- Because this is true [i.e., that subjecting the liturgy to the whimsies of culture destroys the liturgy, and in turn secularizes and destroys the Gospel], then our approach cannot be tactical but must be strategical. Our run at renewal comes from viewing the whole life of the church through liturgy, a holistic view that calls for strategy, not tactics. A tactical approach trivializes our life in Christ, focusing that life on today's relevancies and today's style. A strategical approach is focused more on reverence than on relevance, more on renewal of substance than on renewal of form, more on theology than practice. If we are reverent in worship, we will be relevant; if our life in Christ is substantial, we will develop forms to support that life; if our vision is biblically theological, we will be confessionally practical.
... In our changing culture, today's congregations are often too likely to subject the liturgy to the same criteria by which they judge everything else in society: [tinker to "make it work"]... Liturgy and theology should not conform to this world, but should transform the world... [It] is a cultural assumption that it is the liturgy that needs to be changed, when ...it is we who need to be changed through the liturgy, for here Jesus Christ comes to us most completely, Sunday in and Sunday out. ...The liturgical movement must give priority to restoring the liturgy to the faithful, to recognizing that the liturgy does not belong exclusively to any one congregation, or to the clergy, or to the synodical office. It belongs to the whole church as it is expressed in a congregation.
Just, A.A. (1993). Liturgical Renewal in the Parish. In Precht, F.L (Ed.), Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (pp. 22 – 23). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.
Tomorrow, and probably Saturday, I will provide a few more brief excerpts from this essay, along with brief commentary, and then move on to a couple of the other essays in this very helpful book, Lutheran Worship: History and Practice.
4 comments:
Freddy, the whole idea of Liturgical Renewal indicates there's a reason for needing renewal. That something was missing, neglected or lost in Lutheran liturgy. Has anyone established that in fact there was any Scriptural reason for 'renewal'. Or was it just a ripe opportunity for a solution to a false problem - along the lines of the heglian dialect?
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
Freddy, great start to your blog. Thanks for sharing this. I'm looking forward to your future postings.
-Ric Rocheleau-
Brett,
Thank you for your thoughtful question. I'll respond with my thoughts/observations as well as I can.
What does the author (Arthur A. Just) mean by "liturgical renewal"? He is principally referring to bringing the liturgy back to congregations that no longer use it or that have lapsed into haphazard or thoughtless use of it. As I read through this essay, it seems to me that the term "liturgical revival" may have been a slightly better choice. This will become more clear as I post a little more from his essay over the next couple/few days.
Interestingly, one of the other essays in this book ("Worship Resources in Missouri Synod's History," by Fred L. Precht) covers a high-level history of Lutheran liturgics, from the Thirty Year's War, through Pietism, Rationalism and the Stephanic Emmigration from Saxony, up to the final decade before the publication of the LCMS hymnal, Lutheran Worship. Concluding this history, beginning in the late 1960's, ILCW published a series of experimental liturgies/hymnodies entitled Contemporary Worship, the results of which were used in the eventual publication of the ILCW hymnal in 1977 entitled, The Lutheran Book of Worship -- if memory serves, that was the green book with all of the colored lines pointing a person forward and back several pages at a time... Missouri evidently participated in the publication and experimental use of the Contemporary Worship series, but in the end did not approve the ILCW hymnal in '77. This, apparently, gives some backdrop for the need for liturgical renewal, or "revival," in Missouri congregations, as expressed by the author -- the influence of "Contemporary" testing and meddling through the 1960's and 1970's having done enough damage that by 1993, a call for "liturgical revival" was required.
In WELS, recent history was a bit different, it seems, as James Tieffel's essay, Toward a Liturgical Unity, indicates. But the effect was the same.
Hope this helps,
Freddy Finkelstein
...And it occurs to me that I neglected to refer to the idea of "change" in the liturgy that you were questioning, Brett. First, the author is writing against the backdrop of two decades of "changers," who thoughtlessly fiddled based on narrow and essentially anthropocentric considerations. They were busy feverishly changing, so he is addressing the prevailing thought among them that change, or "renewal," needs to take place. He is going to turn that term "renewal" around on the changers, though. The change, or renewal, needs to occur in the worshipers, not so much in the liturgy -- and tying the liturgy to theology the way he does is a clue to what is coming next. Second, I don't think that the author would insist that changes should not or cannot ever occur. They have in the past, and for good reason -- the addition of the Gloria Patri in response to the Arian controversy comes to mind in this regard. In my non-exhaustive reading, in fact, it seems that during periods of acute theological challenges is when the most important liturgical changes have taken place. Cultural whim isn't the driving force, sound theology is -- and that is a relatively static thing.
My thoughts,
Freddy Finkelstein
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