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Baptist theologian Daniel H. Williams encourages both mainline and evangelical Protestants to experience church renewal through rediscovering the ancient Christian tradition. Episcopalian Robert Webber appeals to postmoderns to rediscover Christian community across time and space in the ancient orthodoxy of the church fathers. Evangelical Episcopalian theologian Christopher Hall urges evangelicals to read the Bible and learn theology with the church fathers and avoid the heretical novelties foreign to the church fathers' apprehension of the apostolic testimony.

This new Protestant traditionalism is attractive. What is one to do when people calling themselves Christians deny foundational Christian beliefs such as the Trinity and the two natures of Jesus Christ under the banner of "new light from Scripture"? The church fathers faced a similar situation with heretics who claimed to prove their heresies from Scripture. Not every interpretation of Scripture is equal; some are unreasonable and some are opposed to what the church has always believed. Such are always to be suspected of serious error.

All of this is understandable and laudable. Traditionalism in any form is preferable to the unfettered theological experimentation characteristic of so many mainline Protestant seminaries and denominational bureaucracies, as well as to shallow evangelical experientialism too often found in free church congregations and organizations.

And yet there is a danger almost as great as lost memory, and that is hardening of the categories—traditionalism. Historian Jaroslav Pelikan quipped that "tradition is the living faith of the dead while traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." In theology, however, traditionalism has a different connotation. It is the method of theology that treats tradition as an authoritative source and norm for Christian belief and practice alongside or over Scripture itself. Against Roman Catholic traditionalism, the Protestant reformers declared themselves in favor of "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura). Many people have misinterpreted this as meaning that Christians should pay no attention to any source other than the Bible, but in fact Luther and Calvin made extensive use of the church fathers in their expositions of Scripture and in their programs for reforming the church. What sola scriptura really means is not "Scripture alone" but "Scripture above all." "Scripture first" (prima scriptura) would be a better motto for the Protestant view of Scripture as the ultimate source and norm for Christian faith and practice. Traditionalism, however, rejects even prima scriptura in favor of an equality or interdependency of Scripture and tradition.

Eastern Orthodox churches make this appeal to the authority of tradition explicit. For them, the church's Great Tradition (as distinct from particular traditions of folk piety) is the grand source and norm, and Scripture is part of that Great Tradition. Roman Catholic traditionalism has a more dynamic view of the Great Tradition. For it, tradition grows as the church faces new issues, though for Catholics the Great Tradition does not include novelties. Every addition is thought to recognize an old truth in a new way. Both Orthodox and Catholic traditionalists believe there are essential beliefs that are not explicitly taught in Scripture. These traditionalists recognize the results of universal councils and some common beliefs of the people of God as essential Christian beliefs, even if they are not directly supported by Scripture. For example, Orthodox tradition includes the veneration of icons as necessary for full Christian worship and devotional life, and Roman Catholic tradition includes belief in the dogmas of Mary's immaculate conception and bodily assumption into heaven.

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November 2003, Vol. 47, No. 11