Traditionalism

In our last edition, we endeavoured to express a few thoughts on the right use of church history. In this edition, I want us to consider an issue that stands very much related to that, and that is the issue of traditionalism. We would define traditionalism as the acceptance of the authority and the authoritative statements of the Church of a bye-gone day, without subjecting that authority and those authoritative statements to the scrutiny of God’s Word. We don’t question for one minute that God has vested in the Church an authority that flows on from age to age – He has given “pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints … for the edifying of the body,” and so forth. What we do question, however, is the acceptance of such authority in and of itself without subjecting certain of the statements and practices of that authority to the Scriptures of God. This is traditionalism, and this is what produces traditionalism within the churches of Christ at any given point of their existence.

In his “Shorter Writings,” B. B. Warfield has an article entitled, “Authority, Intellect, Heart.” In that article he reminds us that there are “three channels through which the truth of God is brought to man and made his possession.” The three channels are, of course, “Authority, the Intellect, the Heart;” that is, the things that God mediates to men out of that volume of authority that runs through the Church from one generation to another – what god conveys to man through his mind – and what God grants to man via his heart. “Authority, Intellect, and Heart.” What Warfield warns against is, what he calls, the “exaggeration” of any one of these three to the “discrediting” of the other two. So, he says, where we exaggerate the principle of the intellect to the discrediting of the others, we end up with rationalism; where we exaggerate the heart, we end up with mysticism (what we might term today, emotionalism;) and where we exaggerate authority, we end up with traditionalism.

Warfield’s words ought to be well-weighted. The Church has been plagued with rationalism, the Church has been plagued with that “mystic” approach to the faith that is determined simply by what “I feel” to be right, and the Church has been plagued with traditionalism – that acceptance of the authority and the authoritative statements of the Church of a bye-gone day, without subjecting that authority and those authoritative statements to the scrutiny of God’s word. We so often conduct our Church lives, and so often indulge in our Christian thinking and assessing with regards to spiritual things as though Christ had never said, “By the traditions of the elders, ye make void the word of God.” The whole controversy in the ministry of Christ in Israel was over what had become hardened traditionalism and what was the revealed truth of God. It was through holding to the former and refusing the latter that they “crucified the Lord of glory.” And that being the case, it constantly becomes us to know “the things whereof we affirm,” that they are really the words of the living God and the dictates and directives of the living God.

Now, may we say that not all traditions are necessarily wrong, in and of themselves. There are those certain practices within a given community of the Lord’s people that are almost “sanctified by usage.” Where the issue comes to a head is where the particular practice or tradition is pressed as a necessary part of saving faith or where it runs into conflict with the Word of God. In such a case, the tradition must go, and the Word of God must be held supreme. If that does not become the case, then, we are found guilty of that very thing that Christ spoke of – making the Word of the Lord of “none effect” by the traditions of the elders. This is where the real challenge lies, and this is where our true evangelical and our true “reformed” position is put to the test. We are ever forced to face the possibility that what has been an “historic” view on a certain position may not be the full Biblical view on that position. What has been viewed as “traditionally” reformed, may not be Biblically reformed. The danger in traditionalism is the equating of the historical with the Biblical and then, becoming entrenched in that equation. This is where the need of the whole preaching and the whole hearing of the whole Word of God in our churches becomes the great crying need of our day. And nowhere is that need more apparent than in so many of those churches that are looked upon as historically evangelical and reformed.

The greatest single factor in the promoting, or the retaining, of traditionalism, is the absence of a consecutive systematic exposition of the whole Word of God in our churches. Where a “textual” preaching predominates from week to week – here a text, there a text – then it is so easy for preacher and congregation alike to skate around vast, vast areas of the whole revelation of God, and so uphold the status quo of what has always been observed as that “which the church teaches.” But, is that which the church teaches Biblical? Or is it merely traditional? The answer to that may be of supreme importance with regards to some regions of the church’s thinking and behaviour. And the only way we may arrive at a satisfactory, conscience-free, affirmation of a given position is by an honest, open, searching of the Word of God through those legitimate channels that God has granted to us: a right use of all those things that have gone before us, and a right use of all those things that have gone before us via a sanctified and instructed heart and mind.

There is just one point we would like to make in closing: always remember that it is possible to have traditional views of traditionalism! When we think of a “traditionalist” we need not think automatically of some old brother in a black Sunday suit and a butterfly collar. Indeed, no; perhaps the old brother is dressing appropriate to his age and station in life. But, more important than that, perhaps the old brother is as Biblically free as Noah’s dove, while some younger brother, with his most up-to-date-with-it translation of the Scriptures and a guitar slung over his shoulder is in total traditional bondage. You see, there is a “viewpoint” that says that the church must always be “with it” – must always “move with the times.” But it is not a Biblical viewpoint, it is a traditional viewpoint; and many are in chains because of it. The Church must be relevant to its times and age, but that is an entirely different matter, and no traditional catch-phrase ought to be allowed to obscure that fact. What does the Bible say? Is the final judge on all such viewpoints, and it is just as easy to run contrary to the Word of God with a tradition that is ten years old as one that is a hundred years old. What then? There is only one stance. As the hymn-writer of a by-gone day desired:

As we hold our views, positions, practices, can we honestly say, “Thus saith the Lord?” How precious, and worthwhile, and good are many of the “ancient paths” of the church’s “tradition” that we may still safely tread, But, where there arises a tension between such things and God’s revealed truth, then, God forbid that we should make that truth of “none effect” through our “traditions.”