Down to Earth God

Touchstones of Faith

How do we test religious ideas to know what is or isn't true?

One of the most useful Religious Education lessons I ever had presented the sources of religious authority as a triangle. The three points of the triangle are: Scripture, Tradition and the Holy Spirit, God's continuing revelation. Different denominations and traditions can be understood by where they sit in this triangle.

The Roman Catholic Church and churches that follow the catholic tradition sit towards the corner of the triangle marked 'tradition'. They value the authority of the church passed down through Bishops and clergy. That's not to say they ignore scripture, appeals to reason or the leanings of the Holy Spirit but they place great value on the tradition of the church, on practices and beliefs that have been passed down.

The churches are hierarchical with authority vested in the Pope, or head of the church, the College of cardinals and Bishops. There is a catechism or body of teachings passed on to the followers and an emphasis on the sacraments: baptism, confirmation, ordination, communion and so forth. Doctrinal change comes from the top.

Protestant and evangelical churches sit towards the corner marked 'Scripture'. They typically place more emphasis on the Bible. The emphasis in services is on teaching and preaching rather than the sacraments. There is greater emphasis on the doctrine of individual salvation. They have their church structure and authority but the source of authority is seen as scripture. They may not have Bishops. In some traditions, such as the Presbyterians, ministers are appointed by the congregation.

At the point of the triangle marked Spirit we would find the Quakers with their doctrine of the Inner Light, that of God in Everyman. Quakers have no creed or set doctrines leaving such things to the conscience of the individual. Their services are conducted largely in silence with individuals witnessing as and when they are moved by the Spirit. There are no ministers, rather a ministry of all believers.

You will also find Pentecostal churches celebrating the gifts of the Spirit. A key premiss is that God continues to reveal himself; we can seek an understanding of what is right and true via what the Quakers refer to as ' the prompting of love and truth in our hearts'.

You could also place the contemplative tradition of the Catholic Church here; the saints and Mystics who have found their inspiration in a life devoted to prayer. Towards this corner also are the Liberals within church tradition who would emphasise the application of reason; what life and experience has taught us.

You will appreciate that all or most churches draw on all three of these sources and that the differences are differences of degree and emphasis. I am not saying that Catholics do not their read bible but that they are guided in its interpretation by the tradition of the church. Similarly evangelicals will respect their pastors teaching about the Bible but he derives his authority from knowledge rather than it being passed down through Bishops.

Scripture is clearly the bed rock but it is open to different and sometimes harmful interpretations. We need to be guided by how it is usually understood, by how scholars have interpreted it and by our own prayerful contemplation, a belief that dwelling on scripture and our God given conscience we will come to an understanding of what is right.

I belong to the Anglican tradition. The Anglican communion consists of the Church of England, American and Scottish Episcopalian (that means 'with Bishops') Churches, various commonwealth countries and one or two, such as Mozambique who have not had an association with Britain. Our Church is the original 'Broad Church' and can boast members and individual parishes spread around the triangle or, as its referred to in our tradition 'the three legged stool'.

For reasons of its, sometimes bloody, history our Church considers itself to be 'Catholic and Reformed'; at once catholic and protestant. We don't acknowledge the Pope or accept the primacy of Rome but we believe ourselves to be the Catholic (as in passed down from earliest times) church in England. The churches we are in communion with, who accept the Anglican tradition, would claim a similar position in respect of their own countries.

At the same time we consider ourselves to be 'reformed' to have accepted the changes driven by the Reformation, the emphasis on scripture and individual salvation.

The core of our faith is captured in the Book of Common Prayer, itself a product of years of turmoil, as monarch replaced monarch and heads rolled and heretics burned in a struggle for the soul of the church. Our communion is based on that most British of things compromise.

It's a struggle at times to reconcile the competing beliefs, particularly around women priests and the position of gay clergy, but somehow, against the odds, we stick together. We have churches across the spectrum of traditions from High Catholics, who in vestments and use of ritual would not look out of place in the Roman tradition to 'happy, clappy' Evangelicals where the Vicar is more likely to minister in his shirt sleeves and we have everything in between.

Our Church is not a place for certainty. It is a turmoil of competing ideas and disagreements somehow held together in a single communion. The Anglican faith is often described as a three legged stool, roughly equating to my triangle. The three legs it sits on are usually described as Scripture, Tradition and Reason.

I hope I have communicated that Scripture, God's revelation to us is vital to my faith. I have been suspicious for much of my life of 'tradition' the customs and practices passed down not least because they often bear little relation to Scripture; there are no cassocks, steeples or baptismal fonts in my Bible.

Surprisingly however I find myself through the influence of people I have met, respect for the sacraments ( deserving of a separate piece) and a general sense of my own failings on the Catholic wing of the Anglican Church. You may struggle to understand that I have no leanings towards Rome but value a sense of continuity with the early church even while rejecting and wanting to distance myself with much of what has happened in the name of church since. I have embraced some of the trappings I detested in my youth but see them as simply that; 'trappings', outward manifestations with the more important thing being what happens within.

But if I respect and value Scripture and have drifted towards the corner marked 'tradition' my belief in a Down To Earth God; who valued the world sufficiently that in the incarnation of Christ he took on human form, means that I value and can not reject life experience, the leading of the Spirit in prayer, the gift of reason or God's continuing work of revelation in the World.

God is a great mystery. He continues to reveal himself to us. we are given life to experience and learn from. We should not check in our God given talents at the church door. We should use them in the furtherance of his work.

I appreciate not everyone will share my faith but please understand you don't have to check in your brain to be a Christian. Most of us are perfectly rational human beings.

I'm equally aware some Christians won't be comfortable with what I've written but I'm not trying to impress anyone with what a good Christian I am. I can't say too often that I've failed and fallen short of the person I'd like to be. I just want to be honest about my faith, to demonstrate that I am not so different to my unbelieving friends and that God loves us all whatever our failings.