Tradition: Old and New

Book excerpt: Tradition is a notoriously bad master, but it can be a useful servant. In this book Professor Bruce traces the development of Christian Tradition through the last 2,000 years and examines its special relevance to Christian thought today. Hold fast to the traditions wrote Paul to the Christians in Corinth. Yet some would regard complete freedom from any kind of tradition as the sign of spiritual maturity and emancipation. That is because of the mistaken idea that tradition is always bad, and this book is a valuable corrective of that idea. In it Professor Bruce examines the part that tradition has played in Biblical interpretation, in theology, in creeds, in Christian education, and particularly in Church life and organization, beginning with the ancient Jewish Traditions of the Elders down to the present day. He shows how even in quarters that profess to have discarded tradition, and whose very position is based on their declared freedom from it, that very fact can become a tradition in itself. In a final chapter Professor Bruce shows the relevance of different streams of tradition in the dialogue between Christians in the present day.