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Tradition and culture are revered around the world. We create
traditions then we carry them through over the years blindly. If
our traditions last long enough they take on an air of holiness.
Others will write of our traditions. Some will with baited
curiosity examine and study our traditions thus adding to their
importance. In many instances those very traditions are burying,
blinding and bamboozling the practitioners. What are the dangers
of blindly following such traditions?
After more than thirty years of studying the Bible I can say
with full assurance that Jesus Christ never contradicted
himself. There is one instance where it would seem that he did
but after careful examination I found that rather than a
contradiction it ends up being more of an enigma.
In Matthew 24:35 Jesus said?Heaven and earth shall pass away but
my words shall not pass away. The Bible has lasted through every
kind on onslaught that has ever been thrown at it through the
centuries. It still causes debate and resistance among some and
conversion and new found life for millions of others. Be it yea
or nay it won?t go away. In a contrasting statement Jesus said
something that almost seems diametrically opposite to what he
uttered in Matthew 24:35. In Mark 7:13 Jesus said?Making the
word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have
delivered: and many such like things do ye. Hold the phone! You
mean the entire world and its doubts and resistance can?t remove
the word of God but tradition can? Yes, and it is the only thing
according to scripture that can so effectively do this.
Some traditions are quaint and some are innocuous but when it
comes to religious traditions this is not the case. Religion is
stifled and beaten to the point of impotence by tradition. It is
what makes true the saying that the seven last words of a dying,
gasping, pointless and apostate church will be?We have always
done it that way.
How has Catholicism found seven sacraments in a Bible that gives
to us only two outward ceremonial ordinances, which are, water
baptism and the communion? How has one protestant church added
foot washing as a tradition and even elevated that to a
sacrament? How have countless liturgies, ceremonies, ordinances
and practices crept into Christianity over the centuries? The
answer is tradition as usual. It is the traditions of the
fathers or patristic teachings, the ceremonies of the celebrated
like our pastors, preachers bishops and yes, the Pope. These
have added to the overshadowing construct of outward and often
meaningless practices in our churches. This construct is now so
heavily layered that it is obscuring the simple but profound
life giving qualities of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It
indeed has succeeded in many churches to make the word of God of
no effect.
Odd as it may sound it seems that most people expect tradition
and religion to be connected together at the hip. The Bible does
not agree with this assumption. In fact the word?religion, is
used only five times in the entirety of the Bible. And only once
is it used to define what religion is. That definition doesn?t
look anything like what our religious practices have become.
James said?Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father
is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction
and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
Religious traditions have an assuring quality that the human
psyche can?t very well resist. It assuages us to see the
cathedral long standing and its ministers appropriately garbed
in robes and vestments. It gives us the idea that they must be
professionals if nothing else, the proof is apparent in the
trappings and all the blaring visuals. But Christ never
prescribed any sort of adornment for us or our churches. And the
idea that Christian traditions or any other religious traditions
are firmly established by their longevity is a mindless
absurdity. Crimes, war, disasters, floods, famines, disease, are
all as old as man but none of these are given any traditional
significance. These things are never memorialized, missalized,
or traditionalized. That some religious traditions are ancient
serves only to point out mans persistence in idolatry and the
practice of the mundane.
Some say they love the ceremonies and the liturgies of the
church. Perhaps they do, but it behooves anyone to scrutinize
the reasons for such a love. Is it practical, does it lead to
the salvation of others? Or is it a place to hide a place to get
a dose of something much like the tiny dose of a disease that is
contained in an inoculation. Isn?t this little dose all that
keeps us from getting the real thing? If god is the real thing
ten don?t we need more than a little dose?
Can people who are connected to churches that are heavily
dependent on traditions be saved? Of course they can because
their faith although not often bolstered by these traditions,
cannot be destroyed by them either. It will be true for millions
of people in the end that they were not saved by their religion
but in spite of it. Thank God for the grace of God.
About the author:
Rev Bresciani is from New Orleans La and the author of?Hook line
and Sinker or What Has Your Church Been Teaching You,
PublishAmerica 2005 and?An American Prophet and His Message,
Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ, Xulon
Press 2005. His website is http://americanprophet.org
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