William F. Buckley, Jr wrote this 30 Years ago. @anglicansaints tweeted a link to this on the blog Anglicans in the Wilderness and I couldn’t resist reposting this on here.

The Original posting can be found at Anglicans in the Wilderness.

This 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer - University of Nottingham

For all intents and purposes I have decided to post a very, very brief history of worship in the Western church in order to place our discussion into context. I am no expert (yet), so this seeks to server the purpose of merely setting a basis for our conversations on Worship in the current church.

Worship is most often defined as giving glory and honor to God, and stands as the central act of the Christian faith.The majority of Christian worship is based in the liturgy, a pattern or layout for Christian worship services, which dates back to the early church. This liturgy and the prayers and texts within also follow a progression defined by the Christian Church Calendar, also known as the Liturgical Year. In the early church, worship consisted of prayers and texts, as Christianity was still making its initial spread at this point, many cultures mixed in their own traditions and cultural influences. Around 215 C.E. a church order arose called The Apostolic Tradition, usually attributed to Roman Priest Hippolytus, that prescribed the texts for prayers, ordinations, baptisms,and the Eucharist which eventually gave birth to the Liturgy (White 43). This compounded by the Institutionalization of Christianity following the reign of Constantine I (306-337 C.E.) as well as it being made the offical religion of the empire in 380 C.E.

Vatican Midnight Christmas Mass

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the word Liturgy was synonymous with the Celebration of the Eucharist, which is also referred to as Holy Communion, the commemoration of the Last Supper. Traditionally,  liturgy consists of prayer, hymns, scripture reading, and sacramental worship through communion. This is a blog post, so Wiki says: ” …liturgy is a communal response to the sacred through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, supplication, or repentance. Ritualization may be associated with life events such as birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. It thus forms the basis for establishing a relationship with a divine agency, as well as with other participants in the liturgy. Methods of dress, preparation of food, application of cosmetics or other hygienic practices are all considered liturgical activities. Repetitive formal rites, in some ways similar to liturgies, are natural and common in all human activities such as organized sports venues.”

During the Middle Ages, worship was mainly shaped by the Monastic tradition. During this vast expanse of time, roughly 600-1600 C.E., life was rather tumultuous. Life was frequently cut short due to civil turmoil, such as the crusades, Norse invasions, plagues, and other warring factions. Monks basically created a safe haven for the documents, writings, traditions, and beer recipes of the Christian faith. The life of the Monk was to worship and most liturgical changes came from the monastic tradition during this time period. Monks also made great contributions to the universities, worship music (chant), and were also responsible for establishing heavy theological decisions many of which concerned sacramental theology (White 76-79). Unfortunately, and you may not have suspected this because nobody does, these theological decisions led way to things like Spanish Inquisition.

During the Reformation period (1500-1700) Protestantism arose and Christianity spread on a global scale due to colonization, commerce, developing urban areas, and most importantly, the printing press. Enter The Book of Common Prayer! During this time, preaching was elevated to the prominent focus of the worship service. Polyphony exploded this time and skilled composers began writing 4-part harmony since the end of the twelfth century. Martin Luther exalted music and referred to it as one of God’s greatest gifts (White 137). During this time, composers established much of the basis for the entirety of what we know as western music to this day. Much of the mass proper was also established during this time (White).

Since the enlightenment and up to present day has seen the onset of Denominationalism. There are currently 27,647 Protestant divisions recognized by the IRS for tax-exempt purposes in just the United States alone. Though the fundamentals are in place in most cases, there some very distinct differences concerning style, content, and expression. Regular corporate worship is also complemented by other forms of worship, such as individual meditation, prayer and bible study, small group prayer groups and bible studies, and formal ceremonies on special occasions, including weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. With this also came a movement away from liturgical worship order and with this came variations in style. With the rise of the charismatic movement in the 1960’s came the fusion of popular culture and modern worship within the church; one might even say the fusion of the secular and the sacred to create more culturally digestible musical based worship experience.

Over the course of this discussion we will be exploring what all of this means, how it applies to our current worship traditions, preferences and experiences, and more importantly where christian worship is headed the future. (The Great Emergence?) It is our hope to grow to a greater understanding of Jesus’ words saying that “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).

"The Trinity" Makoto Fujimura 1994

Sources
White, James. F, “A Brief History of Christian Worship,” Abingdon Press; Nashville TN, 1993

www.futonreformer.blogspot.com

www.wikipedia.com

The Institute for Woship Studies

The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

Justin Woodall potentially could still be my long lost brother. He is one of my best friends and currently serves as the youth pastor at Surfside Presbyterian Church in Surfside, SC. Justin is currently completing his M.Div. and possesses God-given insight into theology and the freshness of the Bible and how it applies to this post-post-modern (whatever) world that far surpasses his age.

Justin said this in his introductory post:

“Rich and I share a passion for our Reformed heritage and a desire to see our churches (both local and global) live out the mantra of the reformation, “Soli Deo Gloria”. We both would like to turn our hearts toward improving the quality of worship on our communities.”

Justin will be taking the premise, Worship is first theology and second, music. I however, will be taking the vantage point, Worship is equally theology and music. Like the sculpture above, what are we missing if one is secondary to the other?

Writing these posts will be a dialogue, a stream of conscious, and at times a sparring match. In this series we will address various the topics and many times we will critique, attack, defend, refer to certain areas as broken or decrepit, or lift up others. Usually all of that happens in every conversation that I have about worship. Long story short, some topics could ruffle some feathers. We welcome comments and a greater dialogue community and look forward to it. We would ask that any comments or responses remain cordial and respectful. As Justin said, It is our hope that on the other side of this series, we will have provided more insight into worship in order to grow the community of believers as a whole.

With that being said, Woo, the ball is in your court!

(By the way…I foresee this being a very long series!)

Responses will be found at Justin’s Blog, Confessions of a Futon Reformer, which is always found in my Blog Roll on the main page of my website.

My Buddy Tim, a pastor up in Surfside SC, just posted this on his blog. I had to re-post it here! Thanks again Tim!

“The Gospel is Sacrosanct: The Scripture Rainbow

When Christoph Römhild, a Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, Germany, sent Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student Chris Harrison a list of 63,779 cross-references between the Bible’s 1,189 chapters, the two became enthralled with elegantly showing the interconnected nature of Scripture. Each bar along the horizontal axis represents a chapter, with the length determined by the number of verses. (Books alternate in color between white and light gray.) Colors represent the distance between references. Graphic by Chris Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University.

A friend of mine, and fellow pastor, Mark Upton says, “This visual representation of just how interconnected the Bible is (is just one more) reason I believe in the Divine Inspiration of Scripture. No conspiracy of man made teachings could actually be this tight and coherent.”

The Gospel is indeed Sacrosanct.

By the way…take note that the strand coming down right in the middle is the longest chapter in the Bible - Psalm 119 - which extols the riches of the Word of God.

My comment:

“Tim, this is so incredible. A visual representation is always helpful for me but it also shows the orchestration that is God and that permeates all of his creation. It’s inspiring beyond all other things for a musician to see something so perfect and so rich like this being that this is what I try to do with melodies, ideas, and harmony on a daily basis with music. Thanks so much man!”