The Webster Dictionary defines traditional as handed down from age to age ·traditional history and/or following or conforming to tradition: adhering to past practices or established conventions. As a Minister of a Christian church filled with persons who readily identify themselves as “traditional” I have tried to understand my own relationship with the concept of tradition. Among some of colleagues there is a open hostility to tradition and an eagerness to embrace the new, though I have noticed this attitude is on the decline. Many of the “progressive” Christians I know now embrace “other traditions” or revised versions of long forgotten traditions like the Celtic world or monasteries that functioned as alternative societies. I rarely hear a voice anymore in the Christian world that speaks of a new thing without reference to an old thing.
I think that noted grounding we hear, even in progressive communities, is a function of the rapid changes in our society and the need for marginalized communities to claim their own heritage, traditions not known in mainstream culture. I think this is also why marginalized communities are now so fiercely protective of their own customs and why “appropriation” has become such an intense topic of conversation in popular culture. You can sometimes hear the voices of privileged communities accommodating traditions from minority cultures in large part because their own traditions feel so sterile by comparison.
When people tell me they are comforted by tradition I have mixed feelings. On one hand who isn’t happy to hear that another finds strength and security in some act or wording. If by saying this litany or being disciplined to perform a certain ritual each day one feel more deeply connected this is surely a good thing. But if that tradition becomes “dead” as the Gospels warn: And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. In other words if the tradition is empty of reflection and consideration, if it has no purpose to it other than to impress yourself or others as to your fidelity or piety, what is the point?
I like traditions that bring people to consider who and what they are, what they are made for and what they are called to be. If a morning devotion opens us to this consideration, all the better. If walking the labyrinth opens us to something other than go to it. If using the Book of Common Prayer or saying the Rosary or walking the Stages of the Cross open up something deeper inside you then I certainly affirm and celebrate such a tradition.
The bottom line for me about tradition is this; 1) does the tradition open us to something deeper, 2) does the tradition include more than just people who think and look and live like me and 3) does the tradition generate a connection to the Other or others, does it make us more organically whole. If a tradition does these things then I value it, celebrate it and use it in community life and worship. I am not opposed to doing things as they have been done for years, nor am I hell-bent on creating or using something new in community. But the traditions I tend to lean on are those that meet the criteria I have set out above. Tradition can be life-giving and community enhancing and it can be dead and exclusive. The key is to be aware what it is we want from tradition and what the tradition does to us and others.