Mark Thompson: Authority in the Church - A GAFCON Theological Resource Paper

Dr. Mark Thompson wrote this theological resource paper in 2008. It is a good reminder of GAFCON's commitment to the authority of Scripture. 

At this present moment of crisis, there is hardly a more important issue for us to address than that of authority in the church. It is certainly true that God’s people need to keep returning to the question of authority. The legacy of the rebellion in the Garden of Eden ensures that even those who have tasted God’s extraordinary generosity and mercy too readily assert their own opinions and preferences as the measure of all things. We too bear the marks of the Fall in our thinking and in our behaviour and so a re-examination of what is in fact operating as the authority in our lives together is always necessary. It is also true that the second half of the twentieth century, particularly in the West, has witnessed a more general crisis of authority. However it might be explained, even those caught in the midst of it admit that authority at almost every level has been undermined. Christians would no doubt want to suggest that the social consequences of turning away from the gospel of Christ are simply becoming more and more manifest. What was once hidden under the veneer of ‘Christendom’ is now out in the open for all to see. Cut off from the living God, all claims to authority become suspect.

Yet the current Anglican struggle is not just another example of human beings insisting on the right to determine good and evil for themselves (though it is that). And it is more than simply a particular instance of a wider cultural trend, a more general debate about authority in the world at large (though this too has had its impact). Precisely because this is a struggle taking place within Christian congregations, within dioceses and within the fellowship of the Anglican Communion, the issue has a particular character. The question of authority in the church takes us to the heart of what it means to be a church and in the context of our own history, what it means to be Anglican. Put simply, to those who confess Jesus as ‘Lord’ authority is not an incidental or peripheral matter. We have to take seriously the possibility that our own thinking and practice has been compromised by selfishness and by drinking more deeply than we realised at the world’s watering holes1 . For this reason it is important to begin by returning to the distinctive character of the Christian church. Keep reading