[No_Outcome_But_Victory]

the African primates have unbalanced the longstanding Anglican three-legged stool of Bible, tradition, and reason, prizing only the Bible.

Feh! The three-legged stool thing is foolishness. We had a discussion in my men's group about it, and it seems that only liberal revisionists ever use this statement - uniformly to blugeon the Church on any traditional understanding. It is not a useful construct to explain Anglican beliefs at all.

[secret garden]

I believe Hooker had it right when he made that comparison but he said the Scriptural authority is the most important leg of the stool. The revisionists have made their form of 'reason' the most important part.

[AnAmericanMother]

Re: three legged stool.

I can go you one better. Our rector tried to change "tradition" to "community". He thought that "better expressed our intentions."

HIS intentions, he means. Not mine.

I notice from our weekly church newsletter that pledges are down (one of the ones that is down is ours - it is nonexistent after 28 years of faithful giving.) The rector tries to minimize it, saying "a few parishioners . . . " but I think they're hurting.

[ahadams2]

You wrote "The three-legged stool thing is foolishness."

Used in it's original context (a rather eclectic discussion between Anglican theologians who would today all qualify to be labelled by the heretics as 'heterosexual,exclusivist,homophobic,patriarchic,blahblahblah') it actually was a useful analogy - of course these days it is NEVER used in that context.

A better analogy for Anglican theology is to think of it as a tricycle, with Holy Scripture being the big front wheel with the pedals on it. Without that big front wheel, you're not going anywhere and the only thing that will happen if you try is that you will fall over....