Presbyterians and Formal Worship

In my recent studies, I have been encouraged to tackle a daunting task.  There are plenty of traditionalists in my presbytery like myself who love historic Christian worship.  In the words of a Lutheran friend of mine, “If you don’t like the other service books, write your own.”  Well, I have been and I have been encouraged by the clerk of my presbytery to pursue the task and submit it to the Theology and Christian Ed committees for review  

Well, in the process, I have discovered the 1689 Proposed Book of Common Prayer, that was published in 1854 by the English Parliament and the Rev’d Charles Baird’s A Book of Public Prayer Compiled from the Authorized Formularies of Worship of the Presbyterian Church as Prepared by the Reformers Calvin, Knox, Bucer and Others with Supplementary Forms. The later volume is monumental for our task here to demonstrate the liturgical vein in much of continental Presbyterianism and particularly that of the older Scottish Church; the former is illustrative of the various liturgical reforms initiated by the Convocation of 1687 in order to tolerate and convince the non-Conformists in the Church of England.   Baird is worth quoting at length here for the task at hand:

At the time of the Reformation, each of the various national branches of Presbyterianism adopted a liturgy. To this fact there is not a solitary exception. And further, with but one exception, each of the national Presbyterian churches of Europe has retained down to the present day, with greater or less modification, its particular liturgy. The Church of Scotland, which for a hundred years had preserved these written forms, finally laid them aside, not of her own choice and preference, but in concession to a plan of uniformity with other Churches, in the use of a common Directory of Worship. The adoption of a liturgy is peculiarly consonant with the spirit and usage of the Presbyterian Church. That a body characterized by strict and scrupulous adherence to established formulas of doctrine and discipline, should make full provision for the proper celebration of worship, appears most suitable and natural. And although in the Church of Scotland, bitter enmity to forms of prayer has long existed, arising out arbitrary attempts to enforce an obnoxious liturgy, in times of civil commotion, there has never been a single enactment of our Church to forbid or condemn the introduction or revival of this her former practice. It is a fact of no little meaning, that when the Presbyterian Church of this country was organized on a national basis, there was a proposal on the part of influential Divines to introduce a discretionary form of public prayer.

It appears that historic continental Presbyterianism had various fixed liturgies in their worship before the Westminister Assembly that adopted the Directory of Worship and replaced Knox’s Book of Order in Scotland.  Moreover, from reading Baird’s assessment (which is also based upon the proposed prayerbook of 1689), it appears that with regard to worship, Puritanism and the Secession in Scotland turn out to look more like fundamentalist reactionaries to “Catholicism.”  Calvin’s Geneva liturgy was preserved by the Huegonots who settled in South Carolina.

I’m stunned.  In the Church of Scotland, the “bitter enmity to forms of prayer”  is a reference to the imposition of the Anglican Prayerbook on the Presbyterians; the 1689 prayerbook was approved by Parlaiment to unify the Church in England and Scotland and Ireland (including Puritans, Presbyterians and Independents), but it was not approved by the church and was never published until 1854.  So, I am busy at work . . .

 

H3509-SC Legislature Discussing 10th Amendment Movement

HOUSE BILL H3509

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION TO AFFIRM THE RIGHTS OF ALL STATES INCLUDING SOUTH CAROLINA BASED ON THE PROVISIONS OF THE NINTH AND TENTH AMENDMENTS TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

Whereas, the South Carolina General Assembly declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State, and shall exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right pertaining thereto, which is not expressly delegated by them to the United States of America in the congress assembled; and Whereas, some states when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, “that it be explicitly declared that all powers not expressly and particularly delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several states to be by them exercised”; and Whereas, these recommended changes were incorporated as the Ninth Amendment, where the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and as the Tenth Amendment, where the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people; and Whereas, the several states of the United States of America, through the Constitution and the amendments thereto, constituted a general government for special purposes and delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each state to itself, the residuary right to their own self government. Now, therefore, Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring: That the General Assembly of South Carolina, based on the above principles and provisions, hereby declares by this resolution, that any act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States, or Judicial Order by the federal courts which assumes a power not delegated to the government of the United States of America by the Constitution and which serves to diminish the liberty of any of the several states or their citizens shall abridge the Constitution. The General Assembly further declares that acts which would cause such an abridgment include, but are not limited to:

1. establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the states comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that state;
2. requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law;
3. requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of eighteen other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law;
4. surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government;
5. any act regarding religion, further limitations on freedom of political speech, or further limitations on freedom of the press; and
6. further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition.

Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and each member of the South Carolina Congressional Delegation.

 

Viva Larry Norman–Your Memory Lives On

I was born and raised an orphan in a land that once was free
In a land that poured its love out on the moon;
and I grew up in the shadows of your silos filled with grain,
but you never helped to fill my empty spoon.

And when I was ten you murdered law with courtroom politics,
And you learned to make a lie sound just like truth;
But I know you better now and I don’t fall for all your tricks,
And you’ve lost the one advantage of my youth.

You kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter,
Then you make his wife your mistress and you leave her without water;
And the sheet you wear upon your face is the sheet your children sleep on,
At every meal you say a prayer; you don’t believe but still you keep on.

And your money says in God we trust,
But it’s against the law to pray in school;
You say we beat the Russians to the moon,
And I say you starved your children to do it.

You are far across the ocean but the war is not your own,
And while you’re winning theirs, you’re gonna lose the one at home;
Do you really think the only way to bring about the peace
Is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?

The politicians all make speeches while the news men all take note,
And they exaggerate the issues as they shove them down our throats;
Is it really up to them whether this country sinks or floats?
Well I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote.

Well my phone is tapped and my lips are chapped from whispering through the fence,
You know every move I make, or is that just coincidence?
Well you try to make my way of life a little less like jail,
If I promise to make tapes and slides and send them through the mail.

And your money says in God we trust,
But it’s against the law to pray in school;
You say we beat the Russians to the moon,
And I say you starved your children to do it.
You say all men are equal, all men are brothers,
Then why are the rich more equal than others?
Don’t ask me for the answer, I’ve only got one:
That a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son

 

Doctor of Education

Well, I’m not there yet, but I’m on the home stretch.  I have two classes left.  One is a week long course for the Summer in July.  The other is in the Fall.  Written comprehensive exam and dissertation to follow.  It has been a long process since the Fall of 2005.  As I have written before, I want to concentrate my dissertation on the problem of values education in public education.  I say it is a problem because there is no sufficient ethical basis for suggesting a particular set of values to teach children without being exlcusivist in a pluralist environment, where all values are supposed to be accepted and all norms are supposed to be ethically valid as well as all “truths.”  How can we determine what values are “good” and “bad” and why?  One person’s good is another person’s bad in our current culture, so this continues to be a problem and will only get worse.

 

Let’s Dig Deeper

OK. Let me try to carry this a bit more to problem. We in the West are facing many issues philosphcally and related theological issues. If you read our American history, we were a people that we clearly marked by religious commitments. That is obvious by the state churches (PA–Quaker, NC–Anglican, SC–Anglican, RI–Baptist, MA–Puritan/ Congregational, etc. As a Christian people, our values were tied to our roots and as true conservatives we have spent generations conserving the best of the past, rooted in our historic denominations and identity in those traditions.

That was mainstay in our land until the 1960’s when the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Heidegger, Marcel, and especially Nietzsche began to be proliferated and their influence felt all over the place academically. The trend of the day, was that God was dead and hence, religion was no longer necessary to explain the universe. We loss our sense of corporate identity as a people and began to be focused on individual experience, values, etc. With the rampant rise of individualism and the preeminence of the self over society, my truth and my preception over objectve norms, this began to have terrible effects for religion, whose authrity structure is God, the Church, the family, myself. Our era has seen a revesal of all of that. Typically, you hear people say, “I don’t believe in God so he doesn’t exist.” Out goes logic. I can believe in purpple ponies that poop green and fly, but that desn’t mean that they are real.  Religion, like music styles, have become personal preference and people hop churches faster than they choose a burger.

With the rise of individualism and the preference for the self (which is Gen. 3 all over again), the past is judged by the present, history by the now, traditions and vaues by present experience, etc. “Things have changed” they say. yes–but why? This shift is called “post-modernity” because the era in which people used to believe in objective truth (and believed it no matter what) is over. The Reformation produced the modern era and Christendom flourished with the rampant production of public schools, hospitals, higher education, seminaries, the rise of nation-states and the rise of the American experiment.

The worship war is more than preference; it is more than personal taste. There are philosophical commitments and theological commitments to the post-modern trend that are reflected in the worship style and lyrics. Sure. I’m not so naive to think wth a wide brush I can swoop all of them into heresy. Nope. However, to embrace the trend is to fight within the camp. Van Til said the current problem, if we embrace the prevailing philosophy, you know, “meeting peope where they’re at” is like a man driving down a road to a cliff and you pass him going the other way to heaven. The prevailing trend (and why we are failing) is that we turn around and try to talk to the guy who believes we are wrong about everything and he is right about everything–he really does not believe in the cliff and if we keep arguing based upon his way of thinking, we will lose. The Church is losing the culture war because we have embraced the culture. Plenty of the “Emergent” postmodern crowd love it; away with the past and in for the now. What is in is massive suicide rates and loss of identity among Christians, rise in divorce, etc. It seems like the experience of crack wins over the experience of God. The louder and more creative the music and the more piercings, the more tatoos, the more blah, blah, blah.

God has always worked through the simple ordinary confrontation of the Scripture and the sacraments. But that is too traditional; it’s not where we as a culture are at. Some have noticed that the high end worship music has replaced regular use of the sacraments. Jesus said, if you eat his flesh and drink his blood you share and abide in him. But people don’t know what communion is about; the don’t know what happens in baptism; they are usually never confronted with their sins. Our current culture looks at historic Christianity with shock and alarm. Thomas Reeves in his book the Empty Church argues tha those whotake the cultural approach to religion will always lose with their marketplace competitors. “They” will always do it better. If people want a feel good service they can always go to the Moose Lodge or the latest concert and “feel” good.

I guess at the end I would have to join the crowd that wrote the book, why I left the contemporary worship movement.  Surely, I am NOT saying that anyone that enjoys the modern/ post-modern music is not a Christian.  Hello?  My ITunes folder will tell otherwise.  However, in my venture through the waters, I understand the Gospel to as simple as “Jesus loves me,” but more than that intellectually.  No one in our culture wants more than the former.  If a Christian service is more than a sound byte they get bored . . . Christianity is more han a relationship; the Bible is more complex than “What if Cartoons got saved.”  But it takes time and commitment to dig into those complexities and be changed by them; no one it seems wants to change, because “Me and Jesus got an understanding;  he’s my bud and we like to hang out.”

In the long run, I’m talking about the postmodern worldview is what I and other traditionalists reject.  Of course, when I argue for the use of hymns, I’m being as snobbish as anyone else.  As a reformed Christian, I believe the reformation recovered or conserved the authentic Gospel, so I dont embrace “hymns” in general but those hymns that reflect the power and energy of the reformation, e.g. the Biblical worldview, and exalt God’s majesty and diminish the power and efforts of man.  Part of this is why I became reformed and eventually a Presbyterian. 

In all of this discussion and that is what it is . . . regardless of whose feelings get hurt (mine included), we do have to remember as noted to david T, that God often rejects our worship as idolatrous–  traditional or contemporary.  I pray in whatever context we find ourselves, that our worship is acceptable to God.  I have issues with the contemporary trend and others less traditional, have there issues as well.  Be convinced by Scripture alone.  I could recommend books, but who would read them?  Maybe a power point show . . .