Thoughts to provoke better thoughts.
What would the public Liturgy of the Anglican Communion of Churches and of the Roman Catholic Church had been like had there not been in the 1960s & 1970s an over-rating or what seems like an obsession with aspects of the primitive Church accompanied, simultaneously, by a low estimation of the Church of the medieval period?
Before the public acceptance of Christianity in the Roman Empire from the reign of Constantine the Great, the Church of Jesus Christ often faced persecution and had to make apology for her Faith in a hostile environment. Her worship was often conducted in secret and her converts were adults, some of whom brought along their families. There was a lot of adaptation to necessity and experiment to find ways of pleasing the Lord and edifying the flock. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.
In this early period and well into the fourth century the Liturgy and Doctrine of the Church were subject to development and correction as the teaching of the Bible was proclaimed and explained. However, after AD 325 as the Church began to define dogma in councils, as she built houses of worship, as many more people flocked into her services, as she began to baptize many infants as well as adults, she adapted her developing Liturgies to incorporate the new situation with its positive and negative demands. By the fifth century or so we have fixed Liturgies in East and West.
As we look back, we can take the period before Constantine and see it as a golden age when the Church sought to proclaim the Gospel in a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious context, where She was not favoured by rulers. Then we can see a similarity to our position in a post-Christian western culture and think that if we take some of the exciting things that the Church did say in the third century than we can make our own liturgy and life authentic.
At the same time we can see the period beginning in the fourth century and leading on into the early Middle Ages, as a time of compromise with the world, of the adaptation of Greek techniques to doctrine to make dogma, of the use of these dogmas in Liturgy, making it over intellectual or cerebral, of the excessive use of ceremonial, of the rise of patriarchalism and sexism in church life, and so on.
So, as archaeologists in search of treasures, we can go on digging expeditions into the third century and find all kinds of things that seem to be authentic and attractive, as well as appealing to what we see as the needs of the modern world.
And this is what happened - in general terms - to liturgists in the 1960s & 1970s as they became archaeologists in search of treasures. What did they find - primitive liturgy in the works of Hippolytus (and thus the modern obsession with the correct Shape of the Liturgy and especially of the Eucharist); primitive doctrine of God as Trinity and Jesus as God's Son in the works of Hippolytus and earlier teachers, e.g., Irenaeus and Justin (and thus the bypassing of classic dogma in much modern liturgy); the kiss of peace as part of the Eucharist (and thus the modern fsacination with passing the peace); the unification of the Resurrection, Ascension and Descent of the Holy Ghost into one festival and kept for 50 days from Easter Day to Pentecost (and thus the modern commitment to "the great fifty days" and the calling of Sundays after Easter as Sundays of Easter); that Christians tended to stand to pray in normal Liturgy and especially in the Fifty Days (and thus the modern insistence on standing not kneeling in church); that "initiation" is complete in Baptism with chrismation (and thus the modern confusion over the worth and place of Confirmation and of children's Communion); that Easter Eve was a special time for Baptisms and for celebrating the Risen Lord (and thus the modern emphasis upon the recovery of a proper form of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Day Liturgy); and so on.
What we have not usually been ready to admit is that our knowledge of the third century and of all these supposed treasures therein is often minimal and we know little about what really went on and how and why - that is, in comparison with what we know of what went on in the fifth and sixth centuries for example.
But, despite our limited knowledge, these archaeological treasures have been brought into the modern Church and presented to us as absolutely necessary to receive and incorporate if we are to be authentic Christians in a post-Christian age. And with them has usually come the context of liberal theology of their finders and interpreters. So, for example, the rites and ceremonies are given a new interpretation (or at least a modified interpretation) in their being transported from the primitive Church to the modern western Church. For example, take the passing of the peace. In the ancient Church men and women usually sat in different parts of the house of worship. So movement between them was not easy or common. Further, the purpose was not a greeting but a getting right before God with anyone one might have offended before taking the Communion. Today in mixed congregations, with casual dress and loose public morals the passing of the peace is a different thing altogether!
To bring in these supposed treasures of the primitive Church, the modern Church has had to throw overboard many aspects of her inherited Liturgy, Dogma, Doctrine, Ritual, Ceremonial, Piety, Devotion and Discipline. Customs that had been in place for over a thousand years or more were abandoned in favour of the innovations.
It is true that the Church accumulates barnacles and dross as She passes through this evil age and it is also true that She needs regularly to be renewed and sometimes to be reformed. But to be asked to abandon much of her accumulated treasure and to replace it with a supposed new treasure from far off times is to ask a lot, too much in fact. It is not renewal or reformation as such but an obsession with novelty and supposed primitive forms. We need to be renewed by scriptural doctrine applied to our lives.
In the 1960s, because of the secular forces of Zeitgeist in culture and churches, because of the obsession with the idea that the primitive is always better than the developed form, and because of the low valuation of the achievements of the Middle Ages, as well as other factors, much that was precious, good, holy and true was set aside and abandoned in favour of the novelty of supposed ancient ways and customs. Roman Catholics are increasingly feeling this great loss and are calling for and seeing the return of the classic Latin Mass and other things with it. Likewise in the Anglican Churches Generation X is looking for something better than they have been given and there is fresh interest in classical liturgy, hymns, and the like.
But it is easier to pull down than to build up. It is easier to tear a cloth than to weave it. It will take time for the Church in the West to recover much of her heritage that she has lost, or left behind, or is too blind to see, or too secularised to appreciate.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
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