Letter to the editor: Doctrine develops

Notes: "Is orthodoxy simply a matter of saying the same thing that we said before ? That was not the case for the bishops at Nicaea. The Nicene Creed uses a new (non-Biblical !) word to speak of the relation between the Father and the Son, because the Bible is not an adequate resource to solve the problem. It does not quite say what the church wants to say. Doctrine develops. Always has. Always will. On this, the 'St. Michael's Report' is correct. The Christian faith is not 'unchanging', as Archbishop Gregory Venables would have it. The church must make judgments about the Scriptures, in spite of Essentials' protestations to the contrary (see the 'Montreal Declaration' of Essentials). The mind of the church matters and it develops, as circumstances change and our understanding deepens. Our task is to be faithful to the Holy Spirit's leading, rather than assuming that what our parents have said is, by definition, the final word". [Text of entire article.]

Subjects: Essentials Movement; Theology; Anglican Church of Canada - Doctrines; Bible - Criticism, interpretation, etc. - Anglican Church of Canada; Bible - Evidences, authority, etc. - Anglican Church of Canada; Venables, Gregory (Gregory James), 1949-; Holy Spirit