[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

From my experience with Protestants, most do not hold to reading Scriptures through the lenses of Tradition, but their own private interpretation. I suppose the tension at Wheaton between the professor converting and the other Christians would have been too much on such issues.

Interesting comment. It illustrates the fault lines within Evangelicalism and between Evangelical Protestantism and confessional Protestants (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians). Private interpretation is characteristic of low-church/free-church Evangelicals but not of confessional Protestants--an endangered species today. Confessional Protestants read Scripture through the lens of the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, the Synod of Dort etc. There aren't too many real confessional Protestants left but it still colors their denominations when compared to Baptists (some Baptists are pretty confessional--Free Will Baptists, for instance, or the Northern Baptists used to be) and Bible Churchers and Pentecostals.

To be a Lutheran used to be to be committed to your synod's interpretation of the Augsburg Confession's interpretation of Scripture over against the 39 Articles' interpretation of Scripture or the Helvetic Confession's interpretation of Scripture. Among Lutherans there were disagreements over how to interpret the AC, so you got splinter groups but they all at least would have said they identifed with the AC and not the WC. Much of that's gone now, but still, the "higher-church" end of the spectrum, delivers some of Wheaton's students and faculty and backers, so they can't simply write a Bible Church private interpretation doctrinal statement that excludes the great Protestant Confessions as "human inventions falsely glossing Scripture" but neither can they specify one or several of the great Protestant Confessions because that would exclude the Plymouth Brethren and Independent Baptists. So the statement is silent.

But "private interpretation" is a sliding scale. Compared to the Catholic magisterium, the AC or WC is a form of "private interpretation" but compared to Pastor Billy Bob's Magisterium down at Bible Thumpers Glory Barn, the AC or WC is anything but private interpretation.

[jo kus]

Interesting comment. It illustrates the fault lines within Evangelicalism and between Evangelical Protestantism and confessional Protestants (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians). Private interpretation is characteristic of low-church/free-church Evangelicals but not of confessional Protestants--an endangered species today. Confessional Protestants read Scripture through the lens of the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, the Synod of Dort etc.

You are correct. Initially, private interpretation was the true Protestant battle cry on the subject. But many of the classic Protestant reformers began to see that private interpretation just wouldn't work. Thus, they substitued the Church's authority with their own - hence, the denominational creeds. Today, some maintain this substitution of authority, while others continue to maintain the "true" Protestant doctrine of private interpretation (which invariably doesn't work - hence the need for "renewal"). Thus, you correctly states that Protestants can be thus divided. What is interesting is on what basis Scripturally do either class of Protestants base this idea of abrogating Church authority on the issue?

Regards