Category Image Modifying the Liturgy




Another response to another show :

I admit, I didn't get too far in.  This professor should be a bit embarrassed.  He, himself, doesn't understand the liturgical basis for the actions which Luther jettisoned.  On top of it, he doesn't know his scripture:  Jesus breathed on the man born blind?  He made clay with his spittle and anointed his eyes with the clay.  Pretty sad.

What he says, that the basic structure of the liturgy dates back to at least 150 AD, and probably before, is quite correct.  That is why the Lutheran service, ECUSA, service, Roman mass, and the various Eastern Liturgies are structurally rather similar.  There is, even, a Wester rite Orthodox liturgy which is Sarum in origin, and thus looks much like the Anglican liturgy.  However, the key is not the structure nearly as much as the content.  We were at a family retreat/camp this weekend and were discussing preservation of the faith(here are some photos of the weekend).  Interestingly enough, the day before the speaker left to come to the camp, an Episcopal lay bible study leader came in because they had been discussing how the ECUSA was losing people left and right, including the children and they began to wonder how to preserve the faith and pass it down.  Someone in the group said that the Orthodox did that, and hadn't changed much at all in millennia.  There's a longer story there, but the thrust of our conversation was that the West undid the understanding of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.  Where the law of belief was driven by the law of prayer - that is, the faith was passed down through the liturgy, the West adopted the habit of revising its belief, and then revising the liturgy accordingly.  Unfortunately, as TMatt discovered , this permits all sorts of novel liturgies.  If you believe in Gaia, adopt a new liturgy that reflects it.

Luther, and the other reformers, of course, asserted that all belief was clearly spelled out in Scripture, and so need not have worried about changing the Liturgy.  That they couldn't agree amongst themselves as to what Scripture teaches would, I would think, make one nervous about changing the liturgy on that basis.  Two things that the theology professor said early on were particularly troubling:

1.  Luther discarded those thing which he felt were unclear or might lead to confusion.  Another testament to the Lutheran ego.  I suppose it never occurred to him that maybe he was unclear?

2.  It seems that the professor was asserting that the presence of evil spirits was no longer culturally relevant.  He sounds like a fine Episcopalian.  Christianity is supposed to be about truth, not cultural relevance.  I think C.S. Lewis, in the Screwtape letters addressed the idea of Satan succeeding best when he gets men to stop believing either in him or his actions in the world.  Sounded a bit like where this professor was going.  Perhaps if I listen further, I will realize I misunderstood him, so I will attempt to do so soon.

The photo is of the Monastery of the Theotokos, the Life Giving Spring, in Dunlap, CA. It is next to ranch where the retreat was held.

Posted: Sunday - February 04, 2007 at 07:00 AM          

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