As Christians debate homosexuality, it has been suggested that tradition has authority. But how would traditionalists size up Christ’s, Paul’s and Peter’s decision to accept Gentiles (which is us) into the church? Surely, the centuries of traditions of God’s people, the Jews, would trump the progressive acceptance of the unclean Gentiles. How scandalous it must have been, to the traditionalists, for Paul to declare that those who wanted to become members of the church no longer needed to observe the God-given directive of circumcision. Would you, if you had been there, have declared that Christ, Paul and Peter were wrong and had given in to cultural pressure?

I’ve seen too many church decisions based on man-made traditions that trampled spiritual truths. Not all tradition is bad, but beware of hard-line fundamentalists and traditionalists. Didn’t traditionalists put Christ on the cross? Didn’t traditionalists threaten Paul’s life and liberal agenda of change? Would the Christian church exist if, in the beginning, the traditionalists had their way?

Evan Oswald
Glendale, Ariz.