If the title of the post doesn't exactly grab you, stick with me people ;-D
I've been involved in a discussion over at the excellent Thinking Anglicans on the above topic. The question at the heart of the matter is really to do with what is the authentic heart of Anglicanism. One commentator seems to regard it as biblical scholarship (by which he seems to mean the historical-critical method), others as the via media of Hooker, whose doctrine of the licence of the church to legislate over indifferent matters is taken to be the true Anglican attitude to the authority of Scripture. Several seem to agree that to actually believe that the Bible is authoritative for Christians is literalistic neo-Puritan fundamentalism. I fail to see how substituting the authority of Richard Hooker for Scripture helps, personally. It just creates a fundamentalism of a different kind.
More to the point, Hooker (or rather, their misreading of him) is not the definitive Anglican view of Biblical authority. This is set forth in the Prayer Book and Articles, which draw a pellucid distinction between the authority of Scripture as divine revelation in all things pertaining to salvation (and why on earth should we suppose that matters of morality are not included in this?) and the relative authority of human tradition and reason which must be wholly subordinate to God's self-disclosure in and through the Bible. The old canard that Anglicanism is founded on the three-legged stool of Scripture, tradition and reason is alive and kicking - but wholly erroneous. Historically Anglicanism is founded on the authority of Scripture alone. This is not to say that tradition and reason are unimportant, but we're just kidding ourselves if we think they're equal.
Which brings us back to Richard Hooker, who cannot be read as a twenty-first century liberal without some serious mental gymnastics. Hooker accorded Scripture final authority in all matters of moral conduct. His subtle and nuanced doctrine of the things indifferent is not a blanket approbation of the authority of the church to make its mind up as it likes on moral issues but rather for the freedom of the church on those limited matters where Scripture is descriptive rather than prescriptive and does not therefore make a definitive pronouncement to which the church must adhere. So episcopacy is not necessary and perpetual but merely one legitimate form of church government. On the other hand, certain moral standards of behaviour are non-negotiable. It is only when Scripture is silent that the church has licence to make up its own mind.
It's somewhat ironic that Hooker has become an icon for the idea of the church moving with the times given that he was in fact the arch-proponent of the ecclesiastical status quo. Could this be because those claiming his authority haven't bothered to read what he actually wrote?
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