Early in the Protestant Reformation movement, leaders described the role of the Bible as being the final rule of the faith and practice of believers in the slogan sola scriptura - Scripture alone. Not the leaders of the church, not the traditions within the church, and not some one's personal experience of God - but Scripture alone is the final authority for how Christians believe and live their lives.
Primacy merely means first among equals.
An individual's present experience of God may carry more weight in discerning God's will than the Bible. For Rev. Christie what divides us is not a single issue, but a foundational difference on the nature of biblical authority. All these arise out of differing understandings of Scriptural authority and revelation. However in this document, we have turned to the practice of homosexuality as illustrative of our divergence because it is the one most visible presenting issues in United Methodism today. In other words the conflict over a Christian response to homosexual practice is best understood as a surface issue which is arising out of a much deeper level difference in understanding Scriptural authority.