A sick paradigm has made its way into everyday Episcopal thinking. It comes pretending to be an ancient truth, but it's only a modern idea. It threatens some pillars of our Anglican and Episcopal identity. Maybe it even means to do so. I am referring to the spurious analogy of the "three-legged stool."

Like a million other teenagers, I first encountered the three-legged stool in confirmation class. I learned that the legs stand for the three sources of authority: scripture, reason and tradition. As it was taught, each is equally important and necessary to counterbalance the other two. Innumerable times since then I have heard Sunday school teachers, priests and even seminary professors dish this out as standard Episcopal fare.

At first glance, there is much to like about this teaching. The three legs appear to constitute a steady stool on which to rest our faith as Episcopalians. But I have discovered it is unfaithful to our heritage.

Richard Hooker (1554-1600), recognized as perhaps our greatest theologian, is routinely credited with this teaching, but he never used the analogy of the stool. In his famous work, Ecclesiastical Polity, he did call the relation of scripture, tradition and reason a "threefold cord not quickly broken," but he never referred to the three as equal sources of authority. In fact, Hooker stood firmly with his predecessors, the English reformers, all upholding the Bible as the primary source of authority.

There is no doubt Hooker raised the value of reason and tradition, and that these help to define the unique "Episcopal way" for framing theology. It's even fair to say that reason and tradition keep our interpretation of scripture guided and on track. Nevertheless, Hooker never suggested that they were anything other than subordinate to scripture. For Hooker, reason makes it possible to receive revelation, the word of God. And tradition was understood as the church's interpretation of scripture over time. It should be evident that our understanding of reason and tradition is vastly different from Hooker's. To quote Hooker in context is to give scripture unrivaled priority.

The stool myth has its origins in the 19th century. John Keble in 1836 wrote an introduction to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity in which he spoke of "tradition" as a separate authority alongside scripture. Keble and others involved in what came to be called the Oxford Movement predate the formal idea of three separate sources of authority but they opened the door for its future development. They took a step in the direction of shaking loose the long-held understanding that tradition is under scripture and judged by it.

Nearing the turn of the century, Charles Gore edited a famous collection of essays which is credited (or blamed) for Anglican endorsement of the new learning of their day, the historical critical view of the Bible (Lux Mundi, 1889). The steamroller of the Enlightenment's confidence in human reason would not be stopped! Although the merits of the Oxford Movement and modern biblical criticism will be debated until the cows come home, one unfortunate side effect was what happened to our understanding of authority. Granted, many secondary matters fall within the area of what is affectionately known as "Episcopal ambiguity," but this doesn't include the defining principles of our faith. The preface of our prayer book makes this important distinction between doctrine and discipline, doctrine being the essentials of the gospel that are true for all peoples at all times, "the faith once and for all delivered" (Jude 3). The 19th-century movements indicate the beginning of the erosion of the doctrine of the primacy of scripture. And the three-legged stool was as good as ordered.

The three-legged stool represents a dangerous departure from historic Episcopalianism. It's a 20th-century idea, and a bad one.

Who could question that the closest thing we Episcopalians have to a confession, the 16th-century "Articles of Religion," thoroughly uphold the primacy of the Bible? Read, for examples, Articles 6,7,8 and 20. Article 34 plainly says that church traditions must bow to the authority of the Bible (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 867-876).

Likewise, there is not a trace of the three-legged stool in the prayer book. Rather, the Bible is consistently affirmed as primary. For example, the collect for Proper 28 affirms the divine authorship of the Bible (p. 236). And when the catechism asks how someone determines if a teaching comes from God, we respond: "We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures" (p. 853).

When tradition and reason (and "experience," for that matter) are elevated to be "complementary" to scripture, they, in fact, become competing standards. It's obviously that a Bible story cannot be equally "reasonable" and "miraculous." The definition of "miracle" involves something outside the grasp of human reason. When "reason" is raised to become an equal authority, the old test for truth (Is it scriptural?) is replaced by the new test: Is it reasonable?

Obviously, large portions of the Bible (miracles, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, etc.) will be dismissed for failing the new test. Reason just can't get its mind around someone walking on water! We've seen many, including bishops, walk away from the creedal faith on these grounds.

A variant of this is the teaching that Jesus Christ, not the Bible, is our final authority. This is certainly true as far as it goes, but this is often used as a theological slight of hand to justify moral behaviors the Bible clearly denounces. Yes, Jesus is our final authority, but he never judges scripture. He obeys and fulfills it.

"Tradition," as important as it is to Episcopalians, is another undeserving candidate to stand on equal footing with scripture. If a pope (or any bishop) speaks for God, extra-biblical and unbiblical teachings can assume the status of doctrine. In 1950, for example, the Roman Catholic Church declared the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary even though this lacks any scriptural basis.

It may sound pretty distant, but it is conceivable that the church, in the name of "developing tradition," could require this for admittance to holy communion. She did this once. Or she could require agreement with the practice of blessing same-sex couples before someone can gain access to the ordination processes. It's not too far-fetched. A not altogether dissimilar action happened at the last General Convention when bishops and dioceses were forced to accept ordination of women (a strange juxtaposition for an era of tolerance and diversity).

With the Episcopal Church more fractured than ever, this is no time to hide behind unhelpful paradigms. The hope for healing the church is in rediscovering our biblical foundation. The Bible remains today what it has been to Christians throughout the centuries, "God telling us things in order to make friends with us" (J.I. Packer's phrase). It is clearly a human document with human personality. But no less it is the inspired word of God. As we humbly acknowledge the authority of God's word and seek to bend our lives to fit its message, he will show us his plan and lead us to the Savior. There is no hope for the sick paradigm of the three-legged stool, and no use hanging on to it. o

The Rev. Chuck Collins is rector of St. Mark's-on-the-Mesa Church, Albuquerque, N.M., and canon theologian in the Diocese of the Rio Grande.