The Faith Once for All Delivered: Liturgical Theology, Scripture, and the Evangelical Free Church Tradition

Abstract

This article proposes to explain how the evangelical Free Church commitment to scripture as its primary authority affects their interaction with liturgical theology. Free Church theology is underpinned by various hermeneutical, theological, and cultural commitments—none more central than its commitment to scripture as revelation of and from God—which complicates Free Church engagement with much recent liturgical scholarship that emphasizes the ecclesiological basis for Christian worship and the corollary authority of Christian tradition. In the first part of the article, I provide an exploration of theological authority within Free Church evangelicalism, arguing that their commitment to scripture’s authority is a commitment to the ecclesial tradition of the apostolic church. In the second part of the article, I explore two additional hermeneutical considerations for evangelical liturgical theology that follow from their commitment to scripture: the priority of biblical exegesis in the theological process and the application of a trusting hermeneutic in their reading of scripture.