The frustrating thing is that most of them make the decision to convert because they think there are only two options: the historically ignorant, sacramentally impoverished evangelicalism they grew up in and more high church traditions such as Catholicism or Orthodoxy. But between those two views there is an entire western Christian tradition that is largely ignored in the United States because it has been largely marginalized or co-opted by American culture. I am speaking of the magisterial Protestant tradition that includes Reformed and Lutheran Christians and, depending on who you talk to, also includes Anglicanism.... With their tacit individualism and apathy toward history (amongst many other things), radical protestant traditions have always tended to play better in the United States, a nation founded on the idea of being a “new world” that rejected old world traditions and beliefs. There have always been magisterial Protestants in the United States as well, but there is a perpetual tendency for these traditions to slide toward radicalism as they adopt more characteristically American tendencies toward individualism and separating oneself from the past. As a result, traditions that ought to embrace the more liturgical, sacramental spirituality of the high church tradition will struggle to do so consistently.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:46:57 +0000
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