Mater Dei Institute of Education

A College of Dublin City University

Richard Hooker and Rowan Williams:

Anglican Perspectives on the Principal Intent
of Scripture
Name: Damian Niall Shorten
Student Number: 11391381

Moderator: Dr. Ethna Regan

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Bachelor of

Religious Education Degree

November 2014

I declare that this Thesis is the product of my own research, is written in full by
me, that all sources have been appropriately cited and attributed to their author
or authors and that this work has not been, or is not being, submitted in full or in
part for any other academic award.

Signature:

________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents
Introductionp. 1.
Chapter One Richard Hooker: Foundations of a Distinctively Anglican
Hermeneutic..p. 3.
The principal intent of Scripture.p. 3.
A solid, scriptural, rational piety....p. 6.
One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments.p.9.
three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of
Fathers in that period ... determine the boundary of our faith....p. 12.
Conclusion...p. 14.
Chapter Two Rowan Williams: Scripture as Proclamation and
Judgement...p. 15.
The principal intent of Scripture...p. 15.
One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments:
Progressive and Christocentric.....................................................p. 18.
A solid, scriptural, rational piety..p. 21.
Conclusion...p. 24.
Conclusion................p. 26.
Bibliography.........................................p. 28.

Introduction
This research paper will examine the way in which the Bible has been viewed, treated,
and engaged with historically in the Anglican tradition of the Christian Church, particularly
in the thought and writings of individual theologians emerging from and working within
Anglicanism, Richard Hooker (1554-1600), and Rowan Williams, who was the Archbishop
of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012.
The first chapter will look at the place of Scripture in the life of the Anglican Church
classically. This will involve studying historical sources from the tradition, especially the
work of Richard Hooker, who has claim to be a principal architect of the tradition. Reference
with also be made to The Book of Common Prayer, as well as to other formularies which
have traditionally been held to be constitutive of or contributors to Anglican identity, and to
the writings of other Anglicans down through the years. There are several features of the
Anglican approach to the Bible, exemplified by Hookers The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,
which this part of the research paper will explore. This will begin with an investigation into
what his view is of the principal intent of Scripture, to understand how he approaches it.
Building on this, the key themes of his approach which will be surveyed include the
importance of Scripture in Anglican liturgical worship, the emphasis on reading Scripture as
a canonical unity of Old and New Testaments, with Christ at their heart, and finally, the
necessity of community in order to safeguard right interpretation, encompassing also the
appeal to the tradition of the Church community down through history.
The second chapter will study the approach to the Bible taken by the contemporary
Anglican theologian Rowan Williams. This will draw on some of his primary writings to
discern what they show us about how he approaches the task of reading and interpreting
Scripture, particularly focussing on areas where his approach overlaps with the elements of
the classical Anglican approach, as outlined above.
This research paper is intended to engage with and draw upon the work of two key
figures in the Anglican tradition and their distinctive contribution to understanding Scripture,
but the topic in question and the benefits of such a study are by no means to be considered
only of interest to Anglicans. Through engaging with the theological writing and grappling of
other traditions, both historical and contemporary, Christians can learn so much for their own
journey. This is particularly so in relation to Scripture, so important for all branches of the
Church. Thus, it is hoped that this study of Hooker and Williams will provide a resource to
provoke renewed reflection on how we approach Scripture, in order to enrich and empower

the life and mission of the universal Church in todays world, through conversation with, and
perhaps learning from, these Anglican witnesses.

Chapter One
Richard Hooker: Foundations of a Distinctively Anglican Hermeneutic
As we begin an exploration of the approach to the reading of the Bible in the classical
Anglican tradition, this first chapter of this research paper will look at several aspects of the
Anglican approach to the Bible. Chiefly, this will involve an examination of the primary
writings of Richard Hooker (1554-1600), writings which have largely laid the foundations for
that tradition. Themes which will be highlighted as key to Hookers (and therefore to an
Anglican), approach to the Bible include the liturgical reading of Scripture, reading it as a
canonical unity, and reading it not individualistically, but within the Christian community,
both contemporary and down through the ages. But first, in order to comprehend properly
these aspects, it is important to acknowledge what that tradition, represented by Hooker and
other sources, believed about the Bible, its purpose, and the authority which it ascribes to it.
The principal intent of Scripture
Discussions about the authority of the Bible, especially as related to that of the
Church and its tradition(s), were a fulcrum on which much of the disputes of the Reformation
centred. Then, as today, the questions over this text and its role in the lives of the Church and
individual Christians, especially when it comes to authoritative guidance and direction,
loomed large in the polemics. This could be seen in the debates over the relationship between
the text of the Bible (leading successively to such questions as what books were canonical)
and tradition1. The position of the English Reformers, including key figures such as Thomas
Cranmer and Matthew Parker, is found in the Articles of Religion2, the sixth article of which
(Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation) deals with this question, succinctly
stating, and explaining the consequences of, its position:

The position of the Roman Catholic Church was set down at the Council of Trent on the eight day of the
month of April, 1546, in its Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures. This clearly states the position of
the Roman Catholic Church in that it receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all
the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, alongside the unwritten traditions which, received by the
Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves. (The Council of Trent: The Fourth
Session: The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical Council of Trent, trans. J. Waterworth (London:
Dolman, 1848), Decree Concerning the Holy Scriptures, http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct04.html [Date
accessed: 25th June 2014]).
2
The Articles reached their final and current revision in 1571, meaning the authors were aware of the
aforementioned Tridentine decree (see note 2.)

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor
may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be required as an article of the
Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. 3

But what does sufficiency for salvation mean?

Richard Hooker, considered by many to have been one of the greatest Anglican
theologians, had much to say about the Anglican approach to reading Scripture, primarily in
his The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.4 For Hooker, the principal intent of Scripture is to
deliver the laws of duties supernatural.5 In the context of his treatment of the place of law,
both in society and Church, Hookers view of what the law of duties supernatural are is that
they are that which is divinely revealed by God, for salvation.6 The emphasis on salvation, as
the remit of the sufficiency or supremacy of Scripture is important to note. Michael Ramsey,
commenting on Hookers legacy, says this:
Holy Scripture contains truth necessary for salvation. The Articles do not say that Holy Scripture
contains truth on innumerable subjects not related to salvation, and here we have the difference
between the treatment of Scripture by the Anglicans, as represented by Hooker, and by the Puritans. 7

The distinction between Anglicans and Puritans8 pointed out by Ramsey is one which is
significant9 and which serves to highlight an important aspect of the Anglican understanding
of Scriptures authority. In the words of Hooker himself,

Article VI., Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and
other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the
Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in Churches and the form or manner of
making, ordaining and consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons (1662) (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), p. 613.
4
Indeed, his thoughts are a key part of the forming of that approach, and so I will be engaging deeply with his
work throughout this paper.
5
Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, Chapter XIV (1), p. 267
http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/1/258-267.pdf [Date accessed: 25th June 2014)
6
An analogous understanding of revelation, as an supporting and clarifying aid to reason and the limited
knowledge it can gain, is expressed in the Second Vatican Councils Dogmatic Constitution on Divine
Revelation, Dei Verbum: Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and
the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them
those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind. (Second Vatican Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Dei Verbum (1965), chapter 1, par. 6
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_deiverbum_en.html [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].)
7
Michael Ramsey (ed. Dale D. Coleman), The Anglican Spirit (New York: Seabury Classics, 2004), p. 14.
Ramsey was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974.
8
Puritan was a term to describe English Protestants, mainly holding Calvinistic beliefs, who felt that the
English Reformation did not go far enough, and so were advocates of further reform of the Church of England,
in line with some of the Continental Reformers.
9
This distinction is an example of how the English Reformers did not work solely in opposition to the Roman
Catholic Church, but also to those Continental Reformers and their followers whose teachings they saw as
deficient in light of Scripture and the Early Church. Thus they were not partisan, but were engaged in what was,
to quote Ramsey (commenting on a later era of Anglican theology), a vigorous wrestling with truth for truths
own sake (Michael Ramsey, An Era in Anglican Theology: From Gore to Temple: The Development of
Anglican Theology between Lux Mundi and the Second World War, 1889-1939 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock

albeit Scripture do profess to contain in it all things that are necessary unto salvation; yet the meaning
cannot be simply of all things which are necessary, but all things that are necessary in some certain
kind or form; as all things which are necessary, and either could not at all or could not easily be known
by the light of natural discourse Being therefore persuaded by other means that that these Scriptures
are the oracles of God, themselves do then teach us the rest, and lay before us all the duties which God
requireth at our hands as necessary unto salvation. 10

In summary, whatever is needed for our salvation we find in Scripture11, but we do not
necessarily have to follow Scripture for rules concerning the details of the life of the
Church12. An example of the latter Ramsey provides when he goes on to describe ways in
which the Anglican and Puritan theories of Scripture led to differing practices, such in the
giving of a ring in marriage.13
Thus we see that Anglicanism emphasises Scriptures supremacy, and praises its
sufficiency, properly understood. For Anglicans, following Hooker, the purpose of Scripture
is to make us wise for salvation (2 Timothy 3:15 ESV)14. This means that Anglicanism has

Publishers, 1960), p. 170). This striving, avoiding the extremes, the Scylla and Charybdis of error on either
side, is the true meaning of the term via media, or middle way, used to describe Anglicanism. This ideal,
appropriately, can be seen in the Collect which is used by some Anglican provinces for the liturgical
commemoration of Richard Hooker on 3rd November: O God of truth and peace, who raised up your servant
Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and
reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but
as a comprehension for the sake of truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. (Quoted in Alan Jones, Common Prayer on Common Ground: A Vision
of Anglican Orthodoxy (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2006), p. ix). This attitude of an impartial passion
for truth is exemplified clearly by Hooker throughout The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, but perhaps this quote
expresses this (perhaps necessary to remember, in this age of ecumenism) most clearly, as he exhorts his
readers: let not the faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ be blemished with partialities; regard not
who it is which speaketh, but weigh only what is spoken. Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth
himself as an adversary against the truth which ye have already embraced; but the words of one who desireth
even to embrace together with you the self-same truth, if it be the truth. (Hooker, Of the Laws, Preface, Chapter
I (3), p. 127 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/preface/125-131.pdf [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].
10
Hooker, Of the Laws, Book I, Chapter XIV (1), p. 268 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/1/268-277.pdf [Date
accessed: 25th June 2014].
11
Once again, Dei Verbum resonates with this point: since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred
writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be
acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred
writings for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the
truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to
God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text) (Second Vatican
Council, Dei Verbum, chapter 3, par. 11
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_deiverbum_en.html [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].
12
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 14.
13
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 14. The technical terms for the Anglican and Puritan approaches to Scripture,
as regards worship, are the normative and regulative principles respectively.
14
Hooker uses this quote, as well as John 20: 31, as a summary of his views on Scripture: The main drift of the
whole New Testament is that which St. John setteth down as the purpose of his own history; These things are
written, that ye might believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God, and that in believing ye might have life
through his name. The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothy, The Holy Scriptures are
able to make thee wise unto salvation. (Hooker, Of the Laws, Book I, Chapter XIV (4), p. 270
http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/1/268-277.pdf [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].)

not subscribed to sola Scriptura as commonly understood, which leaves no place for other
sources and voices in the life of the Church, such as its traditions.15 We will see this further
below when we examine the Anglican emphasis on reading Scripture in light of tradition 16,
but next we will look at one of those practices not specifically prescribed by Scripture,
liturgical worship.
A solid, scriptural, rational piety17
Why look at liturgy when our concern is to discern how Anglicans read Scripture?
Benjamin Sargent explains:
using liturgical practice to understand Anglican Identity is not an unusual enterprise, afterall [sic], the
Prayer Book is upheld as the official source of the Church of Englands doctrine after Scripture in
contemporary ordination services. Many recognise the appropriateness of the principle lex orandi, lex
credenda [sic] (the word of prayer is the word of belief). Indeed, Rowan Williams argues that the quest
for Anglican Identity needs to begin with a rigorous and sensitive observation of worship. 18

By examining Anglican liturgy, we can appreciate how their theology has been formed.
Having seen Scriptures pre-eminence for Anglicans, naturally, we would expect it to be
central to this liturgical formation. Anglicans have always claimed that their liturgy, the Book
of Common Prayer19, is scriptural. The first way in which they have claimed this is that it is

15

Gavan Dunbar offers a good summary of the Anglican understanding of sola Scriptura in a recent article. As
part of this he gives a strong rebuttal to the the idea that Anglicanism relies on a three-legged stool of
Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as three equal and independent authorities for determining doctrine, which
Hooker is claimed as a proponent of. In reality, [c]hurch tradition, church governing structures, and reason have
a large place in his scheme as authorities, but as authorities subordinate to that of Scripture. In ascribing a
degree of authority to the church, for instance, he was simply following the teaching of Scripture itself, which
speaks of the church of the living God as the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). His position is
like that of the Articles of Religion, which cite the three Creeds of Catholic antiquity as authorities which ought
thoroughly to be received and believed but precisely because they may be proved by most certain warrants of
Holy Scripture (Article 7). (Gavin G. Dunbar, Sola Scriptura and the Anglican Way, Anglican Way:
Formerly Mandate, the magazine of the Prayer Book Society, 37:2 (June 2014), p. 4 [whole article: pp. 4-5]
http://anglicanwaymagazine.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/aw-vol37no2_web.pdf [Date accessed: 25th June
2014].
16
See pages 12-14 below.
17
Quote from John Wesley, emphasis added. Full quote: I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in
ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer
of the Church of England. (The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., vol. 14, ed. Thomas Jackson (London:
Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984), 303-4.) While primarily
remembered as the founder of the Methodist movement, it is important to remember that Wesley was brought
up, formed, ordained, ministered and died within the Church of England.
18
Benjamin Sargent, Day by Day: The Rhythm of the Bible in the Book of Common Prayer (London: The
Latimer Trust, 2012), p. 7.
19
When referring to the Book of Common Prayer, if not otherwise noted, the reference is to the 1662 edition.
Despite the problem highlighted by Kenneth W. Stephenson [sic] of attempting to define Anglican identity
using the Book of Common Prayer, as he notes that the Prayer Book is a somewhat accidental text that has
been subject to considerable variation both prior to 1662, in terms of textual variation, as well as after 1662 in
terms of interpretation, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer has had something of a normative status within the

formed almost entirely from the words of Scripture themselves, and secondly, Anglicans have
believed that everything within it is consistent with Scripture20. Peter Toon21 surveys this:
Over the centuries, since the first edition of The Book of Common Prayer (1549), Anglicans have
commended and defended this Liturgy in one or another of its editions on the basis of its total harmony
with the authority of the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God written. That is, it not only contains large
portions of the Scriptures, but its Collects, Prayers, Exhortations and Declarations are informed by and
indeed saturated by Holy Scripture. If proof of this be needed then it has been provided in painstaking
detail by Henry Ives Bailey in The Liturgy compared with the Bible (1850). Further, the doctrines
communicated by the liturgical texts are the very doctrines of Scripture and so may be described as
biblical teaching.22

Toon notes that the liturgy contains large portions of the Scriptures, and this points
to the most obvious place Scripture has in it, and that is the readings. This was so important
to Thomas Cranmer, the principal architect of the Prayer Book, that
[i]f you read the Preface to the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) 23 you will see very quickly that
the ordered reading of Scripture (the lectionaries) is of foremost importance to the whole project of
Common Prayer in the English Reformation. 24

The intentions behind this are multifaceted, but primarily it matches Hookers belief that
Scriptures primary end is salvation.25 The Preface itself, says26 that the liturgy was not
ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness.27 This aim was
practically realised by the Fathers (and emulated by the English Reformers) who,
so ordered the matter, that all the Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every
year; intending thereby, that the Clergy should (by often reading, and meditation in Gods word) be
stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and

Church of England for most of its history and bore a familial relationship to all other Anglican liturgies, at least
until the 1970s (Sargent, Day by Day, pp. 7-8), and thus is what I will use as a reference point.
20
The Preface to the Book of Common Prayer includes the following statement: we are fully persuaded in our
judgements (and here profess it to the world) that the Book, as it stood before established by Law), doth not
contain in it any thing contrary to the Word of God, or to sound Doctrine, or which a godly man may not with a
good Conscience use and submit unto, or which is not fairly defensible against any that shall oppose the same
(The Preface in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. vi).
21
Described as the best-known defender of Anglican orthodoxy and the Book of Common Prayer throughout
the last decades of the twentieth century. (Roberta Bayer, Introduction, Reformed and Catholic: Essays in
Honour of Peter Toon, ed. Roberta Bayer (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), p. xiii.)
22
Peter Toon, The Anglican Formularies and Holy Scripture: Reformed Catholicism and Biblical Doctrine (The
Stonehouse, Bishopstone, Hertfordshire, England: The Brynmill Press Ltd, 2006), pp. 25-26.
23
The Preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer can be found in the 1662 Prayer Book as the second part of
the Preface, entitled Concerning the Service of the Church (Concerning the Service of the Church in The
Book of Common Prayer (1662)).
24
David Phillips, The Lectionaries in the Book of Common Prayer, The Book of Common Prayer: Past,
Present & Future ed. Prudence Dailey (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), p. 118.
25
Taking salvation in the wide sense which includes justification, sanctification and glorification, and
thereby involves the Christians whole life in the Church (John Rodgers, Essential Truths for Christians: A
Commentary on the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles and an Introduction to Systematic Theology (Pennsylvania:
Classical Anglican Press, 2011), p. 401).
26
Appealing to the precedent set by the ancient Fathers, an appeal we will see further below.
27
Concerning the Service of the Church in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. viii.

further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church 28) might continually
profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true
Religion.29

Ironically, this led to conflict with the Puritans, as they objected to the reading of Scripture
without a sermon30, an opinion which Hooker describes and disagrees with, saying: the bare
reading of whatsoever, yea even of Scriptures themselves, they mislike [sic], as a thing
uneffectual [sic] to do that good, which we are persuaded may grow by it.31 In so
responding, Hooker conveys his very high doctrine of the power of the Bible and of the
effect simply of reading the Bible in the liturgy32, as something effectual to do good,
contrary to what the Puritans believed. Williams comments that in this controversy, Hooker,
responding to opponents, who have criticised him and others for not giving enough emphasis to
preaching, insists that only the Bible is to be called Gods Word and only the Bible communicates
life (V.21.3). The text in itself impresses on us what is needed for eternal life, even before any
preacher has opened his mouth [o]f course preaching is a gift and charism in the Church [b]ut we
should not confuse the way in which the Bible makes clear the way to life with what we can deduce
from it.33

28

The orders for Morning and Evening Prayer in the Prayer Book were Daily to be said and used throughout
the year, as the title to these orders makes clear (The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. lxvi). The laity, and
not only the clergy, were expected to participate in the Daily Offices, as the whole population is faced with the
same fundamental vocation to holy living (Geoffrey Rowell,. Kenneth Stevenson, Rowan Williams (eds.), Part
1 - 1530-1650: Introduction, Loves Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001), p. 5), which was part of the reason behind Cranmers attempts at making them more
accessible through reducing the eightfold offices of Western monasticism to just two (Mark Burkill, Dearly
Beloved: Building Gods People Through Morning and Evening Prayer (London: The Latimer Trust, 2012), p.
18). This has been described as a transferring of monastic ideals to the whole body of the laity, (Rowell,
Stevenson, Williams (eds.), Part 1 - 1530-1650: Introduction, Loves Redeeming Work, p. 6), and we see this
theme expressed in the powerful idea of society itself now being the religious community in which Gospel
imperatives are carried out, with [e]veryone now under monastic discipline (Rowell, Stevenson, Williams,
(eds.), Part 1 - 1530-1650: Introduction, Loves Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, p. 5). The
emphasis on disciplined, daily, devoted reading of Scripture in the context of confession of sins, praise,
supplication, and thanksgiving, is perhaps something which is needed in the Church in the 21 st century, and
which classical Anglicanism can offer to and inspire in others. Such a significance of the Daily Offices in
Anglicanism has been recognised by the Roman Catholic Church, with its publication of the Apostolic
Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (cf. Steven J. Lopes, The Ordinariates Mission: Liturgy, delivered at The
Mission of the Ordinariate Symposium (St. Marys Seminary, Houston, Texas, February 2, 2013), pp. 5-7).
29
Concerning the Service of the Church in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. viii.
30
For the Puritans, it was only Scripture explained by lively voice, and applied to the peoples use as the
speaker in his wisdom thinketh meet that they considered the only ordinary way of teaching, whereby men are
brought to the saving knowledge of Gods truth. (Hooker, Of the Laws, Book V, Chapter XXI (1), p. 84
http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.080-089.pdf [Date accessed: 31st July 2014].)
31
Hooker, Of the Laws, Book V, Chapter XXI (1), p. 84 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.080-089.pdf [Date
accessed: 31st July 2014].
32
Rowan Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition - Archbishop addresses Focolare bishops: A
presentation given by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Ecumenical Gathering of Bishops associated with the
Focolare Movement, Lambeth Palace, 8 September 2011,
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].
33
Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 25th June 2014].

The following quote draws together the strands of the Anglican approach to Scripture
we have seen so far, and sums up how classical Anglicanism understood the principal intent
of Scripture, both theoretically, practically, and devotionally:
The English Reformers, like their Continental counterparts, had taken up the call to return to Scripture
the sole basis for determining Christian doctrine and that the Bible should be placed freely in the hands
all people so that its saving doctrine might be drawn out of that fountain and Well of truth. 34

The next section will move from a discussion of the what and why of Anglican belief
about Scripture, to look at the how, the hermeneutical principles, of its interpretation.35
One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments36
The relationship between the Jewish Scriptures and the New Testament has exercised
the Church since its earliest centuries.37 There are three features of Anglicanism which
express its mind on how to approach the tensions around the unity and diversity of the Canon
of Scripture: Article VII, Article XX, and the liturgical readings.38
Article VII deals directly with the issue of the relationship between the two
Testaments. Its important points are that one Testament is not contrary to the other, and both
have value for the Church.39 This value is founded in Christ, the only Mediator between God
34

Phillips, The Lectionaries in the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 117-118.

A contemporary statement of Anglican hermeneutical principles drawing from, and consistent with, the
classical Anglican approach being explored in this paper is A Summary of Hermeneutical Principles Drawn
from the Foundational Documents of the ACNA[Anglican Church in North America]
http://www.anglicanchurch.net/?/main/page/747 [Date accessed: 24th July 2014].
36
The first part of a maxim of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Anglican bishop and theologian. Full quote:
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. (Quoted in Raymond Chapman (ed.), Before the Kings Majesty: Lancelot
Andrewes & his writings (London: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2008), p. 5).
37
This issue would come to a head with the Marcionite controversy. Marcion was a first century heretic who
rejected the Old Testament (cf. C. FitzSimons Allison, The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian
Orthodoxy (Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 1994), p. 50). Classical Anglicanism has strongly set out its
position, which is firmly contrary to that of Marcion.
38
It is an approach which shares much with the modern discipline of Biblical Theology. A definition of this
discipline from Brian Rosner is this: Biblical theology is principally concerned with the overall theological
message of the whole Bible. It seeks to understand the parts in relation to the whole and, to achieve this, it must
work with the mutual interaction of the literary, historical, and theological dimensions of the various corpora,
and with the inter-relationships of these within the whole canon of Scripture. Only in this way do we take proper
account of the fact that God has spoken to us in Scripture. (Brian S. Rosner, Biblical Theology, New
Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander, Brian S. Rosner, D.A. Carson, Graeme
Goldsworthy (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, England, 2000), p. 3.
39
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is
offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man.
Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises.
Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor
the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no
Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral. (Article
VII. Of the Old Testament, Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. 614.)
35

and Man, by whom, in both Testaments, everlasting life is offered to Mankind.40 However,
this does not mean that both Testaments are treated in the same way, because revelation in
salvation history is progressive. Hooker succinctly describes this:
the general end both of Old and New [Testaments] is one; the difference between them consisting in
this, that the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come, the New by
teaching that Christ the Saviour is come, and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucify, and whom God did
raise again from the dead, is he.41

This accounts for the different ways of handling each Testament, such as the Articles
example of the Mosaic Law.42 Article XX states that the Church may not so expound one
place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another43. Grant LeMarquand comments:
Anglicans are not to turn Scripture against itself and teach that one part contradicts another, or that
one part is opposed or hostile to another. In other words, we must so learn the Scriptures that we take
note of the way the various parts of the Bible fit together. We must study in order to find how the
Scriptures are agreeable.44

40

Rodgers describes it thus: Christ is the high point and key to the whole story, and therefore the key to both
Testaments, that is, to the two stages of the Covenant of Grace. (Rodgers, Essential Truths for Christians, p.
183).
41
Hooker, Of the Laws, Book I, Chapter XIV (4), p. 270 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/1/268-277.pdf Date
accessed: 25th June 2014].
42
The approach which the Article takes to the question of the Mosaic Law is one which is often neglected in
Anglicanism today, particularly in the debates over the blessing of same-sex relationships, and is perhaps an
example of what Packer and Beckwith call the silence of the Articles as well the other formularies of the
tradition, in modern Anglican theology (J.I Packer, R.T. Beckwith, The Thirty-nine Articles: Their Place and
Use Today (Second Edition) (Oxford: The Latimer Trust, 2006), p. 24. This neglect can be clearly seen in such
arguments as that the Church no longer follows some of the laws of the Old Testament (specifically what the
Article calls the civil and ceremonial laws), neither then must it follow the laws (such as Leviticus 20:13)
which prohibit homosexual behaviour. This fails to take note of the fact that the moral law, while fulfilled
perfectly by Christ in his own person, along with the other laws, is still valid for Christians. For more on this
question, from an Anglican perspective, see John Richardson, What God Has Made Clean: If We Can Eat
Prawns, Why Is Gay Sex Wrong? (Second Edition) (Epsom, Surrey, The Good Book Company, 2012).
43
The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is
not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound
one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a
keeper of holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to
enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation. (Article XX: Of the Authority of the Church,
Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), pp. 619-620.) 19th and 20th century Anglican
theologian William Griffith Thomas, expounding Article XX, says this about the relationship between the
Church and Scripture (the Word): The Word created the Church, not the Church the Word. The same thing is
seen to-day in the Mission Field, where a Church exists in most places through the Word spoken long before the
written Word can be given. The Rule of Faith is the conveyance of a Divine Authority to man, and the Bible as a
Rule of Faith must have existed in the minds of Christ and His Apostles long before it was or could be
committed to writing. As such, it preceded and conditioned the origin and life of the Church. The relation of the
Church to the Word is, in the words of Article XX, a witness and a keeper; a witness to what Scripture is, and
a keeper of that Scripture for the people of God. But this is very different from being the maker of Scripture, for
the Church, as such, is not the author of Holy Writ. Thus, the Word first spoken and then written is at once the
foundation and guarantee of the Church. (W.H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction
to the Thirty Nine Articles (London: Vine Books Ltd, 1978), p. 126.)
44
Grant LeMarquand, Editorial: The Non-Repugnancy of Scripture, Trinity Journal for Theology & Ministry,
III:1 (Spring 2009), p. 5 [whole article: pp. 5-9].

10

This principle is foundational for the integrity of the Bible. Without such a safeguard, the
coherence and authority of Scripture as Gods Word written cannot be upheld, and therefore
touches on the question of Scriptures principal intent, discussed above.45
The previous paragraph referred to progressive revelation. This is the belief that there
is continuity in the Bible, the narrative of Gods relationship with humanity, with the Paschal
Mystery its fulcrum. We can see this in Anglican liturgy, where the practice of reading
lessons from the Old Testament is indicative both of the concept of progressive revelation,
but also of the non-repugnance principle. N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop and biblical
scholar, says this of the liturgical practice:
Classic mattins and evensong, in fact, are basically showcases for Scripture, and the point of reading
Old and New Testaments like that is not so much to remind ourselves of that bit of the Bible, as to
use that small selection as a window through which we can see, with the eyes of mind and heart, the
entire sweep of the whole Bible, so that our telling of the story is not actually primarily aimed at
informing or reminding one another but rather at praising God for his mighty acts, and acquiring the
habit of living within the story of them as we do so. That, I suggest, is the heart of Anglican Bible
Study.46

Even in Hookers work, this emphasis in Anglicanism can be found described. Appealing to
the practice of the patristic Church, he tells us that:
We find that in ancient times there was publicly read first the Scripture, as namely, something out of
the books of the Prophets of God which were of old; something out of the Apostles writings; and lastly
out of the holy Evangelists, some things which touched the person of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.
The cause of their reading first the Old Testament, then the New, and always somewhat out of both, is
most likely to have been that which Justin Martyr and St. Augustin [sic] observe in comparing the two
Testaments. The Apostles, saith the one, have taught us as themselves did learn, first the precepts of
the Law, and then the Gospels. For what else is the Law but the Gospel foreshewed? What other the
Gospel, than the Law fulfilled? In like sort the other, What the Old Testament hath, the very same the
New containeth; but that which lieth there as under a shadow is here brought forth into the open sun.
Things there prefigured are here performed. Again, In the Old Testament there is a close
comprehension of the New, in the New an open discovery of the Old. To be short, the method of their
45

Unless we can think that Scripture is readable as a whole, that it communicates a unified outlook and
perspective, we cannot attribute doctrinal authority to it, but only to some part of it at the cost of some other
part. The authority of Scripture, then, presupposes the possibility of a harmonious reading; correspondingly, a
Church which presumes to offer and unharmonious or diversifying reading may be supposed to have in mind an
indirect challenge to the authority of Scripture itself. (Oliver O Donovan, On the Thirty Nine Articles: A
Conversation with Tudor Christianity, Second Edition (London: SCM Press, 2011), p. 53.
46
N. Thomas Wright, The Bishop and Living under Scripture, Christ and Culture, eds. Martyn Percy, Mark
Chapman, Ian Markham, Barney Hawkins (London: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2010), p. 151. An Anglican
bishop of the 17th century, Anthony Sparrow also reflected on this aspect of the liturgy. In his commentary on
the Book of Common Prayer which emerged out of the 1662 revisions, he comments thus on After the Psalms
follow two Lessons; one out of the Old Testament, another out of the New This choice may be, to shew the
harmony of them: for what is the Law but the Gospel foreshewed? What other the Gospel, but the Law fulfilled?
That which lies in the Old Testament as under a shadow, is in the New brought out into the open Sun: things
there prefigured are here performed. Thus as the two seraphims cry one to another Holy, holy, holy, so the
two Testaments, Old and New, faithfully agreeing, convince the sacred truth of God. First, one out of the Old
Testament, then another out of the New, observing the method of the Holy Spirit, who first published the Old,
then the New: first the precepts of the Law, then of the Gospel. (Anthony Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book
of Common Prayer of the Church of England (A New Edition), (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843), p. 33)

11

public readings either purposely did tend, or at the leastwise doth fitly serve, That from smaller things
the mind of the hearers may go forward to the knowledge of greater, and by degrees climb up from the
lowest to the highest things.47

Thus we can see that Anglicanism fully grasps and engages with the issues surrounding the
Canon of Scripture and the holding together, often in tension, of its constituent parts48.
three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that
period ... determine the boundary of our faith.
Mention of the Canon, reminds us that the Bible did not emerge from a vacuum, but
from the kerygma of the apostolic Church, thus for Anglicans a key dimension of their
approach to Scripture is (as in the liturgy) the communal aspect. This communal reading
ensures objectivity, preventing subjective, novel interpretations, because, as we so often
deceive [ourselves], [we] need the presence of history and community to check [our] selfobsessions.49 However, community also encompasses, not just the contemporary
community, but also the communion of the saints, and how Christians down through the ages
have read Scripture.50 This emphasis is with what Ramsey calls the Anglican appeal to
antiquity, the appeal to ancient tradition.51 The foundation for this appeal is rooted in Article
XX, which describes the Church as a witness and a keeper of holy Writ52, and in that
47

Hooker, Of the Laws, Book V, Chapter XX (7), pp. 74-76 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.070-079.pdf

[Date accessed: 31st July 2014].
48
An example of this is given by 19th century Anglican M.F. Sadler, in his writings on Baptism: Both the
Founder of the Religion in His discourses and the writers of these letters [the New Testament letters] to the
members of His Church take it for granted that the various members of the Church had already in their hands an
inspired volume, viz. the Old Testament. The way in which the Old Testament is treated is very remarkable, and
at first sight somewhat perplexing. It is recognised as the word of God; indeed, before the first books of the New
Testament were written, it was the only written word of God to the Christians. All of it is supposed to be given
by inspiration of God. It is referred to continually as declaring the will of God; it is assumed to be full of
principles which are eternal in their application; and yet certain parts of it are supposed to be abrogated This,
then, is the form which the Christian Scriptures take not the form of a methodical treatise, in which we can
find all that pertains to any particular doctrine, digested into certain chapters or sections, but such a form that, if
we wish to ascertain the mind of God on any particular subject, we must gather together scattered statements,
intimations, hints, illustrations, as they present themselves in the New Testament Scriptures; not for a moment
forgetting that these New Testament Scriptures, at every turn, witness to the abiding authority of certain older
Scriptures, equally given by inspiration of God. (M.F. Sadler, The Sacrament of Responsibility; or, Testimony
of Scripture to the Teaching of the Church on Holy Baptism, with Special Reference to the Case of Infants, and
Answers to Objections: New Edition (London: Bell & Daldy, 1870), p. xviii)
49
Rowell, Stevenson, Williams (eds.), General Introduction: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, Loves
Redeeming Work, p. xxi.
50
G.K. Chesterton defined tradition thus: Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition
means giving votes to that most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. (Quoted
in Michael Harper, Equal and Different: Male and Female in Church and Family (London: Hodder and
Stoughton Ltd, 1997), p. 97.)
51
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 16.
52
Article XX: Of the Authority of the Church, Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer (1662),
pp. 619-620. This can also be seen in that the liturgical reading of Scripture, both in the daily offices and in the
Eucharist, is followed by one of the three catholic Creeds, therefore placing the reading of Scripture by

12

belief, the Anglican divines looked increasingly to the fathers of the ancient church as guides
to the understanding of Scripture.53 However, this was not just an idiosyncrasy of some
Anglicans, but was the Churchs official policy, as shown by the Canon on Preaching,
issued in 1571, the same year as the final revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles.
[T]his Canon on Preaching states that the preachers in the churches should preach nothing but what is
found in Holy Scripture and what the ancient fathers and catholic doctors have collected from the same.
That is to say, antiquity is regarded as a guide to the understanding of Scripture. The classic ancient
definition of this authority of the church of antiquity is found in St. Vincent, who said that the churchs
understanding be directed by what has been believed everywhere, always, by all quod ubique, quod
semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est. Therefore the interpretation of Holy Scripture is to be found in
what Christians, the members of the church, believe always, everywhere, and by all.54

This approach became increasingly characteristic of Anglican thought and was a

point of divergence between characteristic Anglican theology and the theology of the
Lutheran and Calvinistic churches on the Continent.55 The Sacraments, an area of bitter
dispute during the Reformation56, is an example of where the Anglican devotion to antiquity
helped it get right away from medieval and post-medieval controversies and see some of the
controverted questions (where merely quoting Scripture did not provide the answer) in a
larger perspective57. As regards Baptism, one of the two Sacraments of the Gospel58,
Hooker models this appeal in Book V of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, where he deals
with a dispute (which still continues today59) over the relationship between regeneration and
Baptism. Contra the Puritans who severed this relationship by objecting to the association of
John 3:560 with Baptism, dismissing it as having risen from a false interpretation61, Hooker
sides with the general consent of antiquity, and in so doing, shows us the respect with which
Anglicans in the context of, and under the guidance of, the regula fidei, or rule of faith, of the early Church.
Similarly, the Thirty-Nine Articles begin with the doctrines of God and the Incarnation, with the Trinity and
with Christology, unlike for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith which begins with the doctrine of
Scripture, answering the epistemological question of how we know things, specifically how we know God.
53
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 16.
54
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 17.
55
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, p. 17.
56
Contrary to popular opinion, the Reformation did not amount to a divide between Catholics who loved
sacraments and Protestants who hated them. Both sides held sacraments in high regard. Protestantism in the
twentieth century has not always lived up to its beginnings in this regard, but the reformers esteemed
sacraments, and so have Low Church Christians in subsequent centuries. There was, however, real dispute at
the Reformation over just how many sacraments there are. The Protestant rallying cry was two and the
Catholic cry was seven. (Andrew Davison, Why Sacraments? (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), p. 67)
57
Ramsey, The Anglican Spirit, pp. 18-19.
58
Article XXV. Of the Sacraments, Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), p. 621.
59
For a contemporary engagement with this issue, from a classical Anglican perspective, see Ray R. Sutton,
Baptism: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered (Media, PA: Episcopal Recorder, 2001).
60
Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God. (ESV)
61
Hooker, Of the Laws, Book V, Chapter LIX (1), p. 262 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.260-269.pdf
[Date accessed: 25th June 2014).

13

he holds antiquity to be a faithful guide to Scriptures right interpretation, challenging all of

us who read Scripture to do so also:
of all the ancients there is not one to be named that ever did otherwise expound or allege the place
than as implying external baptism. Shall that which hath always received this and no other construction
be now disguised with the toy of novelty? 62

Conclusion
This chapter has explored the Anglican approach to Scripture, with reference to the
work of Richard Hooker as representative of, and as a founding figure of that tradition. This
tradition, as exemplified in Hookers writings, especially in The Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity, believes that the principal intent of Scripture is to speak Gods truth to the Church,
which will make it, and through it the world, wise for salvation. In practice, this is
devotional as well as theological method, which values the liturgy as a source of doctrine in
accordance with the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, and offers a distinct view of
Scripture in how the text is read orderly within worship. Two other emphases in Hookers
theological perspective on Scripture as surveyed in this chapter are his awareness of the
canonical unity of the Bible and his stress on the importance of the appeal to antiquity. The
next chapter will analyse the work of a contemporary Anglican theologian, Rowan Williams,
examining how he approaches Scripture, particularly where he builds upon the classical
Anglican tradition, especially as that tradition is exemplified by Richard Hooker.

62

Hooker, Of the Laws, Book V, Chapter LIX (3), p. 263 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.260-269.pdf

[Date accessed: 25th June 2014).

14

Chapter Two
Rowan Williams: Scripture as Proclamation and Judgement
If Richard Hooker is a foundational representative of Anglican theology, then Rowan
Williams, as a former Archbishop of Canterbury (2002-2012), is someone who would be
considered to be a modern representative of that tradition and its approach to the study and
purposeful application of Holy Scripture. Williams draws from many sources and traditions
in his work, and in so doing, models a strength which he claims for the Anglican tradition:
focusing attention on the fundamentals of Christian orthodoxy in a way that allows people to
inhabit this tradition without too much defensive anxiety about contemporary battles.63
Bearing this in mind, this chapter will focus on some of the themes within his theology which
reveal his approach to the Bible, especially those which resonate with the classical Anglican
tradition as exemplified by Hooker and outlined in the previous chapter. It will pay attention
to ways in which he develops and presents these themes in his context of the late 20th and
early 21st centuries, one which is vastly different from Hookers, in being a more secular, but
also a more ecumenical age. This exploration will be conducted through a close reading of
select primary texts of Williams: Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer,
Anglican Identities, his 2011 lecture on The Word of God in Anglican Tradition, and essays
from his anthology On Christian Theology64.
The principal intent of Scripture
As with Hooker, in order to understand Williams approach to Scripture, we must first
comprehend what he believes its principal intent is. For Williams, the Bible is
a book that gives us, in the wonderful words of the Coronation service, the lively oracles of God. The
Bible is not intended to be a mere chronicle of past events, but a living communication from God,
telling us now what we need to know for our salvation. 65

We see here Williams emphasis, shared with Hooker, on salvation as the primary end of
Scripture. Scripture is not a guidebook, a book that gives us simply information66, but is

63

Rowan Williams, Anglican Identities (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2004), p. 1.
Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (London: Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, 2014); Rowan Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014]; Rowan Williams, On Christian
Theology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000). Unlike the latter two primary texts, which are of an
academic nature, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer is written accessibly for a popular
audience, yet it remains a good introduction to Williams view of the place of Scripture in the Christian life.
65
Williams, Being Christian, p. 33.
64

15

the way in which God addresses humanity with what God wants us to hear67, introducing
us into the mind of the maker68, in order to make us wise for salvation (2 Timothy 3:15
ESV).
As part of this process of leading to the knowledge and experience of Gods salvation,
we are all to find who we are in the light of God in Jesus69, something which Scripture, as
the Churchs authoritative record of what God has done in Christ, helps us to do. A good
biblical image for how Scripture operates in this way is that of a mirror (cf. James 1:23-25),70
which reveals to us and reminds us of all that God has done, and our identity of who we are
and how we should live as people within that story.71 This image has echoes of N.T. Wrights
explanation, quoted in the previous chapter, of the practice of reading from both Testaments
during liturgical worship. This emphasis on this process of looking at who we are in the light
of the revelation passed on in Christian tradition is an important one for Williams, especially
seen in his essay The Judgement Of The World. Here, he articulates how the Churchs
proclamation of the Christian narrative, culminating in Christ and the Paschal Mystery, is
invariably the task of bringing the scriptural framework to bear on the world and situations in
it, judging them. However, this is not just a dictating to or a preaching to the world, but a
dynamic process of revealing a critical truth which judges not only the world but also the
Church itself:
[i]n judging the world, by its confrontation of the world with its own dramatic script, the Church also
judges itself: in attempting to show the world a critical truth, it shows itself to itself as Church also. All
of which means that we are dealing not with the insertion of definable blocks of material into a wellmapped territory where homes may be found for them, but with events of re-telling or re-working
traditional narrative patterns in specific human interactions; an activity in which the Christian
community is itself enlarged in understanding and even in some sense evangelized. Its integrity is
bound up in encounters of this kind, and so in the unavoidable elements of exploratory fluidity and
provisionality that enter into these encounters. At any point in history, the Church needs both the
66

Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition

http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014].
67
Williams, Being Christian, p. 25.
68
Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014].
69
Rowan Williams, Nobody Knows Who I Am Till The Judgement Morning, On Christian Theology
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), p. 287.
70
Another Anglican theologian, George Herbert also draws on this image, a fact which Williams refers to in his
lecture on The Word of God in Anglican Tradition: For more on this image in the poetry of George Herbert,
see Rod Whitacre, George Herbert and Biblical Theology, Trinity Journal for Theology & Ministry, III:1
(Spring 2009), pp. 67-88.
71
Williams recognises that this approach has some affinity with what exegetical tradition has called moral
interpretation, in that the text is read as something requiring change in the reader, change of a kind depicted in
the text itself. (Rowan Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers Ltd, 2000), p. 50.)

16

confidence that it has a gospel to preach, and the ability to see that it cannot readily specify in advance
how it will find words for preaching in particular new circumstances. 72

Williams gives examples of such new circumstances in which the Church has had to
tell its narrative, such as the absorbing of the Exodus story into the black slave culture of
America.73 He argues that the Churchs telling of its story in each circumstance is in fact a
re-telling. While the Church is called to proclaim the faith afresh in each generation,74 a
risk with over-emphasising this re-telling aspect could result in contemporary experience and
circumstances being allowed to subtly become normative for the Church, guiding its
interpretation of Scripture, rather than Scripture standing over and above and guiding the
interpretation of contemporary situations.75 However, despite this concern, Williams does

72

Rowan Williams, The Judgement Of The World, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
2000), p. 31. Williams ideas on the Church being judged in the light of its own proclamation resonates with
the principle ecclesia semper reformanda est, the Church is always to be reformed.
73
Williams, The Judgement Of The World, p. 31.
74
The Church of England, The Declaration of Assent Preface, https://www.churchofengland.org/prayerworship/worship/texts/mvcontents/preface.aspx [Date accessed: 26th September 2014]. The Declaration of
Assent is made by deacons, priests and bishops of the Church of England when they are ordained and on each
occasion when they take up a new appointment (Canon C 15). Readers and Lay Workers make the declaration,
without the words 'and administration of the sacraments', when they are admitted and when they are licensed
(Canons E 5, E 6 and E 8). This principle of contextualisation is clearly classically Anglican as seen in Article
XXs description of the Churchs calling in relation to Scripture as that of being a witness and a keeper
(Article XX: Of the Authority of the Church, Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer and
Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the
Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in
Churches and the form or manner of making, ordaining and consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons
(1662) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 619-620.) There is also some similarity with the
sentiments expressed in Article XXXIV: It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one,
and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of
countries, times, and mens manners, so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word Every particular or
national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only
by mans authority, so that all things be done to edifying. (Article XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church,
Articles of Religion, in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), pp. 625-626.)
75
This issue is an accusation has been raised by a critical commentator and describer of Williams theology:
We must note that Williams does not mean that we should constantly ask if we are being faithful to the
doctrines of Scripture. Rather, we must constantly look to see how our orthodoxy fits with our experience of
Christian humanity and the world around us, and we must keep revising it to expand as our experience changes.
Orthodoxy is not a goal, a pattern of conformity to the mind of God revealed in the Scriptures. Rather, it is a
tool, a process of breaking and remaking. (Garry Williams, The Theology of Rowan Williams (London: The
Latimer Trust, 2002), p. 16. An example of where Rowan Williams approach to the Bible, though seeded in the
classical Anglican tradition as outlined above, leads to a position different from the traditional interpretation of
Scripture is on the issue of homosexuality. In The Bodys Grace, Williams himself emphasises the importance
of experience as informing his theological conclusions, as Garry Williams alleges he does: A theology of the
body's grace which can do justice to the experience, the pain and the variety, of concrete sexual discovery
[emphasis mine] is not, I believe, a marginal eccentricity in the doctrinal spectrum. It depends heavily on
believing in a certain sort of God - the trinitarian creator and saviour of the world - and it draws in a great many
themes in the Christian understanding of humanity, helping us to a better critical grasp of the nature and the
dangers of corporate human living. (Rowan Williams, The Bodys Grace (Reprinted from the Lesbian and
Gay Christian Movement, 1989), http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm) It could be argued that in quotes
such as this Williams is allowing experience to become central in theological discourse, merely drawing upon
revelation to do justice to that experience of the nature and dangers of corporate human living, and so Garry
Williams concerns appear to be justified.

17

counsel that the principal intent of Scripture, about which he is in full accord with Hooker
and others in the Anglican tradition, must never be forgotten in our handling of the Bible,
something which all readers of it would do well to focus on.
All the time, though, we must remember that none of this makes any sense without some confidence in
the possibility of the reality of our own transformation in Christ, the confidence that can be nurtured
only by the disciplines of praise and of silence. 76

One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments: Progressive and
Christocentric
With all of this in mind, Williams is one who, consistent with classical Anglicanism,
takes seriously the challenge of holding together the unity as well as the diversity of the
canon of the Bible. This diversity includes not only the Old and New Testaments, but within
them different literary genres, which span vast historical periods. He does not shy away from
or underestimate the difficulties involved in this holding together of diversity. It is refreshing
to hear such honesty regarding these challenges: it is not very likely that the first thing [when
picking up a Bible and opening at random] you hit upon is a statement from God to you in a
simple grammatical sense.77 At a deeper level, troubling issues such as the presence of mass
atrocity in the Old Testament, and how this relates to the revelation of God and his
interactions with humanity as presented in the Bible as a whole can be difficult to resolve.
Williams argues that grappling with these issues can be part of the wider task of engaging
with what Scripture means for our identity, without resorting to simplistic dismissal or an
uncritical reading78:
If we find accounts of the responses of Israel to God that are shocking or hard to accept, we do not
have to work on the assumption that God likes those responses. For example: many of the early
Israelites in the Old Testament clearly thought it was Gods will that they should engage in ethnic
cleansing that they should slaughter without mercy the inhabitants of the Promised Land into which
they had been led. And for centuries, millennia even, people have asked, Does that mean that God
orders or approves of genocide? If he did, that would be so hideously at odds with what the biblical
story as a whole seems to say about God. But if we understand that response as simply part of the story,
we see that this is how people thought they were carrying out Gods will at the time. The point is to
look at God, look at yourself, and to ask where you are in the story. Are you capable in the light of
the Bible itself as a whole of responding more lovingly or faithfully than ancient Israel? 79

76

Rowan Williams, The Unity of Christian Truth, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
2000), p. 28.
77
Williams, Being Christian, pp. 23-24.
78
An example of this can be seen in view of Williams praising of James Barrs critique of canonical criticism
(such as promoted by Brevard Childs), which is perhaps a necessary corrective to overly-simplistic and naive
approaches to the canon. Cf. Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 48.
79
Williams, Being Christian, pp. 27-28.

18

In a refreshing and interesting approach to the issue of the canon, Williams offers the
suggestion that perhaps the canonical tensions, what he calls its discord and polyphony,80
should be considered to be not just problems to be dealt with but are in fact integral to the
structure of the canon itself, and therefore essential to its comprehension:
To read the New Testament with any understanding at all is to see it as in part an attempt to claim and
re-order the existing texts and traditions of a community from which the producers of these new texts
seek to distance themselves even as they seek to present themselves as its true heirs. But within both
Old and New Testaments the same pattern is visible. There are conflicting bids to define the
community and order its history. 81

Williams then gives examples of such conflicting bids, such what he considers to be the
familiar tension between the Letter of James and the central tenets of Pauline soteriology.82
Instead of trying to somehow explain away the various tensions, and contradictions, he
presents them as a positive, using the Gospels as a showcase for this:
the existence of four versions of the fundamental story of Jesus, three (at least) very closely related to
each other, reflects not only the fact of pluralism, but the fact of engagement between theologies: the
story is rewritten in the conviction that previous tellings are unbalanced or inadequate; yet the rewriting
has the same risk and provisionality. Matthew only corrects Mark at the cost of fresh imbalances and
narrowings of focus, so that, as in the liturgy of the Christian year, they must constantly be re-read in
counterpoint with each other. 83

Williams approach here resonates with that of Hooker. Both share a view of Scriptures
purpose which doesnt limit Scripture to the delivery of historical facts propositionally, but
which is more dynamic, mystical, and devotional.84
Key to Williams approach to Scripture is the understanding of Christ as a
hermeneutical key. This involves the concept of progressive revelation which was referenced
in the previous chapter.85 Williams Christocentricty is highlighted in his answer to his own
80

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 56.

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, pp. 54-55.
82
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 54.
83
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 55. Williams approach to the diversity of the Gospels shares some
affinity with Mark Allan Powells description of them as literary artworks, each of which presents a portrait
of Jesus that is distinctive from the other three. (Mark Allan Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A
Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), p. 83.). Cf. also
Richard A. Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 2005).
84
The idea of having to passionately engage with the diversity within the canon, such as the Gospels, and
balancing the counterpoints in order to come to the overall picture of God in Christ presented within it, through
the use of reason, would likely also appeal to Hooker, who, as we saw in the previous chapter (n. 9) was also
concerned to seek and grapple with the truth.
85
We find that in ancient times there was publicly read first the Scripture, as namely, something out of the
books of the Prophets of God which were of old; something out of the Apostles writings; and lastly out of the
holy Evangelists, some things which touched the person of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. The cause of their
reading first the Old Testament, then the New, and always somewhat out of both, is most likely to have been
that which Justin Martyr and St. Augustin [sic] observe in comparing the two Testaments. The Apostles, saith
the one, have taught us as themselves did learn, first the precepts of the Law, and then the Gospels. For what
81

19

rhetorical question, [w]hat criteria do we have for discerning truth from falsehood? The
Christian answer is, unsurprisingly, in terms of Jesus Christ.86 Williams reflects on this
Christocentric hermeneutic while acknowledging that this must be employed without seeking
to undermine the integrity of the Hebrew Scriptures87:
without trying to undermine or ignore the integrity of Jewish Scripture in itself (a complex question
that needs the most careful and sensitive understanding of the experience and reflection of our Jewish
brothers and sisters), the Christian is bound to say that he or she can only read those Jewish Scriptures
as moving towards the point at which a new depth of meaning is laid bare in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus.88

That the Scriptural narrative can be considered to be moving towards Jesus is a necessity,
on account of the facts of Israels dealing with God, the promises concerning a Messiah, and
the early Christian understanding and confession of Jesus as the Christ, that awaited Messiah.
Ultimately, it needs to be taken seriously in this way because of the understanding of
Christianity as historical, an understanding which Williams shares with Hooker, and which is
testified to in the canon.
The history that God directs, by becoming in Jesus Christ an historical agent and by moulding the
Scriptures in which the law of Christ is set forth, likewise returns us to nature, to that life in which we
may actualise what we are capable of and arrive at our natural end, gratuitously and supernaturally
augmented with an eternal reward. We are bound to the history of Christ and to the scriptural record as
our way to become what God has created us to be, lovers of the eternal beauty of God in Gods self. 89

else is the Law but the Gospel foreshewed? What other the Gospel, than the Law fulfilled? In like sort the
other, What the Old Testament hath, the very same the New containeth; but that which lieth there as under a
shadow is here brought forth into the open sun. Things there prefigured are here performed. Again, In the Old
Testament there is a close comprehension of the New, in the New an open discovery of the Old. To be short,
the method of their public readings either purposely did tend, or at the leastwise doth fitly serve, That from
smaller things the mind of the hearers may go forward to the knowledge of greater, and by degrees climb up
from the lowest to the highest things. (Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, Chapter
XX (7), pp. 74-76 http://anglicanhistory.org/hooker/5/5.070-079.pdf [Date accessed: 31st July 2014].
86
Williams, Being Christian, p. 34.
87
In order to avoid a charge such as supersessionism.
88
Williams, Being Christian, p. 34. The importance of trying not to undermine or ignore the integrity of Jewish
Scripture in itself is felt by other scholars, such as contemporary Anglican theologian Christopher Seitz: The
discrete voice of the Old Testament is not something even sympathetically Jewish which must be carefully
handled if the linkages to Jesus Christ are to be properly displayed and celebrated. The Old Testament is not a
relative with a gas problem, as a former colleague once said, that we must accept and try politely to work
around. The Old Testament is the witness of the One God with whom we have to do, who has sent his Son for
the salvation of the world, breaking down a dividing wall and bringing those who are far off near by the blood
of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament has a horizon that is not exhausted in what we can say about Jesus, for its
language and its divine promises lie not behind the New, but show the way ahead of the New that fulfillment
may be a promise made good on, to the glory of the Father, who with the Son and Holy Spirit is One God, unto
the ages of ages. (Christopher Seitz, Christological Interpretation of Texts and Trinitarian Claims to Truth,
Scottish Journal of Theology, 52 (1999), p. 226.)
89
Williams, Anglican Identities, p. 47.

20

This points to why Christians must ultimately remain focussed on revelation: the scriptural
history has to be told as it leads to Christ and the cross of Christ.90 It is this focus on
Christ and the Paschal Mystery which provides the regula fidei for how Scripture is to be
read. In other words, this is how Scripture fulfils its vocation to be norma normans, the norm
which sets all norms for the Church91, judging and critiquing all in light of an encounter with
the risen Christ testified to within its pages. Thus, the questions which Scripture in effect
challenges us to answer in any and all theological discourse are:
does it presuppose and serve the conviction that the lives of men and women are open to the horizons
indicated by those models of Christian humanity which the Churchs history has developed around
the focal sign of Jesus living and dying? Does it continue to offer intelligible roles for the living out
of new creation? Does it conserve a hope for shared, unrestricted human renewal/liberation/salvation? 92

In practical terms, in the Anglican tradition, the questioning and challenging offered by such
a regula fidei governs the liturgical reading of Scripture, where, both in the daily offices and
in the Eucharist, the readings are followed by one of the three catholic Creeds, which were
formed by the early Church as summaries of their Christocentric and incarnational faith. This
is an example of how Anglicans maintain and uphold the focus of Christ crucified and risen
that is the movement of Scripture within their reading of it.93
A solid, scriptural, rational piety
Williams, commenting on Richard Hooker, says [d]ivine election deals with us
ineluctably as members of communities94. Thus, for both of these theologians, the reading of
Scripture is something which is not an individualistic activity, but something which is
engaged in as a community, as the People of God, the Church. As described in the previous
chapter, the communal reading of Scripture is not just for its own sake, but because it ensures
objectivity, preventing subjective, individualistic interpretations. This it does, not only
through the accountability provided by the community of the present, but also that provided
by the tradition, passed on by the Christian community, the communion of the saints, down
through history. It is the voice, and ideally the consensus, of this democracy of the dead,95
90

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 56.

Gavin G. Dunbar, Sola Scriptura and the Anglican Way, Anglican Way: Formerly Mandate, the magazine of
the Prayer Book Society, 37:2 (June 2014), p. 5 [whole article: pp. 4-5]
http://anglicanwaymagazine.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/aw-vol37no2_web.pdf [Date accessed: 1st November
2014].
92
Williams, The Unity of Christian Truth, pp. 26-27.
93
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 57.
94
Williams, Anglican Identities, p. 3.
95
This phrase is definition of tradition used by G.K. Chesterton. Full quote: Tradition may be defined as an
extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to that most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is
91

21

which is needed to check [the] self-obsessions96 of contemporary readers of Scriptures,

which their different context, culture, and therefore, concerns. We have seen above that, for
Williams, Scripture is about finding our identity in Christ, however this finding
is the process of living in a community struggling to discover means of mutual empowering and
affirming, in the conviction that we shall not live or flourish if we consider any person or group
dispensable, or merely functional for our own self-definition. And behind the life of such a community
stands the event and the power by which it lives. To understand the Church, we must look at what
generates it.97

This engaging with Scripture together reaches its highest point in the liturgical
reading of Scripture. It is here, in the common98 discipline of reading Scripture in the
public, sacramental worship of the Church, that so many of the strands of Williams
approach to Scripture come together.99 This is the case because it is in the liturgy where the
reading involves public performance, a reading understood and unpacked by Williams as
diachronic, a tangible taking of time now for the presentation of the time of the text.100
He shows the application of this idea of a diachronic reading, one which is designed to bring
our time and the time of the canonical narrative together, in the use of a scriptural lectionary
bound to the festal cycle101, such as that related to annual celebration of Christs Passion.

the democracy of the dead. (Quoted in Michael Harper, Equal and Different: Male and Female in Church and
Family (London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1997), p. 97.)
96
Geoffrey Rowell,. Kenneth Stevenson, Rowan Williams (eds.), General Introduction: The Anglican Quest for
Holiness, Loves Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001),
p. xxi.
97
Williams, Nobody Knows Who I Am Till The Judgement Morning, p. 287.
98
Of course, this reminds us of the very reason why Anglicans have a Book of Common Prayer, because it was
intended to facilitate prayer in common, in community.
99
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 59.
100
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, pp. 51, 59. A diachronic reading is defined by Williams as reading
a text in a more or less dramatic way, by following through in a single time-continuum, reading it as a
sequence of changes, a pattern of transformations. (Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 45) In other
words, it is a type of reading which can operate at several different levels (Williams, The Discipline of
Scripture, p. 45), where the text is allowed to speak into and bear upon the reader and their context, rather than
just the straightforward, historical contextual understanding of the text as intended by the author(s). In this way,
the practice of lectio divina, as well as any liturgical reading, could fit Williams understanding and use of
diachronic. There is also overlap with the aims of the Narrative school of theology, whose theologians have
argued that the Bible is properly understood when it is read as an interpretative framework for all reality,
because the meaning of the Bible is learned within the church through worship and prayer (Roberta Bayer,
Introduction, Reformed and Catholic: Essays in Honour of Peter Toon, ed. Roberta Bayer (Eugene, OR: Wipf
and Stock Publishers, 2012), p. xxvii).. Properly understood, the late Peter Toon thought that the Narrative
school might be used to show that the historical Anglican Way is the only foundation for Anglicanism, for he
felt that it is true to the Anglican tradition (Bayer, Introduction, p. xxvii).
101
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 51. Williams also suggests how the literal sense could be reconceived as an eschatological sense, one in which to read diachronically the history that we call a history of
salvation is to read our own time in the believing community (and so too the time of the world as capable of
being integrated into such a history, in a future we cannot but call Gods because we have no secure human way
of planning it or thematizing it. (Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 58)

22

The liturgy of Holy Week involves a thoroughly diachronic reading, in which the congregation has to
take on a succession of roles the city that welcomes Jesus on Palm Sunday, the city that rejects Jesus
on Good Friday, the apostles receiving the ministry of Jesus at the Last Supper (in the footwashing
ceremony of Maundy Thursday), watching with Jesus at Gethsemane, deserting Jesus at his arrest; the
redeemed Israel following the pillar of fire through the night at the Easter Vigil. It is comparable to and
as complex as the enactment of the Exodus in the Passover ritual; and it is, of course, the underpinning
for the great dramatic readings of Bachs Passions. It insists upon our reading the text of the story of
redemption with some sense of the provisional and contingent in its unfolding (as if we did not know
the end); only when the movement has been lived and worked through can we say, with the risen Jesus
of the Emmaus story, It was necessary. 102

It is through such readings, as performed in the liturgy, that Scripture reveals and
engages in its purpose and work of transforming us by revealing our identity within Gods
story, as focussed and summed up in the Christ in whom we read the whole story in light of.
A way in which Williams particularly reflects on this links to what we have already
seen about the need for openness to the judgement [emphasis mine] of the Easter
mystery.103 Recognising the imperfection of the Church, an understanding in line with that
of the English Reformers, is an important fact within this approach.104
Even a confessing Church, that is to say, bears the burdens of historical guilt and the risks of failure,
and confesses also its solidarity with the weakness or sinfulness of the whole historical community
(even its own current opponents) by continuing to place itself under the same judgement of baptism,
preaching and Eucharist.105

Baptism, preaching and Eucharist are examples of the public, sacramental worship where
[t]he Christian listens for God and listens in the company of other believers to those texts
that, from the very beginnings of the Christian community, have been identified as carrying
the voice of God.106 Thus, from the start, the Church of England took it for granted that the
encounter with the Word of God written was one that took place within the daily sacrifice
102

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 51.

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 59.
104
the English Reformers made an important distinction between the perfect, truly holy, mystical catholic
church which would be revealed at the end of the age, and the human, earthly, institutional church through
which God worked to call his mystical church into being. They referred to this distinction as the difference
between the visible and invisible or mystical church. In short, they followed what Paul Tillich called the
Protestant Principle, the idea that there is a vast difference between Gods perfection and human endeavours.
Consequently, the human institutions through which God works will always be subject to the idolatry of too
closely identifying their efforts with his. According to the Protestant Principle, Christians must always be on the
look out [sic] to see if they are worshipping and serving their own agendas but in Gods name. True to this
principle, the English Reformers insisted on maintaining the distinction between the visible and invisible
church. The former was a clearly human institution and the second the perfect community of which Christ was
the head and only those chosen from eternity as his were members. Because no one knows who really belongs to
God, the eternal church of Christ can only be invisible. (Ashley Null, Sixteenth-Century Anglican
Ecclesiology (lecture presented to seminar at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Leaders Conference,
London, 2012), http://gafcon.org/images/uploads/16th_Century_Anglican_Ecclesiology.pdf [Date accessed: 26th
September 2014], p. 4.) For this theme within the work of Hooker, see Null, Sixteenth-Century Anglican
http://gafcon.org/images/uploads/16th_Century_Anglican_Ecclesiology.pdf [Date accessed: 26th September
2014], pp. 28-32.
105
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, pp. 57-58.
106
Williams, Being Christian, pp. 21-22
103

23

of praise offered by the community.107 But this encounter had a purpose, a telos, for the
point of reading Scripture in this context was to provoke the self-awareness that led to
repentance.108 It is therefore supposed to be the beginning of a journey 109 of and to that
salvific transformation which is Scriptures principal intent, an intent understood and
promoted by both Hooker and Williams.

Conclusion
Rowan Williams theological perspectives on Scripture are multi-faceted. As explored
in this chapter, there are several aspects which resonate with those seen in the work of
Richard Hooker. We see such rootedness in themes such as (i) the purpose of Scripture to
communicate salvific truth through its revelation of Christ, (ii) the tensions within it as a
canon, with a focus on the progressive aspects of the biblical account of salvation history and
Christ as the hermeneutical key for it as a whole, and (iii) that Scriptures right context is in
the life of the worshipping community. In contrast to the 16th century Christendom in which
Hooker was writing, Williams is writing in a different, ecumenical age, reflected in the
universal appeal of his work, but which is a more critical, and therefore uncomfortable, place
for Christians to speak theologically. This discomfort is witnessed to in Williams approach
to Scripture, as he seriously listens to and engages which the challenges presented by this
context, such as pointing out the discord110 within the canon, as well as the humble
interdependence needed to approach Scripture as a community. Williams himself recognises
this, and highlights such honest confrontation with the biblical text in his conclusion to his
article, appropriately titled, The Discipline of Scripture.111 Here we see the aforementioned
themes of his theological project drawn together and surveyed in the light of his view of
Scriptures principal intent, its purpose and task:

107

Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition

http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014].
108
Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014]. It is a characteristic of the daily
services of Morning and Evening Prayer that they begin with the confession of sins, thus immediately setting the
hearing of Scripture in the context of and awareness of God and his holiness and justice, therefore inspiring
penitential self-awareness in the worshipper.
109
Williams, The Word of God in Anglican Tradition
http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2282/the-word-of-god-in-anglican-traditionarchbishop-addresses-focolare-bishops [Date accessed: 24th September 2014].
110
Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, p. 56.
111
Italics mine.

24

 so far from the literal or historical sense being a resource of problem-solving clarity, as it might
appear to be for the fundamentalist, an area of simple truthfulness over against the dangerously
sophisticated pluralism of a disobedient Church, it may rather encourage us to take historical
responsibility for arguing and exploring how the gospel is going to be heard in our day. It can do this
because it shows us a history (inside and outside the text) of real and harsh divisions that is both taken
up and overtaken by grace. It suggests that what matters is not our ability to finish our business or to
secure consensus, as if Christ would be audible only in this mode, but our readiness to decide, to take
sides, as adult persons, and to live with the consequence and cost of that within the disciplines we share
with other Christians of openness to the judgement of the Easter mystery. These disciplines we share
with both past and present, with those near and distant, those we agree with and those we resist, those
who are congenial and those who are not. And the common discipline above all of reading Scripture in
the public, sacramental worship of the Church, reading diachronically and analogically in the sense
I have tried to outline here should stand as a foundation for hope and hold before us a model of faith. 112

112

Williams, The Discipline of Scripture, pp. 58-59.

25

Conclusion
This research paper has examined the way in which the Bible has been
viewed, treated, and engaged with historically in the Anglican tradition of the Christian
Church, particularly in the thought and writings of individual theologians emerging from and
working within Anglicanism, Richard Hooker (1554-1600), and Rowan Williams, who was
the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012.
Chapter One introduced the classical Anglican approach to the Bible, as exemplified
mainly in the primary work of Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The
elements of this approach included the emphasis on the principal intent of Scripture being to
make its readers wise for salvation, communicating the knowledge of God and the
necessary response to that revelation. It is an approach which is rigorously committed to the
correct interpretation of Scripture as a unified canon of Old and New Testaments, but also in
the light of the tradition of the Christian Church. However, it is also a devotional approach,
which sets the chief reading of the Bible in the context of liturgical prayer and worship,
which also ensures and enshrines the two commitments of attending to the canon and the
tradition.
Chapter Two examined the work of Rowan Williams, as a contemporary Anglican
theologian, to gain an appreciation of how his writing can be recognised as in continuity with
the established Anglican tradition. He shares Hookers stress on the transmission of salvific
truth as the principal intent of Scripture, as well as on the hermeneutical keys of reading the
Old and New Testaments as a canon in light of Christ and the necessary presence of the
worshipping community in order to safeguard the reading of the Bible. He continues these
aspects of the Anglican tradition, but, in his modern context, is more receptive to the
challenges posed by and the experience gained in that context, which can lead to deeper
dialogue and enrichment of the Churchs reading of Scripture, but can also risk cultural
accommodation.
The ongoing challenge to discern the principal intent of Scripture in contemporary
theology and church life finds profound insights in the work of these two Anglican
theologians. The harmony of theological and devotional depth, combining all of the
aforementioned themes in the reading of Scripture, as seen in the classical Anglican tradition
is distinctive. However, it is an approach not restricted to those who profess to be Anglican,
but has a spirit which can enrich the reading of Scripture of all Christians, so important to all
traditions. It is a spirit which is expressed liturgically in the well-known Collect for the

26

Second Sunday in Advent, which is one which all Christians may join in praying together as
we seek to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the holy Scriptures, remaining open and
expectant to receive that which is its principal intent to reveal.
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in
such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy
holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast
given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.113

113

The Second Sunday in Advent: The Collect, The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels to be used throughout the
year, in The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of
the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed
as they are to be sung or said in Churches and the form or manner of making, ordaining and consecrating of
Bishops, Priests and Deacons (1662) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 49.

27

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