Today the Anglican communion honors Richard Hooker, priest and theologian in its calendar of feasts.
He was a central figure in the establishment of Anglicanism as a via media, a middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism. Hooker was also a beautiful writer.
He articulated a “threefold cord not quickly broken” of Bible, church, and reason. It would evolve with Anglicanism into the three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason. (The historical nitpickers among us, okay, me as well, point out he almost certainly did not see a triangle of equal power but a clear hierarchy, with scripture as the base, tradition where that wasn’t clear, and reason for anything else.) As I see it that trinity as equal parts is neither a cord nor a stool, but something dynamic, interdependent and interpenetrating which taken together can birth lives of value. And actually a way for engaging any religion. And, he set the whole thing into motion.
For me Richard Hooker is important for the third thing, and with it his fierce defense of reason in matters religious. One might even say the dove, or, perhaps it was a pigeon rested on him and he spoke with tongues of fire.
Incidentally, Hooker would also be a substantial influence on John Locke, and through Locke mainly, but also directly would influence a lot of the formation of American political thought.
While Hooker was not a big fan of the Roman church Pope Clement VIII a rough contemporary said of his writing “It has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning.”
One of the greats. No doubt…
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