Also, Lewis makes clear that he isn’t putting forward any one particular theory of the atonement – of which I’m glad. Yeah, that would frustrate many evangelicals who want penal substitution only, or at least primary. But IMO that’s because a particular theory of the atonement – exactly how to describe the many faceted thing that was accomplished through Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension – isn’t as core as belief in and reliance and action upon the ACTUALITY of Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension:

“You can say that Christ died for our sins. You may say that the Father has forgiven us because Christ has done for us what we ought to have done. You may say that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. You may say that Christ has defeated death. They are all true. If any of them do not appeal to you, leave it alone and get on with the formula that does. And, whatever you do, do not start quarrelling with other people because they use a different formula from yours.”
- Mere Christianity

Here’s an article from Touchstone about Lewis’s eclectic view of the atonement:

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=22-03-027-f#

At any rate, just because lots of different Christians like Lewis doesn’t mean his writings represent the “common denominator” or “core essentials”. It just means that there is plenty that Christians can agree on, just as there is plenty we disagree on too.

(BTW, I heard a lecture once by a Mormon trying to claim Lewis for Mormonism. According to your argument, wouldn’t that make them part of the Great Tradition too?)

What do you make of Catholics, Orthodox, and protestants of many different types all reading a book such as Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and saying “yes, this IS a great summary of the core of my belief?” So much so that many of them argue that Lewis was really “one of them” – I’ve seen Orthodox argue Lewis was nearly Orthodox, Catholics (and some super fundies) say he was Catholic or nearly Catholic, and we know he’s the virtual patron saint of evangelicalism. Pastors/priests in all of those traditions pass out his books to their people and say “read this for instruction in the basics of the faith.” How can this be so, if they are really so hopelessly disparate in all that matters?

BTW, I’m not trying to canonize Lewis or his book – I’ve read N.T. Wright’s critique and agree with some of it – but it’s a handy and known reference for, and example of, what we’re talking about.

Of course, even then you have the problem that even most of the groups who do fall within a narrowly defined “Great Tradition” would still want you to include among the essentials things that not all of the group can agree too. You can claim, for instance, that both Catholics and Baptists are within the “Great Tradition”, and yet at the same time, you’re not going to get a Catholic to accept that sacramentalism is a “non-essential” and you’re not going to get a Baptist to accept sacramentalism at all (in fact, you’re probably going to have a hard time getting a lot of Baptists to admit that Catholics are Christians, period.)

Bottom line is that the history of Christian beliefs has been a lot messier and more complex than standard versions of that history ever let on, and it’s just not the case that one, easily definable set of “mere Christianity” can be reduced out of it. Historic Christian theology are less defined by some “centered set” of beliefs, and a lot more like Wittgenstein’s idea of “family resemblances”.

Nor do I know that I would say that I “get anything out” of liturgy. Perhaps if I ever did decide to attend a liturgical church on a regular basis and immersed myself in it for some years, I might have any opinion on how it has or has not shaped me. I haven’t done that and am not particularly planning to — though much of my spiritual life has been unplanned anyway. I don’t know that much of the time I feel that I necessarily “get something” from my sporadic efforts at the Hours. Save to the extent that I can look at myself and see the differences in the person I was a decade and a half ago and the one I am today, I wouldn’t say that I “get anything” out of Christianity.

I’m not a defender of any sort of Christian liturgy, don’t belong to a liturgical church (heck, hardly belong to any church at the present time), and don’t have any desire to dictate or change how you or anyone else chooses to worship. However, just as I have done with much that I’ve encountered in any religion, including Christianity, I’ve tried to understand liturgical worship from the best the traditions have to offer what they desire it to be whether they necessarily achieve it on any given day in any given place or not. And in none of the traditions, from both study and experience, does that boil down to engaging in the right rituals in order to “do church right”. Yes, there is a structure, just as there is a structure to anything we do together as human beings. But the structure is not the central point. It’s not the purpose.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve found anything in Christian worship practices of any sort that “rocks my world”. But then, I haven’t been looking for that. There’s a reason I came to think of myself as the reluctant Christian and the accidental Baptist. I know that questions about the sort of “worship” that best suits me or that does something for me or that most enriches me are not the sort of questions I’ve been asking over the years. If they were, I probably would have given Christianity up as a bad deal a long time ago. Much of the face Christianity presents in America today is a pretty shallow one, especially if you’ve practiced some of the other world religions. (Christianity is not shallow. No faith that endures for 2,000 years and grows as Christianity has grown could be.) No, having been drawn into the people of this exceedingly strange God (and he just keeps getting stranger the more I get to know him), I’ve been struggling to understand how to be a part of that people, how to live, and how to corporately worship that God. Understanding the development and the meaning of Christian liturgy has shed some light on those questions. If I had not experienced it and simply tried to absorb the experience for what it was, though, I’m not sure I would have had the touchstones necessary to really grasp writings about it. At any rate, I’m sure it helped.

I started to write more, but it seemed even more muddled than the above. It’s not just that I don’t see the purpose of Christian worship as teaching me, rather I don’t see its purpose as focused on me at all save to the extent that I am joining with others of the people of God to worship that God and (hopefully) prepared to live as that people when we leave. While my learning style and personality type and so much more informs and shapes how I interact with reality, I don’t believe it has much to do with what Christian worship should or should not be. At least, it’s a very recent phenomena for Christians to have so many different “options” from which to choose.

The Anglican three-legged stool has historically been understood with those three “legs” of the stool as being of unequal length. Or importance, or strength. A stool with 3 unequal legs kind of breaks down the quick’n'dirty analogy. But the question arose early on, and while acknowledging the need for all 3, historic anglicanism recognizes the primacy of (or at least deference paid to) scripture over tradition and reason, and recognizes a primacy of or deference to, centuries of tradition’s interpretation of scripture over one individual’s or group’s interpretation based on their own reason. A high bar must be cleared in order to make a case for change to an important teaching based on new reasoning, and some things like the creeds are treated as settled and definitional.

Not that reason and tradition don’t inform how one views and interprets scripture. All 3 always work in concert but scripture is primary and tradition and reason – in that order but also in concert – are used to understand and apply it.

So what I’m advocating is a submission to scripture, as interpreted by the great tradition, with application of reason and discernment. Which is not that far from how you articulate it. But I think I give more deference to scripture as interpreted by 2,000 years of tradition and brilliant minds than you do. Again for me, the more uniformity over that 2,000 period on a given belief, and the closer to the core of the faith the belief lies, the more deference I’ll give it.

That’s one thing I like about Anglicanism – there’s a lot of freedom to disagree outside of the historic essentials. Hence my turning to “mere Christianity” or the great tradition as representing the best application of human wisdom and reason to scripture over the course of 2,000 years, embodied in a tradition of belief that is surprisingly uniform on the core essentials over the centuries, and which has within itself the tools for self-correction when part of scripture (like the need to work for justice and care for the poor) gets ignored by some particular modern wing of the church.

And we weren’t talking about humility or a teachable attitude, you were talking about being under an authority who gives me the final answer on what I should think. I love being taught. I love to learn. I don’t think agreeing with whatever a certain person says because I have to is healthy.

“by what standard do you decide what is wise, discerning and responsible?”

I personally like the standard your own denomination upholds – a balance of Scripture, Reason (which includes Experience), and Tradition.

That’s why I find it ironic that you are advocating that at some point we should just submit everything else to “Tradition”, when your own church tradition actually tells you not to do that.