Post-Christmas reflection 

28 Dec 25
There are perhaps not that many Baptist Ministers who would say this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Luther was a bit of a prat. (OK I’m using hyperbole to get your attention), so to qualify this statement with clarity and charity, if he had foreseen where there principle of Sola Scripture, or Scripture Alone,  rejecting  tradition, would lead us, I honestly believe Luther would be having second thoughts.  I serve in a denomination which follows this principle and I don’t like where it’s leading evangelicalism . Over the Christmas Season,  almost every denomination that allows tradition and the litergical year to feed, nurture and inform the reading of scripture produced coordinated statements which while generally framed in posative language, were clear warnings against the politics, hatred and division being sown by the far right.  From some evangelical groups  there has been a deafening silence.  Is this born out of cowardice, complacency, or simply ignorance? I cannot say, but I strongly suspect that the lack of tradition and a litergical framework to inform the reading of scripture has led to this sorry state of moral agnosticism.  Today is the feast of the slaughter of the innocents when, shaped by the tradition of the liturgical calendar,  many church communities will  have reflected on scripture and brought to mind the atrocities in Palestine by the Israeli state and other malignant international actors such as Russia and the ICE agents of the Trump administration in the USA. But in many Evangelical church’s the menu will be restricted to an emotionally incontinent, theologically vacuous, unstructured celebration of Jesus and me spirituality, no doubt sprinkled with prayers for Israel. The moral
Compass entirely absent, the nutter count disproportionately high.
It’s time for a return to tradition, (without jettisoning modern worship songs), and to jettison the Sola Scripture mantra that has lead evangelicals into a theologically and mortally illiterate ghetto where mainstream orthodox Christianity seems like a very distant place. As for me, I’ll have a healthy dose of traditional catholicity please, for without it evangelicalism is on the road to hell, or at the very least, (to employ a mischievous metaphor),  a little healthy perdition.