“I Do Believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to Be the Word of God”: Holy Scripture, John Webster, and the Prayer Book Tradition

This essay explores the theology of Holy Scripture in the current and historic liturgies of the Episcopal Church and argues that the tradition of our prayer books is largely in line with John Webster’s proposed “dogmatic ontology of Holy Scripture.” The Episcopal Church’s liturgies describe and use Scripture in a way which suggests a theological account of Scripture’s nature and purpose, as well as the proper attitude of Christians in their encounters with Scripture. Such a liturgical theology suggests that Holy Scripture exists in the divine economy as the means for God’s saving self-revelation, through which God exercises soteriological authority and confronts the church ab extra, and toward which Christians should adopt a trusting attitude of teachableness.