I tried to suggest that there might be something 'particular and distinctive' about the Reformed approach by using the analogy of Calvin's views on the Eucharist. They were, I think we'd all agree, quite 'particular and distinctive'. They differ from some Lutheran understandings and also what we might call Zwinglian 'memorialism.'
So, by analogy, it could well be that there are equally 'particular and distinctive' Reformed perspectives on praying with the saints/Saints.
Actually, when I said something about “educated guesses,” Calvin’s view of the Eucharist was what I had mind as a starting point for an educated guess regarding praying with the saints/Saints.
Surely; but I generally do it before they're actually in the car driving away.
Still, I'd never fault anybody for wanting to stay in touch with those they love. I myself do it, though I have the cheek to ask God to pass messages for me.
Surely; but I generally do it before they're actually in the car driving away.
Still, I'd never fault anybody for wanting to stay in touch with those they love. I myself do it, though I have the cheek to ask God to pass messages for me.
The Holy Spirit is the ultimate switchboard. Operator? Information? Get me Jesus on the line.
Not the article, and you can take it as read that John Baillie's views went further in the article than in what I am going to cite. I am citing a prayer from his "A Diary of Private Prayer", which I think gives you a flavour of what sort of devotion.
O God of my forefathers, who hast in every age enlightened the souls of the faithful, I thank Thee for the gift of racial memory whereby the storied past still lives with us to-day. I thank Thee for the lives of the saints and for the help that I may win from their example. I thank Thee for the memory of ..... and .... and .....; for apostles, prophets and martyrs; but most for the Incarnation of Thy dear Son, in whose name these my prayers are said. Amen
That is from Day 20 Morning, and the whole of Day 5 Morning is also given up, what I think he would see as "Prayer with the Saints". It starts with
God of my forefathers, I cry unto Thee. Thou hast been the refuge of good and wise men in every generation. When history began, Thou wert the first enlightener of men's minds and Thine was the Spirit that first led them out of their brutish estate and made them men. Through all the ages Thou has been the Lord and giver of life, the source of all knowledge, the fountain of all goodness.
The patriarchs trusted Thee and ...
What you are seeing is an imagined great cloud of witnesses to salvations story, among whom the prayer is invited to position their own prayer.
Without the article I can only speculate on what he said the Reformed were theologically suited and I would suggest the deep biblicalism. I do not mean the superficial, though often vast ability to quote texts at will but the way you find among the Reformed, liberal or conservative alike, the Biblical narrative is esteemed as living and relevant* to today. The Christian is held in a dialogue with the Salvations story through the Bible and it is this that gives us the unique perspective on prayer with the saints for as we do that participate in that story as they did.
*I want to say "in its complexity" and that is true for most but I have to acknowledge that some still want to make it a simple linear story.
Ok, that's helpful @Jengie Jon although I can imagine that Christians of other traditions wouldn't see a deep biblicism as necessarily being a Reformed monopoly (and I know you aren't saying it is).
I think I can see what Baillie was getting at.
@Lamb Chopped well, I'm cheeky enough to pray directly to God too. The reason I might invoke the prayers of Mary and the Saints isn't because I'm too scared to knock God's front door or because I believe there's a pyramid system in place.
Rather I'd ask them to pray in the same way as I might be cheeky enough to ask you to do so also.
We don't observe a single date as 'All Souls Day' but there are several Saturdays a year, before Lent and around Pentecost particularly, where we make a special effort to commemorate the departed.
Indeed, every Saturday is dedicated to that but some Saturdays more than others.
Like everything else in the liturgical round it's part of a continuum which is why, with apologies for being blunt, well-intentioned Protestant objections such as 'why waste time praying for the dead when the living need our help' don't cut much ice with us.
It's a both/and thing. 😉
A thought experiment. I liked @mousethief's 'Operator? Information. Get me Jesus on the line,' allusion.
What if, @Lamb Chopped your 'cheeky' request to God to pass on something to your sister was met with the response, 'Here she is. You can tell her yourself...'
Not that I'd expect that.
But I do 'tell' my late wife things when I visit her grave. How the girls are doing. What's happening with me. I've even 'told' her that I'm 'seeing' someone else now.
Can she 'hear' me? Is she already aware of these things from a Heavenly portal from which she looks down, as it were?
Do the Saints/Saints see us on the toilet or in the naughty-naked nude (as Ian Dury put it)?
Or do they politely avert their gaze and get on with whatever splendiferous things they do in Eternity where God in Christ is all in all?
Not that we become God as it were.
Whether God taps our departed loved ones on their resurrection-body shoulder and says, 'Your sister has asked me to tell you this ...' or whether they are somehow aware of us in God's 'eternal now', I don't know.
Either way, I do believe there is some kind of connection with the glorified departed in a way which most probably absorbs all our collective insights across our respective Christian traditions/Tradition and much more besides.
Gamaliel, if the Lord should tell me any such thing, I'd happily deal with it. At the moment he seems content for me to keep on as I've been doing. I don't see why anybody needs to change what we feel led to do in the absence of divine correction of some sort.
As for the childishness of what I'm doing, I'll happily admit it. We've never been given much information about how things work "over there," and I'm okay defaulting to a childish image ("passing messages") in the absence of data needed for a seemingly more adult practice. Christ never seemed to be bothered by the more childlike mistakes and behaviors of his followers, but seemed to me to get a bit testy with those who thought they had it all figured out. Which is why I prefer to err on the side of childishness rather than go beyond what I'm sure of. Besides, it'll keep me humble.
Nowhere have I suggested you change your practice. I suggested a 'thought-experiment' and also stated that I wouldn't expect the Lord to say put your sister 'on the line' as it were.
I will readily acknowledge that I 'speak' to my late wife at her graveside but I don't expect her to answer me or her to appear to me in a vision.
Heck, my late mother told my brother that she'd 'seen' my late wife one night 'shining like a Saint.'
She didn't tell me that but my brother did. Do I think that was an actual supernatural vision? No.
Would it change my practice if I believed it was. Probably not.
I base my practices on the teachings of my Church and how it understands Holy Scripture in the context of Tradition.
You base your practices on your understanding of scripture within your particular context. I would not try to persuade you otherwise. If, for whatever reason, you were to change your ecclesial allegiance and became RC or Orthodox then you might adopt the practices found in those particular Christian bodies.
As it stands you take a standard Protestant approach to these things, which you are freely entitled to do so. God's not going to boot you out for not praying for the departed nor invoking the prayers of the Saints.
I didn't say your comments were 'childish' either. I could see you were putting things in seemingly naive and simple terms to make a point. That point was well made.
This is a discussion. I framed my response on the form of a 'thought-experiment' as a way of expressing how I see these things, not to suggest that everyone else should approach it as I do.
You don't actually know a great deal about my personal practices. I mentioned one of them, but calling it standard Protestantism is ... perhaps not the best description. And I'm not at all clear on why you've suddenly become very combative here. The second paragraph was not addressed solely to you, rather to the thread at large; and was perhaps more my own forestalling explanation than an answer to anything anybody has come right out and said.
Ok. Apologies if I got a bit defensive. I'm not convinced I was being 'combative' but if that's how it came across then I'm sorry to hear it.
I was using 'standard Protestantism' in a short-hand kind of way and am happy to consider alternative phraseology.
Also, I was certainly unwise to pick an example from real life or a Shipmate's personal circumstances or practices for a 'thought-experiment.' I should have opted for something more hypothetical.
Ok. Apologies if I got a bit defensive. I'm not convinced I was being 'combative' but if that's how it came across then I'm sorry to hear it.
In the hope of being helpful, @Gamma Gamaliel, I’ll remind you that it has been pointed out recently that bits of threads that require disclaimers like “not that you’re is saying that,” “not that anyone is saying that,” “not that I’d expect that,” or the like carry a risk of coming across in this medium as combative or challenging, whether you intend that or not. If no one is saying it or you wouldn’t expect it, it may not need commenting on.
Ok. Apologies if I got a bit defensive. I'm not convinced I was being 'combative' but if that's how it came across then I'm sorry to hear it.
In the hope of being helpful, @Gamma Gamaliel, I’ll remind you that it has been pointed out recently that bits of threads that require disclaimers like “not that you’re is saying that,” “not that anyone is saying that,” “not that I’d expect that,” or the like carry a risk of coming across in this medium as combative or challenging, whether you intend that or not. If no one is saying it or you wouldn’t expect it, it may not need commenting on.
Ok. I see that. It's something of a rhetorical device I've acquired the bad habit of using. I'll put out an extreme view of some kind by way of example and then qualify it by saying that I'm not accusing anyone here of holding that position.
I'll then put out some more moderate alternatives.
At least that's my intention but I can see it might not come across that way. I also tend to use hyperbole in a humorous way abd that doesn't always transmit well on a medium of this kind.
I'll have to develop a different posting style to convey what I'm trying to say.
And sometimes it would be better for everyone as well as myself if I kept my counsel.
It's something of a rhetorical device I've acquired the bad habit of using. I'll put out an extreme view of some kind by way of example and then qualify it by saying that I'm not accusing anyone here of holding that position.
What this looks like from where I sit is trying to disown the view being expressed. It has a similar effect to the phrase “just sayin'”, as an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the effect of the words just typed, on anyone reading them.
I'll then put out some more moderate alternatives.
In this context, this looks like the rhetorical equivalent of the sales technique of "decoy pricing" - presenting an extreme view in the hope of making the alternatives that follow seem more reasonable.
In this context, this looks like the rhetorical equivalent of the sales technique of "decoy pricing" - presenting an extreme view in the hope of making the alternatives that follow seem more reasonable.
Rather I'd ask them to pray in the same way as I might be cheeky enough to ask you to do so also.
😉
Would that be because you wanted someone else to be aware of why you feel you needed prayers (a trouble shared is a trouble halved,) or because you believe God is more like to "cave in" if more people are asking?
Ok, that's helpful @Jengie Jon although I can imagine that Christians of other traditions wouldn't see a deep biblicism as necessarily being a Reformed monopoly (and I know you aren't saying it is).
I think I can see what Baillie was getting at.
😉
Please get away from other traditions having monopolies; we have emphases just as the Orthodox do.
What you must get hold of is that there are things that the Reformed are not focused on. The Reformed are implicated in the founding of most liturgical societies, but that does not make it a liturgical tradition. There is a deep mystical streak in Reformed practice with respect to nature, despite its innate suspicion of mysticism, but that does not make it a mystical tradition. There is a high Sacramental tradition within the Reformed, but the Reformed tradition is not Sacramental. There is a high emphasis on orthodox teaching; most of the splits are over this, but that does not make the Reformed tradition Orthodox.
However, they are focused on the Bible and the Word which proceeds from it. In very few other traditions would they be happy to call themselves Bibliocentric. Very few traditions, even among liberals, would reference to the Bible can be used to settle arguments; indeed, no argument is complete within the Reformed tradition unless the Bible has been referenced by both sides and the passages argued over in depth. In very few traditions will the key indicator of what Quakers call a "Weighty member" and my supervisor called a "keeny" be the depth of grounding in the Bible. Very few traditions would be happy with theology that describes the Word as Supra-Sacramental.
Yes, Reformed have no monopoly, but other traditions are not so focused on the Bible.
@Alan29 - yes, a problem shared ... but there's also the James 5:16 thing about praying for one another and 'the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man (person) avails much'. Which is also an argument for invoking the prayers of the Saints. Putting it crudely, we might expect the prayers of the Theotokos or Saint John the Baptist or Theresa of Avila or ... to carry some weight.
Don't misunderstand me, though. I'm not saying that the more people we get praying the more we can twist God's arm. I remember a thing going around before the 2nd Iraq War that if God could find 100,000 women prepared to pray then conflict would be averted.
What did they say when the shooting started? God only found 999,999 women. One extra would have done it?
I don't see these things in mechanistic, slot-machine terms. 25 people praying, that increases the odds rather than if there were 5 people praying, or whatever it might be.
I'd see it as about 'involvement' and participation in a communal sense. If you asked me to pray for you, for instance, I might be pleased that you trust me sufficiently to ask and also pleased to rejoice with you at a favourable outcome should that arise. Or show empathy if things worked out differently.
It's not for nothing we talk about the communion of saints/Saints.
@Jengie Jon - fair call and 'my bad'. I would agree with those observations about the Reformed tradition and to a great extent on account of things you and @Nick Tamen have shared here over the years.
I suppose part of the issue here is that as an Orthodox Christian I don't 'disaggregate' scripture from Tradition in the way that other Christian traditions appear to do - from an Orthodox perspective that is.
So, to my mind it makes little sense to say that the Reformed tradition is more biblically focused than others might be. I'd argue that they are biblically focused most certainly, but in the context of their tradition, their particular interpretive framework.
Now, I'm not saying the Reformed are unaware of that or treat scripture in a 'stand-alone' way without reference to Patristics, to the writings of the medieval Scholastics, the Reformers, more recent theologians such as Barth or Torrence or those outside the Reformed tradition. Of course not. The Reformed take all these into account.
I certainly accept that the Reformed apply these things in a distinctive way and yes the rest of us have much to learn from that.
Papal encyclicals are full of scriptural references, for instance. Does this make them as biblical as the various Reformed confessions? Are they less biblical because they are arrived at by a different process and interpretive framework?
I'd suggest that all mainstream Christian traditions are applying a biblical mind to theological matters. What varies might be the frame of reference rather than how much or how little scripture is quoted.
Please forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick. I am trying to take care how I express things.
Well, well. I was of course riffing with the 'Baillie' / bailey sound-alike.
I know I can be clumsy but I do feel I'm treading on egg-shells on this thread. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive. At the same time I can't help but feel I've trodden on other people's toes without being aware of it.
Seems to me the purpose of prayer is not so much as to twist God's arm as it is to get ourselves into the mind of God. This is not to say God cannot be persuaded to grant a request, but it is not like needing 100,000 women praying at once to stop a war.
@Lamb Chopped My late husband was unable to reach his father's side before he died. Feeling sorry for not being able to say goodbye, he told me he prayed that Jesus would tell his father that he loved him. He told me as clear as a bell he heard a voice say, "Your message was received." My husband was not a very religious person so this truly surprised us both.
Seems to me the purpose of prayer is not so much as to twist God's arm as it is to get ourselves into the mind of God. This is not to say God cannot be persuaded to grant a request, but it is not like needing 100,000 women praying at once to stop a war.
Of course. Which is the point I was making.
Alongside the 'communal' aspect, the communion of the Saints.
All Christian traditions and Big T Tradition have to watch out for 'magical thinking'. If only we do X, Y and Z then the result will be ...
Hence all the 'name it and claim it' malarkey or those who think that the 'where two or three agree' thing is some kind of cast-iron guarantee that their prayers will be answered in the way they want them to be.
It's not only charismatic evangelicals who can fall into this sort of thing. It happens in the more sacramental traditions too, of course.
I suspect many of us lapse into it subconsciously ourselves. But then, 'some said it thundered' ...
@Lamb Chopped My late husband was unable to reach his father's side before he died. Feeling sorry for not being able to say goodbye, he told me he prayed that Jesus would tell his father that he loved him. He told me as clear as a bell he heard a voice say, "Your message was received." My husband was not a very religious person so this truly surprised us both.
I could totally see the Lord doing that, it's just like him. What a wonderful story.
I suppose part of the issue here is that as an Orthodox Christian I don't 'disaggregate' scripture from Tradition in the way that other Christian traditions appear to do - from an Orthodox perspective that is.
So, to my mind it makes little sense to say that the Reformed tradition is more biblically focused than others might be. I'd argue that they are biblically focused most certainly, but in the context of their tradition, their particular interpretive framework.
This is where you are going wrong. There is not a particular interpretative framework. Some Reformed will have one interpretative framework, some will have another, and yes, we argue over which is best. In @Nick Tamen 's and mine, we are actually taught about different interpretative frameworks. In fact, your stance is probably you imbibing the Reformed meta-narrative that surprisingly shapes English-speaking Western Christianity profoundly. The Word speaking through the Bible is held to be above all that; it is just that we humans need an interpretative framework to hear it.
The interpretative framework is not what I am talking about. I am talking about. I am talking about the culture in which that framework is operated. If you are putting more emphasis on other areas of church life, then the Bible is not holding the same status within that life.
I suppose part of the issue here is that as an Orthodox Christian I don't 'disaggregate' scripture from Tradition in the way that other Christian traditions appear to do - from an Orthodox perspective that is.
So, to my mind it makes little sense to say that the Reformed tradition is more biblically focused than others might be. I'd argue that they are biblically focused most certainly, but in the context of their tradition, their particular interpretive framework.
Gamma Gamaliel, once the thread gets to this page, most mentions of tradition are in your posts, apart from a post of Jengie Jon's replying to one of yours.
I know you have experience of church other than the Orthodox. As you put it elsewhere:
Ask me. I was involved with what were then called the 'new churches', 'house churches' or 'restorationist churches' from 1981 to 2000.
The scene was always in a state of flux and constantly evolving and shape-shifting.
It strikes me that one characteristic of these movements is that they had a very different attitude to tradition, to the extent of being apparently quite relaxed about the idea of reinventing themselves on a regular basis.
It occurs to me that rather than trying to force this issue into the perspective of tradition (or Tradition), it might be more helpful to focus on the question of authority (say). The new churches might have been (and still be) actively trying to escape tradition, but all the churches mentioned here have marked views about authority.
Sorry, @Jengie Jon, I don't accept that I am 'wrong' in what I've been trying - or struggling - to say.
I may have been clumsy in the way I've expressed it though.
I think we are 'talking past' each other to a certain extent. I'm certainly not saying that there is a single monolithic approach within the Reformed tradition. I fully accept that there are varied and perhaps even competing 'traditions' or perhaps 'sub-traditions' within the Reformed tradition and I'd certainly accept that the arguments, debates and even jostling around these traditions is part of what makes the Reformed tradition so dynamic- and indeed fascinating.
FWIW I have enormous respect for the Reformed tradition - in its Big R and small r forms. Our culture has been shaped by it. I've been shaped by it too. I am not writing it off.
All I am saying is that however we approach scripture we approach it through the lens of our particular traditions. Scripture doesn't stand alone.
Heck, the Reformed tradition wouldn't have the scriptures in the first place if it wasn't bequeathed to them by earlier Tradition/traditions.
The New Testament predates the 16th century. 😉
Ok. I'm being cheeky. What the Reformed were about, crudely speaking, was the reformation of previous Tradition/traditions they believed to have departed from a biblical standard.
I understand that in the context of late medieval Roman Catholicism. I'd also be prepared to accept that some Orthodox practices and emphases - shock, horror - could be subject to review.
(Waits for the sky to fall in).
On the issue of authority then for the Orthodox it's seen as a corporate and collegial thing, which makes for painful embarrassment of course given the current schism within Orthodoxy and the rise of fundamentalism, nationalism and phyletism at the expense both of conciliarity and common humanity.
So it ill-behoves me to lecture anyone else about their traditions when we aren't adhering to our own.
Lord have mercy!
I would still argue though that in all churches, irrespective of their tradition, 'authority' tends to lie in an agreed interpretation of scripture within the context of that groups interpretive framework.
There will be a degree of consensus within the Reformed tradition as to how to interpret scripture. However many variations there might be all of them will 'operate' under that umbrella.
Am I putting it too crudely by suggesting that the locus of authority in that case doesn't reside intrinsically within scripture but Reformed interpretations of scripture? Yes, I know I'm being deliberately provocative but I am thinking aloud - thinking aloud.
We Orthodox don't interpret the scriptures without the Fathers. The Reformed don't interpret the scriptures without the Fathers, the medieval Scholastics, the Reformers, more recent Reformed theologians and wider Protestant thought more generally.
How can it be otherwise?
I don't see how I'm being particularly contentious by making that axiomatic observation. I'm not accusing the Reformed of being unbiblical, simply politely challenging the notion that they are more biblical than anyone else.
They interpret the scriptures through the lenses of their own ecclesial cultures and traditions in a similar way to how everyone else does. RCs do similar things. So do we. We cite Orthodox authorities. The Reformed may cite those too, but they'll also cite particular authorities or distinctive approaches that have arisen within their own tradition.
That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not criticising or having a go at anyone.
I can't recall anybody saying that the Reformed, or anybody really, are more biblical than anybody else. Am I missing something?
And part of the problem might be your insistence on telling everybody else, from whatever background, that they are based on tradition, or working out of (a) tradition, or what-have-you--when to be honest, them's fightin' words in quite a few denominations that come out of the Reformation. I haven't pushed back on this before now, but it's only fair you should know how it's coming off. The equivalent would be if we kept telling you that the Orthodox are not as wed to tradition as you think, but in fact are biblicists of the highest order. Wouldn't you get a bit cranky?
I may have been clumsy in the way I've expressed it though.
At the risk of repeating myself, @Gamma Gamaliel, please consider what has been pointed out to you more than once about how this quoted bit above might be related to portions of posts like these bits below:
Ok. I'm being cheeky.
Yes, I know I'm being deliberately provocative but I am thinking aloud - thinking aloud.
The more you do this, and the longer and longer your posts gets, you increase the risk of what you’re actually trying to say getting lost in cheekiness and thinking aloud. And you increase the risk of what @Lamb Chopped identifies—coming across like you’re mansplaining (Orthodoxsplaining?) other people’s religious traditions to them.
No, @Lamb Chopped I wouldn't because I think the Orthodox are more biblical than we are sometimes given credit for.
Heck, a Baptist recently asked me whether the Orthodox Church uses the Bible!
I really don't see what's so challenging or insulting or 'fighting talk' about suggesting to Reformation or post-Reformation churches that tradition forms part of their interpretative framework.
RCs wouldn't feel insulted if we told them that they have a Papal Magisterium.
Why should Protestants get upset when anyone suggests that they interpret the scriptures through the lens of a collectively agreed and unwritten consensus?
The UK doesn't have a written Constitution in the way that the USA does but it still has a Constitution.
@Nick Tamen - fair calls, to an extent, but you've given a highly selective response to what I've actually written. I've included caveats about being 'cheeky' and so on but if you look more closely you'll see that I reserve explicit criticism for the fundamentalism nationalism and phyletism that bedevils my own Tradition to our shame.
If I ask questions about or issue mild challenges to other Christian traditions I reserve the most 'criticism' for my own. You've overlooked where I've expressed admiration and indeed fascination with aspects of the Reformed tradition and focused on those aspects where you feel I'm challenging or insulting you.
Yes, I know sola scriptura is something of a sacred cow and yes I know it isn't the same as solo scriptura but that doesn't mean I shouldn't think aloud - thinking allowed. You are all within your rights to push back, of course but I'm suggesting that what I'm struggling to articulate is more nuanced than, forgive me, you appear to be taking it.
The fault may be mine of course as I struggle to put these things into words or work them out on the hoof. I'm not questioning anyone's Christian credentials.
Look, the dumbed-down version of the Reformation for beginners is usually couched in just that kind of language--"The RC church was drowning in tradition and the Reformers got back to the Bible as the foundation for the church."
I can see just as many things to pick holes in that as you, I dare say, so could we not? My point here is that, if THAT is the standard over-simplification, that means there are host of Lutherans etc. running around with the idea that "Tradition" is a naughty word. Most of these are relatively uneducated, yes; but then, most of any church body is relatively uneducated. And that means that "tradition" becomes a stumbling block to them, whether you think it ought to be or not.
It also means that people charged with education within a denomination, and with communication cross-denominationally, have to think hard about the words they choose. What do they mean to everyone involved? "Tradition" is one of the biggest bogeymen words available for certain groups of people coming out of the Reformation. And if you want to talk with those people without getting off on a huge trail of confusion, hurt feelings and frustration, you need to pay attention to the signals and straight-up warnings you're receiving. "Here be monsters." That is, "stop telling the children of the Reformation that they are based in tradition just as much as your group is. Let them speak for themselves."
@Nick Tamen - fair calls, to an extent, but you've given a highly selective response to what I've actually written. I've included caveats about being 'cheeky' and so on but if you look more closely you'll see that I reserve explicit criticism for the fundamentalism nationalism and phyletism that bedevils my own Tradition to our shame.
Yes, I saw that. I’m afraid, though, it doesn’t change how your posts can come across.
You've overlooked where I've expressed admiration and indeed fascination with aspects of the Reformed tradition and focused on those aspects where you feel I'm challenging or insulting you.
I haven’t overlooked those instances. I’ve tried to highlight how your “cheekiness” and “thinking aloud,” to use your terms, can both make your point harder to follow and can overshadow what ever admiration or fascination you express for the Reformed or other traditions.
Yes, I know sola scriptura is something of a sacred cow and yes I know it isn't the same as solo scriptura but that doesn't mean I shouldn't think aloud - thinking allowed.
As far as I can recall, no one has said anything about sola scriptura other than you, or perhaps people responding to you after you brought it up. Just as no one has said anything about the Reformed being “more biblical” other than you.
With all respect, it’s not so much sola scriptura being a sacred cow as it is sola scriptura being brought into every discussion of this type, whether it’s really relevant or not. It’s tiring, and it can give the impression that people from, say, Lutheran or Reformed traditions are being talked at rather than listened to.
I'm not questioning anyone's Christian credentials.
I doubt anyone thinks you are. I certainly don’t.
And to be clear, I don’t think you intend any offense at all. I assume you don’t. I’m trying to help explore why your posts may be coming across in ways you don’t intend.
Thanks @Lamb Chopped and @Nick Tamen. I will reflect on your 'push-backs' and challenges which I certainly do not regard as ad hominem or unnecessary.
I suppose in my own mind the 'cheekiness' and hyperbole of some of my posts are intended to 'sugar the pill' of any mild challenges or objections I might level at traditions other than my own. In doing so this appears to be having the opposite effect to what I intend and draws more attention to those differences rather than those instances where I acknowledge strengths or affirm much common ground.
As some of you know, I am 'seeing' a woman from an evangelical Protestant background and parallel examples of the things you're calling me out on have, unsurprisingly, arisen there. Indeed, I felt the need to acknowledge and confess these things before the Lord the last time I 'made my confession.'
I may do so again over some of the hoity-toity attitudes and tone I've been been guilty of adopting on these boards.
Please forgive me, my brothers and sisters.
And yes, for the love of God and my salvation please do not hesitate to hold me to account if you feel I overstep the mark. I takes a long time to change a habit or a posting style but may that process begin and gather momentum.
Thank you for your patience and pray for me the sinner.
Ok. Let's back up a bit.
…
On the issue of authority then…
Thanks, Gamma Gamaliel, for giving it a go, even if the results were mixed. (Just on a word count, there were 18 uses of "tradition" in that post and 5 uses of "authority".)
Does it really not strike you that saying things like
Why should Protestants get upset when anyone suggests that they interpret the scriptures through the lens of a collectively agreed and unwritten consensus? … I don't see what the fuss is about.
is unlikely to be productive?
It often sounds like you just don't get how Authority and the Authority of Scripture work in Protestantism. Or maybe, given that you were in it for 19 years of your life, you did once get it, but have no wish to repeat the experience.
As it happens I was involved with Protestant churches of one form or another for 40 years. 1981 to 2021. Not including childhood attendance to the age of 11.
About half of that time was spent in independent evangelical or charismatic evangelical settings. I was a member of a Baptist church with post-evangelical leanings for 6 years. For 12 years I attended an Anglican church but without joining the electoral roll. I stopped attending that after my wife died in 2018 but did attend other churches sporadically as far as Covid allowed.
I've also been posting here for donkeys years and discussing various approaches to these issues.
So I think it's a fairly safe assumption that I do understand how 'Authority' (why the capital 'A'?) and the 'Authority of scripture' work in Protestant contexts.
@Lamb Chopped has pointed out very articulately why Lutherans might take exception to my use of the 't' word - (tradition) - and I get that now.
@Jengie Jon has also defended the small o orthodoxy of the Reformed tradition. I hadn't been aware that I'd challenged that or called it into question. So I'll state here that I do regard the Reformed tradition as orthodox, but with heterodox elements here and there.
@Nick Tamen has very helpfully explained the issues he has with some of my recent posts and with my posting style.
I have apologised and will seek to modify that in future.
As it happens I was involved with Protestant churches of one form or another for 40 years. 1981 to 2021. Not including childhood attendance to the age of 11.
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So I think it's a fairly safe assumption that I do understand how 'Authority' (why the capital 'A'?) and the 'Authority of scripture' work in Protestant contexts.
A: to draw attention to it. When comparing Protestant tradition (small t) to Orthodox Tradition (capital T), to which you often draw attention (either explicitly or implicitly), you are not comparing like with like. Their roles in relation to authority (and Authority) are not the same.
Anything resembling the implication that Protestants have Tradition but they just don't like admitting it, looks like a Traditionalist pejorative (in a similar vein to both/and). I believe there's a further suggestion that because Protestants are in denial about the role that Tradition plays, they have impaired their responsiveness to Authority.
On this thread, making references and allusions to this has succeeded in provoking the kind of reactions that it is intended to provoke.
So I'll state here that I do regard the Reformed tradition as orthodox, but with heterodox elements here and there.
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I have apologised and will seek to modify that in future.
Why do you feel the constant need to point out how Protestantism deviates from Orthodoxy? (Even when referencing an apology.) Where did you pick this habit up from?
If somehow it were possible to find twenty theologians who were familiar with the theology of different Christian denominations, but who didn't know who Kierkegaard was, and you gave them a selection of Kierkegaard's writings and asked them to guess which denomination he belonged to, I would suppose that most of them would be able to tell that he was a Lutheran.
Precisely in his insistence that faith is a passion that the individual must work out in fear and trembling Kierkegaard is developing themes and structures that he's inherited from Lutheran theologians who have gone before him.
I think it's only a crude form of Lutheranism that would deny that Lutherans pass down distinctively Lutheran doctrines and practice from generation to generation. Just as only a crude Eastern Orthodoxy would assert that every detail of doctrine and practice was dictated by Jesus and has been passed down undeveloped ever since.
As it happens I was involved with Protestant churches of one form or another for 40 years. 1981 to 2021. Not including childhood attendance to the age of 11.
…
So I think it's a fairly safe assumption that I do understand how 'Authority' (why the capital 'A'?) and the 'Authority of scripture' work in Protestant contexts.
A: to draw attention to it. When comparing Protestant tradition (small t) to Orthodox Tradition (capital T), to which you often draw attention (either explicitly or implicitly), you are not comparing like with like. Their roles in relation to authority (and Authority) are not the same.
Anything resembling the implication that Protestants have Tradition but they just don't like admitting it, looks like a Traditionalist pejorative (in a similar vein to both/and). I believe there's a further suggestion that because Protestants are in denial about the role that Tradition plays, they have impaired their responsiveness to Authority.
On this thread, making references and allusions to this has succeeded in provoking the kind of reactions that it is intended to provoke.
So I'll state here that I do regard the Reformed tradition as orthodox, but with heterodox elements here and there.
…
I have apologised and will seek to modify that in future.
Why do you feel the constant need to point out how Protestantism deviates from Orthodoxy? (Even when referencing an apology.) Where did you pick this habit up from?
I takes a long time to change a habit or a posting style but may that process begin and gather momentum.
This seems to be about rather more than a question of style.
No, it's more a question of you pressing me on these things after I've issued an apology and me responding to you as I don't always think I've made myself clear.
For a kick-off, I always use a small 't' when referring to Protestant traditions or generic Christian traditions which we would all hold in common. I use Big T for Big T Traditions such as Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism where Tradition is a bigger deal than it is within Protestantism.
I have never accused Protestants of having a Big T Tradition without being aware of it. I would say that some - and I emphasise some Protestants act as if they are unaware that their approach and interpretative schemas form part of their tradition (small t) rather than simply being 'the plain meaning of scripture' as it were.
It might very well accord with scripture. It most instances it will and does. But it's still part of a tradition.
FWIW I would argue that there are lots of interconnected and overlapping Protestant traditions rather than a single Big T Protestant Tradition.
I know the term 'tradition' whether Big T or small t may have negative connotations for some of us here but I can't think of a better term to use.
I like what @Dafyd has said about Kierkegaard. He was writing within the context of an inherited tradition. In his case a Lutheran one. We are all operating in a similar way, drawing on the accumulated wisdom and emphases of whatever Christian tradition we happen to inhabit.
Now, @Lamb Chopped has very articulately explained why talk of 'tradition' might give some Lutherans the heebie-geebies. She highlighted some aspects I'd not considered before and it has given me pause. I am trying to tread more warily than I have hitherto. I may not have succeeded in doing so as quickly as I and others might wish. Bear with me. It's work in progress.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that @Lamb Chopped represents a 'crude form of Lutheranism' in the way @Dafyd describes. Equally I would accept that there are 'crude forms of Eastern Orthodoxy' which do act as if Tradition was dictated by Christ one Thursday afternoon. Or by a Church Council.
There can be a 'Church fundamentalism' as well as a biblical fundamentalism.
What I would also accept is that I am probably still working through some of the 'fall-out' from my time in 'restorationist' charismatic evangelicalism where 'tradition' was a dirty word and where we wouldn't have accepted that we had any 'tradition' at all but were simply going on the 'plain-meaning' of scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
In fairness, there was more nuanced there than that but if we did nod to 'tradition' it was only in a highly selective way - those figures from church history we thought were like us.
Whatever the case, I don't think I've capitalised the word 'Authority' other than to ask why you'd done so.
I'm wary of capitalising the word 'Authority' as it suggests to me a form of Magisterium.
Which is why I asked what you meant by the term.
That would get us into discussions that might be better aired on a separate thread.
Comments
Well you can hear people who depart your home (by phone) but you still say goodbye at the door.
Still, I'd never fault anybody for wanting to stay in touch with those they love. I myself do it, though I have the cheek to ask God to pass messages for me.
The Holy Spirit is the ultimate switchboard. Operator? Information? Get me Jesus on the line.
That is from Day 20 Morning, and the whole of Day 5 Morning is also given up, what I think he would see as "Prayer with the Saints". It starts with
What you are seeing is an imagined great cloud of witnesses to salvations story, among whom the prayer is invited to position their own prayer.
Without the article I can only speculate on what he said the Reformed were theologically suited and I would suggest the deep biblicalism. I do not mean the superficial, though often vast ability to quote texts at will but the way you find among the Reformed, liberal or conservative alike, the Biblical narrative is esteemed as living and relevant* to today. The Christian is held in a dialogue with the Salvations story through the Bible and it is this that gives us the unique perspective on prayer with the saints for as we do that participate in that story as they did.
*I want to say "in its complexity" and that is true for most but I have to acknowledge that some still want to make it a simple linear story.
I think I can see what Baillie was getting at.
@Lamb Chopped well, I'm cheeky enough to pray directly to God too. The reason I might invoke the prayers of Mary and the Saints isn't because I'm too scared to knock God's front door or because I believe there's a pyramid system in place.
Rather I'd ask them to pray in the same way as I might be cheeky enough to ask you to do so also.
😉
Indeed, every Saturday is dedicated to that but some Saturdays more than others.
Like everything else in the liturgical round it's part of a continuum which is why, with apologies for being blunt, well-intentioned Protestant objections such as 'why waste time praying for the dead when the living need our help' don't cut much ice with us.
It's a both/and thing. 😉
A thought experiment. I liked @mousethief's 'Operator? Information. Get me Jesus on the line,' allusion.
What if, @Lamb Chopped your 'cheeky' request to God to pass on something to your sister was met with the response, 'Here she is. You can tell her yourself...'
Not that I'd expect that.
But I do 'tell' my late wife things when I visit her grave. How the girls are doing. What's happening with me. I've even 'told' her that I'm 'seeing' someone else now.
Can she 'hear' me? Is she already aware of these things from a Heavenly portal from which she looks down, as it were?
Do the Saints/Saints see us on the toilet or in the naughty-naked nude (as Ian Dury put it)?
Or do they politely avert their gaze and get on with whatever splendiferous things they do in Eternity where God in Christ is all in all?
Not that we become God as it were.
Whether God taps our departed loved ones on their resurrection-body shoulder and says, 'Your sister has asked me to tell you this ...' or whether they are somehow aware of us in God's 'eternal now', I don't know.
Either way, I do believe there is some kind of connection with the glorified departed in a way which most probably absorbs all our collective insights across our respective Christian traditions/Tradition and much more besides.
As for the childishness of what I'm doing, I'll happily admit it. We've never been given much information about how things work "over there," and I'm okay defaulting to a childish image ("passing messages") in the absence of data needed for a seemingly more adult practice. Christ never seemed to be bothered by the more childlike mistakes and behaviors of his followers, but seemed to me to get a bit testy with those who thought they had it all figured out. Which is why I prefer to err on the side of childishness rather than go beyond what I'm sure of. Besides, it'll keep me humble.
I will readily acknowledge that I 'speak' to my late wife at her graveside but I don't expect her to answer me or her to appear to me in a vision.
Heck, my late mother told my brother that she'd 'seen' my late wife one night 'shining like a Saint.'
She didn't tell me that but my brother did. Do I think that was an actual supernatural vision? No.
Would it change my practice if I believed it was. Probably not.
I base my practices on the teachings of my Church and how it understands Holy Scripture in the context of Tradition.
You base your practices on your understanding of scripture within your particular context. I would not try to persuade you otherwise. If, for whatever reason, you were to change your ecclesial allegiance and became RC or Orthodox then you might adopt the practices found in those particular Christian bodies.
As it stands you take a standard Protestant approach to these things, which you are freely entitled to do so. God's not going to boot you out for not praying for the departed nor invoking the prayers of the Saints.
I didn't say your comments were 'childish' either. I could see you were putting things in seemingly naive and simple terms to make a point. That point was well made.
This is a discussion. I framed my response on the form of a 'thought-experiment' as a way of expressing how I see these things, not to suggest that everyone else should approach it as I do.
I was using 'standard Protestantism' in a short-hand kind of way and am happy to consider alternative phraseology.
Also, I was certainly unwise to pick an example from real life or a Shipmate's personal circumstances or practices for a 'thought-experiment.' I should have opted for something more hypothetical.
That would be how I would approach it
I’ve definitely done that as well.
Ok. I see that. It's something of a rhetorical device I've acquired the bad habit of using. I'll put out an extreme view of some kind by way of example and then qualify it by saying that I'm not accusing anyone here of holding that position.
I'll then put out some more moderate alternatives.
At least that's my intention but I can see it might not come across that way. I also tend to use hyperbole in a humorous way abd that doesn't always transmit well on a medium of this kind.
I'll have to develop a different posting style to convey what I'm trying to say.
And sometimes it would be better for everyone as well as myself if I kept my counsel.
What this looks like from where I sit is trying to disown the view being expressed. It has a similar effect to the phrase “just sayin'”, as an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the effect of the words just typed, on anyone reading them. In this context, this looks like the rhetorical equivalent of the sales technique of "decoy pricing" - presenting an extreme view in the hope of making the alternatives that follow seem more reasonable.
Or a rhetorical variation of motte-and-bailey.
Would that be because you wanted someone else to be aware of why you feel you needed prayers (a trouble shared is a trouble halved,) or because you believe God is more like to "cave in" if more people are asking?
Please get away from other traditions having monopolies; we have emphases just as the Orthodox do.
What you must get hold of is that there are things that the Reformed are not focused on. The Reformed are implicated in the founding of most liturgical societies, but that does not make it a liturgical tradition. There is a deep mystical streak in Reformed practice with respect to nature, despite its innate suspicion of mysticism, but that does not make it a mystical tradition. There is a high Sacramental tradition within the Reformed, but the Reformed tradition is not Sacramental. There is a high emphasis on orthodox teaching; most of the splits are over this, but that does not make the Reformed tradition Orthodox.
However, they are focused on the Bible and the Word which proceeds from it. In very few other traditions would they be happy to call themselves Bibliocentric. Very few traditions, even among liberals, would reference to the Bible can be used to settle arguments; indeed, no argument is complete within the Reformed tradition unless the Bible has been referenced by both sides and the passages argued over in depth. In very few traditions will the key indicator of what Quakers call a "Weighty member" and my supervisor called a "keeny" be the depth of grounding in the Bible. Very few traditions would be happy with theology that describes the Word as Supra-Sacramental.
Yes, Reformed have no monopoly, but other traditions are not so focused on the Bible.
@Alan29 - yes, a problem shared ... but there's also the James 5:16 thing about praying for one another and 'the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man (person) avails much'. Which is also an argument for invoking the prayers of the Saints. Putting it crudely, we might expect the prayers of the Theotokos or Saint John the Baptist or Theresa of Avila or ... to carry some weight.
Don't misunderstand me, though. I'm not saying that the more people we get praying the more we can twist God's arm. I remember a thing going around before the 2nd Iraq War that if God could find 100,000 women prepared to pray then conflict would be averted.
What did they say when the shooting started? God only found 999,999 women. One extra would have done it?
I don't see these things in mechanistic, slot-machine terms. 25 people praying, that increases the odds rather than if there were 5 people praying, or whatever it might be.
I'd see it as about 'involvement' and participation in a communal sense. If you asked me to pray for you, for instance, I might be pleased that you trust me sufficiently to ask and also pleased to rejoice with you at a favourable outcome should that arise. Or show empathy if things worked out differently.
It's not for nothing we talk about the communion of saints/Saints.
@Jengie Jon - fair call and 'my bad'. I would agree with those observations about the Reformed tradition and to a great extent on account of things you and @Nick Tamen have shared here over the years.
I suppose part of the issue here is that as an Orthodox Christian I don't 'disaggregate' scripture from Tradition in the way that other Christian traditions appear to do - from an Orthodox perspective that is.
So, to my mind it makes little sense to say that the Reformed tradition is more biblically focused than others might be. I'd argue that they are biblically focused most certainly, but in the context of their tradition, their particular interpretive framework.
Now, I'm not saying the Reformed are unaware of that or treat scripture in a 'stand-alone' way without reference to Patristics, to the writings of the medieval Scholastics, the Reformers, more recent theologians such as Barth or Torrence or those outside the Reformed tradition. Of course not. The Reformed take all these into account.
I certainly accept that the Reformed apply these things in a distinctive way and yes the rest of us have much to learn from that.
Papal encyclicals are full of scriptural references, for instance. Does this make them as biblical as the various Reformed confessions? Are they less biblical because they are arrived at by a different process and interpretive framework?
I'd suggest that all mainstream Christian traditions are applying a biblical mind to theological matters. What varies might be the frame of reference rather than how much or how little scripture is quoted.
Please forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick. I am trying to take care how I express things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
I know I can be clumsy but I do feel I'm treading on egg-shells on this thread. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive. At the same time I can't help but feel I've trodden on other people's toes without being aware of it.
Colour me discombobulated.
If I have caused offence I apologise unreservedly.
Of course. Which is the point I was making.
Alongside the 'communal' aspect, the communion of the Saints.
All Christian traditions and Big T Tradition have to watch out for 'magical thinking'. If only we do X, Y and Z then the result will be ...
Hence all the 'name it and claim it' malarkey or those who think that the 'where two or three agree' thing is some kind of cast-iron guarantee that their prayers will be answered in the way they want them to be.
It's not only charismatic evangelicals who can fall into this sort of thing. It happens in the more sacramental traditions too, of course.
I suspect many of us lapse into it subconsciously ourselves. But then, 'some said it thundered' ...
I could totally see the Lord doing that, it's just like him. What a wonderful story.
This is where you are going wrong. There is not a particular interpretative framework. Some Reformed will have one interpretative framework, some will have another, and yes, we argue over which is best. In @Nick Tamen 's and mine, we are actually taught about different interpretative frameworks. In fact, your stance is probably you imbibing the Reformed meta-narrative that surprisingly shapes English-speaking Western Christianity profoundly. The Word speaking through the Bible is held to be above all that; it is just that we humans need an interpretative framework to hear it.
The interpretative framework is not what I am talking about. I am talking about. I am talking about the culture in which that framework is operated. If you are putting more emphasis on other areas of church life, then the Bible is not holding the same status within that life.
Gamma Gamaliel, once the thread gets to this page, most mentions of tradition are in your posts, apart from a post of Jengie Jon's replying to one of yours.
I know you have experience of church other than the Orthodox. As you put it elsewhere: It strikes me that one characteristic of these movements is that they had a very different attitude to tradition, to the extent of being apparently quite relaxed about the idea of reinventing themselves on a regular basis.
It occurs to me that rather than trying to force this issue into the perspective of tradition (or Tradition), it might be more helpful to focus on the question of authority (say). The new churches might have been (and still be) actively trying to escape tradition, but all the churches mentioned here have marked views about authority.
Sorry, @Jengie Jon, I don't accept that I am 'wrong' in what I've been trying - or struggling - to say.
I may have been clumsy in the way I've expressed it though.
I think we are 'talking past' each other to a certain extent. I'm certainly not saying that there is a single monolithic approach within the Reformed tradition. I fully accept that there are varied and perhaps even competing 'traditions' or perhaps 'sub-traditions' within the Reformed tradition and I'd certainly accept that the arguments, debates and even jostling around these traditions is part of what makes the Reformed tradition so dynamic- and indeed fascinating.
FWIW I have enormous respect for the Reformed tradition - in its Big R and small r forms. Our culture has been shaped by it. I've been shaped by it too. I am not writing it off.
All I am saying is that however we approach scripture we approach it through the lens of our particular traditions. Scripture doesn't stand alone.
Heck, the Reformed tradition wouldn't have the scriptures in the first place if it wasn't bequeathed to them by earlier Tradition/traditions.
The New Testament predates the 16th century. 😉
Ok. I'm being cheeky. What the Reformed were about, crudely speaking, was the reformation of previous Tradition/traditions they believed to have departed from a biblical standard.
I understand that in the context of late medieval Roman Catholicism. I'd also be prepared to accept that some Orthodox practices and emphases - shock, horror - could be subject to review.
(Waits for the sky to fall in).
On the issue of authority then for the Orthodox it's seen as a corporate and collegial thing, which makes for painful embarrassment of course given the current schism within Orthodoxy and the rise of fundamentalism, nationalism and phyletism at the expense both of conciliarity and common humanity.
So it ill-behoves me to lecture anyone else about their traditions when we aren't adhering to our own.
Lord have mercy!
I would still argue though that in all churches, irrespective of their tradition, 'authority' tends to lie in an agreed interpretation of scripture within the context of that groups interpretive framework.
There will be a degree of consensus within the Reformed tradition as to how to interpret scripture. However many variations there might be all of them will 'operate' under that umbrella.
Am I putting it too crudely by suggesting that the locus of authority in that case doesn't reside intrinsically within scripture but Reformed interpretations of scripture? Yes, I know I'm being deliberately provocative but I am thinking aloud - thinking aloud.
We Orthodox don't interpret the scriptures without the Fathers. The Reformed don't interpret the scriptures without the Fathers, the medieval Scholastics, the Reformers, more recent Reformed theologians and wider Protestant thought more generally.
How can it be otherwise?
I don't see how I'm being particularly contentious by making that axiomatic observation. I'm not accusing the Reformed of being unbiblical, simply politely challenging the notion that they are more biblical than anyone else.
They interpret the scriptures through the lenses of their own ecclesial cultures and traditions in a similar way to how everyone else does. RCs do similar things. So do we. We cite Orthodox authorities. The Reformed may cite those too, but they'll also cite particular authorities or distinctive approaches that have arisen within their own tradition.
That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not criticising or having a go at anyone.
And part of the problem might be your insistence on telling everybody else, from whatever background, that they are based on tradition, or working out of (a) tradition, or what-have-you--when to be honest, them's fightin' words in quite a few denominations that come out of the Reformation. I haven't pushed back on this before now, but it's only fair you should know how it's coming off. The equivalent would be if we kept telling you that the Orthodox are not as wed to tradition as you think, but in fact are biblicists of the highest order. Wouldn't you get a bit cranky?
The more you do this, and the longer and longer your posts gets, you increase the risk of what you’re actually trying to say getting lost in cheekiness and thinking aloud. And you increase the risk of what @Lamb Chopped identifies—coming across like you’re mansplaining (Orthodoxsplaining?) other people’s religious traditions to them.
No, you’re not missing anything. I don’t think anyone has said that. And it has been pointed before in this thread that no one has said that.
Heck, a Baptist recently asked me whether the Orthodox Church uses the Bible!
I really don't see what's so challenging or insulting or 'fighting talk' about suggesting to Reformation or post-Reformation churches that tradition forms part of their interpretative framework.
RCs wouldn't feel insulted if we told them that they have a Papal Magisterium.
Why should Protestants get upset when anyone suggests that they interpret the scriptures through the lens of a collectively agreed and unwritten consensus?
The UK doesn't have a written Constitution in the way that the USA does but it still has a Constitution.
I don't see what the fuss is about.
If I ask questions about or issue mild challenges to other Christian traditions I reserve the most 'criticism' for my own. You've overlooked where I've expressed admiration and indeed fascination with aspects of the Reformed tradition and focused on those aspects where you feel I'm challenging or insulting you.
Yes, I know sola scriptura is something of a sacred cow and yes I know it isn't the same as solo scriptura but that doesn't mean I shouldn't think aloud - thinking allowed. You are all within your rights to push back, of course but I'm suggesting that what I'm struggling to articulate is more nuanced than, forgive me, you appear to be taking it.
The fault may be mine of course as I struggle to put these things into words or work them out on the hoof. I'm not questioning anyone's Christian credentials.
Look, the dumbed-down version of the Reformation for beginners is usually couched in just that kind of language--"The RC church was drowning in tradition and the Reformers got back to the Bible as the foundation for the church."
I can see just as many things to pick holes in that as you, I dare say, so could we not? My point here is that, if THAT is the standard over-simplification, that means there are host of Lutherans etc. running around with the idea that "Tradition" is a naughty word. Most of these are relatively uneducated, yes; but then, most of any church body is relatively uneducated. And that means that "tradition" becomes a stumbling block to them, whether you think it ought to be or not.
It also means that people charged with education within a denomination, and with communication cross-denominationally, have to think hard about the words they choose. What do they mean to everyone involved? "Tradition" is one of the biggest bogeymen words available for certain groups of people coming out of the Reformation. And if you want to talk with those people without getting off on a huge trail of confusion, hurt feelings and frustration, you need to pay attention to the signals and straight-up warnings you're receiving. "Here be monsters." That is, "stop telling the children of the Reformation that they are based in tradition just as much as your group is. Let them speak for themselves."
I haven’t overlooked those instances. I’ve tried to highlight how your “cheekiness” and “thinking aloud,” to use your terms, can both make your point harder to follow and can overshadow what ever admiration or fascination you express for the Reformed or other traditions.
As far as I can recall, no one has said anything about sola scriptura other than you, or perhaps people responding to you after you brought it up. Just as no one has said anything about the Reformed being “more biblical” other than you.
With all respect, it’s not so much sola scriptura being a sacred cow as it is sola scriptura being brought into every discussion of this type, whether it’s really relevant or not. It’s tiring, and it can give the impression that people from, say, Lutheran or Reformed traditions are being talked at rather than listened to.
I doubt anyone thinks you are. I certainly don’t.
And to be clear, I don’t think you intend any offense at all. I assume you don’t. I’m trying to help explore why your posts may be coming across in ways you don’t intend.
I suppose in my own mind the 'cheekiness' and hyperbole of some of my posts are intended to 'sugar the pill' of any mild challenges or objections I might level at traditions other than my own. In doing so this appears to be having the opposite effect to what I intend and draws more attention to those differences rather than those instances where I acknowledge strengths or affirm much common ground.
As some of you know, I am 'seeing' a woman from an evangelical Protestant background and parallel examples of the things you're calling me out on have, unsurprisingly, arisen there. Indeed, I felt the need to acknowledge and confess these things before the Lord the last time I 'made my confession.'
I may do so again over some of the hoity-toity attitudes and tone I've been been guilty of adopting on these boards.
Please forgive me, my brothers and sisters.
And yes, for the love of God and my salvation please do not hesitate to hold me to account if you feel I overstep the mark. I takes a long time to change a habit or a posting style but may that process begin and gather momentum.
Thank you for your patience and pray for me the sinner.
Does it really not strike you that saying things like is unlikely to be productive?
It often sounds like you just don't get how Authority and the Authority of Scripture work in Protestantism. Or maybe, given that you were in it for 19 years of your life, you did once get it, but have no wish to repeat the experience.
As it happens I was involved with Protestant churches of one form or another for 40 years. 1981 to 2021. Not including childhood attendance to the age of 11.
About half of that time was spent in independent evangelical or charismatic evangelical settings. I was a member of a Baptist church with post-evangelical leanings for 6 years. For 12 years I attended an Anglican church but without joining the electoral roll. I stopped attending that after my wife died in 2018 but did attend other churches sporadically as far as Covid allowed.
I've also been posting here for donkeys years and discussing various approaches to these issues.
So I think it's a fairly safe assumption that I do understand how 'Authority' (why the capital 'A'?) and the 'Authority of scripture' work in Protestant contexts.
@Lamb Chopped has pointed out very articulately why Lutherans might take exception to my use of the 't' word - (tradition) - and I get that now.
@Jengie Jon has also defended the small o orthodoxy of the Reformed tradition. I hadn't been aware that I'd challenged that or called it into question. So I'll state here that I do regard the Reformed tradition as orthodox, but with heterodox elements here and there.
@Nick Tamen has very helpfully explained the issues he has with some of my recent posts and with my posting style.
I have apologised and will seek to modify that in future.
Thank you for your patience.
Anything resembling the implication that Protestants have Tradition but they just don't like admitting it, looks like a Traditionalist pejorative (in a similar vein to both/and). I believe there's a further suggestion that because Protestants are in denial about the role that Tradition plays, they have impaired their responsiveness to Authority.
On this thread, making references and allusions to this has succeeded in provoking the kind of reactions that it is intended to provoke.
Why do you feel the constant need to point out how Protestantism deviates from Orthodoxy? (Even when referencing an apology.) Where did you pick this habit up from?
This seems to be about rather more than a question of style.
Precisely in his insistence that faith is a passion that the individual must work out in fear and trembling Kierkegaard is developing themes and structures that he's inherited from Lutheran theologians who have gone before him.
I think it's only a crude form of Lutheranism that would deny that Lutherans pass down distinctively Lutheran doctrines and practice from generation to generation. Just as only a crude Eastern Orthodoxy would assert that every detail of doctrine and practice was dictated by Jesus and has been passed down undeveloped ever since.
No, it's more a question of you pressing me on these things after I've issued an apology and me responding to you as I don't always think I've made myself clear.
For a kick-off, I always use a small 't' when referring to Protestant traditions or generic Christian traditions which we would all hold in common. I use Big T for Big T Traditions such as Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism where Tradition is a bigger deal than it is within Protestantism.
I have never accused Protestants of having a Big T Tradition without being aware of it. I would say that some - and I emphasise some Protestants act as if they are unaware that their approach and interpretative schemas form part of their tradition (small t) rather than simply being 'the plain meaning of scripture' as it were.
It might very well accord with scripture. It most instances it will and does. But it's still part of a tradition.
FWIW I would argue that there are lots of interconnected and overlapping Protestant traditions rather than a single Big T Protestant Tradition.
I know the term 'tradition' whether Big T or small t may have negative connotations for some of us here but I can't think of a better term to use.
I like what @Dafyd has said about Kierkegaard. He was writing within the context of an inherited tradition. In his case a Lutheran one. We are all operating in a similar way, drawing on the accumulated wisdom and emphases of whatever Christian tradition we happen to inhabit.
Now, @Lamb Chopped has very articulately explained why talk of 'tradition' might give some Lutherans the heebie-geebies. She highlighted some aspects I'd not considered before and it has given me pause. I am trying to tread more warily than I have hitherto. I may not have succeeded in doing so as quickly as I and others might wish. Bear with me. It's work in progress.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that @Lamb Chopped represents a 'crude form of Lutheranism' in the way @Dafyd describes. Equally I would accept that there are 'crude forms of Eastern Orthodoxy' which do act as if Tradition was dictated by Christ one Thursday afternoon. Or by a Church Council.
There can be a 'Church fundamentalism' as well as a biblical fundamentalism.
What I would also accept is that I am probably still working through some of the 'fall-out' from my time in 'restorationist' charismatic evangelicalism where 'tradition' was a dirty word and where we wouldn't have accepted that we had any 'tradition' at all but were simply going on the 'plain-meaning' of scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
In fairness, there was more nuanced there than that but if we did nod to 'tradition' it was only in a highly selective way - those figures from church history we thought were like us.
Whatever the case, I don't think I've capitalised the word 'Authority' other than to ask why you'd done so.
I'm wary of capitalising the word 'Authority' as it suggests to me a form of Magisterium.
Which is why I asked what you meant by the term.
That would get us into discussions that might be better aired on a separate thread.
Apologies for the lengthy post.
Perhaps I should try 'journaling' 😉?
I'd be happy to have a discussion about sources of 'authority, or 'Authority' on another thread provided:
a) I can stick my resolution not to post as if I'm criticising other people's positions even if I don't hold those positions myself.
b) Shipmates understand that I sometimes work things out on the hoof and use these boards as a sounding-board as I do so.
I haven't been suspended for a good while so hope I've learned and am learning some lessons, but that's for others to judge of course.
Peace be to all!