Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

tradition? ... Tradition serves to ground and preserve our identity by locating us within smaller communities with which we can identify, in which our voices can be heard, and whose perspectives we accept and share.”> Gracia argues that the tool through which identity is passed on is tradition, which should not be viewed as a set of beliefs or doctrines. Instead it should be regarded as a kind of action.”° Furthermore, Gracia rejects the role of the written text in passing on of the group identity. He argues that a text cannot be a key to passing on the identity because it is subject to ‘hermeneutical problems... — as a text we do not know that those who understand it understand the same thing by it.’”” His answer to the question of what makes separate and different individuals into a particular social or religious group is ‘tradition,’ assuming that ‘there is a core tradition that helps to tie them together into groups.’** His emphasis is on tradition, which is viewed as an ‘action of transmitting something.’ The act of passing on can take place only when there are people who receive and enact some content that is being transmitted via certain means.” Thus, people become who they are only through tradition, a set of actions that are repeatedly enacted by the participants of the group. Gracia argues, ‘Religious traditions are neither sets of doctrines expressed in linguistic formulas nor linguistic formulas, but sets of actions, forms of acting in which certain linguistic formulas are repeated in certain circumstances as part of the fellowship within a group.’*” The consequences are threefold. Firstly, linguistic statements (particularly in relation to the religious groups) such as doctrinal statements, creeds, laws are important but ‘have to 5 Jorge J. E. Gracia, Old Wine in New Skins: The Role of Tradition in Communication, Knowledge, and Group Identity (Milwaukee, Wis., Marquette University Press, 2003), pp 11-12. ® Ibid., pp 15-16. 27 Ibid., p 18. This problem, however, was addressed by McClendon and Smith in their work Convictions: Defusing Religious Relativism, where they argued that convictional differences should not be seen as unbreakable walls, therefore it is possible for people to communicate, understand and even persuade one another. (McClendon and Smith, Convictions, pp 8-10). 8 Gracia, Old Wine in New Skins, p27. *° Ibid., pp 45, 46, 48. ° Ibid., pp 112-113. 171 be taken as residues of behaviour... actions that fit into a way of life.’** Secondly, as traditions are actions, they can only be judged on the basis of their compatibility (or incompatibility) with other traditions. Thus a person can be a member of a religious group only if their actions are compatible with those of other members of the group. Thirdly, it promotes tolerance, since it is impossible to ‘draw sharp lines between the 32 Thus, Gracia pure and the impure... on the basis of rigid linguis