Owen Cyclops is tweeting about Kirk
Cameron’s cheesy Christian Christmas movie:
“At the end there’s like a 3-4 minute hip hop breakdancing ...
thing, that’s the worst thing in the movie by far. I found this
symbolically perfect because, if every worldview has its strengths and
weaknesses, the weakness for American evangelical Christianity, speaking as an
outsider friend rather than an overly critical foe, is that it has no ‘fence’
or ‘barrier’ to keep stuff like that out, which I suppose is part of the
function of tradition in other manifestations of Christianity.”
I know nothing about Owen beyond what I’ve read in a single
Twitter thread, but one may reasonably infer that he hails from one of these “other
manifestations” of Christianity he refers to, one which offers believers the fence-like
protection of tradition.
The respective positives and negatives of Roman Catholicism
vs. American evangelicalism are a little more than I am prepared to chew
on this morning, but Owen’s supposition about the protective utility of
tradition merits a little further consideration. I think there is some
truth to his observation: Catholics and the Orthodox are far less likely than
evangelicals to inflict the dubious joys of rock bands, light shows, improvisational
skits or liturgical dance numbers on their congregants.
That is no small blessing, and tradition is one of the major
reasons for it.
A Permeable Barrier
Tradition is indeed a barrier of sorts, but it is a barrier
that is far from impenetrable. Tradition in churches is a bit like conservatism
in politics: it slows the rate of obvious cultural incursion, but it cannot stem
it entirely. A Catholic congregant from AD450 Rome who found his way into a
mass performed in a rural diocese in Windsor, Ontario in 2021 might experience less
culture shock than the apostle Paul sitting in the back row of one of the
Harvest-brand independent evangelical churches, but only a little less.
Tradition keeps basic forms of service more or less intact, but
the content of both homilies and sermons is inevitably infected by the spirit
of the age in which they are composed. People are still people, and how we
express our faith, whether on Sundays or at other times, is heavily influenced
by the environments in which we live six days a week. For example, priests
and pastors alike are currently converting en masse to social justice
causes, and the fact that one shares his unbiblical views in a formalized,
traditional context while the other shares his unbiblical views in front of a
big screen with a rock band behind him doesn’t make them any less kindred
spirits. Evangelicals write tacky breakdancing spots into their Christmas
movies but I suspect Catholics trying to influence the broader culture through
media have their own hobgoblins of compromise to deal with.
To change the metaphor for just a moment, tradition performs
a function something like the brakes on your car. To be sure, brakes can slow you down, but they are of little use in changing direction. Once you have taken a
wrong course, tradition has no way of turning you around. Being traditional
simply means you get to the same wrong destination a little bit slower.
An Undiscriminating Fence
The “fence” of tradition is also rather undiscriminating
about what it keeps out: good and bad cultural influences that are not part of
the Accepted Package are equally excluded by the fence of church tradition. Moreover,
the fence of church tradition keeps bad things in as easily as it keeps bad
things out. Tradition cements in place unhelpful and even anti-biblical customs
as readily as it entrenches helpful habits and practices.
Evangelicalism may be constantly convulsing with new trends,
influences and ideas, but a good number of the annoying and unhelpful ones get
sloughed off in short order. There may be nothing in place to keep hip hop
breakdancing out of evangelical movies, but equally, no habits or customs bind
evangelicals to include the same sort of silliness in the next five movies they
make. We will include some other silliness instead. Meanwhile, extra-biblical
traditions like an unmarried priesthood persist for millennia despite overwhelming
evidence that the
most effective defense against sexual immorality is for each man to have
his own wife and each woman her own husband. Sometimes it’s better not to be
quite so fenced in.
The Best Defense
So then, tradition is indeed like a fence, with all the good
and bad features that may imply. But there is a defense much better than tradition available to individual believers and churches of every type. The word of God functions like the
natural defenses of an organism, which are more of a filtration system than a
simple barrier. Unlike the fence, which can keep good things out and bad things
inside, the God-designed combination of liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph nodes,
colon and skin can actually detoxify the human body.
A body operating properly stores and utilizes anything of
nutritive value in what has been ingested, while flushing toxins right out of
the system. Cultural toxins exposed to the word of God fare no better in the
lives of those who make the Bible their be-all and end-all
for doctrine and practice. Whether a current social trend is new or old, putting
it in direct proximity to scripture guarantees its good and bad features will
be exposed, giving us the option of discarding those that are ultimately not beneficial
to the church while retaining those that are.
Traditions can point us back to certain places and times,
but they rarely point us all the way back to the New Testament. If they did, we
wouldn’t call them traditions. Only the Faith Once Delivered as originally
worded by the apostles and their amanuenses can provide the defense Christians
and our churches need from the incursions of the broader culture.
That beats a fence any day.
That is too blanket a statement about traditions, which is somewhat inaccurate. It depends on the tradition(s) of course. In my household it is a tradition to eat your lettuce with a fork. Thus, traditions can arise at different time periods for different reasons and circumstances which include practicality. The tradition of the Catholic mass, e.g., is probably based on a number of considerations many of which entail making it easier or more understandable for the congregants and/or the priest and therefore were developed over time in response to various circumstances. I am sure the same argument applies to other denominations. This does not imply that those and root traditions do not hint at or are derived more or less from New Testament sources and teaching. At this point in time, it is sufficient if they are seen as authentic enough to meet a useful function or play a useful role in the spiritual and practical life of the congregation.
ReplyDeleteI am all for eating lettuce with a fork.
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