Basis for Theology: Tradition
bryan on August 6th, 2008
The second element that serves as a basis of our construction of theology is tradition. Perhaps more than any of the other elements that we will discuss that serve as a foundation for theology, it is tradition that has been ignored by a large segment of the church, even those who continue in “traditional” worship services.
Quite simply the idea of tradition is that we confer with The church and its stances over the years. Among other things, tradition stands as a way of giving us guardrails, directions which other Christians have thought about and found to be unhealthy directions for the church. While we may have some freedom to re-explore many of the issues which the church has argued about, we don’t want to think that somehow we are alone in asking our questions. In this sense, tradition serves as a guide in our discussion of theology.
With the Anchor, we see this playing an important role. Specifically, we want to look at connections in how the things we do are generally things which the historic church have considered to be good. Among these things are traditions of caring for the poor, for orphans, for widows, for aliens(both legal and illegal).
If we were to think of theology in terms of music, Tradition serves are the Bass and Rhythm, giving a rootedness and basis to build off of. If we were to speak of theology in the terms of a building, tradition serves as a sort of knowledge base from those who have already built other buildings. We learn from them both in what they have done well and in where they have found themselves failing. When we ignore tradition, it is similar to those who ignore history: we are bound to repeat the same mistakes which we have already seen happen.
This is a continuation in our Basis for Theology series. Click the links below to see the other entries.
Basis for Theology: Introduction
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
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