The Nature of Doctrine: A Comment on GS Misc 1429

The Nature of Doctrine: A Comment on GS Misc 1429

by Adrian Thatcher

There is widespread disappointment, even amazement, that the bishops of the Church of England have decided to delay permission to use the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) in public worship. The decision was based on the publication of three papers, written for the House of Bishops by the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC).^[1] Thankfully the theological quality of these papers, or rather the lack of it, has already been exposed. Liberal progressive Christians will want to consult these responses.^[2] There is still a lot more to say, however, and in this blog I offer some further reflections on how Jesus gets forgotten and the Bible over-promoted in GS 1429 with an inevitably unsatisfactory result. In a separate blog I reflect on GS Misc 1430 (‘The Doctrine of Marriage’).

GS Misc 1429 is largely a detached summary of what some eminent theologians have said about what doctrine is, and how understanding of it may acceptably change. (One of them, also a member of the Faith and Order Commission, has disassociated himself from their use of his work and their conclusions.)[3] Plucked from their list of authors is a detail from the work of the theologian and scientist Alister McGrath.

McGrath often used an analogy between the development of scientific theories and the development of Christian doctrines. Since this analogy comes to play a crucial role in the FAOC’s paper, it is worth quoting in full. McGrath, they summarise,

draws a comparison between the selection of relevant biblical texts in theology to the role of defining relevant evidence in the formation of scientific theories: establishing the content and boundaries of any doctrine is a direct and inextricably linked byproduct of decisions about what constitutes the relevant set of evidence. It follows from this point that when scientists or theologians disagree over what evidence constitutes the relevant evidence base from which one needs to formulate an explanatory model they will, as a matter of course, produce dissimilar, perhaps even incompatible, views on what comprises a viable explanatory model. When applied to doctrinal formulation, McGrath’s comparison highlights that the formulation of any doctrine not only includes the interpretation of the relevant Scriptures, but the prior selection of the relevant Scriptures to foreground (115, emphases original, and see 21-2, 169).[4]

This analogy becomes the framework – the authors’ own ‘explanatory model’ – for explaining the new flare-up over the PLF. It’s all about selection. If you thought biblical interpretation was a matter of primary interest, forget it. Now it’s all about what bits of the Bible should be selected before interpretation can even begin. It is now ‘a matter of course’ that when either theologians or scientists disagree with each other about what constitutes the ‘evidence base’, they will ‘produce dissimilar, perhaps even incompatible, views…’ Different sides make different selections from scripture, so they will come to different conclusions.

The model, the authors continue, has ‘an indelible impact’[5]. It is ‘crucial’, they say, ‘to reiterate that the present disagreement about the content and use of the PLF is not over whether or not Holy Scripture plays the determinative role in doctrinal formulation expounded above, but how it does so’ (168, and see 169). In relation to the PLF, the authors insist the disagreement is about ‘which Scriptural texts and themes should be foregrounded in discerning the limits of doctrine with respect to marriage’ (173). The result? Stale mate. The consequence? Do nothing.

The Christian life is about following Jesus Christ, not about following the Bible. That is the real difference, ignored in this sad paper. Article VI of the 39 Articles of the Church of England states ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation’. But it is Christ who brings salvation, not holy scripture. Scripture tells us to look to Christ, something this paper does not do. In words attributed to Jesus the scriptures ‘testify on my behalf’ (John 5.39). They are a ‘testimony’, a witness to the Word, as different from the Word made flesh as a witness to a crime is different from a crime. The gospels in particular show us Jesus Christ (that is why in worship many Christians stand when they are read. We don’t stand for the rest of the New Testament or for the Hebrew Bible). John 1 should be enough to convince Christians that the self-communication of God is firstly personal rather than propositional, a human being, the Word made flesh, not a book (from which appropriate selections can be made and argued about before they are interpreted) . When Christians read the Bible they discover the Word of God is not the Bible, but Jesus.

The NT writers regarded the Hebrew Bible not merely as an anticipation of the Messiah, but problematic as well, just as it is today. Both Paul and John had to deal with inadequate scriptural interpretation, and there is much we can learn from them in resisting the bibliolatry that has become almost standard among us. Paul tells the Galatians ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2.20). Later in his letter he says ‘Live by the Spirit’ (Gal. 5.16). It is clear why he says this.

The churches there had come to accept a version of the faith that Paul thought was ruinous. It required being obedient to scripture instead of to Christ. It required observing the law of Moses (including of course male circumcision) instead of allowing Christ and the Spirit to live through them. But that is what neoconservatism and its missionaries and bishops are requiring now. They are making a new law out of obedience to (selected) texts from the Bible. If Paul’s opponents in Galatia had won their argument with Paul, Christians today would still be keeping the law of Moses (Inge 2025).^[6] Claiming Galatians 2.20 (rightly enough) as a warrant for proclaiming individual salvation, they forget Paul teaches they are to be open to Christ and the Spirit to save them from obeying scripture (which he also calls ‘the law’). Neoconservative and near fundamentalist theologies make scripture the new law. But there is no new law, and no need for one. There is instead ‘a new covenant in my blood’.

There is a similar determination in John’s gospel to undermine the cloying attachment to scripture. It is tricky to speak about this without acknowledging John’s overt anti-Jewish sentiments. There is an extraordinary intimacy between Jesus and his followers in John’s eucharistic theology. His body is eaten. His blood is drunk. The bread of life is ever nourishing, while the manna in the wilderness belongs to long ago. The intimacy has such power and directness that it does not need to be mediated by anything else, especially by scripture and the sacrificial practices it enjoins. John says Jesus says, ‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf’ (Jn. 5.39). It is a rebuke that might equally be made today of the ministers and evangelists whose faith in a text, even a sacred one, amounts to hubris, results in multiple oppressions, and undermines how radical and far-reaching divine love really is.

Beginning with Jesus crucially affects our method both of doing theology and our reading of the Bible. Beginning here makes us prioritize infinite mercy, divine compassion, and justice for the oppressed. Beginning with Jesus leads to different, life-affirming endings.

The final paragraph of the Paper warns

Careful discernment about which parts and themes of Scripture are most pertinent to the issue being addressed and which reading of those texts best expresses the mind of Christ in the Church is required, so that the Church remains faithful to what it has received and while it proclaims the faith afresh in each generation (174).

But this is entirely the wrong way round. It puts scripture first, Jesus second. Scripture witnesses to Christ, not Christ to scripture. The mind of Christ is not confined to scripture, still less to indeterminate arguments about judicious selection and interpretation of texts. Look for the mind of Christ in the Church? That might be a fruitless search too. Putting Christ first requires finding him where he says he is – ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me’ (Matt. 25.35-6). Wherever love is, God is.

The paper makes Christians into the kind of scribes that irritated Jesus so much. The church deserves better.

Adrian Thatcher is an Anglican, Editor of Modern Believing, Trustee of Modern Church, and Honorary Professor of Theology at the University of Exeter.

Notes

[1] GS Misc 1429, ‘The Nature of Doctrine and the Living God’; GS Misc 1430, ‘The Doctrine of Marriage and the Prayers of Love and Faith: Texts and Contexts’; GS Misc 1431, ‘The Exercise of Discipline and Exemplarity in the Church of England: The Case of Same-Sex Civil Marriages’.

[2] Professor Mike Higton responding to 1429 –https://viamedia.news/2025/11/17/cries-of-suffering-a-response-to-the-nature-of-doctrine-and-the-living-god/

Professor Andrew Davison also responding to the paper on doctrinal development – https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/14-november/comment/analysis/analysis-beware-of-doctrinal-development

Professor Nicholas Adams giving a general reflection as a member of FAOC – https://substack.com/home/post/p-179105864

A response to each paper by Fr Thomas Sharp on Via Media (https://viamedia.news/category/doctrine/)

[3] Mike Higton, see note 2 above.

[4] Para. 155.

[5] Para. 167

[6] Inge, John (2025), ‘In Christ’, in Theo Hobson and John Inge (ed.s), Created for Love: Towards a New Teaching on Sex and Marriage. London: Canterbury Press, 37-45.