Recovering Mother Kirk (pt 2)

It has been a few days since I posted on D. G. Hart's book, Recovering Mother Kirk:  The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition, but I would like to pick up on a couple conversations that were begun on the comment's thread.

Michael wondered if Hart was descriptive in regard to liturgy.  Did he allow for liturgical innovations?  Though Hart does not condemn innovation in liturgy, he clearly favors a liturgy with deep roots in the past.  He compares two Presbyterian authors writing on worship about a decade apart: Hughes Oliphant Old (Worship That is Reformed According to Scripture, 1984) and John Frame (Worship in Spirit and Truth, 1996).  Though Old is from the PCUSA (liberal) and Frame from the PCA (conservative), it is Old who argues for a more traditional liturgical form because of the theological and congregational implications.

Old does not regard this tradition as a burden that restricts liturgical experimentation but rather as a fitting way to conduct the gathering of the saints before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This does not mean that Old wants simply to reproduce older patterns of worship.  He cautions against both "archaeological reconstruction" and "liturgical romanticism."  A certain amount of adaption is always necessary.  "We recognize [the Reformers] as great because they were great!...At the center of their reform was a concern for the reform of worship, and they had a profound insight into the nature of worship."

Hart is concerned that Presbyterian liturgy has been overly influenced by revivalist piety.  When asked if Presbyterians are evangelicals, Hart is hard-pressed and turns the question on its head, "Are evangelicals Presbyterians?"  The answer is clearly, "No."  Hart believes Frame has given up the ship in this regard because Frame desires to make evangelism a focus in Reformed worship.  Frame writes:

In worship, we should not be so preoccupied with God that we ignore one another....So, worship has a horizontal dimension as well as a vertical focus.  It is to be God-centered, but it is also to be both edifying and evangelistic....We should avoid slavish imitation of older practices without attention to the matter of communication....That divine mandate [the great commission], rather than any human traditions, must ultimately guide our decisions about the order of worship.

Hart notes that Frame's "logic is one of the best examples of how evangelistic aims have trumped the purpose of worship in conservative Presbyterian circles."  Isn't Frame aware that the traditional elements of Reformed worship are "effectual means of convincing and converting sinners?"

While Frame holds to a high view of scripture and the regulative principle in general, he believes scripture allows for considerable freedom in worship, defending dancing, drama, and even juggling.  Since scripture nowhere reveals a clear order of service or liturgy it is virtually impossible to prove that anything is really required for worship.

On the other hand, Old embraces tradition because it means contact with the roots of the Faith and things that last:

A tradition that gets radically changed every generation is not really a tradition.  For tradition to be tradition it must have a considerable amount of permanence and changelessness.  Tradition can only become tradition when it is passed from one generation to another.

Since the Reformed tradition is a biblical one, Old believes to follow it is to submit to the authority of scripture.  "Above all the leadership of both the Fathers and the Reformers is to be bound in the fact that they understood scripture so well."  You cannot separate form and content.  Hart concludes:

What American Presbyterians need, and have always needed, is [the] sense of the organic nature of their religion, that liturgy and theology and polity are not like parts of an automobile that can be changed for newer or better ones but in fact are connected like the branches, trunk, and roots of a tree.  Take a limb away, damage the trunk or roots, and a tree either dies or if grafted with branches from another species produces alien fruit.  Reformed theology needs Reformed liturgy just as Reformed worship makes no sense without Reformed theology.

Scott wondered about this quote from Hart:

A believer has no life outside of the church. This works against the individualism and subjectivism that characterizes much of evangelicalism. The liturgicalists emphasize the corporate character of the believer's religious life versus individual devotion. Life in the faith is nurtured from cradle to grave by taking part in the church's ordinances, worship, and submission to her authority in life, versus an emphasis on a one-time decision, personal morality, and the ups and downs of Christian pilgrimage and religious experience.

Here is Scott's question:

Are you in agreement with this? Surely you're not downplaying the importance of personal devotion (prayer, study, meditation) in the spiritual development of a Christian? Isn't a lack of personal devotion and a submission to the authority of the church the very thing that has led to the corruption of doctrine in the Catholic church and the mindless ritual of many protestant denominations? Is less personal devotion and more submission to the church's authority really a goal we ought to be pursuing? I'm confused. When I stand before God someday, am I going to be responsible for my personal obedience and commitment to Him or to the authority of the church?

The short answer is, "Yes, I am in agreement with Hart's quote."  But, "No," Hart is not downplaying the importance of personal piety.  In fact, he heartily recommends the diligent work of family catachesis and personal devotion.  But these efforts must be accomplished within the context of a vital (living) relationship to the Church.  The believer is nourished only has he or she is connected to the Body (Eph. 4:11-16; I Cor. 12).  When the local church abandons orthodoxy, of course, it is the duty of the believer to confront unbelief (1 John 4:1), not render mindless submission to a corrupt system.  However, this is not the weakness of the contemporary evangelical church.  We have pews full of little kings and queens who rule their own roosts.  If I don't like what my church says or does, I'll just travel across town to another church.  There is no sense of devotion to a creed, a congregation, a community of faith under the God ordained leadership of a body of Elders.  Covenants of membership are too easily broken; accountability is almost non-existent.  Regarding your last question...the answer is, "Yes."  God's rule over your life extends "through" the leadership of the local church...they are part of the authority God has placed in your life.  He expects you to obey them (Hb. 13:17). 

Comments

[Scott M]

Isn't it just as possible, though, to have the right balance of authority, submission, and accountibility in a congregationalist church as it is in a presbyterian type elder-ruled church? The existence of little "kings and queens" in certain churches doesn't necessarily mean that the whole congregational system of church governance is wrong, does it. That would be like saying that because a woman in one family usurps her husband's authority that all married women should be stripped of any say in the decision-making in the home. Every system has natural pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses. One person's or group's abuse of the weaknesses of a system should not necessarily condemn the entire system. There are probably just as many cases of pastors and elders abusing their authority.

[Joel]

Jon, you're going to love Quentin Faulkner when he comes. The whole book is based on the idea that we have lost the old world-conscious idea (identifiying corporately) for a self-conscious idea (pietism) and the way he shows it is by tracing the ideas as they show up in church music.