It Ain.t Necessarily So. When Scripture and Tradition Collide 12+

📖 A line from the song "It Ain't Necessarily So," from the Gershwin brothers' play "Porgy and Bess," tells us that "the things that you're liable to read in the Bible, it ain't necessarily so." While we would like to take issue with that comment, this book, of the same title as the song, explores the validity of such a seemingly heretical statement. But it isn't what we read, so much as how we interpret those words that "ain't necessarily so." While the words are accurate, sometimes our understanding can be a bit off-track. In this work, Pastor Austin challenges the reader to explore the relationship between Scripture and Tradition in our lives and in our faith formation. Much of what we claim to believe about the Scriptures is actually based more on our Traditions than we wish to acknowledge. We have been taught by previous generations what the Scriptures are saying to us. This becomes a significant part of our individual Tradition—the sum total of what we believe the Scriptures to say and how they compel us to act. Because we trust those ancestors not to lead us astray, we don't question this Tradition. Perhaps we should. One of the primary assertions of this work is that “Tradition trumps Truth.” We don't intend for it to be so, but often what we think we are reading in the Scriptures is tainted by years of Tradition and the teaching of the Church. We don't question what we've been taught; it is the Trut...