MetaCatholic

Anglicans have very frequently adopted the tag lex orandi, lex credendi, sometimes as a way to avoid systematic theology. Sometimes, however, it’s worth paying attention to the practices implied in the tag. One of the very specific features of Cranmer’s Reformation was to anchor the reading of scripture in daily prayer. If the amount of scripture has now been reduced, and daily prayer is less visible than it used to be, it’s also become true that for most Anglicans their primary reading of scripture is actually the hearing with interpretation that takes place in public worship. Both the historical roots, and contemporary practice therefore suggest that it might be worth someone essaying a liturgical and experiential hermeneutics.

An outline sketch of such an approach might include the following starting points:

• Scripture is read in the context of conversation with God, providing both God’s side of the conversation, but also much of the language for our side of the conversation. The experience of scripture is fundamentally relational.
• Reading scripture is both speaking to God and listening to God. Much of the language it authorises us to use to God, especially in the words of the psalms, which make up the backbone of daily prayer, invites a bold relationship that is not afraid to complain, and argue, even if that is subsumed in a framework of praise. The human character of scripture is owned in human speech, even while the divine word is attended to.
• The christological character of the Old Testament, whether read prophetically, typologically or allegorically is attested to in the Eucharist by the way scripture readings climax in the gospel. But it is also attested in the way in which the canticles of Benedictus and Magnificat (in Cranmer’s Prayer Book) form the response to the Old Testament reading. These take up the language of the Old Testament and point it at the incarnation as its goal.
• The modern version of Common Worship Daily Prayer places this incarnational focus after both of the scripture readings, OT and NT. On the one hand, this directs the whole of scripture to the incarnation. On the other it allows (by giving an OT canticle at Morning Prayer) us to see much more that the Old Testament has its own integrity as a basis for speech with God, even if taken as a whole, it still directs us to Christ.
• In daily prayer and Eucharist, the course of readings is followed by a creed — the Apostles’ Creed in the daily office, the Nicene Creed at the Eucharist. This functions to emphasize that scripture is read with the Church, and in the light of the rule of faith. This has the further effect of contextualising the sermon: we affirm what the church says about scripture, before hearing what the preacher says about it. The sermon is intended to interpret scripture in the light of the church’s faith.
• Within the weekly round (at least) as intended by Cranmer, the Eucharist followed Morning Prayer uninterrupted on a Sunday, and in both ancient and modern prayer books, as in patristic theology, is the centrepiece of worship. This does two things to develop the christological focus further. First, the readings of scripture crystallize in the proclamation of the Gospel. The reading of scripture is in that sense not simply a chronological narrative, in which what is earlier is followed by what is later. The epistles / Acts / Revelation also find their direction focused towards the narratives about Jesus. Second, the climax of the whole is to be found in the sacramental encounter with Jesus, not simply in the hearing. Scripture as the sacrament of hearing God is given to enable the sacrament of meeting God to take place.