Friday, May 28, 2004 AD
The "liturgical liberalism" of evangelicals
In the comments to my previous post, Thomas made the excellent point that "what we think will 'reach' the 'unchurched' may have nothing to do with reality". I agree entirely.
Ever since returning to the Christian faith ten years ago, I've been frustrated by the hostility of many of my fellow evangelicals to the historic liturgy, the sacraments, "traditional" hymns and so on. It's often struck me that there is a parallel with liberalism. When liberals sought to throw out the historic doctrines of the church, it was done in the name of removing obstacles to faith for those outside the church. Evangelicals, rightly, repudiated this as a means of reaching outsiders, and concluded (also, I feel, rightly) that the liberal project had more to do with the inability of the liberals to believe the historic Christian faith, than with the perceived "unique difficulties" that that faith presented to "modern man".
But evangelicals have used just the same arguments to throw out historic practices of the church as the liberals used to throw out her historic teachings. And again, one wonders if this at times owes more to the personal tastes and preferences of evangelicals than to the perceived hostility of outsiders: particularly when one witnesses visitors to weddings or Christmas services stumbling uncertainly through the contemporary, "seeker-friendly" songs, before singing the traditional hymns and carols with gusto and, indeed, something approaching relief.
The real stumbling block to outsiders is always Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and if we get rid of Him from our Christian worship, what's left isn't worthy of the name. (See Joel Brondos' excellent post on this subject earlier this month)
The adoption of contemporary music has had some value in subverting people's prejudices against the church. I've read or heard multiple "testimonies" in which people talk of having turned up at church expecting nothing but old ladies in hats singing "boring" hymns. Their surprise at finding hundreds of young(-ish) people singing boppy Matt Redman numbers then softened them up for hearing the Gospel (I thought that was the Law's job, but what the hey).
All well and good, but a declining asset: already, the clichéd view of church is switching from hats'n'hymns to slightly-too-cheerful, slightly-too-clean-cut people strumming electric guitars. Once the element of surprise is lost, I doubt that "contemporary worship" (dread phrase!) will prove particularly effective as a means of reaching outsiders. It will continue to prove exceptionally effective as a means of dumbing down Christian worship and infantilising Christians.
Ever since returning to the Christian faith ten years ago, I've been frustrated by the hostility of many of my fellow evangelicals to the historic liturgy, the sacraments, "traditional" hymns and so on. It's often struck me that there is a parallel with liberalism. When liberals sought to throw out the historic doctrines of the church, it was done in the name of removing obstacles to faith for those outside the church. Evangelicals, rightly, repudiated this as a means of reaching outsiders, and concluded (also, I feel, rightly) that the liberal project had more to do with the inability of the liberals to believe the historic Christian faith, than with the perceived "unique difficulties" that that faith presented to "modern man".
But evangelicals have used just the same arguments to throw out historic practices of the church as the liberals used to throw out her historic teachings. And again, one wonders if this at times owes more to the personal tastes and preferences of evangelicals than to the perceived hostility of outsiders: particularly when one witnesses visitors to weddings or Christmas services stumbling uncertainly through the contemporary, "seeker-friendly" songs, before singing the traditional hymns and carols with gusto and, indeed, something approaching relief.
The real stumbling block to outsiders is always Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and if we get rid of Him from our Christian worship, what's left isn't worthy of the name. (See Joel Brondos' excellent post on this subject earlier this month)
The adoption of contemporary music has had some value in subverting people's prejudices against the church. I've read or heard multiple "testimonies" in which people talk of having turned up at church expecting nothing but old ladies in hats singing "boring" hymns. Their surprise at finding hundreds of young(-ish) people singing boppy Matt Redman numbers then softened them up for hearing the Gospel (I thought that was the Law's job, but what the hey).
All well and good, but a declining asset: already, the clichéd view of church is switching from hats'n'hymns to slightly-too-cheerful, slightly-too-clean-cut people strumming electric guitars. Once the element of surprise is lost, I doubt that "contemporary worship" (dread phrase!) will prove particularly effective as a means of reaching outsiders. It will continue to prove exceptionally effective as a means of dumbing down Christian worship and infantilising Christians.
