The differences between Christian ‘traditions’ does not trouble God as much as it troubles us, I think. Are we not biased towards own traditions? Even at Xenos we have our ‘holy traditions’ which I’m sure some young upstart will challenge some day.

Consider God’s own Word: 1 Corinthians 11:19 (NASB) For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.

This kind of “shakeout” is indeed the final arbiter, and it’s God’s will. Maybe your traditions are indeed superior to mine. I don’t think so, but we should give each other the freedom to practice the tradition(s) each of us have received. Wether “our faith would be recognized as little-o orthodox by those who came before us”, as you said above, maybe so. But I doubt it, because I think we’re “standing on their shoulders”, so-to-speak, benefiting from their work as well as their mistakes (I’m not going to cut my balls off like Origen, believe me).

Now you can purchase a Baby Bibb to advertises your own tradition of “worship”!

In the final analysis, it isn’t important what you or I believe, but rather what God believes, and for that I think His revealed Word is a very competent instrument–much more so than church councils. Church councils didn’t invent the Trinity: God already existed as three persons in one essence. The writers of the NT believed God was three persons in one essence, and that’s what matters (that’s the criteria used by church councils, too). Of course, the work of the Council of Nice provided a very helpful way to explain what was already known (certainly known by the NT writers).

But also there was much useless wrangling with obtuse nuances in the history of theology, and too many church councils were caught up with such silliness.

Here’s the negative side of the legacy of church councils: did you know the division between eastern & western Christianity boiled down to a dispute over ONE WORD in one of the creeds they were arguing over? That’s right. Did Jesus “issue forth from the Father” or rather “issued from the Father”?

I wrote a definitive article on this entire matter of church tradition, and it’s very short and to-the-point: read The Wrong Schlong and I think you’ll understand.

The question of Tradition and the authority of the Church as the keeper of authentic Tradition and authentic little-o orthodoxy is a very important one. Whom shall we believe?

I believe that the Church (universal), the Body of Christ, stretches back to Jesus in its unity, that we have inherited the faith transmitted to us by those who came before us in Christ. The Spirit is one, not many. We are unified in Christ with the very first believers. We ought to be concerned to see that our faith would be recognized as little-o orthodox by those who came before. The heresies which the early church fought are the same heresies which we must guard against today, truly they are!

As an aside, as Entity rightly pointed out, it took a very long time to resolve many theological issues of little-o orthodoxy which we consider settled today. Are you a Trinitarian? Do you believe Jesus is fully-God and yet also fully-human? Do you believe the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament? Do you believe matter is evil, and spirit is good?

It’s not as though true Christianity disappeared from the scene after the apostolic age. It’s not as though we today have received the Bible as a distant message in a bottle washed up on our shores. We are not left to scratch our heads as to its meaning. The Spirit informs us, yes. In community. Not only in our present community, but in the community which stretches back to the original disciples themselves. The Body did not disappear from the scene until it was somehow reconstituted in these latter days! May it never be so!

The Body has been damaged greatly through schism. We have been unable to convene an ecumenical council for nearly a thousand years! Is it any wonder that the voices of the Church Fathers seem distant and less-relevant?

As another aside, it is interesting to me that you would select Origen and Tertullian to mention by name… What of Athanasius? Or John Chrysostom? Or the Cappadocians?

We shall see if Francis Schaeffer or John Lenox is still being studied in a thousand years or two, as these are.

I think the real fight we are in is largely an internal one against sin. How many church leaders today are seen to be Holy? How many Christians witness to the world of the glory of God, through the way they live their lives? Are Christians known today in the world by their love? Not nearly enough. Not nearly enough! I will leave the Richard Dawkins of the world in God’s hands. He can change even them, for He changed me and rescued me from my own body of death. Praise be to God!

We are called to love even Richard Dawkins with the love of Christ.

I’m just saying they’re no different than you or me, and what they have to say is “interesting”, maybe even useful. Certainly not “hallowed” — nor on any equal footing with the Apostles, by any means.

That’s the part I don’t get: I’ve studied those Jamokes extensively. Origen cut off his testicles. So what? The “Church Fathers” had issues just like Ted Haggart. I’ve read sharper minds from other eras.

These so-called “Church Fathers” are way over-rated, and the 12 Apostles whom Christ chose as the real “Church Fathers” — along with their writings — are way under-rated.

Frankly, I can’t think of any “Church Father” who could hold a candle to Francis Schaeffer, and besides, Schaeffer’s more relevant. The old Church Fathers did a good job against Nestorius, but our real fight today is against Dawkins & his foaming hatred. So John Lenox is a far more worthy read than Tertullian today, even though Tertullian was certainly a worth read once — still is, to some degree.

At the beginning of your article, you commented on “a Christianity marvelously consistent with the earliest Christianity.” I just thought you and your church might want to hear from an expert on what the earliest Christianity was like, so that you could have “a Christianity marvelously consistent with the earliest Christianity.”

I don’t think you mean this. They had all the writings from apostolic and non-apostolic or psedopigraphic sources in front of them that they had to sort out. It wasn’t oral tradition that carried them for 300 years. It was many things written down.

P.S.: for Metallurge — I’m amazed at how the so-called scholar you cited doesn’t know anything about 2 Peter 3:15-16…I hate to sound so derogatory, but it’s such a glaring omission that I can’t help pointing out what most entry-level Bible students know!

He makes an elaborate case that the epistles weren’t really considered “Scripture” until the 4th C., relying on Nestorians (well-known heretics) — then leverages Muslim scholar Abu-el-Quasim ibn `Askir to make the case for “Oral Tradition”?

Holy Jamoly. We’re expected to believe that oral traditions are more reliable than written records? Quoting `Askir, “Do not take them from written records, so they may not be touched by the disease of textual corruption.” There’s a brilliant point: oral tradition is more reliable than the written record.

“Thus, the church existed for roughly twenty years with no New Testament books, only the oral form of the teaching of the apostles,” he says. But it is well-known and well-attested that the Disciples immediately wrote down their collective memories in what German scholars dubbed the “Quelle”, or Q-source. We don’t have it today, but their scholarship is difficult to refute on this point, and he’s apparently unaware of it. Papius from 100 AD said the Apostles called it “The Logos”. So I think his case at least has some historical holes in it.

His paper tries to elevate “Oral Tradition” primarily on the premise that “Canon” was not established until later. But it’s a ludicrous argument: he admits all the churches possessed inspired Scriptures, and they recognized them as inspired, yet somehow he fails to understand that “Scriptures” was the operative term used by early Christian churches, not “Canon” (a term which became important only later in response to the proliferation of new forgeries).

He goes on and on about the unsurprising fact that some church libraries were incomplete for several centuries. And what does that prove? Only that church libraries are under-funded, as they are today!

BTW, he is a noted speaker and I believe the Akron area would be within the area he is willing to travel. I can understand how he would be threatening for a Protestant church, but if you want an expert on early church worship, this is the guy to invite to talk. He is a deacon at a few churches.