For 45 years, as an Episcopal priest, I have worked alongside clergy of almost every mainline Protestant denomination. I have worked extensively with Roman Catholic priests, Trappist monks, and Benedictine nuns. It has long been apparent to me that within each of these branches of the Christian Church and across the spectrum of Christianity, one person’s perception of the traditions and tenets of the Faith is very likely to be regarded by the next person as the definition of a tradition that either never was or certainly doesn’t exist today.

The plain fact is that there is no Oxford Dictionary, no authoritative source anywhere, no person, book, council, or community to which we can turn for normative definition of the tenets and traditions of Christianity. No one should take for granted that she is questioning Christian tradition because the definition of tradition lacks clear, stable, and firm definition. I have a friend who always said, “I will only say the first line of the Nicene Creed [I believe in one God]. The rest seems subject to change.” We all know people who when talking about their faith [this happened to me in the dentist’s chair this morning] say, “Well, I am an Episcopalian, BUT I believe …..” Robert Wuthnow describes this as the way many of us must patch together the quilt of our faith, choosing the patches we believe fit well together.

Some of us are excited and energized by the freedom of this situation. We each must be our own theologian – what Peter Berger calls the “heretical imperative.” Others strongly believe that they have found a community of faith that offers an authoritative revelation and definitive presentation of the Christian Faith. For those who are Protestants such a community will almost certainly find its definitive authority in the Bible. For those who are Roman Catholic, such a community will locate its defining authority in the Pope and the magisterium of the Church. For the rest of us – whatever label we use – the possibility of such definition is clearly and simply implausible.

The present conflict in the Episcopal Church and in worldwide Anglicanism is, in part, a split between these two perspectives – between those who are committed to an authoritative definition of the tradition and those who accept that there is no infallible source of truth in matters of religion.