I worry about the term "tradition," because of how it often works in practice. Catholics, and various types of Protestant each have their own traditions, which in my opinion de facto function pretty much the same as 16th Cent Catholic tradition. That is, they color the interpretation of Scripture too much.
Yet the nature of Scripture leaves us with lots of responsibility for deciding how to apply it, and with remarkably little in specific doctrine. That makes interpretation inevitable, and in my opinion that interpretation should be done by churches and not isolated individuals. (The power of loosing and binding was given to the Church, not each individual.)
There's no formula for dealing with this, except to say that we should at least start by trying to understand the intent of the Scriptural writers with as little as possible in the way of preconceptions. but that the Church still has a role to play that goes beyond just finding all answers in Scripture.
Tradition, however, is a powerful force if not checked. In my view, any tradition that never changes, whether Catholic or Protestant confessional, is a bad sign. Given the major changes in our understanding of the 1st Cent context of the NT, not to mention the implications of the Enlightenment, any group that hasn't made any changes in its understanding of Scripture, and doctrine that comes from it, seems pretty likely to be letting its tradition get the upper hand.
I also note that there is now a common community of Scriptural scholarship among groups that accept critical scholarship, with little difference among Protestants, Catholics, and ana-Baptists (though that doesn't imply complete agreement among interpreters). I think that's a pretty good sign.
