worship

Simon Chan writes in his Liturgical Theology that one of the reasons evangelicals have become suspicious of the liturgy, and of sacraments in general, is because they are actually children of the Enlightenment. British evangelical scholar Philip Seddon has noted that evangelicals have “a deep-seated suspicion of references to ‘mystery’ or to anything that is not explicable,” and he sees this as “the triumph of the Enlightenment at the heart of Evangelical readings of the sacrament.”

So modern evangelicals tend not to like to think of something actually happening in baptism or Eucharist. They tend more toward Zwingli’s “memorial” theology of the sacraments, since, as Chan says, “it does not require them to associate transcendence with anything so mundane as water, bread, and wine.”

I also see a kind of gnostic dualism here, that locates spirituality in the immaterial. It says the “real” thing happened “in my heart” and my being baptized or taking communion is just a “reminder” or perfunctory ritual that I go through for no apparent reason.

But for the early Christians, the sign and the spiritual reality were not separated. Not that the sign did something in and of itself, like a magical charm, but that the spiritual reality was not complete without the sign, and that something spiritual and important really happened in the performance of the sign, when it is performed with faith and understanding. Chan says: “Baptism was not a ‘mere sign’ of a prior spiritual work effected by the Holy Spirit in the human heart; rather baptism is effective because it is the Spirit who effects the reality in and by the sign” (emphasis mine).

So baptism is not merely concerned with the indvidual’s sin and redemption, as though it was just a signifier of forgiveness. It is a cosmic event. The early church’s baptismal rites show this kind of understanding when they ask candidates to renounce the world the flesh and the devil (and then they would signal such renunciation with exorcisms!). In some rituals the baptismal candidates would first turn toward the west (the symbolic realm of darkness, where the devil was thought to originate from) and curse and spit on the devil (!). Then he or she would turn toward the east to welcome the coming of the Sun (Son) of Righteousness. Baptism announces not just an individual’s forgiveness, but God’s power over a vanquished enemy. The Eucharist does the same, and is likewise a cosmic event. The sign and the spiritual reality cannot be separated.

Even though modern evangelicals don’t have a lot of experience with or
understanding of sacramental reality, the process of falling in love
and getting married is a good parallel. Marriage is the sign and seal of two persons’ lifelong commitment to love each other. It isn’t merely a perfunctory act that signifies something that happened before, but rather something actually happens in marriage that doesn’t happen if they don’t perform the sign. Before the wedding, they were two separate persons; after the wedding, they are one. The early church had much the same “process” understanding of conversion: one truly and fully becomes a Christian in baptism.

Chan argues that baptism should be seen as the culmination of a “process of conversion”, where the Christian is weaned off the world, the flesh and the devil through a catechumenal process. “Just as love between a man and a woman culminates in marriage, the catechumenal process culminates in baptism, when one renounces the world, vows lifelong commitment to follow Christ and enters into full communion with the church.”

I’ve been chugging through Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology and blogging about it. Chan has some important things to say to the evangelical/charismatic church, I think.

According to Chan, worship is what makes the church the church. For the missional church to gain any traction and sustain energy it must be fueled by worship. Like Matt Redman wrote (I find I quote him a lot as I think through these things):

“Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame [and] let worship be the heart of mission’s aim.”

Well said, Matt.

But worship is more than just singing some songs. Chan says the charismatic church has tended to reduce worship to simply praise. Worship is more fully realized as the entire liturgy of the church (Word and sacrament). So if worship is what makes the church the church, and the church’s worship is most fully embodied in the liturgy (culminating in the Eucharist), then the church meeting to participate in the liturgy isn’t just some optional exercise for Christians. It becomes, in fact, the defining practice of the church. And the church’s liturgy then provides the definition and framework for other Christian practices, including the missional ones. The church can’t be reduced to simply a bunch of people talking about trade justice.

Other organizations do relief work. Other groups work for justice. Other religions help the poor and needy. But only the church worships the Triune God.

Chan says that the church, then, ought to be more intentional about its worship practice, and also in training people in the meaning of the church’s practice of worship. He makes a strong argument for churches adopting some kind of catechetical training process that is integrally tied to the church’s worship, focusing on the creed, Ten Commandments, and Lord’s prayer (Christian belief, ethics, and spirituality). This training period would culminate in baptism, where the candidate renounces the world, the flesh, and the devil and pledges lifelong faithfulness to Jesus Christ. This would be the candidates full acceptance into the communion of the church (participating in the liturgy, including the Eucharist).

Some people might be suspicious: this sounds a lot like what the church has done in the past, doesn’t it? Did it work well? Well, yes and no. But Chan seems to be simply arguing for not throwing the baby of cathechetical training and liturgy out with the bathwater of religiosity and superstition. The correction to abuse (or ignorance) is correct use, not disuse. The evangelical church could use a stronger theology of the church, and also a more well-realized liturgy. In subsequent posts, I’ll be reflecting on Chan’s specific suggestions on what the Sunday liturgy should look like in a local church.

My interaction with Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology continues…

Worship can be ideally described as the response of the church to the revelation of God in Christ. But there has to be a way for that to be actualized. The abstract concepts must take concrete form. This is where the church’s liturgy comes in (liturgy = the way the church worships). Liturgy could be said to be embodied worship.

Chan says that the church throughout history has recognized that the basic, fundamental structure and underlying foundation of the church’s liturgy consists in two parts, Word and sacrament. Calvin: “Whenever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there . . . a church of God exists.” Lutheran liturgiologist Frank Senn: “The church is visible only where the people assemble to do those things that constitute them as the people of God–proclaim the word of God and celebrate the sacraments of Christ.”

I wondered if this recognition has come mainly from something we see in Scripture, or perhaps more from the experience of church tradition. It’s one of those tricky doctrine-experience dialectics. Chan says Word and sacrament relate to one another in a number of ways. We do see a church organized around those things in Acts 2:42, however: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

So Chan sees the basic structure of the church’s liturgy consisting of Word and sacrament (and he seems to be in pretty good company, historically). He sees Word and sacrament relating to one another in a number of different ways.

[Read more…] about Liturgical Theology 6 | Word and sacrament

Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology, in chapter two, reiterates (as many have done before) that true worship is always a response to God’s initiative. God moves first in revealing his divine glory (which is simply disclosing who he is), and we respond by “glorifying” God, that is, acknowledging him for who he is. God’s revelation; our response. Three implications follow:

Worship can never be something we do for God.
True worship begins with recognizing that everything we have and are is a pure gift from God. We can never come to worship in a semi-pagan stance of offering “our” gifts in an effort to “placate” our God. Instead we realize that even the gifts we offer have been given to us first by God himself. Matt Redman’s excellent song “Breathing the Breath” is worth quoting in its entirety here:

[Read more…] about Liturgical Theology 5 | Revelation and response

One of the questions Simon Chan brings up in his book Liturgical Theology is whether our doctrines are formed by our practices, or vice versa. Do our worship practices arises out of some “objective” or “neutral” doctrinal observations? Or do our doctrines about worship arise out of our experience of it?

Perhaps those on the Protestant end of the spectrum would be tempted to say that our doctrines should always shape our practice, and that the “subjectiveness” of practice should never be allowed to influence our doctrines. They may point to some of the worshiping of Mary in the Catholic church as proof of this: “See? That’s what happens when practice and experience is allowed to influence and shape doctrine.”

But others may see things differently: look at how the early church, in according worship to Jesus, used those experiences of worship to shape their christology. They found themselves worshiping Jesus before they had a doctrine for it. Their experience of worship shaped their doctrine of worship.

Chan’s point is that it’s a bit mysterious how the process works, but it seems that practice shapes belief, and belief shapes practice. Liturgy shapes doctrine, and doctrine shapes liturgy. They are in a necessarily dialectic relationship with one another. And they actually need one another as well. Theology that is divorced from the regular practice of Christian worship is cold and dry, and relegates God to the prison of abstract philosophizing and impersonal theory. But worship that is done without theological thinking tends to get sentimental and weak, reflecting not the glory of God but the trends of culture.

We see examples of both in the evangelical landscape today. Chan’s critique speaks for itself:

For the more doctrinaire evangelical, worship is only an [addendum] to the service, a kind of embellishment of what should be essentially an exercise in systematic indoctrination. In these churches the entire service may consist of a song to get the congregation ready, a very long and well prepared expository sermon, and another song to round it off. . . In this worship format, truth is not part of living worship but is almost exclusively confined to the sermon. Truth then becomes only a matter of right belief, and the worship service is essentially a time for instruction. The operating assumption is that teaching people the right things will lead to right living. There is no understanding of the formative role of the ecclesial community through ecclesial practice.

Among the more charismatically inclined, considerable attention is give to getting the congregation into a “worshipful atmosphere.” Here the emphasis is on practice. But no thought whatsoever is given to what impact such forms of worship might have on belief. The assumption is that they have none so long as no heresy is preached. What such Christians fail to realize is that when worship is not “right worship”, it won’t be long before belief itself is modified to fit a heterodox worship. . . Right belief and right practice (orthopraxis) can only come from right worship (orthodoxia), and vice versa.

I would contest his statement that “no thought whatsoever is given” in charismatic churches to how practice affects belief. I’ve done quite a lot of that kind of thinking myself, and I’ve worked in somewhat charismatic churches my whole life. But I do understand his point, that very often leaders assume that the structure and form of church life don’t carry any inherent message, when in fact everything we do carries a message.

What we do in worship sends a message, and if we aren’t careful to make sure we are worshiping “rightly,” we will eventually begin to believe whatever message our practices are sending us. We’ll start to think the point of gathering as the church is only for instruction, or perhaps we’ll start to think that the point of gathering as the church is just to get some spiritual goosebumps, to have a personal spiritual experience that fulfills me. In the process, we may completely forget about the glory of God, which is the subject of the next post in the series…