One of the mantras I constantly recite in the classroom is, “It’s more complicated than that.” What I mean by this is that the deep things of life, such as theology, philosophy, history, ethics, etc, are almost always more complicated than the little sound-bite answers we like to give.
In my last post, I posed questions to think about what it means to live “Christianly.” In this post, I’ll begin sharing what I think are some good places to begin. However, given the space constraints of this medium, I ask readers to remember that living Christianly is far more complicated than the few notes I can make here.
The First Part- Rootedness is a Historical Tradition
The word “tradition” can be worrisome to Evangelicals. In an effort to create distance from the perceived errors of Roman Catholicism (and perhaps Eastern Orthodoxy), Evangelicals often attempt to eschew “tradition” altogether. I can appreciate this sentiment. The Word of God is the first rule of the Faith, not the structures of man. Pride is the folly of humankind, and we have the enduring tendency to want to place our own ideas above the revealed will of God. Wherein our “traditions” contradict what the Lord has said, we should desire to tear such things down.
At the same time, we can’t escape our traditions. Households have them, schools have them and churches have them. An Evangelical church holds to tradition just the same as the Roman Catholic Church does. (This is not to say that the traditions are the same!)
Tradition is just an institution’s longstanding patterns of practices and beliefs. For example, say your family attends a Southern Baptist church and has cinnamon rolls every Christmas morning. While relatively minor on the grand scale, being Southern Baptist and Christmas cinnamon rolls would be some of the traditions of the institution of your household.
We can’t escape tradition, but we can be (somewhat) intentional about the traditions we choose. We can choose to be a part of relatively new traditions or long-lasting ones. We can simply take traditions as handed to us by others or contemplate why we’ve chosen what we’ve chosen.
Embracing the Historic Protestant Tradition
Believe it or not, Protestants have a historic tradition. In fact, it’s a deep and vibrant tradition, complete with confessions of faith, systematic theologies, classical hymnals, etc. To be Classically Protestant is to embrace a historic tradition, not to reject tradition itself. Protestants stand in a long line of faithful Christians, and we would do well to remember what they have stood for.
One would not have to look far to find the well-worn paths laid down by our Protestant forbearers. Lutherans stand in the lineage of Martin Luther, who we might call the “original” Protestant. Anglicans have the Book of Common Prayer, which guides each service and has been instrumental in shaping English-Speaking Christian culture. (Don’t believe me? Check out the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer!). Presbyterians and Baptists have the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confessions, respectively, which are the precursors to just about every statement of faith you now find on church websites. (Though not every church agrees with the Calvinism found in these historic documents.) Even Nondenominational Evangelicals are related to the Congregationalists and Anabaptists of the 1600s/1700s.
Stepping Into Tradition
Given all of the above, I argue that the first step in living the Christian life is to “step into” the tradition of historic Christianity. Christianity has a multi-thousand-year history; it has been around long before us, and it will be around long after us. If we want to understand the how of Christian living, we must first embrace that we are stepping into a tradition with longstanding patterns developed by faithful believers over thousands of years. Once we understand this, we can begin to properly orient ourselves to the larger patterns of Christian life.
(A Note on The Bible: In the above piece, I don’t mention exactly how the Bible fits into the overall picture. I also didn’t call it “The First Part.” This was quite intentional. I will be getting to the Bible in a later post. Do remember that I mentioned above that the Bible is the first rule of the Faith. As an ardent supporter of Sola Scriptura, I promise to share how I think these pieces connect soon.)