Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Thomas C. Oden (PhD, Yale University), is the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and the Ancient Christian Doctrine series as well as the author of Classic Christianity, a revision of his three-volume systematic theology. He is the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and he formerly served as the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at The Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

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Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition

Abingdon Press

Chapter One

A doctrinal standard attempts to formulate for a believing community a reliable, durable, normative expression of Christian teaching. The final standard of Christian teaching is Scripture. Additional standards of doctrine seek to assist the Christian community in gaining clarity concerning the accountability of the believing community to Scripture. No valid Christian doctrinal standard is separable from Scripture.

Those who seek to be accountable to Scripture are obliged to develop a method of interpretation appropriate to the mystery of revelation attested in Scripture. In listening carefully to the divine address in Scripture, the serious reader makes interconnected judgments about what unifies the varied statements of Scripture and what enables Scripture to be a cohesive witness to God's saving action in human history. Serious traditions of Scripture interpretation have sought to develop some unified norm of teaching, a cohesive assessment of the central truth of Scripture, without which Scripture would lose its centeredness, internal consistency, and intrinsic unity. This view does not seek to identify a canon within the canon (for that implies arbitrary selectivity), but rather it recognizes the cohesive center of the canon (which implies integrity and internal congruence in the canon). "The Bible is the rule of faith (regula fidei); the confession, the rule of doctrine (regula doctrinae)."

Doctrinal standards seek to assist the worshipping community in developing this accountability to Scripture in six complementary ways in the Wesleyan tradition: (1) The standards serve as an authoritative guide to one seeking the essential and central truth of Scripture. (2) They serve as a dependable standard to which appeal can be made in matters of controversy. (3) They serve as a trustworthy source by which the truth is attested and received (cf. Burwash, WDS, viii). (4) Doctrinal standards serve to regulate the teaching office of the church, for essential Christian teachings ought to be clearly understood by those whose ordination distinctly calls them to such instruction.

Doctrinal standards also serve in two additional ways related to their legal and sociological function: (5) They unite a diverse church body in a common doctrinal purpose. And (6) they defend against abuses (such as the misuse of church property, a major motive for the Restrictive Rule to be written) by those who would demean or degrade these teachings.

These six functions appear in the confessional statements and church teachings of most Christian traditions. All six play a crucial role in Wesleyan doctrinal standards.

The earliest summaries of Christian teaching, and hence the earliest summaries of the teaching of the Scriptures, are found in three complementary types of sources: (a) the apostolic preaching of the New Testament, (b) commentaries on biblical teaching, and (c) the ancient baptismal formulae, which later formed the basis for instruction of catechumens. These three basic forms of instruction have been passed on to the Wesleyan tradition so as to become integral to Wesleyan doctrinal standards in Wesley's Sermons, Notes, and Articles (along with the later added E.U.B. Confession)—one is homiletic, one exegetical, and the third confessional in approach and method. These three forms correspond to major divisions of the theological curriculum in our seminaries: homiletical, exegetical, and systematic theology.

Is There a Distinctive Wesleyan Form of "Doctrinal Standard"?

Did Wesley create a new type of "doctrinal standard" or did he revise available older types? It is useful to review briefly these three types of standards-both in their origin and development—in order to understand how Wesley received and adapted them.

Apostolic Preaching

The earliest form of doctrinal standard was the apostolic preaching itself, such as that of Peter and Paul in Acts, Paul in Romans, and Paul's recollection in 1 Corinthians 15 of the tradition of preaching that had been passed on to him. This form of preaching was passed on to Timothy, who was urged to preach according to "the pattern of sound teaching" (2 Tim 1:13), to urge others "not to teach false doctrines" (1 Tim 1:3), and to preach as one "brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed" (4:6). It is this apostolic standard and type of preaching that Wesley sought to recover when he set forth his Sermons on Several Occasions as doctrinal standards for Methodist preachers. Through the Minutes of the early conferences, they became embedded in the Constitution of the United Methodist Church and all Wesley-based churches.

In utilizing sermons as teaching models, Wesley was following a familiar Anglican pattern. The Church of England had developed a form of doctrinal standard relatively unfamiliar within the sixteenth-century Lutheran and Reformed traditions. For Anglicans, church-appointed homilies were designed to be read and used as a model doctrinal standard for preaching. Wesley stood in this tradition when he designated certain sermons as "the substance of what I have been preaching" (SSO, preface). Wesley gave his followers "not merely the outlines of a system of truth to be subscribed and believed, but the method and substance of doctrine in the form of sermons delivered from the pulpit" (Harrison, WS, 7). The forms of error addressed in these sermons have been perennial, not limited to a particular age. In what context were they to be tested? "That which was to be tested by them was the pulpit in every Methodist Church. This was to be the type of preaching for which these houses were created" (Sugden, WSS, xviii). The building was created for the preaching, and the standard of preaching was set forth in the Standard Sermons.

Early Commentaries

The apostolic preaching was soon followed by commentaries on Scripture. Origen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome wrote extensive annotations, interpretations, and expositions of Scripture texts. Wesley continued this tradition in his Notes, as a model for the Methodist people of the use of the best available linguistic, textual, and critical resources for the translation and interpretation of Scripture. By introducing the Notes along with the Sermons into every Trust Deed in the Methodist connection, Wesley also sought to assure, "so far as human means can do so, an Arminian evangelical preaching and exposition of God's Word" (Sugden, WSS, xviii).

Conciliar Formulae

During the classical period of ancient ecumenical orthodoxy, carefully constructed formula statements by Ecumenical Councils summarized Christian teaching and erected a defense against its distortions. This third pattern—quite different in form from either preaching or exegesis—was continued in the Reformation, wherein articles of faith were articulated and agreed upon by a confessional community as the basis for their confession of faith. These articles were then used as the basis for catechisms of...