Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: CONS.ELF@AIDA.CSD.UU.SE (Ake Eldberg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Bible vs traditions of men Message-ID: Date: 3 Feb 91 04:31:11 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 58 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Kenny Hunt writes: >The perceived problem has merely been shifted from an interpretation of >Scripture to an interpretation of tradition. I agree completely that there is no other foundation than Christ Jesus. However, when people tell me that the Bible alone is sufficient to set us right, I find that this only leads to various denominations hitting each other with their "correct" interpretations. That was the main point of my posting: that careful interpretation of the bible *alone* is not enough. If tradition is perceived as a specific collection of writings by a specific group of Church Fathers or Councils, then it constitutes little more than an extention of the written material, and we end up in the same situation, quite as you say. How to interpret tradition. My point is that tradition is *not* just a collection of writings, but something that lives in the Church. As soon as we are presented with written words in a book or on a paper, we can dissect these forever, from legions of different angles. It leads only to disunity. The tradition I was referring to is that which lives among the believers, the theologians and all of Christianity. It will not yield hard-fact-answers to every question. But we may hope that it might yield consensus. A religion of LAW is one that goes for Hard Facts. Give us a list of exact interpretations! Give us a big fat book of rules for what to do in every conceivable situation, so that we can be sure that as long as we follow these rules, we will do right. That is not Christianity. It is Judaism of the kind that Jesus criticized. If He had wanted to give us Hard Facts about everything, He could have done so. But He gave us the New Testament, written by His disciples and followers. And He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us understand. By Tradition I mean the common Christian experience of 2,000 years, living with the Bible and prayer and sacraments and history. Seeing how it works. And what does not work. By tradition I also mean those parts of teaching that I believe were preserved orally and by deeds rather than words. Much of the Gospel lives in this. If you try to write it down, it becomes LAW and DEATH. While it is in our hearts, it is GOSPEL and LIFE. A fundamental fact of Christianity is that we are part of a Church. Jesus didn't come here to give us a book. He came to give marching orders to an army of disciples who, driven by the Spirit and guided by the Law of God, would make all peoples into disciples. All too often we have forgotten that, and concentrated so much on the book that we missed the point, missed the people of God, the community of all those who put their hope in Christ Jesus. Please note that I am not trying to give any easy solutions. It was never my intention to put tradition in the place of the Bible. But I wanted to say that interpretations of the bible alone will never give us all that God wants to give us. Ake Eldberg