had no need for authority!

An interesting quote from "Anti-Intellectualism In American Life"
R. Hofstadter. Speaking of Chas. Finney, one of evangelicalism's
heroes, on being urged to go to "19th" Century!! Princeton Seminary.
"An admitted novice in theology, he still refused to accept instruc-
tion when it did not correspond with his own views. 'I had read
nothing on the subject except my Bible...' 'I found myself utterly
unable to accept doctrine on the ground of authority....I had no
where to go but directly to the Bible, and to the philosophy or
workings of my own mind....'" He, not the Bible, then, became his
own "authority"- his own pope! On one level, someone who sees the
implications of such an attitude, is horrified. As Pelikan says: you
have no right to hard earned doctrines, such as the Trinity, that
others gave their lives to develope and defend if you don't give them
credit as your teachers!! THEY are PART of our Christian TRADITION.
Shame on us if we pretend we, reading our Bibles-ALONE, figured all
this out by ourselves! If it weren't from "not knowing" it would be
incredible disregard for Christ's blessed ones who preceded us. On the
other hand one realizes that's exactly what it means to be a Protestant.
It's sheer subjectivism, absolute individualism. It's just "ME" ALONE
with my Bible- recreating history and the church in my image. The tragedy
is, it's all they know. Is the option either Protestantism or Rome? Or
another sect? Protestantism, as Finney showed, is anti-church, anti-
community. I've come to realize Protestants have developed an inbuilt,
unconscious bias against all other Christians. As William James said,
they are innately "anti-social". Did Finney write the Bible? or did the
church? Did Finney decide what books should be in the Bible? or did the
church? When S.Paul says,"we have the mind of Christ", is the "we" Finney
or the church? When your foundation is individualistic anarchy you can
only build chaos. And that's what we have. I know people who think that's
exactly what God wants. As Finney shows, even the very intelligent can be
totally obtuse about some things. As Finney demonstrates, the "Bible" alone
means YOU alone. It's a principle fallen humanity resonates to! It sounds so
pious that Satan, in particular, loves it. I assumed there was no alternative.
For me, Rome wasn't an option. And I thought Orthodoxy was just "Rome"
without a pope. However, in serious research I discovered it was neither
Protestant nor Roman. It hit me like a ton of bricks: could this be, the
unchanged church of the Apostles? It was certainly "different" from any church
I knew! But was that MY problem? After years of thinking one way- it was a
mind-wrenching idea. If so, it resolved a lot of my questions. I had become
totally disillusioned with Protestant anarchy. As a pastor I had lost faith
in "Sola mio"- me 'alone'- with MY Bible! Could Christ really have kept the
ESSENCE of his church intact, somewhere? But look at it this way, it wouldn't
be the first miracle he performed! And you'll never get it till you care enough.