Appropriating Theological Tradition

Balancing honest criticism and grateful reception

I once read a book on Enneagram profiles that really helped me understand the significance of my type 1 perfectionism. This book (I can’t remember which now) gave words behind the internal shame and criticism I carry with me. It also gave excellent advice on how I can better relate to others.

One lesson has stuck with me more than any other. The author pointed out how perfectionists are so self-critical that criticism is the regular internal dialogue they become accustomed to. Because of this, perfectionists might find critical speech frequently leaking out of them without even knowing it. While such critical words sound normal to the speaker, those hearing the criticism will receive the words as harsh, blunt, and challenging. In other words, perfectionists live so frequently in a world of criticism that they need to learn to adapt and temper their speech if they are going to be able to communicate well with others.

This advice has been so good for me in my relationships and ministry. I have become more self-aware of my words and how others might receive me. In return, my critical internal dialogues are less dominant in my thoughts, and I have become a gentler, more encouraging person.

Similar patterns can play out in our theologies and ministries. Those of us who constantly strive to improve or answer new challenges may live in a more critical space than we should. As a result, others might perceive us – often rightly – as having a bitter, critical spirit.

But the opposite can also be true. Some Christians may have a beautiful instinct toward seeing the best in things but struggle to accept complex, sinful realities that must be challenged. Such persons may be perceived as those who brush problems under the rug or as inauthentic because they cannot be honest about failure or painful realities.

I see similar polarizing tendencies among those who try to appropriate theological traditions, as I do with the Reformed tradition. Some, like me, want to see our received traditions grow, answer new challenges, and learn from other perspectives. While this is a good instinct, others often perceive our approach (again, rightly) as unnecessarily critical, harsh, and never satisfied.

Some will receive their tradition with gladness and do their best to magnify what they find beautiful in their tradition. However, such persons can tend toward a posture that glosses over the sin and harm done in the name of their tradition. Similarly, such persons may tend toward an institutional bias that minimizes the voices of those who want to see things change for the better.

The Reformed philosopher and theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff has set forth a good summary of what it means to appropriate one’s theological tradition. He wrote:

Appropriation of one’s tradition implies neither uncritical acceptance nor total rejection; it entails a discriminating adaptation of its features to one’s own situation… all any of us can do with the traditions in which we locate ourselves is appropriate from those traditions what remains of worth.^[1]

In other words, rightly appropriating one’s theological tradition requires a willingness to appreciate and critically examine what we have received.

While this posture is possible within any theological tradition, I have learned much from how the neo-Calvinist tradition seeks to appropriate the broader Reformed tradition. As N. Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock have observed, one of the central thrusts of neo-Calvinism is its attempt to “incorporate as many contemporary insights as possible within the boundaries of orthodox Calvinism.”^[2] This observation has led Sutanto and Brock to summarize neo-Calvinism as “a critical reception of Reformed orthodoxy, contextualized to address the questions of modernity.”^[3] These scholars follow in Abraham Kuyper's footsteps, who frequently argued that the Reformed must not copy the past but bring our tradition to bear on modern life.^[4]

I am grateful for good scholarship that exemplifies how to balance both appreciation and critical reception. For example, John Witte Jr. has demonstrated how many in the Reformed tradition have exhibited totalitarian tendencies while laying the foundation for our modern conception of human rights. The whole story of the Reformed will include a repudiation of its worst tendencies while also appropriating the precedent and trajectory it has left for us to carry forward toward new challenges to human rights in every age. Indeed, theological traditions are so significant to our values and communities that to remove them from the struggle for human rights is “catastrophic.” ^[5]

Similarly, Vincent Bacote has helped us appreciate and examine the Reformed and neo-Calvinist traditions regarding race and racism. In his words, “There are no pristine Christian traditions.” No matter how helpful our traditions may be, there will always be “deficiencies and imperfections” for “all who dive below the shimmering surface.” Those who inherit theological traditions must learn how to “stay in the pool” while “discerning how to be clear and truthful about the impurities in the water and how to pursue a water treatment strategy that makes an imperfect tradition a little less so.”^[6]

How we receive our theological traditions is not a matter of theory or esoteric speculation. Our posture toward our received traditions has real implications for how we relate to others and minister in our communities.

I met another church planter about a year ago who ministers in neglected urban places. Like me, he is also a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), so he and I naturally struck up a dialogue about some of the challenges of ministering in our contexts from within a denomination like ours. However, after some back and forth, my critical nature came out, and I took it a step too far with a very harsh comment.

Almost instantly, this other pastor started tearing up. He paused for several moments before saying, “That really hurts. I love the PCA. I met Jesus through the PCA. There’s no other denomination where I would rather be.” I was cut to the heart for allowing myself to become so bitter and critical. I apologized to this pastor for my words and critical spirit. I have thought about that conversation often as I try to authentically relate to others.

It is relatively simple to stereotype theological traditions, like people, as either all good or all bad. Traditions, however, like people, are complicated. When we maximize what is wrong about our tradition and ignore its more positive contributions, we develop a critical spirit and often lose the foundation behind many of our core commitments to justice, rights, or theological beliefs. When we ignore what has gone wrong while only magnifying what we find noble and beautiful in our tradition, we can perpetuate harm against the vulnerable while overlooking gross sin and failure. Neither posture is glorying to God or good for our neighbor.

The best we can do, then, is commit to a “responsible stewardship”^[7] of our tradition, where we try to learn from the sins and failures of our ancestors while working toward a tradition that honors God and loves our neighbor.

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^[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, ix.

^[2] N. Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock, Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction, 8.

^[3] Sutanto and Brock, Neo-Calvinism, 293.

^[4] “This of itself excludes every idea of imitative repristination, and what the descendants of the old Dutch Calvinists as well as of the Pilgrim fathers have to do, is not to copy the past, as if Calvinism were a petrifact, but to go back to the living root of the Calvinist plant, to clean and to water it, and so to cause it to bud and to blossom once more, now fully in accordance with our actual life in these modern times, and with the demands of the times to come.” See Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Lecture Six. “We wish to recover nothing from the past that has proved unusable, nothing that we have outgrown or that no longer fits our circumstances.” See Abraham Kuyper, Our Program, 9.

^[5] John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights, 335.

^[6] Vincent Bacote, “Race” in T&T Clark Handbook of Neo-Calvinism, 439.

^[7] Bacote, “Race”, 450.