A Response to “Pagan Christianity?”
2. Foundational Principles
2.1 The Concept of Tradition in Scripture
Viola and Barna almost exclusively treat tradition as a threat, but, of course, a tradition is simply a belief or practice that has been passed down from previous generations. There is nothing wrong with that! To state the obvious, any given tradition might be good, bad, or indifferent, but it will not be any of those things simply by virtue of being tradition. Viola and Barna are not so careless as to claim otherwise, but their polemic relies heavily on leveraging their readers’ pre-existing suspicion of tradition. In our zeal for the purity of the church, many of us have developed an instinctual prejudice against the idea of tradition in the church at all. This is unhelpful. I suspect a simplistic narrative of the Protestant Reformation may bear some blame for this. Too often we talk as though the Reformation was revolutionary movement wherein tradition was comprehensively rejected, and Christianity was reconstructed afresh from the Bible alone. And yet, this is not correct. It is vital that we move away from this flawed narrative and nurture a more balanced view of the role of tradition in Christianity. Let us first consider how tradition is treated in Scripture.
In the New Testament, tradition is sometimes rejected and sometimes commended. In the Gospels, our Lord frequently comes into conflict with extrabiblical Jewish traditions. He especially rebukes those guilty of “…rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” (Mark 7:9). For Jesus, the word of God is the standard and rule against which all tradition must be judged. A tradition must be rejected if it contradicts Scripture, or if it makes a requirement of something (as though God requires it) that God does not, in fact, require (Matthew 15:9, 23:4). At the same time, there are Jewish practices and traditions that did not originate directly in the command of God, in which Jesus freely participates. The clearest example is his frequent involvement in Sabbath assemblies in synagogues,[1] a practice that became prominent during the intertestamental period[2] with no direct command or explicit precedent in Scripture. Jesus was also in Jerusalem during the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22), a festival also instituted between the Testaments, celebrating the re-dedication of the Temple following the success of the Maccabean revolt. In the text, there is nothing to suggest that Jesus considers these traditions to be morally binding (as though tradition had its own authority to bind the conscience), but neither does he condemn these traditions or give any indication that it would be sinful to be involved in them. To be perfectly fair with the biblical evidence, we must admit the possibility that Jesus did not personally celebrate the Feast of Dedication, and was simply in Jerusalem at that time to take advantage of the large crowds. However, his custom of active participation in synagogue worship is absolutely undeniable (see Luke 4:14-30). This gives us a clear biblical rationale for being able to categorise certain traditional religious and cultural practices as adiaphora, or “things indifferent”. A traditional practice may not be biblical in the sense that it does not explicitly originate in Scripture, but as long it remains within biblical parameters, and thus involves no sin, it may be acceptable or even a positive good. Many Christians, upon making these same observations, mistakenly draw the implication that we can allow any practice that is not forbidden into our worship. Scripture, however, is clear that the biblical parameters for right worship are very narrow. We will consider exactly how to evaluate whether a religious practice falls within these parameters when discuss the regulative principle of worship (see Part 2.3).
We can gain further insight looking at the Apostle Paul’s attitude to tradition. On one hand, he warns the Colossian church against “…philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Human tradition that is opposed to Christ is dangerous, and believers are at risk of being “taken captive” by it. On the other hand, Paul explicitly commends commitment to true, Apostolic tradition on multiple occasions. Consider the following:
“Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:2)
“So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
“Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
This tradition, being the teaching of the Apostles, comes down to us today in the form of the New Testament.[3] But, to make a more general application, these passages should at least serve to show that “tradition” is not a dirty word. Scripture understands that there are biblical traditions, non-biblical traditions that are unobjectionable, and wicked traditions that go against the commands of Scripture or place an unjust burden on the faithful. My point is just that Scripture will not support us taking a simplistic approach to tradition. We cannot allow prejudice to blind us. Rather, let’s evaluate the traditions we have received with fair and open minds, so that we do not toss out the good with the bad.
[1] See for example Matthew 4:23, Luke 4:15-16, and Luke 13:10.
[2] The “intertestamental period” is that period of time between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament and the events recorded in the New Testament. See this helpful article: Beckwith, R. (1990). Intertestamental Judaism, its literature and its significance. Themelios, 15(3), 77-81. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/intertestamental-judaism-its-literature-and-its-significance/
[3] Contrary to the claims of Roman Catholicism, no unwritten tradition from the Apostles survives in a way that can be clearly recognised or made binding on the church.
Next Section: 2.2 Finding a balanced understanding of church tradition and church history
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