Lash, again...

The patron saint of much of my theological thinking, Nicholas Lash, again springs to mind in response to Lingo’s reply to my previous post on interpretative method.

Lingo raises the important issue of tradition, and how we can know what tradition is, particularly the early traditions, which are obviously of deep concern and interest. I have a few points to make in response.

1. The questions of what tradition actually is is central: what do we mean when we talk about tradition as an entity, or something that can yield theological insight? Here, Lash comes into his own, particularly as a Roman Catholic, for whom tradition is highly praised, rather than some Protestant traditions (ironic?) who see tradition as a dirty word. Lash writes a wonderful piece called ‘Performing the Scriptures’, in which he proposes a model of interpretation based on the Church’s continued performance and dramatisations of the concerns of Scripture. In this sense, tradition is simply the experience of and reflection upon the scriptural texts in the light of experience of living them out. Two examples of this are clear: firstly, the rabbis, who sought to draw out the meaning of the OT through telling stories about it, and interpreting it in the light of those who seek to live out its concerns; secondly, Shane Claiborne, who I know Lingo knows about. He deserves his own number.
2. Shane Claiborne is an American, who lives in a hippy commune in Philadelphia (though he would, I think, be unhappy with that description…). They embrace a model of becoming poor, rather than remaining rich and giving to the poor, for Jesus didn’t ask the rich man to tithe 10% or give some money to charity, but to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor – ie, become poor himself (Mark 10; Luke 18; Matt 19). Shane is dramatising the Scripture, and working out what it means through a dialogue of his own life with reflection about what some things in the Bible might mean. This is tradition.
3. Tradition, then, is the faithful response to Scripture that emerges in changing circumstances. It might also be called ‘Theology’. There are some classics of tradition, which are the great theological works: the rabbis, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and a hundred more.
4. The early church traditions are notoriously difficult to pin down. Little is know about the communities that Paul wrote to, for example; the only information about them coming from the letters themselves, which are a fraction of what Paul probably wrote. The Bible, to some extent, is itself the product of a tradition of interpretation – Matthew’s well-documented concern with the Jewishness of Jesus is a traditional interpretation of the historical events, attempting to play out their significance in terms of the Law and the great heroes of OT faith. Matthew is a theologian, not a historian – and even the earliest gospel (Mark) was written more than ten years after the latest authentic Pauline letter (Romans); the tradition of living out the Jesus story was established before the production of the gospels, and this experience plays into the writing of the gospels themselves.

This has all been rather sketchy, but for this I make no apology; theology is a messy and difficult thing to do well, and easy answers are easy to come by, while good answers are achieved only be humble and faithful reflection, guided by the Spirit. Sam’s original post made a wonderful point about how easy some Christians find it to speak clearly about what God thinks about particular moral issues. I remain committed to theology being a difficult task, without a simple, all-inclusive method of ‘just looking at what the Bible says’ – which is a nonsense, anyway.

In a final point, Shane Claiborne is a wonderful man, doing theology and creating tradition. As someone who is paid to study theology, I find his method, as well as what he does with it, profoundly liberating and suggestive – we learn what Scripture means by living it out, and by placing our living it out within the broader traditions of church and synagogue. Only then can we begin to encounter the living God through the Scriptures that speak of God.