Today, as this series on the question of authority within Christianity starts to draw nearer to its end, we turn to away from official sources of authority to the concept’s ‘bad boys’, things that people have been reluctant to consider reliable enough to consider authoritative, but which we all end up trusting to some extent … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Reason
Today’s post is the final one in this ‘subseries’ on Tradition within the larger series about authority in Christian life, thought, and faith. And it’s going to be a bit of a bridge between de iure forms of authority — that is, what the rules say ‘should be’ authoritative — de facto sources of authority … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Liturgy
We’re now about half way through this subsection of the series on authority in Christianity that focuses on what we might call ‘Tradition’. So far we’ve looked at official regulatory documents like creeds and canons and the more informal authority of important voices from the past. Today I’m going to look at a more immediate … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Church Hierarchy
This post in the series on the nature of authority in Christianity turns its attention on the Church Fathers and other theological heroes.
Ever since the Reformation, the question of authority in the Church has often been reduced to a fight between Scripture and Tradition. But this is not an obvious battle — Indeed, proponents of Tradition affirm Scripture very strongly, but as something that exists within Tradition, not apart from it. But even if we accept this … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: The Authority of Creed and Canon
Matthew Root 