Diverse Voices Reclaim Tradition

In her presentation Critical Traditioning, Ellen Davis has addressed the broad issue of tradition and innovation within Anglicanism today by examining the process, evidenced in sacred texts of scripture, by which the biblical writers interpreted difficult traditions in light of new or alternate readings. The careful reading of scriptural texts shows that rather than censor, silence, or reject inherited traditions perceived to be outmoded or unedifying, the biblical tradents preserved, reworked, and juxtaposed them with their own revised theological judgments and perspectives. This process of traditioning that simultaneously preserves and critiques conflicting traditions, models a way for faithful Christians living today in a textually-- based tradition to reckon with traditions that they find difficult. Responding to the accusation that Western readers of scripture do not take the Bible seriously enough, Davis explores the text in detail and locates within scripture the principles of interpretation she presents. It is possible to imagine how Davis's model, which includes both respect for authoritative tradition and critique, might be generalized as a way to understand the interplay of tradition and innovation within Anglicanism. In dialogue with Professor Davis, I want to present a hermeneutical model that stresses the role of the contemporary community of interpretation in biblical interpretation. I affirm that it is absolutely essential to be able to appreciate and analyze the complex traditions within the history of the biblical text. Such analysis makes evident, as in the case of the conquest tradition in Judges, how the tradition contains more voices within it than the dominant one reinforced in the history of interpretation and the one that critics are tempted to reject. However, I believe that a reading modeled upon the process whose traces are preserved in the written biblical text must be supplemented by a model that gives to the contemporary community of faith an acfive role in interpretation. Ellen Davis's presentation acknowledges this necessary role particularly in the third and fourth principles of traditioning, but I want to draw out this aspect and its relationship to criticism of tradition. The history of interpretation and its effects on communities of faith will inevitably shape their stance toward these texts and will provide the criteria by which to decide which voices in the text to proclaim, what side of the ambiguities to stress, what traditions to resist-in other words, how to deal with difficulty in the biblical tradition. Third-world interpreters and feminist readers have made this case most strongly, and the main insights of their critique of tradition can contribute constructively to developing a hermeneutical model that encompasses tradition and innovation. Because in this model interpreters do not accept the history of the tradition as being benign and one-directional, but see it as a complex and conflicted process in which human action and the activity of the Holy Spirit cannot always be clearly distinguished, this model will stress the critical side of traditioning. Criticism and resistance must be exercised along with charity in order for Christians to reclaim their sacred traditions. The developing tradition of Anglicanism has made ample room to take the community into account in interpretation. For example, the idea that authority is diffused between scripture, tradition and reason enabled Anglicans to maintain tension between the principle of sola scriptura and the weight of the Catholic tradition represented in the historic councils and creeds. Upholding tradition as one of the legs of the well-known stool, it has used the interpretations of the Christian community in early generations of the Church's life as a guide to the interpretation of scripture.1 The emphasis on the community as the context for interpretation of scripture continues in present Church practice, where the liturgy of the community is the primary context for the reading and interpretation of scripture. …