Lambeth Report Canterbury: Wednesday, July 30th

From www.forwardinfaith.com

FiF International News
Lambeth Conference - 12
Jul 30, 2008

"Living under Scripture: The Bishop and the Bible in Mission"

Why is there so much division and tension in the Communion?, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall asked as he opened today's press conference. "A lot of it", he said, "is about Scripture". The Lambeth Conference's discussion topic today is "Living under Scripture: The Bishop and the Bible in Mission".

Hermeneutics Proposal

Archbishop David Moxon of the New Zealand Diocese, one of the authors of the "Hermeneutics Proposal", asserted that the issue of homosexuality "comes down to an issue about the Bible". Underneath that presenting issue "is the question, how do we use the Bible? how do we understand texts...?".

The church in New Zealand has experimented with a means of getting at this question. Four principles have emerged from that effort, which Archbp. Moxon described in terms of "trying to build a large house".

The floor, Archbp. Moxon said, is the recognition that "Jesus Christ is the living Word of God", and that the inspired word of the Bible reveals Him as that Living Word.

The entrance, he continued, is the world in which the writers of its various books lived - what that world was, and what God said to that world.

The walls are the world in which we live.

And the roof, the archbishop concluded, is that which covers it - that is, the church in which it is received and read.

The "Hermeneutics Proposal" suggests that the New Zealand experiment be extended across the Anglican Communion, in order to find "the high moral ground, the high spiritual ground". If it is successful, it will provide a way to address together the issue of what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Four Elements

Prof. Gerald West of the University of Kwa-Zulu, Natal, in South Africa, asserted that four elements (not unrelated to the four parts of Archbp. Moxon's house, he noted) make up the process of Biblical interpretation. All of them are shared throughout the Anglican Communion, but elements of each of them are emphasized in different ways.

The first element, Prof. West said, is a common commitment "to be shaped by Scripture in some way". The variable lies in the different ways different people think they shape them, or are willing to be shaped by them.

The second element is an interest in the details of Scripture. But these details are got at in different ways: the socio-historical (which would ask if there was such a thing as homosexuality in the ancient world), the literary (which would look at the shape of a narrative such as that of Sodom and Gomorrah, and might in that case see it in relationship to the story of Abraham's hospitality to the three angels and conclude that it is about inhospitability, expressed in male rape), and the thematic (which would ask to what extent there is a line of teaching in the two Testaments dealing with homosexuality).

The third element, Prof. West stated, is a common commitment "to bring our contexts into engagement with Scripture". For him in South Africa at this time, the primary context is HIV/AIDS; and he spoke of his disappointment at the low attendance at a self-select group he had attended on that subject.

The fourth element of Biblical interpretation, Prof. West said, is the "ecclesio-theological framework" in which in is received, "what gives coherence" to the various things the Bible teaches, "what holds us all together". But this framework varies within the Communion, he said, suggesting that peoples who received the Gospel through the evangelical Church Missionary Society (CMS) have a different framework than those evangelised through the United Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG).

At this Lambeth, given its "participatory" processes, Prof. West concluded, Anglicans are "able to share with each other where they stand in each of these four areas": that is to speak not only of the conclusions they have reached, but of how and why they have reached them.

International Set of Principles

Asked if the process he'd outlined implied that any interpretation is equally valid, and thus represented an overturning of Lambeth 1998's resolution I.10 on human sexuality, Archbp. Moxon said his study was meant to work out an international set of principles as the basis for discussion issues, not to take a position on any issue. Archbp. Aspinall further reminded the press that Archbp. Williams' letter inviting the bishops to Lambeth had said this Conference would not reconsider the 1998 resolution.

The next question had to do with Jude 7, which reads "just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire". Had the author of Jude misunderstood the Genesis account? Every reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible, Prof. West responded, refers to inhospitality: this text is not about homosexuality, but male rape.

Citing the Archbishop's words about pushing the boundaries in last evening's presidential address, a reporter asked the presenters were asked if this Conference had equipped bishops to do so. Prof. West suggested that insofar as the bishops had been helped to hear one another, it should enable the church to open its boundaries and listen. Archbp. Moxon cited the model of Acts 15, as "what we are doing here": waiting upon the Holy Spirit to shape and fill the envelope.

Asked about the absence of references to Tradition in relation to the interpretation of the Scriptures, Archbp. Moxon acknowledged that was "a very valid point"; he would include Tradition, he said, as part of the "roof" of his "house". Prof. West said that Tradition is what he meant by the "ecclesio-theological framework". This Lambeth, he suggested, has allowed that framework to be "interrogated" by a different framework which has emerged in missionary contexts.

Responding to another question, Prof. West said that it is claimed that there are widely different ideas of the authority of Scripture in the Communion, but there really aren't. While the processes of interpretation vary, all are committed to be under and shaped by Scripture. Archbp. Moxon, citing the 39 Articles, said that the Scriptures are the "generic or prime or key source" for all Anglicans.

Noting that in 1998 Archbp. Carey had said that the onus is on those proposing change, a reporter asked where the consensus of the New Zealand study left us. Archbp. Moxon reiterated in the response that the process was about "going back to first principles about the way we use the Bible".

Asked directly what he thought of the 1998 sexuality resolution, Prof. West said he doesn't "have a clear position on Lambeth I.10 personally".

Responding to a question about whether disparities in theological education had contributed to conflicting ways of interpreting the Bible, Archbp. Moxon suggested that the issue was the uniqueness of theological education in different provinces and their distance from one another, rather than quality. Prof. West noted that people in South Africa know that the meaning of Scripture is not self-evident, and that they must struggle to understand it, since the Scriptures had been used to support both apartheid and the liberation struggle.

Reflections Document

Copies of the second draft of the Reflections document were distributed to the press today. What had in large part been a listing is now becoming a coherent text, organized by topic and presented under subheadings. But the draft remains incomplete, with further material promised on seven additional topics. A second hearing session on the document will be held this afternoon.

Cardinal Kasper

The Self-Select Session at which Cardinal Kasper is to speak this afternoon is reported to have been moved to a larger room. However, the press office is unsure when his text, which must first be published in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, can be released to the Lambeth press.