It has been said that those who forget about history are doomed to repeat it.

When this is said by church historians and theologians trying to persuade people to look away from Biblical exegesis or any recent theological reflection, one needs to remember that those who idolize history are doomed to attempting to recreate it. And of course, since the attempt cannot be successful, they can only actually manage to recreate an approximation of it, with weird and vociferously unacknowledged mutations, in a shrinking microcosm from which those who fail to stay faithful to the vision must be expelled year after year.

The impulse behind most Christian denominations rooted in any sort of “tradition” is quite often no different from the motivation that keeps alive the Society for Creative Anachronism.