Another way to explain what I mean by my little play on words, is separation of church and state of being the church is the established church vs what that has always looked like. In other words, what are we doing compared to the history of the church? Because the reality is the church has existed long before us and carries with her a rich tradition.
Tradition. There’s a word that raises hackles in a contemporary mindset. I find this especially true in independent Protestant church affiliations that disconnect from a 2,000 year heritage. When the Reformation happened it was never meant to disconnect the church from its heritage only to source that in the authority of Scripture as opposed to authority in unwritten revelation and to correct corrupt practices in the church. We need to take the serious what has occurred in the past 2,000 years of church history.
In his book A High View of Scripture?, Craig Allert, a conservative evangelical, notes that disconnecting from tradition tends to result in traditionalism that imposes its own standards on the church. He expounds on J. Pelikan’s distinction between tradition and traditionalism – “tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” Traditionalism forms its own tradition that can be blinded from its roots and in some cases, vastly deviate.
Defense of these essentials (of Christianty) has been emphasized at the expense of understanding their place in theological history and therefore at the expense of understanding their importance in the contemporary church. Thus, not only have certain nonessentials been given essential status, but also some foundational aspects of theology have been underemphasized or even ignored and therefore, undervalued, and this to the detriment of the body of Christ. The rich liturgical tradition of the church becomes confined to musically induced emotionalism. The importance of the community of faith for the life of the believer is reduced to crass marketing strategies and the newest ‘get spiritual quick’ scheme. The living voice of the Bible in theological history becomes lost in individual interpretation and defense of rather static propositionalism.[1]
Put another way, separation from the state of being the church results in myopic reductionism and an elevation of whatever novel concepts seem fitting for the life of the church in a contemporary context. It can also lead to arrogance in believing that we have it all figured out. Continue reading
Every spring, DTS holds the World Evangelism Conference a week before spring break. This year’s message was on the abundance of the gospel. 
One of the books that we are critically reading through in my systematic theology colloquium class is Classic Christianity [Thomas Oden (2009) New York: Harper One Publishing] In the introductory section of Book 3 – Life in the Spirit, he takes a blow at modern revisions that want to eliminate masculine language in reference to God.
TheoThoughts 