Ritualistic Traditionalism

As a young Reformed person, I often see a lot of people railing against church rituals and tradition - that is, "sticking to the old ways" in church services. A lot of the criticism I see are accusations that those who follow older church traditions are being Pharisaical and even disobeying Scripture. Then there is criticism from those who prefer tradition towards the non-traditional folks, claiming they are disrespectful, overly casual, outright liberal, and worldly.

So my question is this: are the accusations warranted?

In some cases they are. Some of the most liberal of "younger" churches preach a horribly watered-down theology, refuse any kind of ritual or tradition, and are even heretical. And some other churchgoers are so stuck in old ways that anything new frightens them and is instantly viewed as "from the devil." Is there a middle ground?

Let's go to Scripture.

And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." (Mark 6:6-8)

Notice what Jesus is angry about. He's not saying "You Pharisees are too stuck in your old ways. Tradition is horrible and evil." He's saying "You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." The point isn't that the Pharisees are a bunch of old-fashioned geezers stuck in the past. It's that they had replaced Scripture with traditionalism and ritualism and thought they were going to heaven for their works and traditions, thinking nothing of the fact that they can't get to heaven on their own unless God shows them mercy.

In the end, like everything, it's a heart and conscience issue.

I'm going to look at R.C. Sproul's church, St. Andrew's, since I've been reading and listening to Sproul a lot lately. They have Scripture readings, they sing old hymns, they use words like liturgy and chancel (as opposed to stage), they dress up nice for Sunday. and they even refer to the Bible as "Sacred Scripture." Is this because they think ritual and tradition are what make them right with God? Not at all. They just have a lot of respect for the Holy and sacred, as well as the history behind what they do. They know that Sunday service is about coming into the presence of the Holy God, and they want to be reverent. I say that, of course, assuming the general viewpoint of the congregation is along the lines of Sproul's viewpoint, as I have never attended St. Andrew's.

Now, we also need to remember that outward appearance means nothing if the heart isn't right. One can be the best dressed person on earth and have the most ugly heart. It would be far better to have a right heart, sanctified by God, and be dressed in rags. But does that mean we absolutely need to avoid such things as dressing nicely and such? So long as we aren't legalistic about it, I don't see a reason why. We also shouldn't be legalistic the other way - that is, we have to be contemporary and hip, we have to dress in street clothes, etc.

On the other side of the spectrum, I see no reason why we can't have such things as electric guitars in worship. The only reason the Bible says nothing about them is because electricity hadn't been harnessed as an energy source in Biblical times. The Bible also says nothing about pianos and organs as far as I'm aware.

It all comes down to the heart and conscience. If Scripture doesn't forbid some form of worship or some instrument or ritual, and your conscience allows you to, and your heart is truly worshipful towards God, it's probably okay. If you cannot in good conscience follow or avoid a ritual that is neither forbidden nor required in Scripture, then follow or avoid it. Be discerning. Examine Scripture and your own heart. And don't condemn someone for their worship practices unless they really are disobeying Scripture. And still don't condemn them, condemn their practices and lead them back to Scripture.

DYF: Logical Positivism and Its Ghosts Today: Analogical Use of Language - My Thoughts

This chapter is the last chapter about the four principles of knowledge. Here we study the analogical use of language and its necessity in understanding God.

This chapter has a lot of historical information that I won't get into. The main point of it all is that there were theologians who, in trying to counter the ideas of pantheism (God is all things and all things are God), argued that God was absolutely and completely "other," totally separate from our universe. Indeed it's true that He is separate, but this caused a crisis: if God is completely separate, then we can't know or say anything about Him because there are no similarities between Him and us. There is nothing we can do to understand Him because He is absolutely different from His creation.

Well, Biblically, that's not true. In Genesis 1:26 we read that "God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'" We are made in the image of God! We can talk about God because there is similarity between us and Him. Indeed, there is some degree of similarity between God and His created order; as Sproul said in his teaching series Recovering the Beauty of the Arts: since God is the ultimate source of goodness, truth, and beauty, then everything good, true, and beautiful displays some aspect of the glory of God.

The idea of analogical language seems to have come from a man named Thomas Aquinas. He differentiated between univocal language (two uses of a word mean the exact same thing), equivocal language (two uses of a word mean two completely different things), and analogical language (two uses of a word are similar but not the exact same). Analogical language is a middle ground of sorts. When we say "This coffee smells good" and "God is good," we are being analogical. The coffee may smell good, but God is exceedingly better. But some of His goodness is reflected in the smell of that coffee. When we say "God is omnipotent (all-powerful)," we must draw an analogy because we have never seen omnipotence. But we can look at someone with power or at our own exertions of power and draw an inference of what omnipotence means.

This chapter didn't seem to be arguing so much for the use of analogical language in general so much as it was arguing for its use in describing and talking about God, but I can't see a Biblical warrant for not using such language. Actually, it seems completely necessary. And if we are talking about the God of the Bible, we already know that He is somewhat similar to His creation. I guess then we'd have to prove the validity of the Bible. But we'll get to that.