Steve Holmes: An example of why 'deep church'

'I suggested in the first three chapters of Listening to the Past that one of the problems in listening to the tradition is the otherness of the historical contexts of the doctors of the Church - and, indeed, that one of the problems in listening to Scripture is the otherness of the historical contexts of the prophets and the apostles. This problem is, however, also in a way a benefit. Encountering - listening to - people who do not think the way we do, who assume different things in different ways, offers us the opportunity to have our own prejudices challenged. ... [A] clash between the tradition and the assumptions of our own age at least offers us the opportunity to ask the question. A respect for, and a disciplined listening to, the tradition can enable us to speak prophetically in our own day, calling our contemporaries to hear the challenge of the gospel.'

(Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, Paternoster, 2002, pp.135-136)