Christian Tradition, part 2

In part 1, I set out how we must consider 'Christianity'  in all its aspects without reducing it to any one of them. Now it's time to look again at the word tradition. If you have read my rationale behind this blog, you know that the word tradition stems from the latin traditio, which carries several meanings.

For now, we can put it simply this way: Traditio means 'handed over', and its relation to what we have called 'Christianity' can be understood in two different ways.

1) On the one hand, it can be understood to mean that all of these things have been ‘handed over’ to us. On this view Christianity is something that has been ‘handed over’ to us, from our forefathers, from our leaders, from the Lord. Certain stories have been handed over to us for us to tell each other with our own voices and from our perspectives; certain teachings and concepts have been handed over to us so we can (re)think them and make sense of our own circumstances; certain practices have been handed over to us so we can perform them together in our way in the contexts where we are; certain calendars have been handed over to us so we can mark specific moments and days that are important to us in the ways we find best; certain structures have been handed over to us so we can facilitate good and effective leadership and service fitting for our contexts. We shape all of these aspects according to who, where and when we are, and we give them a particular flavour of our talents, our views, and ourselves.

2) On the other hand, traditio can be understood to mean that it is we who have been ‘handed over’ to all of these things. On this view it is we who have been handed over to Christianity. We have been handed over to certain stories that put our lives and identities in perspectives that are not our own; we have been handed over to certain teachings and concepts that will shape our imagination and our reason; we have been handed over to certain practices that will determine our habits and eventually our spine reactions; we have been handed over to certain calendars that determine when we fast and when we feast, that provide and determine our rhythms and set our pace in the world; we have been handed over to structures that are not of our own making, but that we simply must submit and surrender to. All of these aspects shape us according to themselves, no matter who we are, and they give a particular flavour to our talents, our views, and ourselves.

This 'two-sidedness' seems to be the human predicament: It is true that we are all born into a world where everything is set and determined without our consent; where we do not get to choose who will influence us the most during the early, or even late, years of our lives; where all decisions seem to already have been made before we arrive, and where we have no say in any important matter whatsoever. At the same time it is also true that we are born into a world where we cannot avoid changing reality around us no matter what we do or avoid doing; where our decisions to touch or not touch, say or not say, be or not be, have vast consequences even if we cannot tell what is important and what is not; where we shape the lives of ourselves and of others far beyond what we can imagine. 

For the record, both 'sides' of tradition can be legitimized by biblical contexts. (I add this so that no one will say 'but the Bible clearly states...etc'). Consider the following examples:

(1) The ancient Hebrew poems about the origins of the world in the Book of Genesis (ch. 1-2) describe how, after having created everything, God lets the Human (Adam='Man' as in ‘Mankind’) name the animals. It is remarkable that God in this story is portrayed as not putting any limits on Adam regarding which names to choose for which animals. It is not that God has the right answer, and then waits to see if Adam can get it right. It really is Adam who makes the decision; who names the created world. Adam is him/herself part of creation, but somehow this human naming, categorizing, defining, drawing a line, introducing boundaries and divisions, is a legitimate endeavour. Adam is created, but does to a certain degree participate in God's act of creation.

In the book of Esther (9:18-28) we read how the righteous and god-fearing man Mordecai, after having saved the Jews in Persia from an impending holocaust, invents a new feast in the Judaic calendar - a calendar that God himself had established in the time of Moses. Since then, the feast of Purim became a legitimate part of the annual rhythm of the Judaic tradition, even though it was a late addition compared to e.g. Passover. Nowhere is there any hint that this made it a 'less authentic' feast.

The apostle Paul calls himself God’s co-worker (1. Cor. 3:9), and describes his own work as dependent on God’s primary work, but also indispensible. Paul’s contribution in building the church is legitimate, and mixes with God’s work.

Finally, the early church had to figure out what to do with the new gentile Christians who did not share their Judaic background. Jesus had not given specific instructions regarding this. Christianity was to a large degree painted on a Judaic canvas, and many Christian customs loose some of their flavour if separated from the Judaic roots. After a committee meeting with much theological discussion the early apostles and Jewish church leaders in composed a letter to the gentile churches saying what “we and the Holy Spirit have decided” about the matter (Acts 15:28). This might seem a bit arrogant, not to say abusive, as if they were simply adding “and the Holy Spirit” to make their own decisions seem as if they were God’s decisions. But I believe this is a matter of the early church leaders understanding that in spite of human limitations and fallibility, human creativity and co-operation with God - even in the area of church leadership - is legitimate (if not necessarily always final – Paul later deviates from the Jerusalem council’s decisions in these matters. Renegotiation is thus an important part of the picture).

From this perspective it seems the God portrayed in the biblical canon invites and encourages human co-creation and co-operation with Godself, and that God hands over to us a huge repertoire of teachings, practices, stories, structures, and calendars that we can then take an active part in shaping. In a way we are always already doing this, and the canonical view is that this is in fact pleasing to God. We cannot avoid renegotiating and reshaping what has been handed down to us through the ages, and this is legitimate and good. We need not pretend that we are not contributing, as if that would contaminate 'eternal truths'. Our creativity is in itself participation in God’s sustaining and creative act.

On this view, commitment to Christ is a constant and intentional working-out of what it means to be a Christian in the present unprecedented circumstances.

(2) At the same time, the biblical canon seems to take seriously the notion that everything seems to be set without our conscious involvement or consent; That there is a (God-)given way that things actually are.

In the Genesis poem mentioned above, God sets limits to how far the ocean is allowed to go, separates light from darkness, etc. The ancient confidence in God as justly upholding the ultimate and final framework of His creation, constitutes the foundation of any hope. For Christianity these things are given, but not in the watered-out common sense of the word – where it really means ‘just so’. For Christianity they are given by a Giver, they are granted, provided, bestowed in love from Godself.
The boundaries and milestones make possible navigation, communication, stability.

St. Paul (Eph. 3:6) tells us that (Gentile) Christians have become heirs to a promised made to someone else’s (Jewish) forefathers. Christians do not have a say in what this promise includes or excludes. We cannot add or withdraw points from the agreement. We did not take part in the forging of the treaty. We arrive on the scene too late, and must submit to what has been decided. Another example is when St. Paul reminds us (Romans 11:16-20) that we are branches on a tree, and that we are not carrying the root, but the root carries us. Commitment to Christ is on this view a trust in something that has already been done without any contribution on our part.

In conclusion, the biblical canon is self-consciously committed to both of these perspectives at the same time. All of the aspects of Christianity have been handed over to us - and we have been handed over to all the aspects of Christianity.

This very tension is what is meant by 'Christian tradition'.

In the next and final post on this topic, I will try to argue that many disputes and debates between different denominations stem from our futile attempts to somehow resolve this tension between what is seen as 'God-given' and what is seen as 'human-made', and that by devaluing either perspective regarding any one of the aspects of Christianity, we might in fact be betraying the Christian tradition.