A recent post by Fr John Peck entitled "Evangelical Professor, Students On Liturgical Churches And Worship" which quotes several students and a Professor at the Moody Bible Institute speaking about their thoughts about Liturgical Worship and "Liturgical Churches."
Three quotes from the students and the Professor quoted the post stand out in particular:
Three quotes from the students and the Professor quoted the post stand out in particular:
“Moody’s a very practical school, but because of that practicality it loses out on a lot of the richness and worship when it forgets the liturgy and the church calendar,” she said. “You can do nothing wrong with learning about liturgy, about the Book of Common Prayer,” she said. “Worship and beauty go hand in hand, and Moody is so mission-focused that it misses out a lot on worship.”
and
“I also think liturgical worship, when it’s done properly, is solemn and otherworldly and mystical and even scary. Why do so many churches try to make their services ‘comfortable’? Why should we be comfortable if the living God is breaking into our world as the gathered body worships him? We should be trembling.”and
“At some point you’re going to get sick of the crappy architecture, and the rock bands, and the infiltration of pop culture into the entire philosophy of ministry,” he said. “And then, if God is gracious to you, you’ll find a Bible-centered liturgical church still doing what has always been done.”
What is interesting is how all three of these particular quotes give a critique of temptation to reduce, package or dumb-down the mysteries of the Church in order to sell or make Church accessible or 'practical.'
Yes the people who pray in the Divine Liturgy should always be welcoming, loving and accessible (ie. even to die for those who persecute us. Kenosis in the mundane 'practicality of life'), but when we pray we should always be ready to encounter, participate in the mystery of the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity, and be raised to sonship, blessing all the world and offering all back to God. It is because we have been raised to union that we in turn point others to that same ineffable, indescribable and paradoxical awareness of Mystery.
It's truly a joy to hear such talk of liturgical life from the scholars of Moody Bible Institute, but my personal view is that there is a bit of a misnomer in the term "Liturgical Church."
The term is redundant because such an appeal is also an appeal to secular presuppositions, same divide between the sacred and profane that has and continues to plague Christianity and tempt her back to paganism and reductionism.
There no such thing as a Liturgical vs Non-Liturgical Church. There's no such thing as Liturgical vs Worship music.
The Church IS Liturgical, Liturgy IS worship and I don't think Orthodoxy can (or should) buy into the presuppositions of a categorized Christian worldview and the eventual reductionism and denominationalism that such categories encourage.
Again, despite the misnomer, such discussion about the liturgy and how it is the central act of the Church in her dance with her Beloved, her act of union with God, is always a delight to read and hear. Let us perhaps adapt the last quote and say:
“At some point you’re going to get sick of the crappy architecture, the reductionism, the cult of big, the rock bands, and the infiltration of pop culture into the entire philosophy of ministry...and then, through the mercy of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you'll find the Church, praying, living, reading, loving, making Saints, offering all and eveything back to God, for the life of the world...or in short...still doing what has always been done."Glory to the Holy Trinity.
