Diary of a Theologian

In the first centuries after Jesus, Christians were challenged about their relationship to the faith of the Jews, and part of that challenge pertained to the Jews’ Bible. Marcion (ca. 85 - ca. 160) thought that belief in Christ was belief in a different God from the Jews’. He made a Bible of some of the letters of St. Paul and an edited version of St. Luke’s Gospel: no Old Testament for Marcion!

In the early 1800s Thomas Jefferson created (by cutting and gluing passages from the Gospels) a volume that is commonly known as “Jefferson’s Bible.” He excised all miraculous elements, leaving only Jesus’ teaching; one senses here a drive to get to the pure heart of the gospel, to strip away accretions of superstition and supernaturalism. Significantly, the genealogy of Jesus is absent also.

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If Thomas Jefferson had attended an Anglican or Episcopal church in the colonies or the new United States, he would have found (most likely) a service of Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer. In either of these services, he would have heard two scripture readings, first from the Old Testament, then from the New. These readings were often full chapters or significant parts of them. If he attended day after day, he would have heard continuations of the readings previously heard. This pattern of Morning and Evening Prayer, daily throughout the year, was the heart of Anglican worship from the first Book of Common Prayer (1549), carried to this continent, and perpetuated in the Prayer Books of the Episcopal Church to this day. 

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What do Episcopalians/Anglicans believe about the Bible? You can find authoritative statements, at the highest level, that we believe the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God written and that they contain everything necessary to salvation. We also believe that the Bible reveals its deep truths when we take it as a whole; thus, no part is to be interpreted in a way that is repugnant to another part.

These beliefs are built into the manner of worship. We believe that Scripture can be heard and understood when read in a congregation without mediation or interpretation: that is, it can be read in worship without needing a sermon. God truly works through his written Word to speak to those who hear it. Some of us might think it expedient to have a brief comment on the Scriptures that have been read, but that is a judgment to be based on the congregation at hand.

Something else is essential: both Old and New Testaments need to be read, and in the daily worship of the church, they need to be read together in a sort of stereo. The weekly worship of the church is, by contrast, selective and intentional. Often on Sundays there is an Old Testament reading that connects with the Gospel (as, for instance, last Sunday: Jonah’s resentful grumbling over Ninevah’s being spared was like the grumbling of the workers who got the same wage for working all day as those who worked for a single hour). Not so with the Anglican day-to-day: we just go along, day after day, Old and New Testament readings one after the other. Recently, for instance, 2 Kings has been read while we progress through 1 Corinthians. There is no immediately obvious connection of those two books or the particular passages read (in stereo) on a particular day. But there is an implicit conviction that they do not contradict each other.

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This is much more important than many think: if there are two readings at Morning or Evening Prayer, the first is always to be from the Old Testament! Although the 1979 Prayer Book allows there to be just one reading, it is clear (see page 934) that if two are desired, “the first is always from the Old Testament (or the Apocrypha).” That word “always” should settle the matter. 

It seems to me it doesn’t just break a rule to have two New Testament readings (at Morning Prayer, say) and no Old Testament reading. It is to break with a fundamental claim of Anglican tradition. The unity of the Bible is something we need to wrestle with, something one wishes Mr. Jefferson had himself pondered. For you cannot understand Jesus without his geneology. There is no church without Israel. The Old and New Testaments are, as it were, married to each other.

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Out & About. At Holy Trinity Church in Bonham, Texas, on Thursday, October 5, at 5:30 p.m., I will launch a study of my little book, A Post-Covid Catechesis. I will also join them at the end of their study, on November 30. Bonham is a gem, worth a visit—feel free to join us. (They’re on Star Street, so I suppose you just set your driving app to follow the star?)

On Sunday, October 8, I will lead the Good Books & Good Talk seminar in a discussion of Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. Anyone who reads the novel is welcome to the conversation: at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas from 5 to 6:30 p.m. And if you aren’t able to read it, you’re still welcome to come and listen.

And the next Sunday, October 15, also at 5 p.m., I will offer the fall theology lecture, at St. Matthew’s Cathedral. My topic is “Divine Distinctions.” You can come for the lecture—or for the Q&A—or for the reception (or any combination of the foregoing)!