Many people criticize our church for being stuck in the dark ages and lacking reform.  I am one of those people, when it comes to practical aspects of our faith; things like allowing cremation or encouraging lay and particularly female leadership in the sacramental life of the church.  However, in the essential tenets of our faith, I am a traditionalist. Christ’s teachings through our Bible and worship should humble us to change our perspective, we can’t change it to suit us.  After all, we are very young indeed when it comes to our faith. Our one life of 30-80 years is little compared to the millions of lives and years who came before us. No one framed this idea better than English Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton who called holy tradition ‘the democracy of the dead.’  Chesterton says that tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those of us who happen to be alive on earth at this moment. Tradition is a democracy which includes all, even the dead. There are so many who have come before, whose cumulative wisdom and insight dwarfs ours. Why does it matter that they are dead, especially since we know that all live in Christ?