The reason that obedience to Christ must be elevated above (but not severed from) obedience to the Scriptures stems from the work of a Spirit who ever leads us into truth, and a church whose understanding of God’s will is reformata, semper reformanda. The Confession of 1967 is emphatic that while the Holy Scriptures are the unique and authoritative witness to the Spirit’s revelation of God in Jesus Christ, at the same time the Scriptures are a “conditioned” agency reflecting many “views of life, history, and the cosmos” of the time of their writing and thus call for literary and historical understanding. This continuing hermeneutical process is not confined to the resources of “personal experience” or “one’s own reasoned opinion,” but ensues from a faith community prayerfully studying the Scriptures in mutual conversation over time, seeking the Spirit’s guidance, and open to insight from the social and physical sciences. We can all think of obvious instances in which the church’s conviction of what obedience to Scripture requires has been transformed by what we trust is the work of the Spirit in the life of the faith community, shifting our understanding of what had been previously assumed to be “clear and definite teaching of the Scriptures.” I believe the Amendment B rationale has this hierarchy of authority exactly right.

Floyd W. Churn, H.R.

Annapolis, Md.