged by Scripture, not vice-versa.
While Luther could conceive of false teaching concerning antinomianism, one wonders whether he could imagine a day when theologians did not even use the terminology. He might ask what use they even have for the Holy Spirit since the initial contact of the Holy Spirit is not to comfort us or even to lead us out into mission, nor even to create faith, first it must convict us of our sin so that we might see the need for salvation, then to be regenerated, and thereafter to live in daily repentance and be led by the Spirit to do that which pleases God and avoid sins.
Therefore, be very careful to distinguish properly between true and hypocritical righteousness and holiness? Such a saint will also abstain from the desires of the flesh by means of the faith through which he is justified and through which his sins, past and present, are forgiven; but he is not completely cleansed of them. For the desires of the flesh are still against the Spirit. This uncleanness remains in him to keep him humble, so that in his humility the grace and blessing of Christ taste sweet to him. Thus, such uncleanness and such remnants of sin are not a hindrance but a great advantage to the godly. For the more aware they are of their weakness and sin, the more they take refuge in Christ, the mercy seat (Rom. 3:25). They plead for His assistance, that He may adorn them with His righteousness and make their faith increase by providing the Spirit, by whose guidance they will overcome the desires of the flesh and make them servants rather than masters. Thus a Christian struggles with sin continually, and yet in his struggle he does not surrender but obtains the victory."[71]
We can compare Luther with J. C. Ryle and see a similar understanding of the place of holiness in the order of salvation which begins with repentance and ends in victory, understanding that Ryle was a repository of earlier Puritan thinkers.
J.C. Ryle's Holiness Counter to Liberal Theology
This is, of course, not the first crisis for the church or Anglicanism. One could do as James Innes Packer and research similar situations in the Church of England, such as the life and work of J.C. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool 1864-1900, who warned that "a fog of vague liberalism overspreads the ecclesiastical horizon." Ryle was the founding bishop of a diocese which had Anglo-Catholics, and lived through the introduction of the German critical method and liberal theology. Ryle navigated through similar theological waters to those Lambeth does today.
If one needs to sail between Scylla of Liberalism and the Charybidis of Biblicism, it would be best to have a navigator who knows the waters. On one side we have students of Tillich's who desire to create new truth in a Hegelian synthesis of culture and Christian propositions, or combine piety and philosophy like Schleiermacher. This does seem to be the explanation for ECUSA's "Second Pentecost." On the other hand, it is imperative that the pendulum does not swing so far as to deny that the Holy Spirit does bring new insights. If there are two camps on either end of a field which may be a battleground tomorrow, a discussion on the possibilities of a hermeneutics of holy living could broker a union between the two religions in one church, and not least by reminding all sides that repentance for sin is a necessary step in order to achieve unity. Repentance is the key, and thankfully the responses to TWR ask again and again, where is the ECUSA expression of repentance. That outcry would well be a reaction also to Repentance for reconciliation is mysteriously absent from TWR, another means for Anglicans to reclaim tradition. Ryle understood the puritan ideal of holiness. The use of a figure such as Ryle would be a move toward recognizing the importance of biblical holiness in Anglican tradition.
Bishop Ryle's approach to understanding of Scripture was on the Chalcedonian
level: fully human and yet fully divine. The tradition he received said that humanity is completely corrupted by sin due to the Fall and the only remedy is the sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ. Ryle taught the need for the inward work of the Holy Spirit in repentance, conversion and regeneration; and the importance of holiness, inward in the heart and outward in the Christian walk. Compare that understanding of biblical holiness with TWR in which the word "regeneration" is not to be found, the words "sin" and "repentance" are only found twice in 86 pages, yet ?holiness' is used ten times.
One wonders how often Ryle is read today though. Ryle wrote referring to the increasing disuse of holiness in his time, "A man might really think it was a dangerous subject to handle." In relation to the discussion above concerning antinomianism and the danger of failing to distinguish between law and gospel, faith and works, he quotes Rutherford, "Believing and doing are blood-friends," and chides,
"I sometime fear if Christ were on earth now, there are not a few who would think that His preaching [is] legal[istic]; and if Paul were writing his epistles, there are those who would think that he had better not write the latter part of most of them as he did. But let us remember that the Lord Jesus did speak the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistle to the Ephesians contains six chapters not four."
Ryle advises "to all who desire to be holy" that "you will make no progress until you feel your sin and weakness, and flee to Him." Repentance, faith, being joined to Christ, sanctification, partaking of the divine nature, holiness, and continuing in holiness, abiding in Christ, here is the complete Ordo.
Ryle's image of a pharmacist changing the doctor's prescription is perhaps the most fitting analogy for that which I have attempted to argue, and a very apt, antidote for the illness in the body today:
A doctor's prescription of a medicine often contains five or six different ingredients. There is so much of one drug and so much of another ? Now what man of common sense can fail to see that the whole value of the prescription depends on a faithful and honest use of it? Take away one ingredient, and substitute another; leave out one ingredient altogether; add a little quantity on one drug, take away a little from another. Do this, I say, to the prescription, my good friend, and it is a thousand chances to one that you spoil it altogether. The thing that was meant for your health, you have converted to downright poison.
Conclusion
The church is more than an organization which needs unity, it is a mission directed to save. While there have been many masterful works in recent decades on the art of scriptural interpretation, additional work is needed on applied hermeneutics; for in this we learn about the nature of the faith which undergirds the application. By examining how interpretation is applied, one arrives closer to be able to learn about the possible outcomes of an application. Church history is replete with examples of harmful unintended consequences from the way Scripture was interpreted as well as the outright heretical.
It would be incredibly naïve to be unaware that the church has those who willfully impose interpretations of Scripture inconsistent with sound doctrine because they believe they have a better idea of how things should be. Heresy never begins in the mind but comes out of the heart. The condition of the heart is ignored today in the teaching of biblical interpretation. As one man who had been influenced by the Enlightenment but came back to orthodoxy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, wrote, "Faith is not an accuracy of logic but rectitude of the heart." Often misinterpretation is due to "wishful thinking," but consideration must be given at times of the possibility that something more willful is at work, and even, as Jesus says, sinful.
TWR contains a strong affirmation that "Within Anglicanism, scripture has always been recogni
Donald Juel's Starting Point
