Article XX

Article XX of the Articles of Religion teaches us that the Holy Catholic Church is the true and proper guardian and interpreter of Holy Scripture, the unique possessor and transmitter of Holy Writ, and that in her doctrine and practice she is bound only to teach and present as necessary to eternal salvation that which is established and proven by the authority God's Word written, the Holy Scriptures. 'The Church to teach - the Bible to prove.' The Church has authority to resolve theological and doctrinal disputes and uses the teaching of Scripture to do so: the classic example of this ministry is the convocation of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the formulation of the Creeds and Definitions of the Undivided Church. Because the Church receives her commission and authority from Christ and the Apostles, she has the ability to discern theological truth, to explicate and explain the meaning of Scripture, and to apply the Scriptural datum to particular theological controversies - all by the indefectible guidance of the Holy Ghost. The XX Article is specifically a sixteenth-century corrective to the late medieval and Tridentine Roman notion that Holy Tradition is a separate, distinct and equal source for saving doctrine independent of the teaching of Scripture. The Church cannot raise Tradition above Scripture, but locates her saving doctrine in the revelation of the written Word, which is then communicated and expressed by the Tradition. Scripture and Tradition are inseparable and used together by the Church to establish doctrine, but Tradition can never be held above Scripture or as separate source for dogma, revealed truths from God, apart from Scripture. The genius of Anglicanism is that it holds together the Catholic emphasis on the authority and custodial vocation of the Church as the unique and authoritative teacher and interpreter of the Scriptures with the reformational emphasis on the primacy of Scripture for establishing what is necessary for salvation.

Anglican clergy promise at their ordination only to teach as necessary to salvation that which is contained in and proven by Scripture. Because of Apostolic Succession of Orders and Faith, the ordained and the Church they serve have the obligation to function as faithful stewards of that Apostolic Tradition which is conveyed both in Scripture and through the living witness of the New Testament People of God. We are not sola Scriptura, because we believe in the authority and role of Tradition and the Church, but we are prima Scriptura, giving Scripture, the contextual teaching of Scripture, the priority in all theological teaching, for the Bible is the uniquely inspired and canonised Word of God. The Article also prohibits prooftexting, the isolation of one passage of Scripture from the rest for the purpose of establishing doctrine in opposition to the clear contextual meaning of Scripture as a whole. The Bible, written in the Church, by the Church, for the Church, must be taken in its totality of meaning and its revelation must be received and lived-out in the communion of the Church's worship, prayer and service. For Anglicanism, Scripture, Tradition and Church form a seamless whole, an organic unity in which each component of revelation fulfils, complements and interprets the others. The way that Anglicanism reads and lives the Scriptures is an ecclesiastical way, in the heart of the Church, in the Liturgy, Creeds, Sacraments, Ministry and patristic consensus. 'The Bible is the Church's Book'...