| The Importance of Tradition in ChristianityMost evangelical protestants agree that the Bible, the Creeds, and the doctrine of the Trinity are essential tenants of the Christian faith. Yet Anglicanism, which is both protestant and evangelical, also professes the importance of tradition, giving it a very important role, right up there along with the other essential tenants. This seems to be a bit of a paradox, since Protestants are very keen on the sola scriptura doctrine: the Bible contains all that is needed for salvation. Furthermore, Anglicans accept most protestants as brothers in Christ, and part of the true Christian Church. It is true that there is a very different emphasis on tradition between Protestant churches and the--well--the more "traditional" churches, like the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican church. On the one hand you have the Roman church, which gives Tradition equal authority with Scripture. On the other side, you have the reformers, working against the traditions of the church at the time, and who held up Scripture as the only authority. So what exactly is the Anglican take on this? A good start is in the back of the prayer book in the Articles of Religion, under the heading Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation: "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church." No beating around the bush there. Not only is the Bible sufficient, but anything not in the Bible can't be required of a Christian. This is a very high view of Scripture. In fact... it sounds a lot like sola scriptura. So the Anglicans are on the Protestant side of this line. Not so fast. You will find that Anglicanism does not always fit into the boundaries defined by these sorts of disputes. Anglicans hold a very high view of tradition as well. You can tell just by visiting an Anglican service. The Anglican liturgy is based on rites and services that have been practiced by Christians for hundreds of years--in fact many elements are very similar to what you would find in the early church, just a breath away from the time of Christ. Also, Anglicans recognize the importance of the Apostolic Succession, wherein every member is connected to Jesus Christ himself. When I was confirmed, a bishop laid his hands on me and prayed that the Holy Spirit would come to me in a new way. My bishop, in turn, was consecrated and had hands laid on him by another bishop, also praying for the Holy Spirit to enter. And that bishop was consecrated in the same way as well, and so on and so fourth in an uninterrupted line through the laying on of hands which is historically traceable all the way back to the apostles and finally to Christ himself. This succession isn't exactly the passing on of tradition, but it is important for the same reasons. The Apostolic Succession connects us to the man who walked on the shores of Galilee, who took on fishermen as disciples, and who was executed on a cross for us. It means that it's not just a story that we found somewhere and decided that we like it. A librarian did not happen upon some ancient book and find himself fascinated in an amazing character that it portrayed, wondering who this man was, what he was like. We don't need to "Search for the Historical Jesus." That memory was never forgotten. The Apostles knew the historical Jesus. They knew who he was, what he taught, what he meant, how he lived, what he believed, and they knew personally what authority had been given to Him by God the Father and they saw how the Holy Spirit worked through him. That experience and knowledge was part of the gift which God gave to the Apostles, along with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The Apostles didn't die with that knowledge, power, and authority; they passed it on through the laying on of hands and through teaching and preaching. The church is a vessel for this inheritance in a way that scripture by itself can not be. Tradition has negative feelings associated with it in our culture today. Society tells us that tradition is "old stuff" that bogged us down back when we weren't as sophisticated and knowledgeable as we are now. God wants us to grow and change, and if tradition stops that for the sake of stagnation, then we are right to reject it. But that is not what tradition is about. At least it's not what it should be about. Tradition is good. It connects us to our history. It gives us a perspective. Tradition is like an inheritance from a rich uncle. Without tradition we would have to re-invent everything each generation, find truth anew every day. Tradition purges the unreasonable and the impractical in a slow refinement process. Truth and knowledge is pondered slowly and carefully through tradition, giving us not not a style or a trend, but something solid and reliable. Tradition is the humility to admit that we are not smarter than all those who came before us. Tradition places a respect on the wisdom of our elders. And it keeps us in line with wisdom even older than our grandparents. Yes, tradition is good, but these are not ultimately the reasons that tradition is so important: the real reason is that the tradition is rooted in Christ. Without Jesus as the source, all that tradition loses it's importance. It is of the utmost importance to understand the scriptures in a way that is consistent with the tradition and history of the Church. We should align ourselves with the saints through all time, and look to them for guidance. Not to do so is like a teenager looking to his peers for life advice, while ignoring the wisdom of those old enough to know what they are talking about. It is Rehoboam declaring his little finger is bigger than his father's (Solomon's) legs. If you think about it, all Christians have aligned themselves in this way with the saints and with the tradition of the Church throughout the ages. Of course, I don't mean just anyone who uses the word "Christian" autobiographically. I mean the real Christians: you know, historical Christians. It is no accident that we use the term "historical Christian" to define what me mean to be true Christianity. It is the simplest rubric for orthodoxy we have: if a so called "Christian" is out of line from the rest of the Church in history, they generally are heretical. Historically, a.k.a. traditionally, the church has understood the scriptures to describe the workings of a Triune God. The church has interpreted the Bible to be authoritative. The church has understood Jesus to be all man, all divine. A person who breaks from this history has broken from Christendom. A person who reads a Bible absolutely ignorant of church tradition is going to have a tough time interpreting the words correctly. The Bible is not enough on it's own, and even the most stringent adherent to sola scriptura doctrine will acknowledge this. By itself, the Bible is just words, text, ink on a page. What gives it life is nothing less than God Himself, revealing to the reader the truth which is within. God can and does show us how to understand the Bible directly, while we read. But he has also already done this when He came as a man, two thousand years ago. Any interpretation of scripture that is of God will be in line with what was originally revealed in Christ and preserved through the traditions of the church. If we already chose to ignore the revelation given to us through the traditions of the Church, why should God speak to us personally and directly? Recall the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Luke 16:19-31, ending with this conversation: " 'Send Lazarus to my father's house... let him warn them...'
"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' " Consider some of the "Christian" organizations that have come to the bible from outside the traditions of the church. Mormons, the Church of the New Jerusalem, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists all claim to be Christian and claim to follow the Bible (more or less). Yet none of them are rooted in the history of the church. None of them affirm the Nicene or Apostles creeds. We know that they are heretical, but that knowledge doesn't necessarily come straight from scripture alone: for every verse you can cite to a Christian Scientist, she has two more to cite back to you. Yet we have on our side the tradition of the church which has agreed with our interpretation consistently from the earliest times. Furthermore, if we pay attention to Christian history we will recognize how strongly Gnostic the Christian Scientist is, Gnosticism, of course, being one of the oldest and most famous heresies. Ultimately, controversies over the exact hierarchy of authority that different sources have are somewhat arbitrary. The only true authority is God. Anything else is authoritative only insofar as it accurately reveals the authority of God. God reveals His will to us in many ways: through his bodily incarnation on earth, through Scripture, through Church tradition, through the prophets, through the Holy Spirit, through members of the church, through nature, through love, through our minds and reason, and in fact through all of creation. We should not shut out any method of understanding God's message to us. And when we look for that revelation, we need to be aware of all the other methods as well. If you think that nature reveals to you that God is a three-headed dragon, you might want to double check that insight with Scripture. If you think that Scripture teaches that all material things are evil and only spirit is good, you can be corrected by church tradition and by nature itself. If you believe in purgatory and the sale of indulgences, you need to look at bigger segment of church tradition, and you need to compare that with what is found in the Bible. This essay began by highlighting the different approaches to the topic of tradition, and I set out to explain the Anglican position. Let me now emphasize that there is in fact unity on this topic between all orthodox Christians, Roman, Eastern, Protestant and Anglican. Within those bodies there are different emphases, different levels of comfort with the words and concepts, and there are different approaches, but the fundamental alignment with the rest of the church throughout all time is shared. You can see this happening in the use of terms like "Nicene Christian" and "historical Christian" to distinguish the true church. The inheritance of tradition has naturally become a part of the very definition of what it means to be Christian. |
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