Abraham is a dubious model of religious identity, for most of us do not directly hear God’s voice. If faith’s dependence on ritual tradition is forgotten, there is a danger of overvaluing individual inwardness. Much of Protestant tradition has erred in this way, forgetting that individual faith is enabled by immersion in a cultural tradition.

He thinks the mistake of old liberalism is that in their fear of being too old fashioned, they jettisoned the ‘cultic’ aspects of Christianity like sharing in rituals and in the community of faith.  Something I learned at St Andrew.