Since you asked for a comment on the above article: Christianity exists both as an existential faith and as a tradition. I think the best analysis of the role of tradition is Alastair MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. He took a look at how Aquinas was able to step outside of the Medieval tradition that heavily depended on Plato and Augustine and take in the new ideas recently gathered from the Muslim world: namely Aristotle as mediated through Muslim and Jewish scholarship. MacIntyre’s point is that traditions carry the meaning systems that allow us to make moral judgements, but that these traditions need to be able to creatively interact with new knowledge in such a way that there is both continuity and change. The problem becomes when a tradition becomes stuck and unable to adapt. It turns on into itself and becomes reactionary or “Fundamentalist.” I think that it is the “stuck” nature of American Evangelical tradition that French is reacting to.
Similar to how a person is a mind and body, or body soul and spirit, the church and Christians and Christian cultures are at the same time a whole and parts. We can have tools that seem to oppose each other to examine the same subject in different ways. My suspicion is that we can’t have one with out the other(s).
Since you asked for a comment on the above article: Christianity exists both as an existential faith and as a tradition. I think the best analysis of the role of tradition is Alastair MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. He took a look at how Aquinas was able to step outside of the Medieval tradition that heavily depended on Plato and Augustine and take in the new ideas recently gathered from the Muslim world: namely Aristotle as mediated through Muslim and Jewish scholarship. MacIntyre’s point is that traditions carry the meaning systems that allow us to make moral judgements, but that these traditions need to be able to creatively interact with new knowledge in such a way that there is both continuity and change. The problem becomes when a tradition becomes stuck and unable to adapt. It turns on into itself and becomes reactionary or “Fundamentalist.” I think that it is the “stuck” nature of American Evangelical tradition that French is reacting to.
That’s a fresh perspective. Thanks!
I like all three. I refuse to choose!
Similar to how a person is a mind and body, or body soul and spirit, the church and Christians and Christian cultures are at the same time a whole and parts. We can have tools that seem to oppose each other to examine the same subject in different ways. My suspicion is that we can’t have one with out the other(s).