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					<h2>Do American Presbyterians Even Have a&nbsp;Tradition?</h2>
					<p class="post-info">September 21, 2007 by <a href="http://deregnochristi.org/author/dgwired/" title="Posts by dgwired">dgwired</a>  </p>
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					<p>Joel Garver makes helpful comments to Caleb&#8217;s post about tradition and in them claims as something of an FV sympathizer to have been steeped in American Presbyterianism.  He writes of this tradition that &#8220;While some Dutch expressions of Reformed Christianity have tended towards seeing their own church as THE Christian church (and everything else at varying degrees of declension from that), this was never the case with the mainstream in the Church of Scotland or the Reformed tradition more widely, which often engaged in vigorous pan-Protestant ecumenical efforts. So, I have difficulty recognizing my tradition in what Darryl put forward in an earlier post.&#8221;  Joel registers an interesting point about whether the understanding of tradition, and more specifically the Reformed tradition, is one that he or anyone would recognize.  (For the record, I&#8217;ve never once said that the Presbyterian Church is THE church.  I have always recognized its indebtedness to Western Christianity and have admired and learned from other confessional Protestant expressions, welcome other believers at the Lord&#8217;s Supper and support the OPC&#8217;s fraternal relationships.  Saying that the Presbyterian Church is not the sole one is different, though, from saying that the Reformed tradition is the best, the one with the fewest errors, something you might want to write home about and say, as Machen did, &#8220;isn&#8217;t it grand?&#8221;)</p>
<p>Perhaps my own conversion to the Reformed tradition explains my understanding of it (converts are always more zealous than cradle believers).  I should say that trying to understand what a tradition is (Caleb&#8217;s repeated questions) is different from seeing what the American Presbyterian tradition is. For the latter, I am fully willing to admit your depiction is historically accurate.  (See Muether&#8217;s and my <em>Seeking a Better Country </em>&#8211; sorry for the shameful plug).  But I&#8217;m not sure that American Presbyterians (Joel&#8217;s description) have been particularly smart about building and maintaining a tradition (Caleb&#8217;s question).</p>
<p>These might appear to be merely debating points aside from the real issue of FV and its theological, ecclesial and sacramental vision.  But the ideas about tradition, and the degree to which its borders are pourous or solid, are precisely germane to FV.  FV&#8217;s proponents have repeatedly billed the movement as being opposed to the experientialism and individualism of American evangelical Protestantism.  Yet, as I hear the FV guys talk about tradition, I hear notions about openness, ecumenicity, the work of the Spirit in other Christians, recognizing the insights of others, that could have easily come out of (and did) the mouths of the National Association of Evangelicals&#8217; founders.</p>
<p>So it looks to me like FV wants it both ways.  It wants to be critical of evangelicals and to do so in ecclesial and liturgical ways (something I welcome and probably explains my invitation to the Auburn Avenue Pastors&#8217; Conference).  And then FV wants Rodney-King like to just get along (pardon the split infinitive) with everyone.  Here I thought some of the FV guys had read Hauerwas and liked his political theology, his high view of the church, and &#8212; dare I say &#8212; his defense of sectarianism.  Does it turn out that the regard for Hauerwas and Millbank was of a therapeutic sort &#8212; all affirmation, no criticism?</p>
<p>As for Joel&#8217;s own Presbyterian upbringing, the sort of openness to other groups of Christians that he rightly describes is precisely in my view what has gotten American confessional Presbyterians to think that they are evangelical first and Presbyterian second.  Being evangelical first means you are for most scholarly and journalistic purposes little different from a member of the Assemblies of God.  And this problem goes all the way back to the way that Presbyterians welcomed and nurtured Revivalism and were duped by Jonathan Edwards&#8217; so-called Calvinism.  If the Old Side had won, Presbyterians would not have cooperated with Congregationalists in 1801, would not have split in 1837, and would not have embraced the Social Gospel in the late nineteenth century which used ecumenism to Christianize the nation (and which the Religious Right and Religious Left still employ).  In other words, the American Presbyterian tradition has lots of cracks in its foundation.</p>
<p>So someone may be deeply embedded in American Presbyterianism, but this is a weak tradition, so weak that it thinks of itself as evangelical.  I thought FV was offering something different from an evangelical piety served with a side dish of Haggis.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1583" title="">September 21, 2007 at 9:21 am</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1583#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1583", "1583", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d68ef697c13390a44c998f874d02fb80?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>Caleb Stegall</cite></div>
						<p>Excellent post Darryl.  Yes, from my view at least, American Presbyterianism has a weak tradition, and even weaker notions of what a tradition is, why it is important, and how to build and sustain it.  This weakness has left it vulnerable to forces of modernity (some of my earlier questions) which are pretty clearly manifest in &#8220;mere Christianity&#8221; evangelicalism.  This, in my view, is the root of the crisis facing Reformed/evangelical Christianity in America.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1584" title="">September 21, 2007 at 12:54 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1584#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1584", "1584", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/f05acdccb92ac0e3861d6bca6d04ffb5?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>Nick Steffen</cite></div>
						<p>The pro-FV posts so far, Mr Hart, have opened themselves up to other Christian lines of thought and inquiry, but it still seems that they are using that very knowledge to reinforce the structure of their own tradition.  In other words, they might find some wisdom in Schmemann, but they&#8217;re not trying to leave for Eastern Orthodoxy.  Isn&#8217;t this the same thing that you note above in saying that Reformed theology is the best, but not without errors?</p>
<p>Now this is in no way baptizing their conclusions and your description of the weak modern Presbyterian Tradition is certainly spot-on, but I don&#8217;t see how your own approach to the problem is that far removed from their own.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1585" title="">September 21, 2007 at 1:39 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1585#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1585", "1585", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/3602be56fdc2a32d5781fd293ab64014?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>garver</cite></div>
						<p>I wonder how much the problem of American Presbyterianism maintaining its tradition (if that is indeed a &#8220;problem&#8221;) has to do with &#8220;being American&#8221; rather than &#8220;Presbyterianism&#8221; per se.</p>
<p>In Europe, after matters settled down in the wake of the Reformation, most ecclesial traditions either had a virtual monopoly within a given nation or region (Lutherans in Norway or Presbyterians in Scotland), or at the least only one or two clearly distinct competitors (e.g., Huguenots over against the Roman Catholic church in France).  That made a sense of identity and tradition a much simpler matter.  Only in America did one begin to find our civilly sanctioned ecclesiastical smÃ¶rgÃ¥sbord, which has only proliferated in the past couple of centuries.</p>
<p>Perhaps, once imported out of the patterns of parish and pastoral practice in Scotland, Presbyterianism has done a poor job of adapting to its new cultural context.  But adaptation was inevitable, even if one might object to the specific adaptations and compromises that occurred.</p>
<p>I also suspect the founders of the NAE or American evangelicals hardly have a corner on market of &#8220;openness, ecumenicity, the work of the Spirit in other Christians.&#8221;  You&#8217;ll find similar expressions in du Moulin, Alsted, Drury, Carleton, Rutherford, and a host of other Reformed figures well before the founding of America.</p>
<p>The primary pan-Protestant efforts I had in mind belonged to the 16th and 17th centuries &#8211; though, of course, they were facing an international Protestantism far less fractured than the current landscape and apart from the peculiar problems of America.  Compromise with Congregationalists was also hardly an exclusively American phenomenon, but was, after all, a large part of the work of the Westminster Assembly.</p>
<p>As one example, in adopting the Directory for Public Worship, the Scottish Kirk&#8217;s General Assembly approved a number of compromises including, &#8220;IV. It is also the judgment of the Committeee, that the Minister&#8217;s bowing in the pulpit, though a lawful custom in this Kirk, be hereafter laid aside, for satisfaction of the desires of the reverend Divines in the Synod of England, and for uniformity with that Kirk, so much endeared to us.&#8221;  In doing this, the Scots gave up one of the features that distinguished their own tradition and did so for the sake of ecumenism, particularly with English Puritans and Independents.</p>
<p>But perhaps this too is part of the problem: it&#8217;s difficult to pin down just what might distinguish Presbyterians (or Reformed churches more widely) from other Protestants in terms of ecclesial practice.  Sure, we have beliefs that we deem central and distinctive, but beyond that not much else.  And oddly, some Baptists claim those same beliefs and identity as Reformed, seeing that commonality as overshadowing any differences we might have with regard to baptismal practice (at least until one try to join their congregations and they want one dunked).  The assumption seems to be that the real identity of one&#8217;s tradition is a set of ideas.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s run farther afield, however, for another perspective.</p>
<p>In the Roman Catholic church, there are traditions within which one&#8217;s &#8220;being Catholic&#8221; only comes to expression in a particular localized form &#8211; whether being a Lithuanian Catholic rather than an Irish one, or being a Franciscan rather than a Carmelite.  It&#8217;s not a matter of figuring out whether &#8220;being Franciscan&#8221; or &#8220;being Catholic&#8221; comes first or second.  Rather, one&#8217;s Catholicism comes to expression in a particular, traditioned form &#8211; whether by birth or by vocation.</p>
<p>But &#8211; take the example of Franciscans &#8211; this isn&#8217;t a matter of filling out one&#8217;s theology in a slightly different way (though Franciscans traditionally did so on issues of divine illumination, sacramental causation, the problem of universals, etc.).  There are also sets of specific, distinguishing practices: forms of prayer, monastic habit, living by a particular rule, devotion to and emulation of Francis of Assisi, and so forth.  And this is maintained within a larger catholicity, without denying or deprecating the gifts of the Spirit elsewhere, but also embracing and celebrating one&#8217;s own tradition&#8217;s charism and calling as a gift to the larger church.</p>
<p>Theoretically, Presbyterianism could be something like that in relation to other expressions of the Christian faith.  And perhaps we achieve that theologically with the doctrines of grace.  But we&#8217;ve lost or don&#8217;t want almost anything that might distinguish us in terms of practice.  We&#8217;ve largely lost or don&#8217;t want the epiclesis, the Reader&#8217;s Service, the bowing of the minister in the pulpit, communing by tables, the Book of Common Order, distributing the elements among ourselves at the table, communion tokens, metrical psalmody ending with the Gloria Patri, etc.</p>
<p>Even that list, however, suggests that there has never been a &#8220;pure&#8221; Presbyterian tradition to sustain. The Scots were, after all, open and ecumenical and willing learn from other traditions.  Knox brought his &#8220;Common Order&#8221; over from Geneva.  The epiclesis, the minister&#8217;s pulpit prayer, and the Reader&#8217;s Service were vestiges of medieval rites.  Giving up some of these distinctives was out of deference to others, in several cases, English Independents, the ancestors of those Congregationalists with whom we cooperated again in 1801.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve examined the foundations of American Presbyterianism.  It seems to me some of those cracks are actually decorative carvings and really quite worth preserving.  Others, alas, are indeed cracks and run deeper than we ever expected, even into the soil of mother Scotland.</p>
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		<li class="comment odd alt thread-odd thread-alt depth-1 highlander-comment" id="comment-1582">
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1582" title="">September 21, 2007 at 5:36 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1582#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1582", "1582", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/e94f79b62e5ce28c36979ae88327c7cf?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>D Hart</cite></div>
						<p>The NAE may not have a corner on openness, but it is an openness of a peculiar kind that I would be differs significantly from 17th-c. openness.  For instance, Reformed scholasticism was not particularly open to Lutheran scholasticism, nor were the Puritans in New England particularly open to Baptists or Quakers.  So Joel, do you really think evangelical openness similar to 17th. c. forms?  What, the NAE came up with a 9 point lowest common denominator doctrinal statement, Knox came up with a confession whose first chapter is probably 10 times as long as the NAE&#8217;s platform.  Is the openness that you or the FV wants?</p>
<p>For the record, I&#8217;m fully open to using Calvin&#8217;s liturgy.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m also not at all persuaded that the diversity within Rome is an analogy for diversity among Protestants.  The better analogy might be international Reformed or Lutheran or Anglican communions that cement ties among different branches of their respective traditions.  But having to be in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome for the sacraments to be valid is hardly a recipe for openness or for American-evangelical-styled (and now FV?) diversity.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1586" title="">September 21, 2007 at 6:36 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1586#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1586", "1586", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/3602be56fdc2a32d5781fd293ab64014?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>garver</cite></div>
						<p>The Reformed were often more open to the Lutherans than the Lutherans were in return and, indeed, a number of Reformed figures worked hard to keep avenues open in the Lutheran direction.  But that&#8217;s not quite to the point.</p>
<p>Judging &#8220;similarity&#8221; is tricky business, especially across time periods and differing contexts.  Certainly, there are various forms of openness and some are more felicitous than others, both in the past and in the present.</p>
<p>A more germane question &#8211; though equally vexed &#8211; is how these sorts of our Reformed forebears might act and live in our present contexts &#8211; especially those who were open and ecumenical in their own day?  Would the Puritans regard Baptists in the same way now as in the midst of their New England errand to the wilderness?  Are the past actions of our spiritual forebears always ones we should wish to emulate?</p>
<p>I suspect many of our forebears, facing our present world, would be more inclined towards cooperation and dialogue that one might think.  But who can prove that?</p>
<p>As for the NAE, if you must know, I&#8217;m not so keen on it as an organization.  This is in part because I don&#8217;t think &#8220;common denominator doctrinal statements&#8221; are really necessary for cooperation and alliance, especially between ecclesiastical bodies.  It&#8217;s also because the NAE is essentially a political and lobbying organization and, on a lot of issues, I&#8217;d fall out in a different place politically from those who purportedly represent my &#8220;evangelical&#8221; interests.</p>
<p>The relevant point of analogy in the Roman Catholic example is not, for me, the role that fellowship with the Bishop of Rome might play, but rather the ability of Catholic commonalities in doctrine and practice (creeds, liturgies, structures, forms of prayer and piety, artistic conventions, etc.) to co-exist with, subsist in, and diversify among a variety of particular, defined, &#8220;thick&#8221; local traditions.</p>
<p>If you prefer, think instead of the variety of Lutheranisms within the World Lutheran Federation (episcopal Swedes, high church southern Germans, low church Danes, charismatic Africans, etc.) or the array of different prayer book adaptations and flavors (evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, charismatic, middle way) within the Anglican Communion.</p>
<p>My point is that Reformed churches have precious little that tie us together in similar ways and over against a wider evangelicalism, beyond a handful of doctrinal points and a (somewhat attenuated) practice of infant baptism.  I think on this particular point we are agreed?</p>
<p>So, I want both: I want to inhabit and embody a particular tradition with all the specificity of belief and practice that involves, recognizing as my calling and as a gift to the wider church; but I want to do so within a larger ecumenical catholicity (locally and globally) and the communion in gifts and graces that implies.</p>
<p>But I wonder if that is any longer possible within an American, evangelicalized Reformed tradition?  This is where a &#8220;high church Calvinism&#8221; (whether FV or some other variety) has something to offer and gains my sympathies, whatever qualms I may have on specific points.</p>
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		<li class="comment odd alt thread-odd thread-alt depth-1 highlander-comment" id="comment-1587">
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1587" title="">September 21, 2007 at 9:02 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1587#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1587", "1587", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/e94f79b62e5ce28c36979ae88327c7cf?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>D Hart</cite></div>
						<p>Joel, you do not seem to consider that Knox and company would tar and feather you and me for our compromising ways.  There was not much room for compromise then and I believe the various traditions were better (read: stronger) for it.</p>
<p>This seems to be the basic difference between our perspectives.  Maybe I&#8217;m not reading your correctly, but I cannot fathom how it is physically or spiritually possible to be both local and global.  Any meaningful tradition will be local and globalism always destroys the local.  I want to try to build on what remains in the Reformed world and reconstruct the local.  You seem to be content to live in the ruins and work with other ruined traditions to build I&#8217;m not sure what.</p>
<p>I continue to be baffled that you think you can have your global cake and eat it locally.  But I am getting the real impression that for FV localism is tantamount to sectarianism.  At which point I need to reach for St. Wendell:</p>
<p>&#8220;Properly speaking, global thinking is not possible.  Those who have &#8216;thought globally&#8217;. . . have done so by means of simplifications too extreme and oppressive to merit the name of thought.  Global thinkers have been and will be dangerous people.  National thinkers tend to be dangerous also: we now have national thinkers in the northeastern United States who look on Kentucky as a garbage dump. . . .</p>
<p>&#8220;Global thinking can only do to the globe what a space satellite does to it: reduce it, make a bauble of it.  Look at one of those photographs of half the earth taken from outer space, and see if you recognize your neighborhood.  If you want to see where you are, you will have to get out of your spaceship, out of your car, off your horse, and walk over the ground.  On foot you will find that the earth is still satisfyingly large and full of beguiling nooks and crannies.</p>
<p>&#8220;If we could think locally, we would take far better care of things than we do now.  The right local questions and answers will be right global ones.  The Amish question &#8216;What will this do to our community?&#8217; tends toward the right answer for the world.&#8221; (Sex, Economy, Freedom &amp; Community, 19, 20)</p>
<p>The reason why I think Berry so germane is that his concerns about local culture and communities are pertinent to local cults and communions.  I would have thought that FV, given Doug Wilson&#8217;s initial post on embodiment, would see how impossible if not wrong globalism is.</p>
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		<li class="comment even thread-even depth-1 highlander-comment" id="comment-1588">
		<div id="div-comment-1588">
		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1588" title="">September 21, 2007 at 9:10 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1588#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1588", "1588", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/6278a43c65ecd47d934e639fbb2fcd14?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>W.H. Chellis</cite></div>
						<p>Amen</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1589" title="">September 22, 2007 at 12:10 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1589#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1589", "1589", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/3602be56fdc2a32d5781fd293ab64014?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>garver</cite></div>
						<p>We&#8217;ll simply have to agree to disagree on this.</p>
<p>Whatever wisdom &#8220;St. Wendell&#8221; might have for certain aspects of politics and culture, I think it&#8217;s a mistake to apply his wisdom directly to ecclesiology.  In my estimation the church is the only human institution &#8211; precisely because it isn&#8217;t merely a human institution &#8211; that can outwit modernist oppositions between center and periphery, local and global, particular and catholic.  In the church, at least, the particular requires the universal, and vice versa.</p>
<p>So, applied to the church, it seems to me Berry&#8217;s sort of localism tends toward putting us back under the elementary principles.  I&#8217;m not sure whether a reconstructed Reformed localism that fails to situate itself within, be embraced by, and remain in service to a larger ecclesial whole (in a diverse and overlapping variety of ways, no doubt) is a Reformed tradition worth having.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1590" title="">September 22, 2007 at 12:35 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1590#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1590", "1590", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/ff61c5245e73762f137ef13c7ae864e8?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite><a href='http://www.biblicalhorizons.com' rel='external nofollow' class='url'>James Jordan</a></cite></div>
						<p>To put what Joel said another way (with which I&#8217;m pretty sure he&#8217;ll agree): The central locality of the church lies in heaven, and we are sursum corda connected to that during the Day of the Lord as the Spirit gives us Word and Body and Blood. This is why the particular links to the universal, and why the local is the cosmic. This is why it is such a grievous sin to close the table to other baptized believers.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1591" title="">September 22, 2007 at 12:41 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1591#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1591", "1591", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/e94f79b62e5ce28c36979ae88327c7cf?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>D Hart</cite></div>
						<p>We may simply have to disagree.  But I&#8217;m not sure how your position gets us a Reformed tradition.  You are proposing culling from various Christian sectors, many of which are at odds theologically and separated ecclesially.  What you will put together is something new.  Nothing inherently wrong with that.  But I&#8217;m not sure it&#8217;s going to be Reformed.</p>
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		<li class="comment even thread-even depth-1 highlander-comment" id="comment-1592">
		<div id="div-comment-1592">
		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1592" title="">September 22, 2007 at 12:47 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1592#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1592", "1592", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/ff61c5245e73762f137ef13c7ae864e8?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite><a href='http://www.biblicalhorizons.com' rel='external nofollow' class='url'>James Jordan</a></cite></div>
						<p>But Darryl, why does it matter if it&#8217;s &#8220;Reformed&#8221;? Did Jesus die to make us &#8220;Reformed&#8221;? Are we living a glorified new life in Him in order to be &#8220;Reformed&#8221;? Isn&#8217;t it possible that the Reformed paradigm has about run its course and that the (very few) people still in that stream should be open to thoughts from other streams, all in a context of digging deeper into the whole tradition and behind that, the Bible?</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t understand your insistence on &#8220;Reformed&#8221; being a measure of importance.</p>
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		<div class="cmtinfo"><em> on <a href="#comment-1593" title="">September 22, 2007 at 1:44 pm</a> | <a class='comment-reply-link' href='/2007/09/21/do-american-presbyterians-even-have-a-tradition/?replytocom=1593#respond' onclick='return addComment.moveForm("div-comment-1593", "1593", "respond", "236")'>Reply</a></em> <img alt='' src='http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/e94f79b62e5ce28c36979ae88327c7cf?s=48&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G' class='avatar avatar-48' height='48' width='48' /> <cite>D Hart</cite></div>
						<p>Mr. Steffen, please see Mr. Jordan&#8217;s indifference to being Reformed.  That might explain why there is a difference between our different ideas about tradition.</p>
<p>James Jordan, my church membership says something to me about the importance of being Reformed since I am in a Presbyterian denomination.  I would have thought that answer would be obvious to anyone who takes ecclesiology seriously.  Or is ecclesiology only something that we affirm on paper but then act as if our church ties and boundaries don&#8217;t exist?</p>
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