To the American church’s never-ending (and appropriate) obsession with worship renewal, Jamie Smith’s Cultural Liturgies series adds some interesting breadth and depth. Believing that the Christian faith is more than “a set of ideas, principles, claims and propositions that are known and believed,” Smith calls on church leaders to step beyond the categories of form and content to see worship as the thick, formative practices through which churches make and become disciples of Jesus Christ. Rather than isolate the intellect in Christian “disciple education,” Smith sees the whole experience of Christian worship as the necessary counter to the cultural liturgies of consumption and hedonism in which we are immersed every day. He uses words such as “formation” and “imagination” and “gut” and “native” and “second nature” and “habit” to encourage us to think beyond the didactic model of worship used in so many evangelical churches. He wants church leaders to approach Christian formation from a new perspective that “understands human persons as embodied actors rather than merely thinking things; prioritizes practices rather than ideas as the site of challenge and resistance; looks at cultural practices and institutions through the lens of worship or liturgy.” Those principles are best engaged in corporate worship.
Within my own, Baptist, context, “Worship has not traditionally been one of the strengths of Baptist local church practice.” Worse than this, “the denomination which gives its ministers maximum freedom in liturgical practices is the same denomination which offers minimum training in liturgical principles.” Indeed, there are some who would assume that Baptists have no liturgical principles let alone the ability to discourse about them, and there are many who think that Baptists will thus always be at a significant disadvantage in all discussions of the church’s worship. That’s serious. And frustrating. And I lived it for more than a decade of full-time music ministry. And that made me think of Robert Webber.
0 Comments
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi
This phrase is sometimes used by liturgists to explain the priority of worship in the formation of theology. I have certainly argued that people learn more theology from worship than from any other source; I absolutely believe that to be true. This phrase is different. This phrase argues that worship is an authoritative source of theology. Granted, the liturgists don't mean just any act of worship (any prayer, any song) but rather an official written liturgy of some official church or another. These liturgies stand above theological critique, they would say. A key component of their argument is the difference between primary theology and secondary theology. Primary theology is an act of theology itself - people speaking of or to God. Secondary theology is any reflection on primary theology - people discussing what was spoken of or to God. Some liturgists, Aidan Kavanagh included, believe that primary theology cannot be corrected by secondary theology (in other words, it is meaningless for someone to try to point out a theological flaw in an act of worship because that act is its own theology). I said that very clunkily, so it sounds a bit worse than what he means. I referenced his On Liturgical Theology in my last post, and here is what he says about primary and secondary theology in worship:
Buuuuuuuut . . . According to Kavanagh and other liturgists, the authoritative experiences of worship are conditioned by the written liturgies. Again, we're not talking about just any act of worship, but the "official" acts handed down through the church for centuries. That worship is true theology. (I want to make that clear so that someone doesn't try to use this argument to validate any and every private experience of worship; such an approach would envelope mutually exclusive experiences.) And here's where I'm going - "The Lex" - Lex orandi, lex credendi; The rule of prayer is the rule of faith. That is the phrase used to justify that approach. The theology that is produced/understood within the worship experience is not just more real, it is more right. Sadly, that phrase is a poor summary and gross misunderstanding of the man who first coined it. One day I'll figure out how to write this clearly and concisely in book form, but for now let's just establish the facts. The original author of this idea is Prosper of Aquitaine; the source is his Defense of Augustine, specifically in his summary of Roman pronouncements on the matter of divine sovereignty and free will (Praeteritorum Sedis Apostolicae Episcoporum Auctoritates). The background of the discourse is actually quite simple. People are arguing (and this is loosely in the context of the ongoing debate between followers of Augustine and Pelagius) whether people are saved by virtue of an act of free will or solely by the sovereignty of God. Obviously, they didn't settle the matter. Prosper, an apologist for Augustine, points out that churches everywhere pray for God to save lost sinners. That means that the people believe God is sovereign in salvation because that is how they pray, and that is tacit proof that Augustine must be right. From a modern free church perspective, I might say along those lines, "So many people of God, guided by the same Spirit of God, say and believe this to be true that it must be true - God's Spirit would not allow so many of us to go astray." Now, that's not how Prosper is arguing, but I'm not dismissing his conclusion out of hand. What exactly did he say? I picked up a festschrift to one of my favorite sarcastic Catholic monks (Aidan Kavanagh) who takes worship very seriously. It was a good reminder of some important things that should be in our minds as we think about our gatherings for worship. Here is a quick summary of some of the ideas in his On Liturgical Theology:
In other words, Christianity is not a system to be learned, but a life to be lived. It is a culture, not a theology. Kavanagh uses these word pairs to explain himself: assert, not argue; proclaim, not explain; engage, not discourse. And he's right. I learn by doing and being. The classroom can only get me so far into the Christian life; I must experience and engage. The church's worship is designed to be that "classroom" of experience, fresh, alive, and transforming. Where is this going that means anything to us? Because worship is culture, it is enacted in ritual, which is a very unique type of behavior. He uses two very cool words to describe ritual: antistructural and rhythmic. They represent two boundaries to a healthy understanding of worship. Antistructural means that once it is reduced to a static or concrete form, it becomes oppressive and destructive. He believes we must resist unchecked structure in worship, and I believe he has a point. Antistructuralism prevents the nature of rhythm from becoming mindless repetition. Rhythmic, on the other hand, prevents antistructuralism from devolving into compulsive innovation (love that term). Rhythm unites people and is a teaching tool. Why is all of that important? Because liturgy (the church at worship) is the ritual that enacts our Christian culture. It is the way that "Christianity" is made accessible to those present. So here's what we can do with this: (1) Think of the liturgies (in Baptist life we call them "orders of worship") we experience each week as more than a series of actions but the very formation of Christian identity. We want to find a way to be drawn into participating in the very rite of redemption. What makes baptism and the Lord's Supper so powerful? The participation, the symbolism, the action, the meaning, the imagery. Those might be the only two Scriptural ordinances (contra our friend Fr. Kavanagh), but there are so many other rites that could engage all of this. (2) Remember those most excellent boundaries: antistructural and rhythmic. Those are very thick words. They encourage us to stay away from a concrete order of service and from unbridled sponaneity. There is value both in restless creativity and also in principled repetition. I think Kavanagh makes a better point than even he realizes - as we move further and further away from true Christian community, every blast of ritual identity is made that much more important. Be encouraged. Our liturgical experiences are critical to our future! |
AuthorIf I ever say something in here that doesn't make sense, please ask me to clarify. It always makes sense in my head, but that doesn't necessary mean anything to you . . . Categories
All
|