Foundations of Liturgy

[rlvaughn]

I was asked to post this here, for discussion by those who can't post in the "Baptist Only" section. A moderator advised it is OK to seemingly double-post for this purpose.

In his blog article But There’s No Liturgy in the Bible, es Lampkin argues that liturgy is biblically based.

...James K. Smith argues that we are surrounded by competing liturgies; the liturgy of the Mall, of Higher Education, of the Sports complex.

The people of God have a liturgy. It may be a deliberate, biblically grounded, historical liturgy, or it may be a contemporary liturgy dictated to us by the commercially oriented pop culture.

There are no quick and easy Bible references. It requires a comprehensive cover-to-cover examination of the Bible, from creation to the culmination of history.

The first Christians, all Jews, continued to worship in the temple, but found in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus the culmination, the fulfillment, of the sacrifices instituted in Leviticus.

For the next several centuries, the worship practices of the Church continued. The Church, as a human institution under the direction of the Holy Spirit, altered and corrected the liturgy as needed.
It wasn’t until 19th century American Revivalism that the church began to question the Biblical, historic liturgy of the church.

Is his reasoning biblically sound? historically accurate? currently relevant? What do you think?

 

[Jerome]

This is a more appropriate place anyway, as that is the blog of a PCUSA worship minister, and the author of the piece is Roman Catholic.

 

[rlvaughn]

This is a more appropriate place anyway, as that is the blog of a PCUSA worship minister, and the author of the piece is Roman Catholic.

I suppose appropriateness is in the eye of the beholder. I posted it in the Baptist forum because I was interested in what Baptists had to say about his statements on liturgy.

Now everyone can have their turn.

 

[thatbrian]

I suppose appropriateness is in the eye of the beholder. I posted it in the Baptist forum because I was interested in what Baptists had to say about his statements on liturgy.

Now everyone can have their turn.

Thanks for posting here as well.

 

[thatbrian]

I was asked to post this here, for discussion by those who can't post in the "Baptist Only" section. A moderator advised it is OK to seemingly double-post for this purpose.

In his blog article But There’s No Liturgy in the Bible, es Lampkin argues that liturgy is biblically based.






Is his reasoning biblically sound? historically accurate? currently relevant? What do you think?

That was a great article, and I would agree with most, if not all of it.

I know that Protestants can freak out over anything they perceive as "Catholic", but creeds, confessions, liturgy, and all things that anchor us. Without them, we see the result. American Evangelicalism is adrift and aimless. It looks foolish when it makes attempts at being relevant. It's "contemporary" music isn't good or contemporary.

All churches have a liturgy, but most aren't thought through.

Highlights of the article for me:

our churches have been lured into a commercialized parody of the pop-culture entertainment liturgy, complete with the latest high-tech media, pop star ‘worship leaders’ and a never-ending barrage of FOMO Christian top-forty hits.

Every church has a liturgy; yours, mine, Chris Tomlin’s. The question isn’t “do we have a liturgy”, but “which liturgy are we going to use?”

There are no quick and easy Bible references. It requires a comprehensive cover-to-cover examination of the Bible, from creation to the culmination of history.

The situation today is dire. For the sake of “relevance” the church has abandoned the historic practices of the church and turned the worship of the God, the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, into a worship of emotion and sensation. The only object and subject of our worship is supposed to be God. We have turned worship into the worship of our psychological selves. We have sacrificed the great Creeds and Confessions of the church for the sake of “meeting the needs” of the congregants. We have sacrificed depth and beauty to the gods of relevance and sensuality.

​

 

[BobRyan]

I was asked to post this here, for discussion by those who can't post in the "Baptist Only" section. A moderator advised it is OK to seemingly double-post for this purpose.

In his blog article But There’s No Liturgy in the Bible, es Lampkin argues that liturgy is biblically based.

Is his reasoning biblically sound? historically accurate? currently relevant? What do you think?

There is a kind of liturgy for Baptism and Last Supper - where we say certain things and then baptize - full water immersion, or where we quote from 1 Cor 11:23-26 separating out partaking of the bread and then the grape juice.

But even that is missing from the Gospel accounts of it.

So while we all have liturgy it is hard to make the case that a specific formula is used in the Bible in all cases. It may be that Paul is arguing for one to be used in 1Cor 11 - or maybe not.