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Thus to relocate the canon, however, is also to depart significantly from the position widely taken during the later, self-critical phase of revisionary Protestantism that we are accustomed to call "neeneo-orthodoxy." Although neo-orthodox theologians were typically more consistent than the Reformers in rejecting an orthodox understanding of inspiration, they hardly broke with the traditional understanding of scripture as the canon. The "Christian message" to which they typically appealed as the only primal source of Christian authority is, as they were wont to insist, precisely the "biblical message." Thus, in determining what is to count as an appropriate Christian utterance by appealing, finally, to the message of scripture as such, they continued to presuppose the traditional scriptural canon as their real primary authority. On the postliberal, or revised revisionary, position proposed here, however, it is just this that can no longer be presupposed. Merely to determine that an utterance is derived from or warranted by the so-called biblical message is not sufficient to authorize it as a Christian utterance. It is further necessary to determine that the biblical message itself is authorized by the apostolic witness of faith, which is the sole primary authority for determining the appropriateness of Christian utterances.

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