Abandonment Of Tradition

One never truly returns to earlier times -- anyway, one often finds people who want to go back to the previous phase of the Church. My Church -- the Congregational Church -- was a fervent movement, with well defined spiritual characteristics. Let me say for 200 years. There is an excellent portrayal of this in Evangelical & Congregational. Then came 200 years of stagnation and decline. But during the past generation, Congregational Churches all over the world have been going back to traditions -- which is the first 200 years. Curiously, at the same time, there are those who regard the more recent 200 years as tradition, where in actual fact it is the abandonment of tradition. OBSERVATION: It seems like Hitchcock movies, where people walk backwards into the arms of the killer.