Gaping Gaps? Implications of the ‘Bible in the Life of the Church’ Project for Bridging the Anglican Hermeneutic Divide

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the ‘hermeneutical gaps’ identified in a recent and ongoing investigation across the Anglican Communion into the way the Bible is read within worldwide Anglicanism. This investigation is of contemporary importance to the Anglican Communion as the Project's findings were recently presented to the 15th Anglican Consultative Council in October 2012. The ‘hermeneutical gaps’ which have been identified shed important insights into the strained fellowship which currently seems characteristic of the Communion. The approach of this paper is to evaluate whether these ‘gaps’ are symptomatic of an inevitable fracturing within the Communion or whether points of apparent disconnect in the use of the Bible are able to be bridged, held together or reconciled for the benefit of Anglicanism's common life.