Sunday, August 20, 2017

Quote of the Day (Elizabeth Bruenig, on Tradition as a ‘Chorus of Helpful Coreligionists’)



“Tradition provides a chain of provenance beginning with the original biblical texts and extending down into our present year, with scholars and clerics reading their predecessors and puzzling out how to apply their thinking about God and his people to new questions that arise with time. Instead of leaving a single conscience to the knotty business of making sense of ancient texts, the tradition offers Christians a chorus of helpful coreligionists passing down insight over time. An individual’s conscience plays a role, of course, in her own interpretation of the tradition; but the weight of time and expertise are instructive, and they whisper through space and centuries that you are not alone.”—Elizabeth Bruenig, “Ever Ancient, Ever New," America Magazine, Aug. 7, 2017

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