The Development of Tradition
Tradition is an important part of religion and the Christian faith
early on developed its traditions. Frances Young understands that
the development of the Christian Tradition derived from a need to
articulate a faith which had been one primarily based on experience.
She acknowledges that the creeds of the Church embody and articulate
a tradition of faith that in the past has been understood to simply
be the retelling of "facts" , but that this is a partial
understanding. They also represent the formulation and interpretation
of experience for different contexts. Tradition then, is something
that is dynamic and changing, and not static. Parratt expresses the
need for tradition to be dynamic and understands that it is reformulated
regularly to meet the changing needs of a context. Consequently the
concept of Tradition as something that is fixed from the past and
unchanging is no longer considered to be an acceptable definition.
Tradition is normally considered to be a body of experience, wisdom,
ritual and truth, that is related to a particular context and culture.
It is an expression of the belief system or worldview of a particular
group of people, which could be a social group or a religious group,
and is generally considered to be derived from antiquity. So Parratt
will say that the purpose of tradition is to contextualise belief
so that it makes the worldview of the social group appropriate for
a new or changing context. When a tradition is unable to deal with
the issues that arise from a changing society and culture, and when
it is no longer a stabilising process, then the tradition itself is
seen to be irrelevant and a new tradition needs to be developed.
The periodic rise in interest in the Celtic Tradition is an example
of this re-invention of tradition in the face of a rapid change in
society. The Celtic Tradition has been called upon, plundered and
manipulated to help give a foundation and stability to a society that
is involved in a paradigm shift and questions the relevance of its
institutions to deal with the needs of the contemporary society.
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