“The way Scripture works to order and to re-order is not that Scripture lays from scratch a foundation on which we then build with integrity. It is not that—according to either the Puritan vision or the Catholic one—the Bible provides a changeless charter. It is rather the case that Scriptures are appealed to as a critical instance in the controversies about reformation and change. The church is not built upon a canon. Scripture comes into being with status as “canon” in midstream, as a believing community needs to illuminate and adjudicate choices among alternative futures in order to be true to the common past. It is then that Scriptures are called upon; only when they are thus called upon does a second order ruling become necessary (“canon” in the narrower sense) as to which witnesses we agree we can all appeal to. The creation of ‘Scripture’ is thus a critical event and not a conservative phenomenon.”
~ John Howard Yoder, To Hear the Word (Forthcoming edition)
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