The Christian Church can be understood to draw its common understanding of the faith from three sources: scripture, tradition and those strands of contemporary teaching that are recognised as authoritative. The various branches of the Church give different weightings to these three elements; indeed, it is often this that serves most effectively to divide them. Nevertheless, whatever balance is arrived at has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. Where tradition is given a prominent place, one of those weaknesses can be a tendency to become hidebound, slow to respond appropriately to contemporary developments within society. So any Church needs its prophets, those who are prepared, even at some cost to themselves, to ‘think outside the box’. Each of the contributors to this issue of The Way illustrates something of such thinking. It is noticeable that none of the writers is strident or dogmatic: they are principally concerned to bear witness to different ways of understanding. Yet there are presented here approaches to sexuality, urban living, patterns of prayer and priestly formation (to single out just four areas) that, if taken up and developed, could transform the Church’s self-understanding.
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