Here’s a thought I was mulling over tonight:
The basic shape of Christian liturgy (Gathering, Word, Sacrament, Sending) has remained remarkably unchanged for over twenty centuries and a multitude of cultures. The question is this:
Does this persistence of Christian liturgy represent a failure of contextualization on the church’s part, or does it point to a universality inherent in the shape of the liturgy itself?
I have some thoughts on this, but I wanted to see what you all think first.
My initial reaction is to say the latter. In fact, I’ve begun to think that it is this common liturgical form that forms the essence of Christian authority. Rather than locating the center of authority in Scripture or the Pope or creeds and confessions, it seems to me that the one constant in Christianity is the liturgical shaped worship and prayer life of the church throughout time. This is something I’ve been exploring– I’ve not landed yet.
Well…if you take Barna in his book “Pagan Christianity” – he would say we HAVE contextualized worship and Christianity – too much so, in fact. Not sure I agree…
Throghout seminary, we had discussions of form and function – which is more important? Should form change as decades change, with the function remaining the same…have we changed function AND form…should any of it change.
Simple fact is – things HAVE changed – and some are attempting to go back to the original form and/or function of the Bible.
With Justin, I would think that the one constant should be the shape of the liturgy…however, I am not sure it is…so guess I would have to disagree with our esteemed blogger Ben…I think the basic shape of the liturgy has changed throughout the years. While we may hold to some of it, I am not sure we have held a straight line…thoughts?
I was thinking about this a lot while in Armenia. They were the first nation to declare Christianity as the official state religion around 300 a.d. and they have the traditional “Armenian Apostolic Church”, which still, to this day, uses the exact liturgy from when the church was founded in 300 a.d. Being around the culture, it’s apparent that they are really proud of their Christian heritage, and it’s remarkable that they’ve survived as a nation, being surrounded by hostile Muslim nations for 1700 years, and held onto their faith, which you have to give them some credit for. At the same time, there’s not an apparent thriving personal spirituality and relationship with God among the general population, from what we understood. Whether that’s the result of the rigidness of the church in never changing for 1700 years, or something else, is hard to judge.
I think, in response to your question, I would lean more towards the latter, qualified by the belief that liturgy alone can’t sustain a thriving spiritual life.