“Traditional” vs. “Contemporary”?

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"Traditional" vs. "Contemporary"?

By Donald Schell

For the healthy future of our church we've got to stop thinking and talking as if 'traditional' and 'contemporary' were opposites. This hackneyed dichotomy reduces us to a lose/lose battle between caricatured factions – do we want to be a backward-looking 'traditional' church bound by nostalgic practices of the last two hundred years or a 'trendy,' 'relevant' church whoring in uncritical embrace of 'contemporary' culture.

Only a church that's deeply traditional and truly contemporary can live fearlessly into creativity and mission. To find our way to deep traditional roots and a lively present, we'll need to relearn that the words 'tradition' and 'traditional' live in a creative process, an inspired engagement with our Christian past and discernment of the God-given opportunities and challenges of each present moment.

Hear Vladimir Lossky, a bold 20th Century Russian Orthodox theologian described tradition,

"…to be within the Tradition, is to keep the living truth in the Light of the Holy Spirit, or rather – it is to be kept in the Truth by the vivifying power of Tradition. But this power preserves by a ceaseless renewing, like all that comes from the Spirit." [Tradition and Traditions, Lossky's introduction to The Meaning of Icons, (Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, 1952 and 1969]

Lossky tells us that tradition is a creative process for the church and the work of the Holy Spirit among us. When the Spirit's steady hand harnesses the powerful troika of humble memory, faithful curiosity, and innovative imagination, the church has a powerful team for an exhilarating ride.

When other rabbis scolded Jesus' disciples for skipping the ritual hand washing that began the meal, those teachers' concern wasn't hygiene but sacrilegious violation of ritual purity. They understood a prophetic sign. Jesus was defying religious purity laws to show people the impatient welcome of his all-merciful Father. Hand washing was ritualized preparation for the sacred.

Jesus' deep faithfulness to the tradition he received had provoked him to break the rubrics (official rules) of the ritual meal of a rabbi with his close disciples.

Jesus teaching God's mercy on the Sabbath was good rabbinic practice. But to some his healing and feeding people to embody that mercy was more sacrilege. The Sabbath was the center of rabbinic Judaism's liturgy. Once again traditionally-grounded rule-breaking led Jesus to liturgical innovation and a new vision for works of mercy in community. Liturgy and his mission of compassionate love were inseparable.

Making his ritual choices to reshape the ritual of a rabbi's holy meal with close disciples, Jesus showed the fulfillment of Isaiah's promised feast, on the mountaintop, God's messianic banquet for all people. And he was using one tradition to reshape another. Isaiah and Israel's...

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