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Alan Creech
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March 02, 2006
> 11:30 PM
discernment and tradition > 2 So, as I said, there is some pre-made definition to this discernment process in some circles. One of the bigger circles is your friendly Roman Catholic arena. The standard party line is that there is a teaching Magisterium (The Pope, the Cardinals and the Bishops of the Catholic Church) who have the gift of the Holy Spirit so that they can discern and define this Sacred Tradition for the whole Church. Another ready-made system is that of the general Evangelical Christian world. Here, the way to look at it is, and again, this is generally speaking, that there is no Sacred Tradition - no Truth we need to know as the Church that is carried to us in a way other than in Holy Scripture. So everything has to actively be "Biblical" - no pressure. The thing is, there are teaching traditions even here. So, is there another way? Could there be another way to look at things? Obviously, I think so. Does it mean we have to fully do away with both the above ways of looking at things? Well, not exactly. I think there is something to the "teaching authority of the Church" but I'm not sure (well, I don't believe) it is entirely housed in the Episcopate of the Roman Church. Is some of it there? Sure, I think absolutely so. In my view, there may even be more than a healthy share located there. I'm also slightly certain of this: the whole Biblical thing, there's definitely something to that. The Bible certainly contains God's Word. What I don't think is very defensible is that there is no Sacred Tradition which flows along with the Scriptures, helping us be who we are created to be. I'm asking a lot of questions so one more won't hurt: Where does that leave us? In a bit more complicated place I think. To a great extent we are left in the frightening hands of the Holy Spirit in us all as the Mystical Body of Jesus. Does that mean just what we feel in our insides from day to day? I hope that's not it. That's not scary, that's dangerous. Our discernment about such things must happen inside a context, a context of Christian community (you knew I was going to say that didn't you). And not just as a part of a faith community, but of a community that is itself a self-aware member of the whole catholic Church throughout the ages. We have to discern inside the context of the whole Church, not just our feelings, not just our one little community, not even just our slightly larger faith-traditions. We must properly respect the Church of all time. Our discernment process should be thorough and not sloppy. There's a lot to consider and we really can't afford to cut out big sections of Church history, for instance, in this work. We can't be afraid of what we will find. Scripture must be, of course, a big part of our "research" in this thing. Is there something we're doing that has changed from A to Z and back to A again in the life of the Church? That could be a good sign that this is a tradition we're talking about here as opposed to a Tradition we need to be concerned with holding onto. I would say "practically" speaking, but I don't fully mean that exactly. I mean "spiritually" but that's not exactly it either. I'm going to invent a hybrid word here for my present purposes: spiritopractically - meaning, spiritually/practically speaking - practical as concerns the life of the spirit (not always the same kind of practical we are used to talking about). So, spiritopractically speaking, we need to be aware of what, in the life of the Church, in the churches, is actually harming people rather than helping them. Those things may be mistakenly given the title of Tradition of the Church when perhaps they never should have been. I want to be clear that we should be very careful not to make this area about our particular likes and dislikes as far as what we may consider harmful. It should also not be an area where our emotions are consulted as experts in theology, either that or purely pragmatic concerns. I've talked about that before. We may feel some things are harmful when they truly are not. We may feel this because we are immature and not yet formed as a "adult" Christian. That's not bad, it simply is what it is - some are "babies," "children" and some are "adults" or "parents" in the faith. It's a continuum of growth and development. OK, a book or three, could easily be written on this subject, and I'm sure a few have been. I say that so we know not to expect too much here. I'm sharing some thoughts, hopefully some helpful ones. This is something I have, and I'm sure many of us have, dealt with. These are important things I'm sure we're still dealing with. This, for me, is part of that process. So, in order not to go on forever in this setting, I'll try to share a few parting thoughts on what we should take into consideration in our discernment about Sacred Tradition...
technorati tags > sacred tradition, christian tradition, sola scriptura, theology, traditions of men, emerging church, church, catholic, evangelical, discernment Labels: catholic, church, emerging church, theology 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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