People don’t think well about tradition in worship. Some people love tradition, and want to retain, or recover, traditional forms of worship. They defend this by scripture, experience (their own!) and common sense. Other people hate tradition and want to eliminate as much as possible. They defend this by scripture, experience (their own!) and common sense. Although everyone presents his position as supported by scripture, experience, and common sense, their opinions largely are based on personal preferences.
Tradition is not a moral or spiritual category. There are good traditions and bad traditions, healthy and unhealthy, holy and evil. People cite Jesus when he lambasted the Pharisees for keeping the tradition of the fathers, but they fail to note that the reason in that case was that the tradition led people away from scripture. Paul, however, commands the Corinthians and the Thessalonians to keep the traditions he established among them.
So you see this is a very complex subject in general, and tradition in worship becomes complicated by the intense theological and pastoral problems in the Roman church. We strongly and unambiguously reject the corruptions of the mass. But what about those aspects which are not corrupt? Luther and Cranmer thought the mass merely needed cleaning up, whereas the Swiss replaced it altogether. As we ponder these things, my question is this: was the Holy Spirit present in the church for the 1500 years before the Reformation, or not? Some people say the pope is the anti-Christ and the church of Rome condemns people to hell. I think that is too extreme. It seems to me that the Holy Spirit has been at work in all branches of the church for all 2,000 years. Due to our sinfulness, everyone introduces unhealthy and unbiblical practices and mixes them with the spiritual practices prompted by the Holy Spirit (including we Reformed people!). The challenge for all pastors in all denominations is to discern what is biblical and what is not, to distinguish between what is spiritual and what is the work of man. That will lead us to embrace some traditions (likely including some we frankly do not like) and to discard some traditions (likely including some we frankly do not want to give up.)
C. David Green
Pentecost 2024
David Green 