The Great Middle Way
The Great Middle Way
Scripture (Primary) + Tradition (Secondary) = Orthodoxy (Right Beliefs) + Orthopraxy (Right Practice)
One of the Mantras of the Protestant Reformation is “Sola Scriptura”, which means, “only scripture” is authoritative and stands as the basis for our faith. But this leads us back to one of the original points of this series, there are now over 45,000 different Protestant denominations all with different opinions around what scripture teaches. This has lead to great confusion around not only what is right, but who is right about what is right? In the immortal words of astronaut James A. Lovell Jr, “Sola Scriptura, we have a problem.”
On the other hand, one of the errors we are trying to correct, which we learned from experience from our time in the United Methodist Church, is that placing tradition, reason, and experience as equal interpreters of truth will eventually lead us badly off course from orthodox faith and practice as well.
It is important that we learn from these imbalances and find a stronger compass of orientation to not only what is right, but who is right. Scripture is right, but then that begs the question, how are we to understand scripture since there are so many different opinions? While scripture is the sole authority upon which our faith rests, we need to root our understanding of scripture within tradition in order to properly put our faith into practice. And tradition is just another way of saying history. Understanding church history is vital to remaining planted in healthy soil and producing good fruit.
Our father, John Wesley was an ordained clergyman rooted in the Anglican tradition until the day of his death. He believed it to be the best church in all of Christendom.1
He believed it the be the best church in all of Christendom.
“What is Methodism? What does this new word mean? Is it not a new religion? This is a very common, nay, almost an universal supposition. But nothing can be more remote from the truth. It is a mistake all over. Methodism, so called, is the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the primitive church, the religion of the Church of England.” (Sermon 132 - On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel)
“Anglicanism (which means “of England”) traces its roots to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 6th century (That’s around the same time we can trace the origins of what we now call “Roman Catholicism”).
There is a public perception, especially in the United States, that Henry VIII created the Anglican church in anger over the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce, but the historical record indicates that Henry spent most of his reign challenging the authority of Rome, and that the divorce issue was just one of a series of acts that collectively split the English church from the Roman church.”2
The Anglican church from then on described itself as being both Reformed and Catholic, existing as a “via media” (middle way) between Roman Catholicism and radical Protestantism.
John Wesley lived and died an Anglican clergyman. Until the American Revolution necessitated it, Wesley never considered the Methodist movement as being a separate church (or sectarian), but a reform movement that functioned within and alongside of the Church of England. Methodism is a uniquely American expression of the Episcopal Church of Jesus Christ in history.
Methodism is a uniquely American expression of the Episcopal Church of Jesus Christ in history. It is also universal or “catholic” in that Africa is overseen by African Bishops, the Philippines by Philippino Bishops, and no one is subject to any British or other singular authority. We have no “popes” or “archbishops”.
It wasn’t a reformation in theology or ecclesiology per se, it was a reform movement of piety. In other words, it wasn’t our theology or institutions that needed overhauled, as in other Protestant reformations, it was the practice and experience of our already good and right theology that needed revival.
Here was John Wesley’s charge to his preachers:
“You have nothing to do but save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those that want you, but to those that want you most. Observe: It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord.” (“Minutes of Several Conversations between the Reverend Mr. John and Charles Wesley and Others.” In Works of Wesley vol.10:854)
Since Wesley didn’t seek to change or even improve upon Anglican theology, he focused his best thinking and effort on facilitating the salvation of individual souls. This was where he perceived the Anglican church of his time to be failing.
There is a hierarchy to the church. Anglicanism and Methodism have historically considered themselves a Middle way between high church (liturgical - concerned with the proper mode and forms of worship) and low church (evangelistic - concerned with getting lost people saved by any means necessary).
Similarly John Wesley’s theology has been viewed as a middle way not just between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but between Eastern Orthodox (Greek) and Western Christianity (Latin) as well. In other words, it is the perfect mix and balance between of all of these fine traditions.
These traditions all had their origins documented as early as A.D. 96. Still in the first century, Clement of Rome tells us: "The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ, therefore, was sent by God, and the apostles by Christ." (1 Clement 42)
A century later, in a book he called The Prescription Against Heretics, Tertullian, a north African lawyer and a Christian, says the same thing a bit more powerfully:
Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, [our rule is] that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for ‘no one knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son wishes to reveal him’ [Matt. 11:27]. Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom he sent forth to preach. (ch. 21)
What is so important about this?
We have the mistaken idea today that early churches sat around gauging whether certain writings were "inspired" or not. We think they examined them carefully to make sure that they represented the doctrine of the churches.
Not at all. The only question to the early churches was whether an apostle wrote or approved them. If so, then the letter or book had apostolic authority, and it belonged in "the canon" (among the received books of the church to be read in the churches as doctrine).3
There has always been both a diversity of thought that created distinctions within the body of Christ, and also an unquestioned common set of essential beliefs shared by all true followers of the way that created a commonly held unity in spite of diversity.
“ALL CHRISTIANS agree that Scripture is the heart of the Christian tradition.
When the church began, there were no New Testament books. Old Testament texts alone were used as scripture. Thus, the church existed for roughly twenty years with no New Testament books, only the oral form of the teaching of the apostles.
Although the New Testament books we have today were written in the first century, it took time for them to be accepted as universally authoritative. Initially, only the life and sayings of Christ were considered of equal authority with the Old Testament scriptures. For instance, Hegessipus in the first half of the second century accepted only “the Law, the Prophets, and the Lord” as norms “to which a right faith must conform” The Didascalia Apostolurum which appears to have been written in the first half of the third century in Northern Syria similarly states the authoritative norms are “the sacred scriptures and the gospel of God” (which it also refers to as “the Law, the book of the Kings and of the Prophets, and the Gospel” and the “Law, Prophet, and Gospel”).
Moreover, the “Gospel” spoken of was often the Oral Gospel and not exclusively the four Gospels we have in our current Bible. The reason for this is that the authority of Christ’s words came from Christ having spoken them and not from the words appearing in a sacred text in a fixed form. Many early Christians, in fact, had a preference for oral tradition. For instance, Papias in the first half of the second century, said that he inquired of followers of the apostles what the apostles had said and what “Aristion and the presbyter John, disciples of the Lord were still saying. For I did not imagine that things out of books would help me as much as the utterances of a living and abiding voice.” However, he does mention the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew by name.
St. Irenaeus , Bishop of Lyons and a great fighter against heresy, was the last writer to use the Oral Gospel as an independent source. He initially fought heresy using only the Old Testament and the church’s Oral tradition. However, later, in response to needs arising from fighting Gnosticism and Marcionism, he came to use the books of New Testament extensively.
Thus, we see that for a considerable period of time, many Christians (particularly those in Syria and those from a Jewish background) accepted only the Gospel alongside the Old Testament as Scripture. Further, many accepted it in the form of the Oral Gospel or of both the Oral and written Gospel (where the written Gospel might contain either more or fewer books than are currently accepted).
The Pauline letters achieved acceptance in a fixed form considerably earlier; they were circulating as a body of writing “well before AD 90.”In fact, recent research makes it quite likely that, an early collection of Pauline letters should be dated in the late first century. The letters were known and circulated among both orthodox and heretics as a collection from the early second century. The collection probably contained ten Pauline letters: Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, and Philemon.
The first person to attempt to define the canon precisely was the heretic Marcion. Marcion believed that the God of the Old Testament, the Creator God, was contemptible, a very different God from the God of the New Testament. He believed the Christian Gospel was a Gospel of Love to the exclusion of Law. He rejected the Old Testament as a result. His version of the NT canon edited out any “Judaizing” content.”4
Acts 20:29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”
“Marcion of Sinope c. 85 – c. 160) was a theologian[3] in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God (Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus Christ; his doctrine is called Marcionism. Marcion published the earliest record of a canon of New Testament books.
His canon consisted of only eleven books, grouped into two sections: the Evangelikon, a shorter version of the Gospel of Luke, and the Apostolikon, a selection of ten epistles of Paul the Apostle, which were also slightly shorter than the canonical text. Early Christians such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius claimed that Marcion's editions of Luke and the Pauline epistles were intentionally edited by Marcion to match his theological views, and many modern scholars agree.
Marcion is sometimes described as a Gnostic philosopher. In some essential respects, Marcion proposed ideas which aligned well with Gnostic thought. Like the Gnostics, he believed that Jesus was essentially a divine spirit who appeared to human beings in human form, but did not actually take on a fleshly human body.
Early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian denounced Marcion as a heretic or antichrist, and he was excommunicated by the church of Rome around 144.”5
“The NT we have today reached near final form in many quarters by around 200, containing the four gospels, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles. The main books disputed after that time were: Revelations, Hebrews, Philemon, and the Catholic Epistles (I and II Peter, I and II and III John, and Jude). For instance, the Old Latin translation of the New Testament contained the present day canon other than II Peter, James, and Hebrews.
The Muratorian Canon written by a private theologian states that the New Testament canon consists of the following: the four gospels (the beginning of the document is mutilated, but it speaks of “the third book of the gospel: according to Luke,” which almost certainly implies the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark were included), Acts, the thirteen Pauline epistles, two letters of John (probably I and II John), Jude, and Revelation-as well as the Revelation of Peter (“which some of our people will not have to be read in the church,” but which “may be read”) and the Wisdom of Solomon. However, it rejected the Shepherd for public reading in church because it was “written by Hermas in the city of Rome quite recently, in our own times, when his brother Pius occupied the bishop’s chair in the city of Rome.” (Pius was bishop of Rome during part of the reign of Antoninus Pius whose reign ran from 138-161.) It was, however, considered good private reading. The reasoning is that the work was post-apostolic and hence that it could not possibly be canonical.
Origen (185-253), the most influential Biblical commentator of the first three centuries of Christianity, categorized books into three categories: those acknowledged by all the churches, the disputed books which some churches accepted, and the spurious books. The acknowledged books were the four gospels, Acts, the thirteen Pauline epistle, I Peter, I John, and Revelation. The disputed books were II Peter, II John, III John, James, and Jude. He may have considered Barnabas, Didache, and the Shepherd canonical as well-he used the word “scripture” for them.”6
What we are to take from this is that from very early on in the church there was broad agreement about what did and did not constitute apostolic teaching. To even make a distinction between what might be otherwise good and useful teaching from that which is “authoritative”. When challenged by deviant thinking and ideas such as that presented from within the church by men like Marcion, it became necessary to codify into official lists which writings originated with the apostles teaching and to exclude those that didn’t. That is what we now call a “canon” of scripture. It was the bishops job, according the New Testament itself, to both guard and promote this version of the faith as it was received from Jesus Christ himself:
Acts 20:27 “for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopos = bishops), to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”
As Methodists who hold to the “middle way”, we are in unity with the Protestant, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Various Orthodox churches both of today, but perhaps even more importantly, of history. We proclaim unity with these major branches of the faith without destroying or denying the distinctive place we have been given by God’s sovereign grace and appointment in history. By utilizing the best thinking from all of these traditions we are seeking to reconstruct what Wesley called “primitive Christianity” or the New Testament Church. Again, in partnership with the broader body of Christ, we are engaged in a process of restoration, not innovation.
Finally, while scripture stands alone as uniquely authoritative, is to be understood in the context of secondarily authoritative criteria rooted in ancient church tradition:
The Doctrines and Disciplines of the Global Methodist Church
The following summaries of the apostolic witness disclosed in Scripture have been affirmed by many Christian communities, and express orthodox Christian teaching.
The Nicene Creed (AD 381)
The Definition of Chalcedon (AD 451)
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1710&context=asburyjournal
http://anglican.org/church/ChurchHistory.html
https://www.christian-history.org/Early_Church_History_Newsletter-authority-of-the-apostles.html
https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2017/05/the-history-of-new-testament-canon-fro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope
https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2017/05/the-history-of-new-testament-canon-fro