162 Chapter 4 in which she radically included ‘those who might be seen as on the edges of the church’ (p. 1), Watkins (2020) presented ‘an Ecclesiology of Epiphanies’ (p. 8). Talking about epiphanies (which impart completely new revelations) goes further than referring to a theology of disclosure (speaking about God and newly discovered things). The normative voices of theology in the vision of Watkins (2020) have become ‘historically dependent on operant, espoused and formal’ (p. 45). Further on, she noted: ‘The conviction is that divine revelation, embodied in the “tradition” (written and unwritten), makes progress (proficio – to advance, go forward) in all the complexity of ecclesial life, and its various activities, offices and experiences’ (Watkins, 2020, p. 51). From a Reformed Christian perspective, this is a really far-reaching statement. Is divine revelation, then, still incomplete and open to add-on revelation, for example, through epiphanies? Or would it be better to say that God’s revelation for life on Earth and salvation is complete, although human understanding, even after restoring grace, lacks insight? Wright (2013) nuanced the latter, traditionally Reformed, position with his hermeneutical paradigm of ‘the fifth act’. What God revealed about creation, the fall, Israel and Jesus is firmly established in the Old and New Testaments. Still, how it goes on—and how Biblical truth needs to be interpreted in new ages and circumstances— needs to be discovered ‘through Spirit and prayer’ (Wright, 2013, p. 126). This, warned Wright (2013), should be done in a manner ‘ferociously loyal’ to the Bible (p. 123) by the Church. Geoff Beech’s (2019, 2021) relational epistemology, as considered in Chapter 1.3.3, accords with this finding, calling for an attitude of humility towards revealed truth as it needs to be understood together with all the saints in a process of ongoing unveiling in light of time and cultural change. A quote by Nicholas Healy, again cited by Watkins (2013, p. 5), can function as a necessary mirror for Reformed theology, especially after what was discussed in Chapter 1.1.3 on Protestantism and its interconnectedness with modern, fragmented thinking: In general, ecclesiology in our period has become highly systematic and theoretical, focused more upon discerning the right things to think about the church rather than orientated to the living, rather messy, confused and confusing body that the church’s actuality is. This discussion of the TAR methodology and its inductive and spiritual epistemology is too brief to suggest a final answer to this dilemma. It is clear, however, that the Protestant interpretation presented above differs from Watkins’ (2013) ecclesiology of epiphanies but nevertheless leaves room for a
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